Thursday, April 14, 2011

Project overview: the elusive 'connection'

David Ogilvy is the success story that we’d all like to be. Bold. Driven. Unique to say the least. His writing seems to do for advertising campaigns what the Old Testament book of Proverbs does for accepting a Godly lifestyle. Here Ye! Here Ye! These are the words to live by!

While our assignment was to extrapolate our own topic from Ogilvy’s “Confessions of an Advertising Executive”, my ultimate conclusion as the focus of my project seems to have been crafting itself in my gut long before I received the assignment.
Why do some campaigns succeed and others fail?  Why?  Bad idea?  Good idea with a poor plan?  Good idea with a good plan but poorly executed? Why?
More importantly, when is the ‘connection’ made?  The spark between company and consumer that advertising executives like Ogilvy promise to deliver and yet there’s no guarantee their campaign will be a hit no matter how much data is crunched or how many overpriced celebrities endorse the product.
As a journalist and career Army officer, my worldly perspective of any campaign, project, or task is to set a goal, map a route to complete the goal, and then supervise the participants to the finish line.
Advertising and PR campaigns don’t work like that. They just don’t. There are so many factors that the managers can’t control, but yet they try anyway.  And too often, in my opinion, there are variables that are relatively predictable, and yet the decision makers ignore them anyway.
Again, why?
Curious by nature, I set out to research the plan behind some successful campaigns while identifying campaigns that could have been great had they been implemented differently. I also wanted to examine how local TV news stations across the country develop their own brands and slogans and how those images are managed to success for a community audience that has more choices for viewing than ever thought.
In kindergarten we’re taught to connect the dots, and we learn to do it on command.
In high school, we’re taught to connect item A with item B and we figure that out too.
So why in our adulthood, can’t we connect viewers/readers/consumers to an idea in a way that makes sense and includes effective PR planning to achieve that goal?

My research led me to a few key discoveries and investigations outlined as follows:

Campaigns with traction from which we can learn the most
Campaigns with good intentions that didn't deliver
The PR piece of the campaign puzzle
Don't touch that dial!
Endnotes
Bibliography


My quest begins.