APOLOGY ADVERTISING IS RIDICULOUS
Check out this ad from Animal Planet. Their new tagline is “Surprisingly Human.” The people at Animal Planet want you to know that Animal Planet isn’t just about animals. Oh no. It’s about humanity. Human stories, human problems.
“It’s not about pit bulls” the ad explains, referencing some show I’ve never seen, ”It’s about an ex-con with a big heart and a foul mouth.”
Well, thank you, people that run Animal Planet for disabusing me of a notion that I never had in the first place.
This is apology advertising. It’s an ad that addresses a problem the public has with your product. The problem or misconception being addressed here is that people don’t like Animal Planet because it’s too much about animals, not enough about people.
This is not a problem that anyone has with Animal Planet. It is a completely ridiculous problem to address. Obviously Animal Planet is a network about animals. When they try to work against that image they end up apologizing for it.
By apologizing for something nobody had a problem with in the first place, YOU are the one putting the issue out there. You are creating a problem where none existed.
Other examples of apology advertising are the latest Domino’s Pizza campaign where they practically flog themselves over the fact that they had bad sauce. Admittedly, Domino’s HAD become synonomous with cheap crap BUT going as far as Domino’s did to change that image seems desperate. You want to listen to your customers, not be sycophantic towards them. I think a good strategy in business is: don’t apologize, just make it better.
My favorite apology ad of all time had to be one for Hardee’s fast food franchise. For a while Hardee’s had decided to add fried chicken to their menu, along with their burgers and fries. I guess this plan didn’t increase revenue or there was a regime change at Hardee’s HQ because after about a year or two the chicken disappeared and there were commercials where Hardee’s let you know that they were making some changes. The commercials featured customers actually COMPLAINING ONSCREEN about Hardee’s.
I’m paraphrasing here, but I remember one of the ‘customers’ (actually an actor) saying: “Yeah, every time I went into Hardee’s it was weird because there was a chicken smell and a beef smell and the smells just mingled together and it was gross.”
The ad went on to say “We’re making some changes and it won’t be like that anymore.”
Just make the changes! Why are you putting that on TV? You’re advertising against yourself. Because nobody is sitting around thinking about Hardee’s. Nobody is thinking as hard as you are about your product. Nobody is thinking “I’d like to go to Hardee’s but they added chicken to the menu and now it smells weird in there.”
Except NOW THEY ARE THINKING THAT because you PUT IT ON TV!!!
People absorb advertising almost unconsciously. When you run an ad like that and people see it a couple of times, they’re not thinking critically about it or listening carefully to your message. They’re hearing “Hardee’s. Chicken. Gross.” The message that is getting through is the opposite of the one you’re trying to convey.
This kind of apology advertising all comes out of focus groups. A focus group is a group of regular people who are paid fifty bucks and asked to give up three hours of their life to talk about something they know nothing about. They’re not committed to making sure your company has a better product. They just need money for pot. Or they’re a senior citizen looking to kill time and talk to other people. In other words, they are not experts.
Subsequently, they give stupid answers to the questions the company asks them.
“Why don’t you watch Animal Planet?”
“Cuz it’s too much about animals.”
That’s a dumb answer. But companies take these answers seriously and then that becomes the entire ad campaign. Focus groups and test audiences are part of the reason there are so few good shows on TV anymore, fewer good movies, and why your favorite franchises are constantly making strange changes to their business plan that seem confoundingly stupid.
The problem with focus groups is that people don’t KNOW why they don’t watch Animal Planet or why they don’t eat at Hardee’s. Or rather, they don’t know how to honestly articulate why they don’t like those things. Also, when you put them in a group and ask their opinion they’re going to be overly critical because they think that’s what’s expected of them.
How about this: If you’re Hardee’s and you want to improve the product, why not put together a group of successful local restauranteurs and pay them what you’d pay a hundred focus groups. They could also use the money and they know what they’re talking about. They know what the public wants. They’ve studied these things.
It all applies to being a comedian, too. If I have a bad set the one thing I would never ever ever do is get up on stage and apologize for it. It’s awkward, uncomfortable for the audience and makes a bad set even worse. Furthermore, while I am open to suggestions from other comedians I respect, I would never ask people in the audience what they think I’m doing wrong. What do they know? They let me know enough by laughing or not laughing. If I took everyone’s suggestions my act would be horribly mediocre.
Business, just like comedy, is an artform. You can’t listen to everyone. You have to just make a bold choice on your own and live with the consequences. Taking time to apologize is taking time away from making the product better.
