Are you as glad I am that The Masked Singer is finally over? Christ, it felt like there was no end to that parade. In case you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know what the I’m talking about, let me fill you in. They take some so-called famous person and shove them into a full-body costume. Sometimes they look like a fox, other times they resemble a mutated mushroom. Once they’re squeezed into those getups, they try their best to sing a song. After about ninety seconds of singing, they point the camera at the judges for about nine hundred seconds. Okay, that might be a bit of an exageration, but it sure feels like it. Anyways, their job is to guess who’s in the damn costume.
Now, let’s be real here. Those judges are in it for themselves, craving the publicity they get by being on television. And I can’t blame ’em, really. We’re all just trying to make a living and looking out for number one. It’s the producers that I have a problem with. It’s their choices that make this into a mediocre pile of garbage. And don’t even get me started on the over-the-top enthusiasm from the judges for mostly merely okay performances.
I mean, this show is like fastfood. It’s crap, but it’s cheap to produce. And I’m sure they fully believe they’ll outsmart the consumer. “We’ll get away with it as long as we pull the right tricks.” Yeah, maybe they will… in the short term.
Which brings me to the ad guy I’ve been talking about last week. This guy was a master at getting people to open their wallets and buy his next nonsense product. Every ad was meticulously crafted, thanks to his slick writing skills and his ability to spin an interesting story. Oftentimes, the product itself seemed an afterthought. One time it’s a face cream, the next it’s a book. But take one step back and it’s all a house of cards. Big promises that seem okay on the surface, but not much to point to companies with solid foundations that would stand the test of time. And guess what? Do the research. You’ll find that while these ads were successful in the short term, in the following years, company after company went down the drain. Why? ‘Cause you can’t keep pulling the wool over the consumer’s eyes and expect to keep getting away with it.
Now, I know what some of you might be thinking, “That’s just the way the world works, man. Sometimes you don’t have a choice.” Well, no one’s perfect, and if it just happened once, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But we’re talking about a whole goddamn career here. And let me tell you, you don’t have to con people if you want them to buy your goods. Take Claude Hopkins, for instance. This man helped build brands like Pepsodent and Palmolive with his ads. Or let’s talk about David Ogilvy, the legend behind advertising campaigns for Rolls Royce and Dove, among others. These are solid names and brands that have built a foundation of trust over the years by thinking and planning for the long term.
Which brings me to the quote I wanted to share last week, courtesy of David Ogilvy:
“The customer is not a moron. She’s your wife.”
Don’t take that too literally. From my perspective, you can expand it to include ‘reader’ if you’re a writer, or ‘viewer’ if you make videos. The point is, you need to approach your audience the right way. Trying to outsmart them carries a hefty price tag sooner or later. And if none of this applies to you, see it as a lesson in long-term thinking. Because in this life, you have to make a choice.
Regards
Vincent