Wednesday Words
To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.
Imitation is the sincerest form of camouflage. If you’re being out-spent, you have one course of action: out-think.
—George Tannenbaum, AdAged: Maybe Now We’ll Get Some Good Advertising*
True to form, when George has really hit the nail on the head I’d rather send you, dear reader, on over to read his entire post for yourself. Short and sweet.
My wish for you, if you decide to follow George’s advice and out-think: May the results be five times as effective as your competitors’ efforts.
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
*Thanks to Graham Strong for spotting this gem and sending it my way before I’d even had my morning coffee!
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27 January 2010, 8:14 am
Yes, it’s a great quotation, and very apt. How many times have we seen the *exact* same commercial used to sell two different products? There was a car commercial not long ago (can’t remember the premise exactly — proves George’s point again I guess) that was a total, unveiled rip-off of a different car commercial the year before, and no one seemed to notice.
Is there no such thing as plagiarism in the advertising world?
That being said, there are some exceptions (there are always some exceptions…) Apple, for example — their product close-ups/weird angles/brightly lit shots with the totally white background were lifted directly from the Volkswagen Bug ads of the late 90s. Perhaps the difference was the fact that they were for two completely different products.
(Of course, those Bug commercials probably have their roots somewhere else too…)
Anyway, still love it — the concept doesn’t seem to get old. Perhaps we’ll see more of the same later today with Apple’s Big Announcement…
~Graham
27 January 2010, 8:21 am
It is a good thing to keep in mind. I figure these days, unless what you’re starting is truly unique, you’re going to be outspent by *everyone*.
So you’ve got to out think them.
Brett Legree´s latest blog… the terminal man.
27 January 2010, 2:51 pm
Graham,
To me, VW was ripping off (or expanding on) their own ads from the late 60s. That sort of plagiarism is called branding, not lack of creativity, and so exempted from the rules—but yes, I’ve often thought Apple’s extreme minimalism looks a lot like VW’s. You know they would never admit to being inspired by any other company’s promotions, though.
They (Apple) own minimalism/ white space in advertising now… in part by holding to the premise more tightly than VW did? Not exactly out-thinking…
Side note: The iPad is cute, but this time I feel like Steve & co. didn’t go out far enough on a limb.
Brett,
So true. And should we ever get so big that no one *can* outspend us, why on Earth would we not continue to out-think, so that we can save 4/5 of our budgets—or bring in 5X the customers?
Sometimes common sense seems so hard to come by. (Not if George is talking, though. Love that dude.)
Regards,
Kelly
27 January 2010, 5:53 pm
Kelly,
I agree. I think even if you’re the 800 lb. gorilla (not the 20-foot inflatable gorilla!), you should stay hungry. Because there’s one thing about gorillas, eventually they all grow up and are 800 lbs., and they all grow old and grey. So… stay hungry.
I figure the iPad – being 1st generation – is somewhat conservative by design. I bet gen 2 or gen 3 will be as different from this one as the iPod Touch is from the original iPod.
In any case, if one fell (gently) off the back of a truck in front of my house, I’d sleep with it under my pillow!
Brett Legree´s latest blog… the terminal man.
27 January 2010, 6:47 pm
I think the iPad is perfect. It will be the Apple entry into the netbook market, it is a nice mid-range price for those who don’t want to spend double the money on a MacBook vs. a Dell, and it still has the cool factor. Nope, won’t replace the iPhone but it could be a great lightweight (in more ways than one) notebook.
This is the future: small hardware and agile, web-based apps.
~Graham
27 January 2010, 6:50 pm
@Graham,
I did fail to add to my comment – for *me*, for what I’m doing *right now* (sitting in the living room, watching the kids play), an iPad is perfect for me.
In fact, if I think about a lot of what I do, it is perfect. If there is a VNC app for it (not sure if there is, but I bet there is – just checked – there are many…), then I can control my Linux server in the furnace room, for instance…
Darn it. I was just about to buy an iPhone too!
Brett Legree´s latest blog… the terminal man.
28 January 2010, 9:47 am
…what? Did someone say something about giant inflatable gorillas?