Who says

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If the premise of advertising is to distract an audience’s attention from a product’s perceived shortcomings, and not to draw attention to them, any advertisement that starts with the rhetorical, “who says...” is getting things profoundly wrong.

Cheese, port, and crusty old buggers

The classic case was a poster spotted on the tube a few years ago, from the Blue Cheese Marketing Board — it may have the Fortified Wines Collective come to think of it, or the Cheap Plonk and Stinky Dairy Joint Association — along these lines:

“Who says port and stilton are just for old men?”

More recently, an Australasian purveyor Niepoort asked,

“Who says port isn’t sexy?”

Or even

“Who says port is just for Christmas?”

To which the only answer is, “YOU JUST DID, YOU IDIOT.” The message you are trying to convey is anything but that. You had unlimited choice in your campaign strategy: why on earth would you choose to dwell on that perception?

When it comes to port and stilton, the world divides into three classes:

1. Non-consumers, who believe it to be only for crusty old men.
2. Non-consumers, and who do not believe it to be only for crusty old men.
3. Consumers, regardless of whom they think it is for or how crusty they believe themselves to be.

So consider how this advertisement might go over with those three classes:

To win over non-consumers who already hold that perception, you will need to say something more imaginative than, “you’re wrong, you know.” So it won’t work for them.

To win over non-consumers who do not believe that — there must be some — the last thing you want to admit is that that this is, in fact the general consensus. “Oh, so people think port and stilton is only for old men?

And what is it going to do to your valuable core constituency: current customers. These are people who we know do like port and stilton. Even if they are crusty old buggers, the odds are they will be in denial about it, or at the very least regretful about it, but wishful in any case that they were not crusty old buggers. Those who are not crusty old buggers will find affront at the allegation that they are. Either way they will think: I had better not drink port or eat stilton any more, because people will think I am a crusty old bugger if I do that.

Recent examples

Ariya: This advertisement for Nissan’s ARIYA electric crossover asks:

“Who said electricity can’t excite us any more?”

The JC was like, “What? Well, YOU just did, for one thing, and for another, no-one else ever did. ‘Electric’ is literally a synonym for “exciting”.