Marinate > iterate
You're sick of the ad, but the parade's never seen it
Last week I wrote about some learnings I picked up from David Ogilvy’s Confessions of an Advertising Man + put a post up on LinkedIn specifically about his “parade vs. standing army” quote:
Well, let’s just say this one clearly resonated + drove some discussion around 2 things marketers should never forget:
Exactly what Ogilvy said - we get sick of our work well before the market does (most of them won’t have even seen it yet)
The best performing ads can still work just as well 1+ years later
So with this in mind, I decided to think back on ads/campaigns that have been successful precisely because of this - because they let the work marinate instead of iterating on it after 30 days.
Sponsor: Affect
Affect is the framework for how I think about marketing accountability. The playbooks I’ve built from 15 years of seeing what works + what doesn’t and recognizing that the purpose of marketing isn’t to hit vanity metrics like MQLs, but to move the business.
Affect is for the marketers who have sat in a room where marketing celebrated surpassing its MQL targets while the business missed revenue. It’s for the marketers who want to be held accountable because they’re confident enough in their work to let the math speak for itself. It’s for the marketers who understand that clarity is earned, conviction is a choice, + being a force on the business is the only version of this job worth doing.
August is the last month to grab the founding member rate at $99/mo, locked in for life. A ton of enhancements are coming out in Aug, Sept, and beyond, so be sure to grab this before pricing goes up to $399/mo. Or, as one of the first users said:
“It’s $99 and cancelable after 30 days, it’s pretty risk-free. I pay more for an Uber to the airport.”
Geico’s gecko (27 years going strong)
Doesn’t matter whether it’s just a billboard or on a tv commercial, when you see this guy, you know it’s Geico.
Fun fact: Geico’s gecko first debuted on Aug 29, 1999 (27 years ago!) because of a screen actors guild commercial strike that prevented companies from using human actors. Talk about making lemonade when life hands you lemons…
Anyway - when you think of a commodity market, insurance is 100000% in that space. Ultimate race to the bottom + you can go to any number of providers to ultimately get the same exact product.
So how do you win in this kind of market? By being at the top of the mental shortlist when someone goes to shop. Whether because they’re mad at their current provider, are purchasing a vehicle for the first time, etc., most consumers already have a few providers in mind when the need arises.
Geico owns this spot with most of their market. They don’t out-feature their competitors or have any crazy cut-throat pricing discounts, they’ve just been maniacally consistent with this one character for 27 years + never stopped.
The gecko became Geico sheerly from repetition.
Amp’s Mobile’s 1 perfect ad
The first time I saw this commercial, I thought it was funny.
The second time I saw this commercial, I was waiting for the E-40 lines to be dropped.
The third time I saw this commercial, I was searching for it on YouTube because I wanted to see it.
Amp'd Mobile existed for a whopping 1.5 years. But in that time, they created one commercial that outlived the entire company.
Yes, it definitely only spoke to a certain demographic, but it was the exact one they were trying to attract. So to Adam’s comment in the beginning of this newsletter, put this one on repeat + it’ll continue to be one of the top performing ads no matter how many others you create after.
The mistake they made was that they tried to iterate off this commercial, so they made more funny commercials. Unfortunately, none of them landed like this first one.
This first one was the novel, but everything after it felt like a copy of a copy. Their second mistake was that they should have kept running this OG one instead of copies that never quite landed the same way.
Ultimately, this is the parade principle in action - most of their market hadn’t seen this “best” commercial before they were sick of it + iterating into worse versions of it.
What ads live rent-free in your head?
I’ve been going down an ad rabbithole lately + would love to hear/unpack some of these. Which one(s) are they + why you think they do? Reply back + let me know (Believe it or not, I read every single email that comes through.)
See you next Saturday,
Sam
P.S. know a marketer who’d enjoy these newsletters as well? Reply back to this email (so I get it) + cc them on it. As a small thank you, I’d be happy to help answer any questions you have or hop on a call some time for a fun marketing session :)