Friday 27 March 2009

Ad-Rule No.15 - The rule of the Chat

Now here's the reason of my previous question " Who are you talking to?"
The important part is the second part of the question "talking". If you talk to your friend, you talk about your life, your experience, your love and hate, your anxiety, your happiness, etc. You are talking with a personalized tone about anything that has happened or will happen to you in real. You don't make up stories for it will be impolite and will depersonalize your good self. So what does it tell us? If you talk to your TA, try not to talk in a way like you are talking to a demographic, talk to them like you are talking to one person directly, like what you would talk to your friend. Tell them some real stories, so that they can be touched and engaged.

The "talking" refers to your ad content. It has been shifted from a " tell them what to do" to a "tell them what they really need and want" manner. Ad people are not experts anymore (in telling them what to do, so product features do not sell), they become storytellers (giving out stories that their TA really need and want).

So it's the "talking" part that's important, and it will drive creative ideas.

The rule of the Chat tells us that what people really want from your ad is engagement. In other words, they want dreams, memories, passion, laughter. They want stories that could nourish their lives. Don't tell them what to do, as is "my ice-cream is good for your health, so buy me", or "giving blood is good so please donate", or "this course is practical so do it", or "this snack is from Japan so you should have gaurantee" (- unless you are selling milk powder to mainland people, where safety is their most important concern), or "reading is not limited to indoor, please learn the new ways of reading", or "this is the year of tiger and you should bring your valentine to experience the exotic CNY"...

The rule is about knowing your audience...so that you can talk (chat) to them like on a one-on-one basis, not as an "audience" - that's why you prefer a tutorial to a mass lecture. See what I mean? ;)

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