The Wall Paper Effect in Advertising.

Cash is too hard to come by to waste.  Market share ditto.  So why do we do exactly that when we do wallpaper ads.  You know the kinds you don’t see because they are so familiar and ordinary.

Banks are experts at this.  They normally show the manager shaking hands with the happy couple who they just granted a loan to buy their first home.  The customers look like they won the lottery.  (Which of course, they now have 30 years to give back)

Or what about the liquor ads that promise you the best looking photo-shopped girls money can buy?  We know sex sells but if everyone is showing up with the same storyline, it loses some of its oomph.

What’s the alternative?  Move south when everyone else is going north.  Don’t show people in your bank ads.  Don’t show sexy women in your rum ads.  Instead use metaphors, humor, symbolism, surprise, poetry.

Tell a unique story and in a fresh way.  You will engage your customers and get into their minds and hearts.  And then they will buy your bank brand and your rum.