This week, I had the opportunity to talk with Tim O’Leary over the phone. Tim is the CEO of Respond2, an advertising agency who admits traditional ads no longer work. Instead of creating entertainment and labeling it “branding” or simply settling for exposure, Respond2 creates direct response campaigns for a variety of impressive clients.

Tim is also an entrepreneur and author of the new book Warriors, Workers, Whiners & Weasels. You can find out more about the book at Tim’s website and blog.

This week, I’ll share the portion of our conversation concerning the current state of advertising. Next week, we’ll discuss Tim’s new book and blog.

DUST!N
I think that when I read the book Permission Marketing by Seth Godin, I came away with a greater respect for direct response TV and infomercials. They fall right into that mindset and philosophy that if people want to watch it and if they’re interested in your product, they will watch the information you’re giving them about your product if you’re telling your story well. Instead of this idea that the commercial is an interruption that people aren’t anticipating and aren’t looking forward to seeing necessarily. Then you spend most of your time just getting their attention versus getting people that already want to hear what you’re telling them.

Tim O’Leary
Yeah. That’s exactly the way I feel about it. We’ve gotten into this mindset that we have to trick people into being interested in our product. So, you’ve got to do something outrageous and funny happening on television… then you find out it’s a Budweiser commercial. I understand that and I think that’s legitimate for really big major brands where you really understand what the product is. You need that reminder when you hit the store and you say, “Do I want to buy Budweiser or Miller today. Well, that Budweiser ad was funny. I’ll buy that.” They’re top of mind.

But there’s so many products where that’s not the case. Specifically, I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. I turned on my TiVo the other day and there’s an ad where they show the films on the TiVo, and it was for Lexus. I thought, “Gee, I hope this is for the new Lexus hybrid, because I want to know about that.” So, I click it and it’s a little film about chocolate and champagne. Really nicely produced and they went to Europe to shoot it. And it was this very sort of distant analogy about if you like the luxury of chocolate and champagne, then you’re going to love the car. They don’t talk about the car at all, and at the very end there’s just this shot of this car speeding by at 90 miles per hour and you can barely tell what it is. It was a hugely disappointing experience. What a shame because I had already raised my hand and said “I’m interested in this car and I want details.” Wrong place to put obscure brand advertising.

Dustin
Right. That would be like walking into the car dealership and expecting someone who could tell you something about the car, and instead they walk you into a movie about chocolate and champagne, right?

Tim
Exactly right. Yeah, if you went into the dealership and the guy said, “Come sit over at my desk and let’s have some champagne.”

Dustin
And that was your post on advertising’s dirty little secret, right?

Tim
Right.

Dustin
I read that. I liked what you had to say in there. You said that most advertising professionals want to be film makers or fashion designers. They don’t really want to sell the product. Do something that’s going to create and generate new sales. Really what they want to create is some form of artwork. And I think there is a lot of that out there. What do you think is the difference between the “Hollywood wannabes” and maybe the effective advertisers and marketers out there? I think you pointed out TBWA\Chiat\Day’s work for Apple.

Tim
I love the new Apple ads with just the two guys. One guy is the Apple, and one guy is the PC. He’s got the viruses. I love that on a lot of levels. I love, first of all, that it was a simple idea and easy to execute. I love the casting. They used the writer on the Daily Show as the virus guy. I thought that was a smart bit of casting. But they found a very palatable way to deal with specific sales points as to why you would want to buy an Apple over a PC. It makes you think. That’s very hard to do. Most creative directors don’t want to take on that challenge because it’s a lot harder and it’s not as much fun. It’s a lot easier to come up with pretty imagery.

DUST!N
Right, to say, “What can we do that’s going to fit with the brand?”

Tim
I saw this bad example of this a few weeks ago in working on a project with another agency. we advised them how to do it and make it a little more informational and to drive response better. The New York creatives said, “We don’t want this to look like a response ad. It’s got to be beautiful and incredible. They spent $100 – $150k more than they should have and it’s gonna be kinda confusing for the consumer. But you could tell what they were doing. They were doing it to put on their reels. They want to move on somewhere else. I see that all the time where creatives are selfish and they’re doing it because they want to get a different job. It’s a terrible price for the client to pay.

DUST!N
In the end, they’re either advertising their agency or themselves as a creative director, but they’re not advertising the client.

Tim
That’s right. If you’re accountable to a client… and we’re accountable ’cause everyday the client gets a report telling them what happened the day before. I wish sometimes that we didn’t have that responsibility because when it doesn’t go well, it’s pretty awful. A traditional agency doesn’t face that. They say, “Spend $30 million with me and in a year we’ll talk and see how it went.”

DUST!N
So, you talk about a creative director who is just looking out for himself and not for those he’s working for or with… do you categorize someone like that as a weasel?

Tim
Yeah, especially if they’re aware they’re doing it. I think it’s easy to talk yourself into things and talk yourself into thinking you’re doing what’s best for the client. But I think that if you take someone’s money and promise them something and deliver something completely different based on your own personal objectives… that’s a weasely thing to do.

Next week we’ll talk more about Weasels… as well as Warriors, Workers and Whiners and how understanding them may help you deal with coworkers and clients.