Who says

The design of organisations and products →Go uptown Sexless, crusty old bugger who only comes out at Christmas, yesterday. Index: Click ᐅ to expand: Design Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

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, on X:

“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 unsexy/only for Christmas and/or crusty old men.
2. Non-consumers who do not believe it to be so.
3. Consumers, regardless of how sexy, when or for whom they believe it, or themselves to be.

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

1. Non-consumers already of that opinion will need to hear something more compelling than, “you’re wrong, you know.”
2. Non-consumers who do not believe that — there must be some — the last thing you want to admit is that that this is any kind of consensus. “Oh, so people think port and stilton is only for old men? I didn’t realise.”
3. Current customers are people who we know do like port and stilton. Regardless of their physical appeal, crustiness or drinking schedule, the odds are they will be in denial, or at least regretful, about it and wishful things were otherwise. Those young and sexy port drinkers who are not will 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 a sexless, crusty old bugger who only comes out at Christmas if I do that.”

No-one likes crusty, sexless old buggers who only come out at Christmas. Except kids, and they don’t usually like stilton and won’t be allowed port, even though they would probably love it.

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”.