Thinking in Reverse

When it comes to advertising you can say that what any ad needs to have to be a good ad are two basic things: to be memorable because of the story (or the aesthetics, or the music or a mix of everything) but ALSO they need to convey a message that relates to the brand's positioning and heps you remember the brand and/or the product offered.

How many times we can remember an ad but we can't remember not only the brand behind it, but not even the product or service that was offered? Those are NOT good ads, even if a part of them is memorable.

Even if this "formula" sounds pretty easy to achieve in reality it is not, because ads target people and as we all know what can be memorable for one person in a good way it may not be memorable at all for someone else. So it is way more complex than it sounds. So, learning techniques that can boost your creativity is a good move for anyone that wants to excel in the advertising field. Today, I will talk about one that I personally call "thinking on reverse" or "the world upside down".

Let's see first a pretty decent, funny ad from Germany that uses that concept (the product is in IT service and the slogan at the end means "Fast, Detailed, Competent"):

What really makes this ad memorable?

The simple fact that the bad driver and sloppy catcher is a guy and the excellent driver and good thrower is a woman, that in this case represent the company's service.

We all know that there are female good drivers and crappy male drivers, but the general prejudice is that women can't park. So, just by inverting the roles, by "thinking in reverse" the ad becomes memorable. And because she is the solution you will for sure remember -at least- what the service is about.

Sounds too easy? Here is another tip: most of the time, really good ideas look "easy" when they have been carefully implemented. That takes us to another topic, the steps in between a good idea and a good implementation, and how the "delivery" part can help or ruin a decent idea. But I will tackle that issue in a future posting.

Meanwhile if you have more good examples of this technique being used successfully, I would love to hear about them!

Thanks to Guadalupe for sending the ad!