>> Is this any way to sell a bank? You tell me.
About 34 years ago David Ogilvy sent me a draft of a speech he planned to make in Paris.
In it he suggested that the advertising industry was composed of two different worlds:
1. People who believed in selling
2. People who believed in quasi-intellectual bullshit.
He didn’t put it as coarsely as that, but you get the idea.
Those worlds existed then and survived to the present, although the two different divisions are even more stark today.
I think in those days advertising agencies made a pretence of trying to sell things, but have long since given up the ghost.
This is the heading of a piece by “Econsultancy Pulse”.
HSBC’s Head of Marketing Performance on data democratisation and data lineage mapping
Perhaps you can tell me what it means, I find it completely incomprehensible.
But the more incomprehensible people sound the more the higher-up ignorant moon calves seem to lap it up.
Let’s see what this sort of thing leads to in the way of advertising.
If you can tell me how any of those ads even hint at a reason to choose HSBC as their bank I shall be astonished, and deeply impressed.
And I am in a good position to judge why someone chooses that bank – because I’m a customer.
Why, you may wonder?
Because although they are as deplorable as other banks, and even worse are kow-towing to the evil Chinese government, they offer a very good telephone banking service.
The people I talk to are helpful, friendly and well-informed – a pleasure to do business with.
David Ogilvy’s mentor Raymond Rubicam said “the only purpose of advertising is to sell. It has no other function worth mentioning”.
That is quoted in “How to Write Sales Letters (and emails) That Sell” a book David Ogilvy advised people to “read and re-read. It contains the knowledge of a lifetime”.
Was he right?
Why not get a copy signed by the author – yours truly – and find out?
Drayton
P.S. You can also pick up a PDF copy for only $30 – right here.
