OK so this is my POV on Hoaxes. It was printed in the last edition of Adnews. I also spoke about the topic on ABC radio with James O'Loghlin on Sunday night. I asked listeners what they thought. By and large they said they didn't like them and it put them off the brands that did them. I'm not convinced.
You'll have to click the image to read and hopefully it's big enough.
6 comments:
Nice one, Adam. Great example of why the industry is at a weird and dangerous place right now.
Someone clever, clay shirky i think, said that the reason the interwebs is so awesome is because it "reduces the transaction costs" of experimenting. As a result heaps more stuff gets tried, most fail, and some ideas actually succeed.
Anonymity, and the nasty schadenfreude that you get from it actually increases those transaction costs. We try less stuff because suddenly there is a cost of shame. Every time.
So sadly the mumbrellas and campaign briefs are actually working against why this whole era should be cool. They're taking the fun out of the party.
Using a couple of exceptions does not prove the rule. I would argue that transparency with your audience is a more reasonable approach than the off chance that dishonesty will deliver an extraordinary result.
Also, the term interwebs is no longer amusing or clever.
Hey Adam - for some of the reasons you've explained it seems the 'hoax' is increasingly becoming a bit cookie cutter which goes something like: "do it small, film it secretly, turn it into an ad".
Microsoft did it to promote the extra security features for Internet Explorer 8 - they set up a fake bank, filmed new customers being asked very private questions, then turned it into an ad.
Dominos did has done it a few times, including for Pizza Holdouts campaign and a few other times as part of their broader reinvention here in the US.
So now it's a style of TV ad, up there next to product demonstrations, half-arsed celebrity endorsement, silly-whimsical-spectacle-in-a-cityscape ads and so on. This one is the "weren't we tricky, recently" ad.
So the difference now is the period of the 'hoax' and the number of people directly fooled, are both very small. But the story becomes the entertainment. Less risky. Less exposed to being pulled apart by social media. A sign of the times.
Oh, and if you haven't seen "I'm Still Here" with Joaquin Phoenix ... that's possibly one of the most fully committed to hoaxes I can think of. It was the product and campaign rolled into one.
Cheers,
Todd
I'm a 25 year old blonde model with double Ds when I'm actually an overweight 65 year old and my DDs swing down to my belly button = bad deception.
David Blaine floating off the ground = good deception.
The problem is that social media now groups all deception into the same negative basket.
You're totally right though, when a hoax is done well, like magic, it delights us.
@ Dave Bathur nicely put, and yes Clay Shirky has a lot of interesting things to say.
@Simonislawson you're missing the point, and may well be the humourless social media types Im talking about. Are you?
@Todd, there does seem to be a pattern no doubt. However, they are hard to do and pull off hence becoming cookie cutter - as you say.
@Dan love the idea of magical ideas. You're onto it.
Well said Adam.
I too enjoy the 'revelation' of a good marketing hoax.
Sure, the notion of 'transparency' matters when a company's talking about its corporate accounting procedures etc, but being upset because they're not 'transparent' in their advertising/entertainment ... Surely most people can see the fun of it?!
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