This Skittles Commercial Is the Spinal Tap of DTC

The 2008 documentary It Might Get Loud showcased 3 highly influential guitar players of the modern-rock era: Jimmy Page, Jack White, and The Edge. It’s a brilliant film. You really should watch it if you haven’t yet.

One glaring moment was when The Edge recounted the time he watched This Is Spinal Tap. He said, “Spinal Tap….That's a movie that I watched. I didn't laugh, I wept.”

Those weren’t “I laughed so hard I cried” tears. Those were tears of shame. Not because The Edge had himself been guilty of the same big-haired, cheese-rock, melodramatic antics that Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins, and Derek Smalls got up to. It was because the parody was so spot on that it was hard not to take personally.

And that’s how I felt when I watched this brand‑new Skittles^® commercial from Canada.

DTC TV spots are certainly not new fodder for parody. Saturday Night Live has been taking jabs at the category for ages. But having the likes of SNL poke fun at DTC was a little like an outsider looking in and laughing at us. It’s a whole different ball of wax to have our marketing brethren do so. That’s an inside job, a more personal jab. (And it seems to be a common trend—here’s another pharma spoof for Stoogesta, courtesy of the upcoming Three Stooges movie.)

Just as The Edge was chagrined by the over-the-top parody of rock‘n’roll in Spinal Tap, I was gutted when I saw that Skittles commercial. It cut a bit too close to home. Look at every cut in that spot—you’ve seen them all before. Every smile, promise, motion, on-screen effect—all of it. You’ve been seeing them for close to 20 years now.

So how did we get here? Have we squandered the last 15 years creating a monolithic category of pharmaceutical advertising that can be summarily goofed on in 60 seconds by a candy company? You know the answer to that question: yes.

I have worked in DTC marketing for almost 10 years now. And I want to continue to do so for the foreseeable future (at least as long as the FDA allows us to communicate directly to consumers to keep them better informed). But I also want to stay in DTC because I never want to make a “typical DTC commercial.”

Take another look at that Skittles ad. Soak in the horror of such creative mediocrity. Do our consumers really want to see creative like that? As marketers, are we truly satisfied that that sort of work is what we’re churning out day after day, month after month, year after year? Watch that spot again and let it drive you to create something better, more meaningful, that matters. We CAN do better. We CAN create fascinating imagery and tell stories that smash the norms of DTC advertising. We CAN create meaningful messages that do more than serve as fair balance wallpaper in a commercial pod.

We continually struggle to get standout creative to market. We don’t always succeed but that doesn’t mean we or anyone else should stop trying.

Let’s never give anyone reason to rip on our creative again. Do it first and foremost for the consumer. They deserve better. Then let’s do it for ourselves. Because we’re better than that.

-Des

Be the Patient

Every time I’ve started a patient-centric initiative, I’ve given the direction to my teams: Be the patient. I’ve found this helps provide my creatives with a deeper understanding of what an average patient is going through. Recently, I took my own advice a bit too literally—I broke my left humerus bone and spent a day in an ER, followed by a day spent with a highly regarded orthopedist. Having never broken a major bone before, the experience was both very painful and very instructive.

Upon arrival at the hospital, I sensed an information disconnect—I kept asking questions but only got selective information in return. It seemed the hospital staff wanted me to feel comforted by giving me some answers while flat out ignoring others. They weren’t really listening to what I was asking for. This experience got me thinking about how we listen (or don’t listen) to patients in focus groups.

I’ve spent as much time as anyone in dark focus-group rooms, chain-chomping M&M’s^® and taking notes on patient stories. But my accident made me wonder if my previous objectives had been to hear what I wanted to hear rather than to try to understand what patients were truly saying. Since patients are usually quite expressive in focus groups, if we really listen when they speak about how they are feeling, we can end up with keener, truer insights that might change the type of strategies and concepts we come up with in the future. It could also affect the patient’s long-term health.

For instance, at extrovertic we were recently able to discover a valuable truth about a patient group. This truth completely changed how we viewed the group and our approach, which ultimately resulted in very successful pre-launch and launch campaigns. We came to this truth by listening differently, not just to what the patients were saying about their condition, but to other significant experiences they’d been through in their lives. We established a greater understanding of our target demographic through this process.

To that end, listening beyond what patients are saying to truly get at what they are expressing or feeling can continue to help us find patient truths. With those truths, we can offer patients what they really need and not what we think they need. As a patient, I know I certainly would have appreciated being more closely listened to.

Are you really listening to what people are trying to tell you?

-Tom

Why Did I Do That?

About a month ago, I realized I was in need of some refocusing and re-centering. Since it was winter in New York City, the prospect of a trip to California was a fabulous one. So I found a meditation retreat in Cali and off I went!

When I arrived at the meditation center, one of the themes of the weekend was “pay attention to your intention.” My first thought was, “What the heck does that mean?” But once I managed to reign in my thoughts, sit quietly, and meditate (always a difficult task for an extrovert!), I realized the importance of these words. If you are in touch with your intention at any given moment, no matter what the activity, you come to terms with what it is that you’re really after.

For instance, I think that I need to go to the gym more often.  If what I really intend to do is go to the gym, I need to make a plan, right?

      1.     Find a gym.

      2.     Pick a time to go to said gym (and incorporate into already hectic schedule).

      3.     Pack workout clothes and bring to work.

So why is it that even when I define my goals and identify an approach, I don’t always accomplish what I set out to do? It all comes back to intention. When I reflected on this, I realized that I don’t really appreciate the benefits of going to the gym—I’d much rather go for a nice long walk. So I don’t even bother wasting the energy trying to push myself if my intention isn’t really to go.

As I thought about it, I realized that this applies to everything. Intention already has a firm place in my work as a marketer. Every time we put a plan, proposal, or a creative project together, we are thinking about our intention—our objective. And if we’re not fully committed to and aware of our objective from the very beginning, whatever we’re working on generally becomes a mess. We end up changing direction midstream, or have to start over on the creative. 

Intention is the reason extrovertic holds the creative brief in such high regard. I know sometimes it’s a hassle to go through the process of discussing the assignment, waiting for the brief, reviewing it with your team, and then waiting for a revision before finally signing off on it. It’s just a brochure, right?? But if we’re not clear about our intentions, we might end up with a brochure that doesn’t accomplish its goals. So, in the month since I’ve returned, it’s been interesting to reflect on my everyday actions and think about my intentions. Does every extrovertic project maintain the intentions of the brief?

The best part of this experience has been realizing that intention (or lack thereof) is something I maintain complete control over. Whenever I want, I can reorient to infuse everything in my life with a bit more purpose and focus.

Try to take some time to “pay attention to your intention” and apply this to your own life. Experiment a little with thinking about why you approach situations in the way you do. Then try changing your approach and see what happens. I bet you will have some fascinating discoveries. It’s amazing what you can learn on a beautiful February day in California.

-Nichole 

Acting out for branding’s sake

For those of you who don’t know, the extrovertic offices are populated with very lively, hard-working, sociable, and yes, loud people (we are extroverts after all). Our natural exuberance was put to work by taking 2 days to turn strategic, creative, and account resources loose.

The motivation for this mayhem? Designing extrovertic.  

The goal of this project was to redesign the agency to offer a uniquely extrovertic level of service to our clients, and to create a brief for rebranding the agency to better reflect the way we work, communicate, and to explain why we exist. To develop our ideas, we broke into multiple teams. Each was named for different masters of design: 

  

   ·     Milton Glaser
      o   Famous for designing the “I Love NY” logo

   ·      Jonathan Ive
      o   Famous for his iconic designs at Apple

   ·      Charles and Ray Eames
      o   Famous for their amazing designs and comfortable furniture

The motivation behind naming each team after a famous designer was to get us thinking about elegant yet innovative solutions. Employing a design mentality means going deep into understanding how something should work and then ensuring that its ultimate aesthetic serves a true purpose. Ultimately, we didn’t want extrovertic to merely look different, we wanted to be different. In our small groups, we discussed our professional pasts and presents to discern what worked and what didn’t. Topics we brainstormed included:

   ·      How do you make a lasting impact on a client during and after a pitch?

   ·      What is the extrovertic client journey?

   ·      What makes an agency a fun place to work at?

Lastly, each team presented their findings to the agency as a whole. In true extrovertic style, some of the presentations deviated from the PowerPoint norm— some groups even showed off their acting prowess by presenting their findings in hysterically funny skits.

And the result?

With a deeper understanding of what we stand for and how we work, we developed new agency branding and updated our website (see last week’s blog post). To get a better idea of how it has changed our work and work environment, you can keep reading our blog, or better yet, become a client or extrovert and see for yourself!

-Jared

Referencing—a Necessary Evil?

In the wonderful world of pharma advertising, copywriting has its challenges. Surprisingly, describing diseases and medicines are not at the top of the list.

The real challenges are those that send shivers up and down the spines of even the most seasoned writers, such as referencing. This is the process of finding information to substantiate pieces of advertising, and then backing up the facts with specific sources (think college research papers). When faced with this prospect for the first time, many writers see it as a kind of brutal hazing—welcome to pharma!

So why do we need to reference? Because the FDA says so. If you’re writing something that states that shortness of breath is a symptom of heart failure, you’d better be able to prove it with reputable research. Referencing accurately is an important and required part of the writing process, and the FDA does sometimes ask to see where the facts came from.

It’s the writer’s responsibility to make sure that their source material is correct. I’ve heard that some agencies hand off written pieces to their account team so they can track down the backup. This seems ridiculous to me. Since the writer wrote the piece, he or she knows where the facts come from. So why wouldn’t we be the ones to reference our own work?

In the past, my opinions about who “owns” the referencing process has gotten me into trouble with writers who’d rather have a root canal than go through this potentially painful process. But, as an extrovert, I believe that this responsibility rests squarely on the writer. Yes, it’s tons of work. And yes, it can be frustrating. But it’s the best way to ensure you’ll be able to look your client squarely in the eye and confidently tell them that all your information is kosher. And though references and annotations are invisible to the consumer, they’re crucial to the client’s legal, regulatory, and medical responsibilities. Not to mention an agency’s reputation.

When it comes to referencing, I’ve been teased that I “drank the Kool-Aid.” Perhaps. Or maybe it’s just that I like being able to stand behind every piece I work on and know that when it comes to accuracy, it’s bulletproof. If that’s “drinking the Kool-Aid” bring that pitcher right on over.

-Jacqi