Are the best ads the dishonest ones?

You've seen it, I've seen it, we've all seen it... and it seems everyone loves it. The Virgin Atlantic Superhero ad. It makes me want to fly Virgin, it also makes me want to be the girl with the cute red shoes... OK yes I also want to be the girl turning all the heads at the airport.  Despite this, is it honest? This characteristic we all demand from marketing messages? Well... no. Not even a little bit. But my god do I want to book a flight with Virgin.  

Now, this could be a nostalgic thing for me. We always flew with Virgin when I was little and they always gave me a cool backpack. Yes, marketers, give the kids a backpack and they will fly with you forever. The best ideas are always the most simple. As lovely a trip down memory lane this is for me, it also serves a purpose. I remember the staff on Virgin being really lovely to me, and as a little girl, they were absolutely the head turning stewardess or the smiling pilot. Maybe that's why I love this ad. I know they don't have super powers, but I first met these characters when I was five years old. Everyone in the world has the potential to have hidden powers when the world is viewed from five year old eyes. Is this what the Virgin advertising team was thinking when they thought this up? That the little five year old is now twenty-three, about to embark on a career and make choices about airlines? Doubtful. This is a very happy coincidence.  

(I just read this to my mother and she has informed me they chose Virgin because of the screens on the back of seats. I'm sticking to cool backpacks.)

Now is the time when I take this glorious ad and my delightful memories and inundate you with academic references and (hopefully) intelligent musings.

Who in the advertising industry doesn't love a bit of Jeremy Bullmore? He's no Bernach of course but he certainly has his advocates. I recently interviewed a well known person at a well known agency (we've all signed things, I'm afraid to name names) and that person said, "Bullmore is always right." Bold words, I like them. Unfortunately I don't think that's enough for my dissertation. How nice it would be to stop at 5,000 words and say "Because Bullmore said so." I digress. My point is this: it was in Bullmore's book (Behind the Scenes in Advertising) where I first stumbled upon the the idea that the more blatantly dishonest an ad is, the less people are likely to find it misleading.

Hold on. If you lie to people they won't think you're trying to mislead them?

That concept certainly made me stop and think. Particularly because I am researching how people perceive advertising and am looking at how they demand honesty from advertising. It made me wonder, "If people think we are misleading them when we're truthful or economical with the truth, but not when we shamelessly lie... what's the point in trying to be honest?"  I think that people will draw their own truths from what they read or see, and so it is not the content we are subjecting them to, but the context we are putting it in. Advertisers need to respect the intelligence of their audiences.

According to Credos (2011), people feel consumers are being constructed as stupid which generates negative perceptions of advertisers. Bullmore believes that the public gets annoyed by advertising because advertisers don't have an adequate understanding of the communications process and the role of the consumer. Historically, advertisers have started the communications process by first identifying the consumer, then choosing the medium needed to reach that consumer and finally delivering the message. This process has been adapted from Shannon and Weaver’s 1949 Model of Communication which sends a message from a sender, which is encoded and passed through a channel to be decoded and received by the recipient. Neither of these processes allow the receiver (consumer) to contribute to the communications process which, Bullmore believes, increases the risk of failing at successful communication and annoying the receiver. Consumers find this inherently irritating as all consumers participate in the communications process.

The reason I am explaining this is because it seems that no matter how honest or dishonest an ad is, as long as the content allows consumers to come to their own conclusions and use their own beliefs, experiences and values when making that decision, it doesn't matter if the message in the ad isn't 100% true. Put an ad in front of an audience and allow them to interpret it for themselves, then they will draw their own truths out of it and decide how it makes them feel. Our job as advertisers is to get them to interpret it the way we want them to! Easier said than done, I'm sure.

I absolutely believe that Virgin Atlantic is endeavoring to fly in the face of ordinary. I don't believe their employees are superheroes, but I was entertained by the ad and it gave me something to talk about with friends, family and colleagues. Research by Credos and the ASA shows that these are key to getting consumers to like your advertising, which must be true because it worked on  me!

Maybe the best ads aren't the dishonest ones, but the ones that respect their audiences and give them something interesting to watch. Surely it can't be that simple...

ASA (2002) The public’s perception of advertising in today’s society [online] Available from: www.asa.org.uk [Accessed 20 October 2012].Bullmore, J. (1998) Behind the scenes in advertising. 2^nd ed. Henley: Admap Publications.

Bullmore, J. (1998) Behind the scenes in advertising. 2^nd ed. Henley: Admap Publications.

Credos (2011) Advertising: what the UK really thinks [online] Available from: www.credos.org.uk [Accessed 18 October 2012].