Let's talk Advertising in Nigeria: To win over customers or for conversation?

Creating ads is fun and they task the creative sides of the human mind. Sometimes you want fun and sometimes you want warmth. Other times you want to remove emotions and go straight to the point. But in the end, you just want to tell a story. A story that connects with a particular persona and demographic.

Some adverts are created to drive conversations. This helps to put a product, service, or brand on the map. A lot of times, they also drive sales and even create a lasting impression on a customer to make them life-long users of a product. Other ads are created to drive conversion.

The conversation goes further to put a product on the map and doesn’t necessarily convert everyone who contributes to the conversations online or offline. In fact, it can do the opposite of conversion when the conversation is negative. This is why it is important for an ad creator to understand what kind of conversation is being instigated. Do you have control of where the conversation can lead? Have you looked at all the possible scenarios and directions where your conversation can lead?

A particular advert that keeps coming to mind is Gillet's advert based on toxic masculinity and the #Metoo movement. The intentions were great and the message may have appealed to a substantial part of the market. It may have even appealed to new customers. But it seemed to attack the core of their customer base. So while they looked for new markets and new customers, they did not only ignore their old customers, they went a step further by more or less attacking that customer base.

The advert is a great example of what I like to call adverts that start off a conversation. The conversation around the ad was huge. It actually helped to put the razor blade industry on the map. Yet, it did not convert for Gillet. Instead, it crashed their market share and helped their rivals generate new shares in the market.

Gillet customers are made up of mostly men who are above 18 years old. They see themselves as “men” and they were all born before the #Metoo movement started.

They don’t believe in the idea of “Toxic masculinity”. What makes them men is what makes them different. Men like to have fun, take risks and instinctively take chances. Calling what they are toxic is like saying they should stop being men.

This is not to endorse attacking people based on sexuality (that’s not even masculinity) or disposition and circumstances (all not masculinity). Rather, it is about understanding your market and creating an advert that reaches the target audience in any way your creative nuance can appeal to them.

Your brand’s story should not attack your customers or your target audience. I learned this recently in my quest to develop as a digital marketer. You could create an advert that has humor infused in its voice or one with a bold statement. There are also ads that speak to the softer side of human emotion. Ads can infuse sweet memories or long-lost experiences. It can also use a trope in a new way infused with humor and carefree storytelling.

An example of this is an advert I created recently was for a fragrance line and it focuses on a dog’s sense of smell. The ad basically asked customers (humans) to be kind to dogs by wearing fragrances. The worst message this advert can share is that my (client) customers smell bad and need to wear perfume to save dogs from their body odor.

On the other side of the spectrum, it may come off as hilarious, depending on the components of the video.

At the end of the day, it may start up a conversation that is focused on the advert itself and not necessarily on the product I intend to sell. The product will come up in the conversation and may even lead to sales, but it will also bring up a level of backlash that cannot exactly be quantified before the ad airs. The acceptance will most likely outweigh the backlash, judging by the reaction of my sample audience. Should we take the risk or not?

So this brings me to the point where I wonder if it is ok to view those who will bring the backlash as mere conversation instigators or as potential customers who should be catered for.

As mere conversation instigators, they are in one way or the other, improving sales and this implies that the advert may end up being successful. That’s on one hand. On the other hand, they may have a viewpoint you have not envisaged and this viewpoint is what marks their position. They are familiar with that position and can sell it in a conversation. This is what the expected backlash is based on. Their viewpoint may end up outselling your ad (ask Gillet). At the end of the day, your ad campaign can end up being a poisoned chalice for your product.

Finding that middle ground between conversation and conversion is what writing great copies is all about. We want to drive conversation, we also want to drive conversion. It is said that every publicity is good publicity. Well, it turned out not to be true for Gillet.

Gillet may have rebounded since then with good PR and more “inclusive adverts”, but I am sure that complete recovery will not be happening anytime soon. The Gillet experience should serve as a wake-up call for marketers and ad agencies around the world, especially in a world that has become very sensitive (the irony is not lost on the fact that Gillet tried to appeal to a sensitive persona).

So I decided against posting an advert that shows a dog being distraught with the natural scent of a human being. It is an ad I will share only in my personal space. This is because I do not want my brand (my client’s brand) to come off as insensitive. It may lead to a situation in which her brand will be spoken about and her industry will be in the conversation. But it will not translate to sales for her because customers will assume that they may be profiled whenever they buy from this particular brand. They can easily buy from a different brand and cover that need. But they will not buy from my brand (my client’s brand) to cover that shame and embarrassment. Therein lies the difference between conversation and conversion. They work together by removing personal opinions and politics from marketing (to a large extent.)