Owning Ownability
Illustration by Joel Holtby.
There’s a great way to tell if your idea for an ad has the potential to be great: Switch out your client’s product for a competitor’s. If the ad still works, the idea lacks ownability. And your ad is destined for mediocrity.
Ownability involves discovering what’s unique about your product and letting that be the hero of the story.
Three examples of brand ownability done well:
1) Post’s “Diamond Shreddies” campaign puts the cereal’s unique shape at its heart. And I’m guessing no one will misremember it as the “Diamond Cheerios” campaign.
2) “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” The official rallying cry for debauchery and excess leaves little chance you’ll forget where to find it.
3) Mini Cooper. Here’s a car that wears its identity on its front grille. And in a sea of similarly styled sedans and coupes, Mini owns tiny.
The problem is, most ads aren’t as ownable as they could be. They walk like ads. They talk like ads. But they have nothing essential to say about the products they represent. They’re category promos with a phone number. And they’re missing opportunities to forge meaningful bonds between the brand and the consumers they’re trying to court.
Creating true ownability is hard work. It involves deep study of your product, your market and your consumers. The job is further complicated by the fact that competing products within categories often have precious little to distinguish themselves from each other.
But if the goal is better, more effective ads, it’s well worth adding ownability to your brief’s list of mandatories.
When capacity allows, push hard for ownable ideas.
This would be a great article if products in any given category actually had unique selling points anymore. Some still do, like the examples above, but it’s rarer and rarer. Classic example: Duracell and Energizer. In a side by side comparison, they are essentially the exact same product. If one outlasts the other in a flashlight, the other might be more effective in a remote. There is no clear—arguably even a minute—difference between the two. The only thing that separates them is the brand that’s been developed around them; which is a bigger and far different task than a simple ad campaign. If you can own something, great. But to find the one thing you can actually own may mean splitting hairs to the extent that the advantage you try to sell isn’t something consumers are going to care about or connect with anyway.
Well put Michael.
Let’s say two products are virtually identical in-and-of themselves. How about price? Availability? (Can I get them in White Horse?) Colour. (Will these go with my furniture?) Etc.
Ownability is not a panacea. I’ve just noticed that there are plenty of ads that don’t even try. I’m advocating they do.