BEAT ME, DADDY, EIGHT CLICHÉS TO THE BAR

There’s no more dangerous game, in marketing, than second guessing somebody else’s ad campaign.

You say, "Well, maybe that will work for the staff and internal morale, but not for the market," and they say, "Yes, but that’s exactly what we had in mind." You never know.

You say, "Beyond the Bottom Line? What does that slogan mean?" and they say, "It works. We got business out of it."

But sometimes, it’s hard to fathom just what the ad campaign is trying to accomplish. Sometimes, even the most generous assessment eludes logic and reason.

Take three campaigns for Big Six firms that are currently running -- Price Waterhouse, Deloitte, and Ernst and Young. Even allowing for obscure (to the reader) objectives, Price Waterhouse stands head and shoulders above the rest. For some very clear objective reasons.

Just on the face of it, the E&Y campaign slogan, "There’s no business We can’t improve," is strange. How about the business you’ve just improved? If you can improve it more, why didn’t you? But that’s the least of the problem. Wait.

What were the normally rational marketing people at Deloitte thinking when they decided that the way to promote their firm was to denigrate the competition. "Andersen Consulting: Distracted by in-fighting. Deloitte Consulting: Focused on our clients." "McKinsey: Only senior managers have the power to make change happen. Deloitte Consulting: Only employees have the power to make change endure. "

Poor taste aside, aren’t we being a bit petulant? Are they saying, "Hire us because we are pure of heart? " How about, "Anything you can do we can do better?" When they do say, "…we’re not obsessed with becoming the biggest consulting company in the world, just the best" are they kidding themselves, or kidding us? That seems to say, "We couldn’t get anybody to merge with us, so we’re going to put down mergers." Are they saying we should hire them because they didn’t make it in the marriage game?

In both the EY and Deloitte campaigns, they made every mistake that the PW campaign avoided. And they didn’t do a lot of the good stuff that PW did do. Let’s look at the PW campaign.

• The first thing PW did right was to recognize that you can make only one important point per ad or per campaign. Their point, which they carried through consistently in the campaign, was that they don’t just theorize, they follow through -- they don't just theorize, they implement. That, dear reader, is what positioning is about -- a benefit that’s specific – not a vague promise that anybody can make – and that addresses a specific need of the target audience. The position was developed, by the way, from research, which is the way to do it. It says, in essence, not this is what we sell, but rather, this is how we give you what you want.

• They painted a vivid picture of what they do, with a promise of a very specific action. "…at Price Waterhouse, we won’t propose an idea unless we can implement it."  That's virtually a guarantee.

• Deloitte says, "We’ll treat your company with respect." That promises nothing tangible. It tries to tell us how we should think about them – which brings to mind that old song, "Don’t speak of love – show me." PW says, "This is what we do – draw your own conclusions."

• Even in the Deloitte headline, there is the empty promise that tries to force us to believe what they want us to believe, just because they say so. "Focused on our clients." Isn’t everybody? PW challenges with catchy – but pointed – headlines. "Does your consultant quote ‘The Art of War’ but shy away from battle?" It’s not just clever, it makes a point that’s consistent with their position about follow through.

• The EY and Deloitte slogans are pointless. "There’s no business we can’t improve," is silly. "A very different approach. For very different results." Tells us absolutely nothing that’s proven in the text of the ad. It’s just a slogan. But when PW says "We think, and then do what we think about," their slogan, "Mind and Muscle," means something. There’s a relationship between the message in the text and the slogan, without which the slogan is hollow.

• The rest of that PW campaign  is consistent with the first ad. "A brilliant idea is a job half done," and "Why can’t ideas come with batteries included and no assembly required?" backed up in the copy with "…we won’t propose an idea unless we can implement it," is a position fulfilled. One point made, and reinforced consistently.

Will the PW ads work better than the others? No way to know for some time, but my guess is that they will.  If "working" means generating an impression in the prospective client’s mind that leads to susceptibility to other marketing efforts.  And the merger PW is going through will make it even harder to judge. Surveys were taken by PW before they started the campaign, again at about 8 weeks, and again six months after the start of the ads. They showed two things -- the objective of the campaign, to change a perception of PW from an accounting firm to a consulting firm -- was achieved. But they also showed that not enough people saw the ads, which means that to compete more effectively, more money must be spent.  This can change the face of an accounting firm (and eventually, all, professional firm) advertising. It's interesting to note that in 1989, when  Andersen Consulting started its brillian campaigns, only $10 million was spent by all the Big Eight firms for institutional advertising. Today, with only six (soon five, probably) firms, expenditures are expected to reach $100 million. The winners will not only have to be richer, but smarter and tougher.

But the truth is that advertising for professional services firms plays a very different role than it does for products. You can possibly be impelled to buy chocolate from an ad. You can be persuaded to buy one brand of a product instead of another, and then to go out and actually make the purchase. But who hires an accountant or a lawyer from an ad? In professional services marketing, advertising educates (well, it’s supposed to, but it doesn’t always), and it builds a context for other marketing efforts.

I’ve often believed that few advertising agencies understand the difference between advertising a professional service and advertising a product. I’ve seen that at first hand, and spent many a heated hour trying to get some otherwise good agencies to think like clients, and not like salesmen – to look at what they’re writing from the other side of the table.

Putting a campaign together with a partnership, at the same time, can be a nightmare. Everybody has an opinion, and as a partner, the right to express that opinion. In PW's case, they were lucky. They had a good agency  (McCann-Erikson), a great director of communications (Peter Horowitz), and some very bright partners dedicated to the project. And try to get something like that done without the firm managing partner behind it. There is no way to anticipate, of course, what the advertising will, be like after the merger, but the first joint ads, also done by McCann, show great promise.

As for PW, I don’t know  whether the ideas came from them or from PW’s communications director, the estimable Peter Horowitz, or anybody else at PW. I do know that that few people understand positioning better than Horowitz, and that those PW ads are probably the best ever done for an accounting firm. And I know that the marketing people at both EY and Deloitte are good and competent people. They just had clueless agencies, I think.

And I  know as well that you don’t build credibility by putting down the competitors. Especially the successful competitors.