THE ADNEWS NGEN BLOG: Is no-call-to-no-action advertising leaving us Undaunted?

I work within UM’s strategy unit on the Federal Government account. Our responses to clients are often centered around how we can use advertising and media to affect behaviour change amongst Australians.

Feeling rather un-opinionated this week, I turned to a now old issue of AdNews (21 September 2012) in search for some topical inspiration. I skimmed through mummy bloggers, top advertising reports and industry events by which my attention was not hauled, until I came to a full page ad (yes an ad!) amongst the back pages. The ad was a close-up photograph of a teenage girl’s face with yellow, arial-esque copy that read “Undaunted” and a simple date (26-09-12) below.

This curious full-page ad in the cobwebbed section of Adnews provoked a question around the entrenched behaviour that advertising holds within its own stead, in particular the beloved call-to-action; that being a particle of an ad that tells the audience what they must do next. Call-to-actions come in various forms of instruction, even brand identities can embody a call to action themselves; when people see a brand logo, they automatically know what to do next.

For those of you wishing to play along (it’s necessary that you have a stack of mint condition Adnews on your desk, still in the plastic for preservation), turn to page 40, thereafter you may ponder the meaning of this single word and date glaring back at you with no further instruction, let alone who the advertiser is.

I held up the page to my workstation peers and asked in my best confused sorority voice “What do you think this ad is for?” After 12 seconds of staring and a quick shrug they each resorted to their trusted search engines to decipher this “Undaunted” message. They began to engage (in the media terminology sense) with the unknown in hot anticipation of what they would find.

After 30 seconds, a Miriam Dictionary definition, an amateur YouTube track and a Wikipedia entry on the World War One HMS Undaunted, we remained all but daunted (ironically), yet still engaged in every sense with a full-page colour ad on page 40 of Adnews. The lack of any follow-through in Search-landia is either poor strategy, or genius enough to garner a guest NGen blogger’s attention enough to write about it (earned media impressions, swishhhh).

However, as the date in the ad copy has now expired and further no Mayan predictions amounted from it, our intrigue will ultimately line the kitty litter tray alongside this particular Adnews’ print edition.

Feline depositories aside, similar expressions in the form of poetic teaser campaigns within our industry live or die with what comes next. If the propositions don’t live up to the initial intrigue, female grocery buyers may decide that they CAN’T be bothered to change their banking institution or that they’d rather sleep in than WAKE UP and buy a new mobile phone.

I am not aiming to critique creativity here; rather I am curious as to whether consumers outside of the marketing industry actually respond to solely being teased by brands rather than by being provided some form of utility as an extension of their products or services.

Let’s bring this back to page 40 of Adnews (21 September 2012). Is a no-call-to-no-action (NCTNA™) more compelling in order for consumers to change their flaccid, ad-gazing behaviour than advertising’s entrenched call-to-actions? The average ninety second engagement rate across my colleagues may suggest yes, but in this case, if there is no mojo behind the message, we will all be left rather undaunted after all.

Christian Tough
Strategist
UM Australia