Visual Power

What would you say are the world’s greatest inventions? Tops on my list would be language and the camera.

Language, because without it, we would be grunting at each other. We wouldn’t be able to read, argue, sms, sembang or blog. Without the wonders of the spoken word and written form, lawyers would to have to fish for a living.

The camera, for obvious reasons. No tv. No Desperate Housewives and Grammys. Oprah Winfrey wouldn’t have a job. Newspapers and magazines with nothing but columns of squiggly text. Popcorn would not have been invented because there’s no cinema.

The camera was invented only some 180 years ago. And this is why, all history before that is sort of fuzzy. I mean, we aren’t even sure what Genghis Khan, Leonardo da Vinci, or Paramesawara really looked like.

All we got are portraits, done by artists who were paid to make the guys look better than they did. Did Alexander the Great actually look great? Maybe he was a scrawny mata sepet.

So what has this to do with marketing and advertising? Lots. Advertising’s two greatest tools are words and pictures. In fact, they are the only tools it has. (trivia : the first ad with a photograph was published in 1843 in Philadelphia.)

Let’s put writing aside. Let’s talk about pictures, or visuals as they appear around us and in our living rooms. And for this, we have a famous example.

In September 1960, something big happened. For the first time, politics used the power of
moving pictures. Senator John Kennedy and vice-president Richard Nixon were engaged in the first-ever televised ‘Great Debates.’ Prior to this, debates were aired only over radio. But here, for the first time, two presidential aspirants were going to battle in the visual arena.

The debates were held both on tv and radio. And the outcome has become a case study in politics, journalism, psychology and advertising.

In terms of what they said – pure content- both Kennedy and Nixon were evenly matched. In fact, those who heard the debate on radio preferred Nixon.

But, on television, Kennedy won by a huge margin. And the reason was visual.

Kennedy was this debonair, young man. He had just come in from California, campaigning in the summer, looking tanned and confident. And he put on a great performance on tv.

Nixon on the other hand was not exactly GQ material. He was also just out of hospital and 20- pounds underweight. He was pale and to make it worse, declined the usual studio make-up.

The bottom line was, viewers voted based on what they saw, much less by what they heard.

Never judge a book by its cover? All true and good, and substance matters. But we do react to what we see. We are sensitive to form, shapes, colours or whatever that meets the eye.

The entire visual presentation of someone or something, real or dressed up in our heads, is an awfully powerful thing.

To quote Andy Warhol, the great pop artist who undestood this so well, “I am a deeply superficial man.”

One can see why cosmetics is a billion-dollar industry.

Challenging a few "truths"

As in any industry, advertising and marketing has its share of rules and beliefs. Many are taught in college and perpetuated by the profession. Some are cast in stone and seldom questioned. So every now and then, it’s a good idea to throw a few stones at these so-called truths. Do they really apply today? Have they withstood the test of time? Let’s take a whack at a few.

“Being first is important”

Being first apparently makes an indelible impression on people, and therefore, becomes the property of the pioneering brand. So the theory goes. You hear trivia questions like, “Do you recall the second man to walk on the moon?” Your contentious answer could be “No, I don’t, because they never went to the moon. It was all a hoax.”

The diplomatic answer, if you wish to condescend to the point, is that you had never heard of Buzz Aldrin, but of course, everyone knows Neil Armstrong. It’s a deceptive analogy. For all the obvious evidence tells us being first has less value than we are led to believe.

For instance, can you name the first digital camera? Or the first toothpaste to use flouride? How about the brand of car that invented automatic transmission? Or the first car with variable valve timing?

The first airline to introduce business class can no longer claim competitive advantage. Neither can the first maker of MP3 players. Flip back a few decades and you’ll find that many pioneering companies aren’t leaders in their field today.

Technology, formats and business models can be copied. And copied they have been, innovated on by brands that deliver and communicate it better, consistently. The ‘first’ that marketers really want to be concerned with is being first or among the top in brand perception. That, sometimes, has little to do with a technical fact.

“Branding takes time”

I still hear this one. The most recent was last month at a presentation by a class of graduating marketing students. Try telling that to a brand manager today.

Maybe branding once did take a lot of time. But that was when everything took a lot of time. Back when it took 7 hours to get from KL to Penang. When rendang, pre-microwave, took a whole delirious day to stir and stew. When news of the demand of spice moved only as fast as a ship could steam from Britannia to Batavia.

Fortunately or otherwise, communication now moves as fast as fingers on a keyboard. And so, Yahoo (1994), Amazon (1994), and Google (1998) have quickly become brands. YouTube is only 2 years old.

Even outside cyberspace, rather astute marketing has very quickly established brands of cars, fashion and electronics. Dell and Paul Smith, both founded in the early 80’s, are international examples. Look around and you will see lots more. Many Malaysian companies have elevated their commodities to brands in remarkably short periods.

Branding isn’t about taking time as it is does about being with the times. When people have the memory span of fish, it’s relevance and fresh ideas that win new marketshare.