<font color="#FF3333"><b>AdAsia 2003:</b></font> Great brands play the role of protagonists: Scott Bedbury

Bedbury cautioned against relying on pre-testing, criticized research for being too “narrow”, and spoke on Nike advertising and the evolution of ‘Just Do It’

If Sergio Zyman's concluding session of day one at AdAsia 2003 had creative folk alternately cringing and frothing in the mouth, the opening session on day two - by brand strategist Scott Bedbury - more than won the day for creative agencies and the clients who back them.

Bedbury, the man who engineered two extremely successful brand strategies in recent marketing history (first Nike, then Starbucks), cautioned against relying on pre-testing, criticized research for often being too "narrow" and, most importantly (at least from the agency point of view), defended agencies for going after awards. He also spoke at length on the highs and lows of Nike advertising, the evolution of the legendary ‘Just Do It' campaign and how Starbucks started owning the ‘coffee experience'.

"The consumer is not always right," he said, commenting on the tendency among agencies and clients to pre-test advertising. "You cannot go to the consumer and ask her to judge storyboards, headlines, typefaces and colours, as those are not things she understands. You can test concepts on focus groups to get a sense of direction, but that's all." His reasoning is that there are very few people who can see brilliance in a raw idea, which is why pre-testing needs to be used selectively and carefully. He also pointed out that a lot of Nike advertising would not have seen the light of day had it been put to housewives for pre-testing. "Nike never pre-tested any of its campaigns, and we took the responsibility of what we were creating rather than passing the buck."

In fact, Bedbury believes it is inability to take responsibility for the advertising that has been created that drives agencies and advertisers to take refuge in pre-testing. "Focus groups can be like expensive toilet paper - they cover your ass," he said, much to the delight of many. "Often, the problem with research and focus groups is that no one (both at the client and agency ends) is accountable for the advertising. You put the blame on the focus group by saying that they liked it and cleared it."

Make no mistake, Bedbury is not against research, and he said so in as many words. He even admitted that Nike has taken recourse to focus groups, but did so intelligently. "A lot of research is like finding your way to your seat in a dark auditorium with a laser beam. It is so narrow that you find only what you are looking for, while missing out on a lot of other interesting things." His answer to the problem is that advertisers should "dig wide and deep around the brand" for best results. "We need research, but use it rightly."

The author of A New Brand World also believes that brands should work towards becoming protagonists. "Great brands play the role of protagonists," he said. "Walt Disney was a protagonist for fun, family and entertainment, and the emerging American family values. He did not create anything new, but he triggered emotions and family values in all of us. Similarly, Nike did not create sport or the spirit of achievement, which always existed. Nike simply understood the emotional and physical rewards of sport and fitness, and thus became a protagonist for fitness and achievement. The coffee house is not something Starbucks created, but by understanding that the coffee house is much more than coffee, it became a protagonist for the ‘coffee experience', which is about taking time out for yourself. You have to see what timeless emotional need sits under your category." In the context of Starbucks, Bedbury added that the brand didn't talk about the product (coffee) in its advertising, but spoke, instead, about the place and the experience. He also thinks the debate between ‘brand image' and ‘product' in advertising is pointless as they are one and the same.

Bedbury also spoke about how great brands can build brandwidth without necessarily destroying their core business. Using Nike as an example, he demonstrated how the brand's famous ‘revolution' commercial communicated that Nike was not only about runners but about every other person. He also cited the ‘Walt Stack' ad to show how that ad (and the ‘revolution' ad) laid the foundation for the ‘Just Do It' thought.

Interestingly, it wasn't only Nike's successful ads that Bedbury highlighted. He also drew attention to some of the big advertising mistakes (and gaffes) Nike has made when he spoke on how brands should learn from spectacular mistakes. "Phil Knight (of Nike) was of the opinion that making mistakes is okay, but you cannot make the same mistake twice," said Bedbury, explaining the Nike ethic. He spoke about the ‘Joanne Ernst' ad - with which Nike tried to talk to American women for the first time - to show what went wrong.

"We believed that we could speak to women in the same way as we spoke to men, so we got Joanne (a tri-athlete) to endorse the ad, but women didn't like it," he admits. The trouble with the ad was that the kind of women Nike was attempting to address (essentially working women) were offended at the thought of somebody insisting on fitness and training… when they couldn't afford spending time on training. Bedbury also pointed out that Joanne's urging women to ‘Just do it' was intended to be a "suggestion, but came like a hammer" which didn't go down well. Interestingly, that was one of the last occasions when ‘Just Do It' was verbalized in a Nike ad. He added that ‘Just Do It' was not conceived as a tagline. "We were looking for an idea, and the line rolled from it. And the more the ‘Just Do It' idea got stretched, the stronger it got."

In conclusion, Bedbury said that brands have to prepare for the ‘triple bottomline'. "The financial measure of a brand's profitability isn't good enough," he said. "Profit, environmental record and the impact the brand has on society are the three measures that should be used. Brands have karma, and the karma runs deep and holds us accountable in the long haul."

But what would give a whole lot of creative people much joy came from Bedbury when he was fielding questions. Anchor Derek O'Brien brought Zyman's argument of ‘advertising that thirsts after awards not selling enough' to Bedbury's notice. "You cannot fault agencies for wanting to win awards as awards are a recognition," he was categorical. And while he agreed that bad work that has no meeting with strategy "happens sometimes", he argued that there are times great work fails "because the product was really bad". © 2003 agencyfaqs!