Why doing the “boring stuff” works in business
Back when I used to loiter around on LinkedIn, I once came upon a discussion in a community dedicated to copywriting (the stuff you write in ads).
A creative director at an agency was having a wank about the lack of “creativity” and “original” ideas he’d seen in advertising.
I don’t remember exactly what he said.
But he brings up a good point about creativity.
Namely:
why “cReAtIvItY” is perversely OVERRATED
… especially when it comes to marketing.
Look. It’s one thing to want to be different and stand out as a business. To be unique.
But being unique won’t do you any good if nobody wants to buy from you.
Which is why one of the basic ingredients of any decent business plan is to have a “unique SELLING proposition.”
Now, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be different.
But I think the one thing that people seem to forget — particularly the self-proclaimed creative types — is that you need to know how to SELL whatever newfangled widget you think is going to “disrupt” the industry.
In other words:
What can it do for customers? And why is it better than what they’re already using?
It’s a simple question. And it doesn’t take a genius to come up with an answer. Assuming, of course, whatever you’re selling is actually useful.
But people seem to think marketing is about making stuff look pretty. As if it’s some contest about how clever you can be (see: Clio awards).
Which brings me to the real point of this rambling:
The kind of marketing that pays for itself in profits is often “boring.”
It’s the print ads that run unchanged for 20+ years. The 3am infomercials that can’t stop talking about how there’s always more. The websites that look like they were built with GeoCities. Handwritten sales letters from charities.
It’s the shit that’s been working long before everyone was jizzing over social media. And despite all the “blue ocean” ideas that people have when it comes to marketing…
In the end, the “boring stuff” always works.
I’ll finish this with something that Drayton Bird, once David Ogilvy’s right-hand copywriter, likes to say about marketing:
“Marketing is like teenage sex.
Everybody says they’re doing it.
Not many are.
And the ones that do, do it very badly.”
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