The document discusses whether advertising needs to be credible at all times. It provides examples of ads for products like detergents and soy sauce that used humor but lacked credibility yet were still successful. It explains that credibility may not be as important for low involvement brands where consumers don't evaluate options as much. The document advises testing brands to determine involvement level and whether credibility is needed. It also notes the importance of ad timing and calls to action matching the message.

1. By John Bertrand
‘Does our advertising need to be always credible?’
Q: We’re a medium sized company marketing two brands of a consumer house hold care
product. Last week, our newly appointed boutique ad agency presented the storyboard of
their proposed ad campaign for our major brand. Including our CEO, we raised a whole lot
of questions. Most of them centered on the way the story board presented our brand and
it’s positioning. There was a narrator in all the story board frames talking in an obviously
funny way and trying to be humorous throughout.
So we asked why the agency creative group chose this approach to the ad presentation. The
agency creative director said: “Yan and uso ngayon. (That’s the ad trend today.) Just look
at the most remembered TV ads. They’re all funny and full of humor. Our CEO interrupted
and said: “the funny way that the narrator is talking makes what he’s saying about our
brand hardly credible.” To which, the creative director retorted: “A good ad doesn’t need to
be always credible. Our CEO is a dedicated reader of your column. He instructed us to ask
for your opinion: “Is it true that our ad does not need to be always credible?”
A: You should have proved and ask your ad agency creative director: “So when can an ad
need not be credible?”
Consider the TV commercials on any brand of detergents like Surf’s “wa-ish” blurb or Tide’s
“dirt magnets” commercial featuring Vic Sotto. Most TV viewers refer to them as “corny,”
“creepy,” and “weird.” They’re totally lacking in credibility and yet they are claimed to have
worked. Or try remembering the TV ads for soy sauce. There’s the supposedly Kikkoman’s
“hilarious Japanese soy sauce advertisement,” and the equally funny or funnier Datu Puti
soy sauce and Vinegar TV commercial featuring Manny and Mommy Dionisia Pacquiao.
These TV ads were adjudged as “successful and effective” even though they ignored the
criterion of credibility.
So how do we explain their “success and effectiveness” when there was no credibility in
them? One explanation is found in the concept of consumer involvement. The Senior MRx-
er’s User Friendly Marketing Research book provides you a set of metrics by which to test if
consumers have high or low involvement for your advertising brand. For example, if
consumers will immediately substitute any available brand when your own brand happens to
be out of stock, then your advertised brand is a low involvement brand. Also, if consumers
feel that they will lose a lot or feel embarrassed with others should something turn wrong

2. with your brand, then there’s high involvement in that case. Finally if in buying your
advertised brand calls for little or practically no amount of evaluating, then that’s a low
involvement brand.
So our first Marketing Rx to you is right there. Why don’t you test with the target
consumers for your major brand and use the preceding three test questions so you can find
out if your advertised brand is a high or low involvement brand. If high, then insist on
credibility with your agency. If low, then your ad does not need credibility, In fact, what will
make it work is the opposite: non-belief or even disbelief. In either case, show your test
results so that your ad agency will learn to be research-based in its recommendations.
We said “one explanation.” That’s because there’s another consideration to take. That’s the
element of timing in your ad copy and its “call to action.”
A few months ago, we had a balikbayan guest from the US east coast who wanted to retire
here in the next two years after having become a successful entrepreneur and a US dollar
millionaire. We were with her on the other day when she was looking over two or three
newly constructed Makati residential condo buildings. In one building in Legaspi village, as
we were about to enter, she stopped and said she doesn’t want to see the condo units there
anymore. To explain, she pointed us to a sign painted on the side doors of the building. It’s
important to note that this is a permanently painted sign and not a hanging sign.
The painted white large font sign in ocean-blue background said: “Few Units Left. Inquire
Inside.” As she pointed, our lady guest commented: “Who’s going to believe that? That’s a
permanent and fixed sign. It definitely tells me something about how the owner of this
building respects ‘truth in advertising.’ Let’s just go somewhere else.
Please remember that signage is an ad media. It’s a kind of mini- or micro-billboard. We
wrote a column before where we presented a research which found out that a billboard is
effective if it has a “call to action.” In this signage that turned off our lady guest, the call to
action was: “Inquire inside.” So that makes it a good signage insofar as this criterion is
concerned. What about the ad copy saying: “Few Units Left?” Apparently for this particular
sign, alter condo consumers will test its ad copy credibility by “the element of timing.” If the
“Few Units Left” is clearly permanently painted and is not in a temporary hanging sign, then
that ad copy immediately or eventually loses its credibility and turns off its reading
audience. So if you plan to use a signage for your advertised brand of household care, in or
outside the retail stores where it will be made available, and its “call to action” has a timing
element, here’s a critical consideration to keep in mind.
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JNB Web Promotion
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