Through different comparisons in Truth, Lies, and Advertising, Jon Steel introduces the readers to
the creation of account planning, especially a
brilliant quantum mechanics metaphor. Through such metaphor the readers
understand that much like quantum mechanics, account planning was created as a new field
to grasp a new, emerging perspective. In the case of account planning, for the
first time, many perspectives had to be taken into account while brainstorming advertising
ideas, instead of considering just one “correct” viewpoint. He
describes to the audience the three different points of view that are used to create
successful advertising; Steel explains this with a geology method called triangulation.
Like in triangulation, where a person needs three landmarks to correctly
discover their location when lost, in advertising there needs to be three
different perspectives to create effective and efficient advertising. The three
viewpoints being: the client’s (business perspective), agency’s (creative
perspective), and the consumer’s (prejudices and perspectives). By combining these
three perspectives and including consumer involvement an advertiser can
successfully create an ad that can grab a person’s attention for a few precious
seconds, which is considered a privilege.
Throughout reading the chapters, one thought did not
leave my mind: advertising cannot be understood through one perspective. In
order to understand what makes great advertising, one has to apply what Steel
sought to teach the readers throughout beginning chapters: advertising is a means to an end in relationship,
including all the complexities of human emotions. In a friendship, like a consumer’s
relationship with a brand or product, there’s a roller coaster of emotions,
which can skyrocket to best friendship to frenemies, nonetheless both friendships
and a consumer-product relationships exist primarily in the mind of those
involved whether two friends or a consumer. Thus any actions that occur are
subject to the subjective interpretation of the person who such action was
aimed at. Univision, a Spanish TV network, runs an ad for the beer brand Tecate,
I always enjoy watching this commercial, even though I’m not the target, simply
because it incorporates the beer to a characteristic found and stressed in the
Latino culture: men are not supposed to be cowards, and it uses this trait in such humorous
way to where the target market of the ad, men between 21-50, can laugh along and
create a positive association with the brand Tecate and its campaign slogan, “No
Te Rajes”, which basically translates to “Don’t ever back down.” And the ad, although could be interpreted differently, perhaps even offensively if aimed at
another culture, in the Latino culture, we can laugh along with the ad and nudge
the male next to us and just like a friendship, the consumer can take the ad's small offense and
laugh along.
