Who says

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A page given over to occasional gems from the advertising industry. If the premise is that advertising should distract an audience’s attention from perceived a product’s shortcomings and not draw its attention to them, any advertisement that starts with the rhetorical, “who said that...” is getting things profoundly wrong.

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

“Who said port and stilton was just for old men?”

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

This advertisement for Nissan’s ARIYA electric crossover starts off, “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”.