Where
has Advertising Haiku taken us?
The
point of advertising Haiku is to force you into writing short/grokking every
single word, every single syllable, to use a twist to prepare the reveal, then
a takeaway strategically important to the carefully chosen prospect/customer. Haiku force you to develop the twist, bringing
the product home in most unexpected ways.
The
point of advertising Poetry is to use
copy/content in unexpected ways, unexpected words, unexpected structure and –
if you do it right – to unexpected results. All within a highly calculated
emotional/non-emotional structure carrying your message to the heart of the
Prospect, not just the head. I’m not
talking about quoting Cummings, Blake or Emerson in an ad. I’m talking about writing ad copy in the
Style of Poetry. Original Poetry¸
written just for advertising.
Real Poetry
takes pride its consumption and acclaim is limited to a few journals, minor
publishers and prizes. In truth, even Dad’s
old Vietnam/WWII Mom Sonnets and the tortured diaries of teenage girls have
much larger markets.
One of the most important things to remember
when discussing Ad Poetry vs. Pure Poetry: Ad Poetry does not spring from the
heart. It has no freedom of word,
format, application. Ad Poetry may seem like a tough one. In truth, it's many, many times easier to write
than Real Poetry. You still have to
write it, but your KCWP gives you all you need.
No deep, personal retrospection or Loved One required.
Like
every other writing style, there are hundreds of different approaches you can
take to writing Ad Poetry. You can do
fun, limericky sassy stuff so catchy, people repeat it to each other, giving it
bigger, more sociological import. Kinda
like jingles, Got Milk?, Where’s the Beef?, Taste the Rainbow and other iconic
ad lines used to.
You
can use free-form ad poetry to express a Prospect point of view and avoid
punctuation/paragraphing. Break your
lines so the reader is pushed to the next one visually as well as
verbally. Make short copy look longer,
longer copy, shorter.
Ad
poetry can create an image, a feeling, a perception regular ad copy can’t. It can set aside lines to remember. A good enough rhyme + snappy message can keep
ad copy playing in the Prospect’s head for weeks – even years (I still hear
jingles and ad lines from childhood, don’t you?
They’re GRRREAT!)
You
can do couplets, sonnets, lines that rhyme, structure that flows. Make it too pretty, too pastoral, too girlie
– the entire piece may fail. While men
respond well to ad poetry, waxing too poetic over sausage or deodorant will get
it ignored. Make it fun, funny, clever,
unable to ignore, you’ve got “I need Calais before I see Alice.”
When
do you use ad poetry? Like everything
else we do, that’s up to the Prospect and how you want him/her to respond. What products will carry it? Done right, for the right prospect, just
about anything. The trick is to match
the level of poetic sophistication to Prospect, Objective, Product,
Promise.
Ad
Poetry isn’t for every writer any more than it’s for every prospect. In all my years writing ad copy, I’ve used it
exactly once (if you don’t count the rhymes I used to help Exxon mechanics and
Arby’s kitchen workers remember their Safety Rules). My CW friend who won The Nation’s poetry prize
never used it in copy at all. Use it or
not, it’s all about how you solve the problem.
Strangely,
this is a great era for Ad Poetry.
Poetry Slam is almost a national sport – or at least a large minority
pastime. The US Poet Laureate reads at
all the Presidential (and many state) Inaugurations. The brevity of web, e-communications and
availability of guerrilla/ambient media in unprecedented amounts and ways leads
right up to Ad Poetry’s economy of words.
One of the most popular unsolicited magazine submissions, The New Yorker to Reader’s Digest, is poetry. So
why don’t we see more of it in advertising?
Simply
put, ad creatives aren’t thinking of it.
It’s another way you can use Style – the kind of ad styles we’ve been
exploring – over formula to break through the clutter. Still, too many creatives stick to the tried,
true and SEO-mongered.
Here
it is, end of the term – and here’s Doreen, asking you to take your biggest
creative risk thus far. If Ad
Poetry is so great, what’s the catch? If
an ad poem of any kind is only 95% on, the entire piece fails. Why?
People
expect more from poetry than text.
When
you take a creative risk (and a risk is merely doing something you haven’t done
before), they’ll find any excuse, any little thing to kill it. Absent
advertising strategy, Ad Poetry turns into Bad Poetry. Who needs – or wants - to wade through that? Too
long, too emotional, too silly, it won’t be read. Too sophisticated, too complex, too
intellectual, the same thing happens.
It’s Advertising – not Real Poetry. There’s less tolerance for length, flowery
language, love hearts flowers. Like Real
Poetry, Ad Poetry is visual, thrifty and can say things in ways you’d never get
away with using another style. You can
get deeper, more personal using Ad Poetry.
More reflective.
You
can also be bawdy, mystical, over-intellectual (as long as the Prospect’s right
for it), less formulaic.
Can
you tell it’s something I wish more of us would try – and make work?
Here are examples from
poet/consumer advertising advocate Ilya Vedrashko, whose blog, "MIT
Advertising Lab," was named "Best Blog of the Year" by Fast
Company magazine in 2005:
http://www.webexhibits.org/poetry/explore_21_media_examples.html
This one’s a Brit site, but
good stuff.
"Two prominent
adverts, both of which lean heavily on the emotional appeal of poetry, are
currently airing on our {Brit} screens – a David Morrissey-narrated ad for McDonald's
("the Gothy types and scoffy types and like-their-coffee-frothy types were
just passing by"), and a Pete Postlethwaite-narrated ad for Cathedral City
cheddar cheese ("On the A47 it's cheese with cucumber / It's lunchtime for
her as the rest of us slumber"). In recent years we've also seen poems
used to advertise the AA, Waitrose, Center Parcs and the Prudential. But what
do poets feel about this unsteady dance with commercialism?
"Nick
Toczek has also written a poem for an advert (the Prudential again: Our kids,
who've grown and flown the nest, / Now only phone us to request / More cash on
loan, their tone depressed"). He welcomes the exposure that advertising
offers poetry.
“My
Prudential poem is still the most recognised of all my poems. It took me 20
minutes to write, was broadcast 5,000 times and earned me £5,500."
"Jim
Bolton, the creative director at Leo Burnett, the ad agency that produced the
McDonald's advert, says that many viewers probably don't even think they're
hearing poetry. "The McDonald's Favourite ad is not a tricky poem. But
there is a certain cheekiness of McDonald's using poetry. It is not something
people might expect."
This is W&K Levis TV, with
a poem VO and a response:
Read more at http://adland.tv/commercials/levis-go-forth-pretentious-poetry-capital-p#T8Q7dc4WXOijjGkt.99
There are broadcast pieces
above, but you can also think print, web, radio, direct, promotions wherever
you can write copy, you can write Ad Poetry – as long as it works for your
Prospect with your KCWP.
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