Conformity moves us far often than something insightful and different. Because we often don’t understand insight and often can’t see beyond the line. Things work for reason and vice versa. Unfortunately, often we don’t understand whether things are working or not. Partly because of our callousness and partly because of our admission to conformity and conventionalism.
Few days back I was having a chat with one of my entrepreneur elder brothers. I personally love him for his endorsement to non-conformity and depth of understanding on issues I don’t understand. After traveling through bunch of topics I asked him about some street advertisements his company gave, those I saw few days back. I asked whether this kind of advertisements worth the cost it incurs. His answer did not satisfy me. He said it’s for making their logo familiar to people-an unlikely reply. Although, I had to agree with him partly because of my lack of understanding and partly because this is the way everybody out there doing advertising. So I could not expire all those marketing people just by words. Then I came back to my dorm and got to work on it. I’ll be telling you few things about it now.
The love for logo is not an offense at all. And wanting people to identify your logo that’s okay too. But the question is: does logo sell? Does it help you to make a buck or two? Clearly no. It does not. It can’t. However, the problem is not with logo at all. You must have one and obviously nice and smart one. But it should not be in the front. Rather, what you should put in the front is work. Real and different work. And it’s better if you can do things in a better way. Putting your logo with some unidentifiable copy can’t deliver what you want. It not only under serves but it also bad for your image. You must remember, when people think about buying iPad they don’t think about half eaten Apple logo but service, product and all other things that make Apple different.
We don’t remember logo, we remember conversation. And making conversation work is the only option to win in marketplace. And street advertisement seldom ignite any conversation. Even it doesn’t ignite a thought in us. Anything that can’t issue a conversation or can’t make us to think is worthless.
Being different than others is both a risky and uncomfortable situation to hold on. Conventional system neither allows nor takes anything different easily. But if you want to stay and sustain you have to experiment.
You have to make sure you are doing your best. You are playing big. And one way of doing it is unsubscribing conformity. Don’t put a street advertisement. We don’t remember it because:
1. It’s not anything important to remember
2. There are too many of them
3. It’s not elegant
4. It’s not any way remarkable
The days of asking people to buy your product has gone. Now we go and get it. You have nothing to do with it. So, don’t waste money on us by telling us that you make things better. Rather show you care. Really care.
And advertising to make your logo popular is certainly not a way to show people you care about them. Then what to do? Do something that doesn’t tell about yourself and your product but about your customers and the way it makes their life different. Start a conversation.
Look at the campaign The Daily Prothom Alo launched few years back (in 2009). It never claimed that Prothom-Alo is the best source of authentic news or anything about that. Instead it asked you to join a movement for making things better. And as we’ve weird brain, so it picks what it always picks. Brain gives this indirect message a lot shit and keep thinking.
Doing things better needs nothing but courage. This kind of different and experimental ideas are risky and most of the time can fail. But when it works it worth it. Most importantly, without failing you can’t make progress. And following common path is not a smart idea always when you can decide on a better alternative. The street advertisements I talked about in first part of this article is not anything proven. It does no ensure sales or a better brand image. It’s just an entry to conventionalism, a mere second hand source of satisfaction that you are working to make your brand familiar. But it ends there. And it can’t lead you to a better destination.
Thinking different is not a mere slogan it’s action.
Thought provoking indeed.But for brand(What you watched in TV last night) recall Street advertisements work .And you are very right on the point that "Anything that can’t issue a conversation or can’t make us to think is worthless"