parallax background

A splash of honesty…. Good or bad idea?




Marilia Spindler

Happy Account Manager

If you are the observational type, you won’t have missed the latest Oasis summer advertising campaign (which was actually launched in 2015 and repeating this summer), consisting of posters, short social media videos and animated digital ads.


F

or the uninitiated Oasis is a flavoured drink and is drunk by the bucket-load in the Spindler household. The Adshel posters were the ones that made me aware of the campaign and, shall I say, surprised me the most. Driving past, I read on one: “It’s summer. You’re thirsty. We’ve got sales targets”. I had to concentrate not to crash, because I just couldn’t believe what I was reading.

Here it is in all its brutal honesty…

 
parallax background

“We want to connect the brand with a new generation of consumers,
through an observational take on modern world”


 

My first reaction was: “What happened to creative copywriting in advertising?” Yes, I get they were using a different approach, but I was disappointed. The agency which created the campaign said: “We want to connect the brand with a new generation of consumers, through an observational take on modern world”. To do that, they decided to be very open about how each bottle of Oasis sold contributes to their sales targets. They stripped it all back. They removed the advertising magic from the advertising, in my opinion.

The justification for their approach is, they say, they are attempting to appeal to a new wave of consumers that place a great deal of importance in a brand being honest and transparent. It apparently reflects two big recent marketing trends: humanised marketing and insane honesty marketing.

The latter is supposed to build the trust of the consumer by speaking to their unconscious mind, so they think: “Well if they are truthful enough to tell me about their weaknesses, the messages they put out about their strengths MUST be true!’. I’m not so sure this is how MY mind processed the campaign’s messaging.

 
parallax background

 

"I want the product to be advertised TO ME, I want it to fulfil MY wishes,
MY expectations."


 

I think I would rather be fooled into a world of fresh, colourful, ice cold liquid coming out of a unicorn’s gushing horn than know that by buying a product I’m contributing to a sales target (even though deep down I know this is what happens). As a consumer, I don’t care about that, in the same way I’m not bothered about how much advertising space actually costs (of course, if I think about it with my account manager’s hat on, that is a totally different story).

I want the product to be advertised TO ME, I want it to fulfil MY wishes, MY expectations. It should be all about me as a consumer and not about some sales spreadsheets. Selfish you may say…. So be it. It works. Perhaps I just didn’t get the joke. I appreciate that lots of people love the campaign, including some of my fellow Happies and, to be fair, I do love parts of it too. But when sales and advertising space costs are mentioned I just feel deflated.

David Ogilvy, one of my all-time inspirations in the advertising world, once said: “When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative’. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.” When I relate this quote to the Oasis campaign (or parts of it, shall I say), I feel that they missed a trick. They just went too far. The honesty, the ‘joke is on me’ take is a good approach, but when you feel like a number contributing to a bigger number, it all becomes very uninteresting indeed.

 
parallax background
 

“If anything, the whole thing made me think of the purpose of advertising.”

 
 

I remember the (crucial, highly-pressurised, soul-searching) time when I had to decide what to study at uni. I’ve always loved marketing, but the idea of selling, selling, selling bothered me. I didn’t want to be contributing to a world where money is everything, where sales targets rule the roost. But the other side of marketing, the creative side, the thinking of ways to best communicate with people, the research, the creative ways in which we can make people aware of something… that got me enrolled.

I liked the idea of advertising providing a service. I didn’t like the idea that in advertising you can bend the truth and make something look better or more essential than it actually is, but I liked the idea of showcasing what is out there to people in a creative way so they can make their own decisions.

The Oasis posters took that away from me. They took away my enjoyment when I look at a nice, creative piece of advertising material. It took away the dreaminess of advertising. It put it all in another world, one that I don’t really want to know about, one that I don’t relate to. The world of money. And even though advertising, sales and, ultimately, money are obviously linked, I’d rather not have that spelt out to me. I’d much rather read between the lines.

 
 
Share this:
Is a splash of honesty a good idea?
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. By using this website you agree to our Data Protection Policy.
Read more

Professional Brand Audit

Free professional brand audit. Receive a grade for your
branding performance, as well as implementable steps and actions.

ENQUIRE NOW

Please enter your email to subscribe to the Happy blog

REQUEST A CALLBACK

Paid Social Campaigns

Paid social media can be a brilliantly effective yet low cost form of lead generation, and it’s a great way to extend your reach, drive website traffic and generate likes and shares.

We’ll take care of setting up and managing your paid social media accounts, ensuring your spend is carefully targeted. Then we’ll provide clear, transparent reporting so you can keep refining the strategy to make your ad spend even more effective.

More about Paid Social Campaigns

Social Media

All the tweets and posts in the world won’t help generate leads unless there’s some strategic thinking behind what you’re doing.

We’ll help define the right social media strategy for you, so that you’re on the right platforms, saying the right things to the right people at the right time to generate the right leads.

More about Social Media

Design & Brand Building

Marketing is bit like those huge, swirling flocks of starlings you see from time to time. Individually your brochure, email, ad, meme or gif may not change the world.

But when you join them together and ensure they’re all heading in the same direction, you have the power to stop people in their tracks.

We design communications that help build a consistent brand and convert more leads to sales.

More about Design & Brand Building

Websites

Your website can generate leads in so many ways. Informed content. Strong calls to action. A simple, natural journey from ‘Hi there!’ to ‘Buy now’.

Yet websites are never ‘done’. They need to keep evolving to keep pace with your customers’ expectations, so we’ll be with you for the long haul to keep tweaking, refining and growing your site – and to deliver the PPC campaigns that help drive traffic towards it.

Because when your website keeps working to understand and speak to your audience, you’ve got more chance of converting.

More about Websites

PR & Content

There’s a knack to ensuring your business is seen in the right places at the right time. We’ll build your PR profile across the mix of channels that’s right for you (from press to social media to events) and use our contacts to spread the word.

So when your customers are ready to buy, it’ll be your brand they think of first.

More about PR & Content

Claim your happy offer

    Claim your happy offer

      Claim your happy offer

        Claim your happy offer

          Claim your happy offer

            What would make you happy today?