'Solve a problem.' That's what they teach you at advertising school - and it's not a bad lesson. If one can identify, spotlight and fix a problem a consumer is enduring, then you really have a selling point. Really it's the 'What's in it for me?' question from the other end of the equation.
So, if your orange juice is fresher than your competitor's, you run a campaign which promises to solve the not-very-fresh-orange-juice problem for the shopper. And if your target purchaser is worried stupid about the holes in their teeth, offer them a toothpaste that protects against problem cavities. Solve a problem - it works every time.
Sadly, this robust theory of advertising comes unstuck when you have a product or service which doesn't solve a familiar problem. Happily, you can always build one. I remember when they introduced sugar-free baked beans. I'm sure I wasn't alone in being surprised regular baked beans were full of sugar in the first place. But when I discovered they were, I had a problem. Bingo! Problem solved by sugar-free beans. The beans people had both created and solved a problem.
"Oh yeah! Now we're getting paranoid!"
This being the 21st century and everything, we now require things to be more complex. Sugar in baked beans is no longer enough to cause sufficient anxiety. No, what really gets us going is something like a credit rating. Oh yeah! Now we're getting paranoid. What do they know about us? Who are they telling? What fabulous luxury goods will we be denied if our collective credit ratings are all over the place? Man, now we're worried; now we have a problem. And here come Experian to solve it.
In their current ad, Experian tell us we own our credit rating, and therefore, we are entitled to see it and fiddle with it. After all, if it isn't accurate, we need to put it right - otherwise all those lovely cars and houses and stuff will fall beyond our grasp. Luckily, Experian can arrange that. For a fee (naturally) we can all take a peek at our rating and work out why all our bank cards have been stopped and there's a man in a trenchcoat hanging around outside our workplace. In other words, we can access our credit record.
Fair enough, there's a problem and the nice folk at Experian are solving it. What's so wrong with that? Well, this service is only one half of the Experian business. Guess what else they do? That's it, they create credit records, which they charge lenders to access when punters show up wanting to borrow some dough.
Do you see what they've done there? They've created something that causes a problem from some users and solves it for others. THEN, they've offered to solve it for the first lot in exchange for a fee, while continuing to charge the second lot for creating it. Which they rather avoid explaining in their advertisement.
Maybe that's how all contemporary marketing works. Or perhaps Experian have arrived at the purest example of the art. Either way, you have to admire their front.
Magnus Shaw is a copywriter, blogger and consultant
