This is an inspirational post. It is directed to those marketing directors and business owners that believe their advertising should do more. It is directed to those of you who felt something the first time you walked into your advertising class. Or when you saw Don Draper command a room with his cleverly creative concept.
But this post isn’t about advertising. It’s about the big idea behind effective advertising. It’s about how constructive creativity can change the game for your company.
Here are a few examples to illustrate my point:
Jiffy Lube
In 1982, Jiffy Lube—then an unknown quick-oil-change company with a handful of locations in various states—approached ad man George Lois. George saw a future for Jiffy Lube that the current owners didn’t yet believe. He wanted to run a national TV campaign. He told them to change the logo and showed them what he had in mind. He gave them a new slogan, “Jiffy Lube Changes The Way America Changes its Oil.” He was convinced enough in this new direction and plan that he boldly stated that by doing these things, Jiffy Lube would grow its business to 1,000 locations in 3 short years. Jiffy Lube agreed to the proposal. They changed their logo and launched the TV campaign. But George had been wrong–at the 3 year mark, Jiffy Lube could not boast of having 1000 locations. Rather, in 3 years, Jiffy Lube had doubled that estimate with over 2,000 locations across the United States.
Perdue Chicken
In 1971, Frank Perdue, owner of Perdue Chickens, decided to take 10 weeks to learn everything he could about advertising. As part of his quest, he interviewed 66 different ad agencies. He eventually selected Scali, McCabe, Sloves, an agency that had been in business five years. McCabe, the copywriter for the project, quickly realized that whatever selling point he came up with, a competitor could quickly copy. Except one: the persistent, driven, quality-focused Frank Perdue himself. Once he was able to convince Frank of this, the campaign based on “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken” was born. Or hatched. Some headlines that supported this concept were: ‘Freeze my chickens? I’d sooner eat beef!’ ‘My fresh young chicken is cheaper than hamburger. Good for you, bad for me.’ ‘Everybody’s chickens are approved by the government, but only my chickens are approved by me.’"
In 1967, yearly sales had been $35 million. By 1972, with a budget of $200,000 and a year of the big idea, “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken,” sales leapt to $80 million.
Jauntaroo
Salt Lake-based Jauntaroo takes a new twist on a familiar industry. Their vacation travel match product is a little bit Travelocity and a little bit Match.com. Jauntaroo recommends lines travelers up with destinations tailored to their interests and budgets. But as clever as their product is, it wasn’t getting noticed as quickly as they would have liked. And, being largely self-funded, there wasn’t much room for large advertising campaigns. So they mined a big idea. Something that resonated with their audience. Something anybody would want, and something they were uniquely positioned to offer: a chance to win a job traveling the world for a year. So they launched the Best Job Around The World competition and gave participants a chance to become the Chief World Explorer for the company. Not only would the winner get to travel the world and write about it, but they’d get a sweet salary of $100k. The story was picked up by morning news shows, travel sites, job sites, and soon this little-known company received more than 3,000 entries and 4.3 million unique site visits.
The moral of the story is this: If you’re fighting against commoditization; If you have a small budget, but a great product; If you are committed to growth without a guarantee of how to get it; Discover a big idea and give it everything you’ve got.
Constructive creativity is a currency forever rare and always in demand.