The worst thing you can do in research is ask people about your brand or product.
Because they really don't think or talk about it in real life.
Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.
Just as when people can, and do, pay to avoid advertising.
Asking them to talk about it in research, is like asking them to define irony.
It's not new to say people don't care about brands, they care about life.
But how many of us really set out to research real life?
How many really care?
To make stuff people will actually thank you for making?
I saw a funny LinkedIn post about banned insights.
Like 'young people have it tough'.
Yet how many brands have you seen actually helping with this?
I LOVE this Travelodge campaign.
It deals with the obvious.
Staying in a low cost hotel is still a lot better than the alternatives.
Maybe boring is still better than chaos.
I bet it works because it remembers to actually sell, remember that?
And it gets to the heart of actual real life.
Oh, and I imagine it deals with a commercial problem.
A dip in bookings as people save money - then bitterly regret the consequences.
Obvious insights are amazing to use when adland is too cool to use them.
When you understand what is really going on, how you could fit in.
The possibilities are endless.
Even so called low interest categories become interesting.
The drumbeat of everyday conversations at a very surface level are full of tension right now.
Cost of living, tensions around the world, paying for heating now it's cold.
These things sound obvious, but how is your brand really relevant to obvious real life?
You could make coffee a way to make tough days more bearable.
You could make a chat over coffee a way for lonely men over 45 (a genuine real world problem) to make friends.
You could make cleaning the house a way to feel able in world that makes us feel powerless
When Daniel Craig became James Bond.
They realised men were a bit confused about their place in the world.
So made him a flawed confused character to reflect the world around him.
It shouldn't be a conversation about injecting humour into ads.
I heard a real client conversation about humour being a bit crass in serious times.
When a human being knows in serious times, we all look for ways to cheer ourselves up.
Trust me, parts of the 80s were miserable in the UK.
Unemployment, strikes and, well, Thatcher.
Did everyone stop watching Only Fools and Horses because real life wasn't funny for many?
Don't be a plonker Rodney.
Final point.
Campaign Magazine is out.
With 10 key questions.
All the usual naval gazing stuff.
Do brands mean anything any more?
What do we do about AI?
Obviously, like a great white shark, we need move forward or die.
But the real question is relevance to the only folks that matters, real people who decide to buy things or not.
If can't remember to be relevant to them, we're fish food.
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