Ad for Advair Diskus Misses Target by a Mile

I am indebted to reader Jack Fountain for calling my attention to the subject of this issue’s makeover. He wrote me the following letter:

As a subscriber to Direct, I’ve many times had the pleasure of reading your commentary and dissection of the purported creations of our colleagues. More often than not, I’ve agreed with your analysis and your prescriptions. I relish the encounter with your column and dutifully begin reading Direct from front to back so that The Makeover Maven serves as a reward.

Well, finally, I’ve come across an ad so confusing, vague, ill-conceived and downright baffling that I implore you to RUN, DON’T WALK, to your newsstand for the March 31 edition of Time.

The candidate ad is for Advair Diskus, an asthma medication from GlaxoSmithKline. This must be seen to be disbelieved.

The visual is of a set of stairs adjacent to an escalator, possibly in a mall; people are variously ascending both. Somehow, improbably, there is a wooden door and door frame propped up about a third of the way up the staircase. The word “Go” is superimposed over the back of one of the stair climbers.

Then, the payoff: Incomprehensible body copy. ‘ESCALATORS ARE FOR STATUES. Take the stairs. Skip the crowd. Go. It’s up to you, not always your asthma. Ask your doctor about Advair…’

Huh?

My description does not do proper injustice to this hodgepodge. If there was ever an example of ‘creative by committee,’ or an ad by the CEO’s idiot child, this is it. Perhaps in a parallel universe, this ad might make sense and be effective, but not in mine. Please-please-please search this one out and take it apart (as only you can) in your pages.

Thanks, Jack. I couldn’t have said it better myself — so I won’t try.

We’ll never know how such an ad came into being, but Mr. Fountain’s suggestion of “creative by committee” is probably a pretty good guess. The client supplies a torso, the copywriter supplies some legs, the art director some gray paint, the account executive a tail, the research department a blueprint, the company attorney the protective skin, and next thing you know you’ve got an elephant — more or less.

One also might wonder if it has something to do with the low respect for print advertising in some agencies compared with television, where much more of the glamour and money is. Might have been a case of an agency attempting to apply television advertising techniques to print, even though the requirements are quite different.

There are 10 million to 14 million self-identified victims of asthma. Let’s say maybe 60 out of 1,000. That means 60,000 readers of a magazine with a circulation of 1 million. If 60% of them pass by an ad like this without even noticing that it’s talking about asthma, the advertiser has failed to communicate altogether with 36,000 of them, leaving only 24,000. If the ad makes a lasting, favorable impression on only 20% of those who do stop and read it, we’re down to 4,800. Then if 10% of those have and use an Internet connection and are sufficiently interested and motivated to visit the Advair Web site, we’re talking about a paltry 480.

Now, if those 480 try to place an order online for a free booklet on Advair, the reply form forces them either to agree to future contacts about other Glaxo products or to call a toll-free number, and many annoyed prospects would refuse to do either. (Many more would respond if giving permission were voluntary.) That might cut the number of respondents down from a potential 480 to maybe half as many — which would mean a total of 240 prospect profiles captured for the database out of 60,000 prospects reading the magazine.

Not very good. Not nearly good enough. I think my makeover could dramatically improve those numbers.

First of all, in my headline, graphic and captions, I call out to asthma sufferers passing by and present an instant impression of the product, the problem and the solution. This is fleshed out in the body copy the way a newspaper article builds on its headline.

My headline also suggests not one, but two product promises or benefits: Freedom from discomfort (“more symptom-free days”) and enjoyment of feelings of superiority (I’ll be “asthma-smart,” not like those poor dummies who also have asthma but don’t manage it as well).

Then I “merchandise” the Web site — enticingly summarize its contents to stimulate response. And I add the obligatory footnote. (For those of you who are always complaining that my copy is too long, this time my copy is actually shorter than theirs, and in a typeface that’s three times as readable.)

The importance of merchandising the site should not be minimized. In the early days of the Internet, brand advertisers on the Web talked of the value of the “stickiness” of a site. Meaning the more time visitors spent browsing among and reading the pages on an advertiser’s site, the deeper and more lingering a brand impression it would make.

In the same way, the more time prospects spend considering what you have to say, not only in your print ad but also at the Web site which your ad motivates them to visit, the better chance you have of increasing the favorable impression of the product or service.

Thus even a magazine reader with asthma might at best spend only a minute or two glancing through a full-page print ad for Advair. But if that targeted ad can persuade or motivate that targeted reader to go to the Advair Web site for more information, that reader might then spend as much as five or 10 more minutes there, which might then enhance the brand’s image in the eyes of a prime prospect. This would be especially true if the advertiser’s Web site is as skillfully planned and developed as the brand advertising in print, though unfortunately that’s not always the case.

So that’s the triple whammy my makeover seeks to deliver: More readership by prospects, more Web site visits by prospects, and a stronger brand impression on both readers and visitors.

THOMAS L. COLLINS was co-founder and first creative director of Rapp & Collins and is co-author with Stan Rapp of four books on marketing.

He is currently an independent marketing consultant and copywriter based in Manhattan.

If you see a direct response ad that you think is crying out for a makeover, clip it out and send it (unfolded, if possible) to me at 250 E. 40th St., #40B, New York, NY 10016. To e-mail comments and opinions: [email protected].