Insinuation, Vagueness
In our continuing investigation into the role of promising in advertising, DLB looks at two pathologies of promising: insinuation and vagueness.
Promises entail promissory obligations. That is to say, what it means to promise to do something is to create — apparently out of thin air — the obligation to do it.
On Wednesday, I talked about the advertising strategy of committing a company to a minimal obligation, or one that’s already in place. Today I’m going to look briefly at two related types of canonical advertising promises: namely, vague promises and insinuations.
Insinuation
Insinuation is a classic tool of advertising and quite pervasive. Take for example a soda commercial that features people enjoying their neighborhood, wrenching the caps off of fire hydrants, dancing in the spray, and listening to Cuban music while drinking their soda. (Also, the entire McDonald’s "I’m lovin’ it" campaign.) These campaigns both insinuate that by either eating McDonald’s or by drinking soda you will be a vital person. Of course nothing could be further from the truth. This is acceptable, apparently, because the ads do not promise it.
Note that the advertisement displayed to the right does promise "continuous quality" and indeed equates it directly to trust. Neither one of these moves is tenable in this day and age: the first because "quality" is categorically inapplicable to Coca Cola, and the second because "trust" must be secured with a greater degree of psychological sensitivity in an advertising-jaded world (more about this on Monday).
Vagueness
I couldn’t find my favorite exemplar of vagueness in advertising (or even what product it’s for – a fact which seems to me in itself a testament to the deep ambiguity of the ad). It’s this commercial for chewing gum that features the silhouette of a person dancing to a sort of clubby type song, who then pulls some gum out of his pocket, after which the commercial ends. It is truly a beautiful, almost otherworldly moment of ambiguity. Does anybody know what it is?
Luckily, you don’t have to go far to find a vague promise in a commercial. I found this at Ad Pulp:
The point is this: McDonald’s can’t promise me that this sandwich is made of good ingredients. Or that it’s good for me. Honestly, I think they might be in trouble if they suggested it tastes good. So, at any rate, they end up with a campaign that promises me: "A good woman is like a McGriddles."
While in any normal circumstances, a claim like this is contentless enough to be laughable, a lot of advertisers thought it was a good idea. The reason? It makes a promise it can keep, because the promissory obligation is vague to the point of ostensibly not being an obligation at all.
Status Check
Interestingly, where this leaves us — at the end of our first week — is with a very firm since of the importance of promising in advertising. This might seem counter-intuitive at first, but according to all the evidence, you’re better off promising almost nothing, insinuating almost anything, or promising something deeply vague than you are promising anything you can’t deliver. Next week, I’ll take up the question of where this leaves us.
| Tagged with: | Advertising, Branding, Coca-Cola, Design Ethics, McDonalds, Promises, Trust |
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