Do you really want to get your brand mixed up with toe-suckers and professional irritants?
A tale of the time I didn't kick off with the proprietor of ChipVan92
I nearly did something incredibly stupid this morning.
I came within a hair’s breadth of commenting on Gary Neville’s LinkedIn post about the something-or-other92. Academy92 or Hotel92 or ChipVan92.
It doesn’t matter what it was.
But almost on autopilot, I’d typed out a response saying how kind, how generous Mr Neville is.
That even though he’d played for a team that spent billions of pounds more than their rivals and practically invented the tactic of chasing a ref round screaming abuse to whine their way to loads of tin pots, he’d kindly decided to pay tribute not to those cheats, bullies, and toe-suckers but to Howard Wilkinson and his title winning Leeds United side of 1992.
As much as I’d like to kick off with Gary Neville again1, I didn’t post it for two reasons.
One, I cannot for the life of me be mithered with the dogs abuse I’d get off Man United fans if I’d posted that. It’d be all fucking day. Blah blah blah Leeds scum sheep shagger second division blah blah blah.
I ain’t got time for that.
Two, the joke wouldn’t land. Because to most people outside LS11, 92 in a football context means the so-called “class of 92.” Those Manchester United academy players who went on to be outed as philandering, toe-sucking, family wrecking, violent reprobates won the 1992 Youth Cup and then just about everything else.
To me, 92 means The Last Champions - Strachan and Gary Mac and Batts and dear departed Speedo.
To proper anoraks, it means the 92 club. That select group who’ve been to all 92 Football League and Premier League grounds (I’m on 46).
Because that’s a problem with referencing things. If other people don’t share your frame of reference, you’re saying something entirely different.
Football Anorak 92 means something entirely different to Class of 92. One of them’s a group of maladjusted weirdos you wouldn’t want to be stuck in a room with2, and the other’s some well-meaning football fans.
So if you’re making cultural references in your copy, ask yourself three things.
Is it relevant enough that everyone in my audience gets my intention?
Does my audience not getting it render my copy entirely toothless?
Can I be mithered dealing with contrarian dickheads like Andrew who’ll deliberately misunderstand my reference and go off on one about Howard Wilkinson?
Believe me. I wish I’d asked myself these questions when I named my first business 603 Copywriting. But that’s a mistake - and a reference - for another day.
Something mint - this drama-free IBM spot
Another campaign you’ll eventually be able to read about in more detail on the HNW site, and something we hold up as a great example of message first marketing.
So many tech ads are about tech. Faster processors, hotter firewalls, splines that reticulate at an alarming rate.
Yawn. 1.21 jiggawatts isn’t a message. It’s something that says “you can probably just wait and buy 1.22 jiggawatts next year.”
IBM don’t do that. IBM just say “hey, we’re incredibly competent.”
You don’t need to understand the tech, you just need to understand that IBM are good at what they do.
Like this ad. You don’t see the product at all. It doesn’t hammer you with specs, or even with benefits like “more secure data ports.”
It just says we’re so good at what we do, your IT team will be bored shitless. No drama here.
It’s from the same messaging mindset - total competence - that brought us “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.”
And if anything, I like it even more than that 70s classic.
What do you think? The comments section is open for drama, even when IBM isn’t.
PS: Kaz Marston is finally back. Her Substack’s hiatus is what prompted me to fill the gap with UT. Check out her latest post here.
The first time being when he walked into me outside an office in town. “I’m six seven, you tit, how’d you miss me?” was the gist of our conversation.
Robbie Savage was in that team, for fuck’s sake. Imagine being in a room with Robbie Savage for any length of time.