Promising Less: "It’s Toasted."
The issue of trust has finally offered a satisfying answer to an old question: Namely, any keepable promise is better than any unkeepable one.
In the first ever episode of the television show Mad Men, the creative team at the fictional advertising firm of Sterling Cooper, headed by Creative Director Donald Draper, is faced with the end of an era: medical science has proved that smoking cigarettes is bad for the health, so no longer can cigarette advertisements feature "doctors" propounding the health and lifestyle benefits of, say, Lucky Strikes.
Of course, the reason they can’t just keep doing what they are doing is that to do so would be to make a promise that consumers would understand as unkeepable, which would presumably be more than the brand can withstand. Again, advertising is based on trust, or, to put that another way, at least the illusion of coherence with reality.
Draper’s brilliant bit of advertising is to promise less from Lucky Strikes. (I bet you thought I’d never get back around to this, didn’t you?) Draper’s plan: Since his client can’t promise that their customers will have a healthier life, promise anything else that’s true.
The moral of the story? Any keepable promise is better than any unkeepable one. If your company can’t promise, e.g. that you’re no longer a gas company, promise that you have clean floors in your bathrooms. Hence, "It’s toasted."
The Lucky Strike executive protests: "But everybody else’s tobacco is toasted."
Draper: "No. Everybody else’s tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strikes’ is toasted."
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