Influence This.

It's all about the message.

“Message first? That’s just some tripe from copywriters trying to pretend that words are the most important part of marketing. Just whack a celebrity endorsement on and you’ll be winning.”

So spake Johnny Strawman, a real human I argued with at The Old Pencil and Pisspot before a marketing meet-up a few weeks ago.

It riled me up. You know how these things go.

He says something.

You say something.

Next thing, you’re nose-to-nose, snarling, broken bottles in hand.

I looked down at his bottle. He looked at mine.

I started laughing. Because I knew I’d won.

In my hand was a frosted glass bottle that contained luxury French vodka before I smashed it on the brass rail of the bar.

In his hand was a clear-to-blue gradiated bottle of luxury French vodka that he’d formed into a weapon in the same way.

That dickhead though, he’d picked up the Cîroc. I won the second I’d picked up the Grey Goose.

For those of you not familiar with your beverage lore, both are brands that tried to create a new category. For centuries, vodka has been the drink of choice for the slavic peoples of Eastern Europe who wanted something to make them feel warmer before they had to go out and fight bears/invading Western Europeans/the tides of history.

It’s clear liquid made from rotted potatoes that makes you blind drunk. Tastes and smells of nowt. Champagne it ain’t.

In the 1990s, a guy called Sidney Frank rang up Bacardi and said he’d had an idea. Take Vodka made in France, package it as a luxury product, charge triple, and lean on a message of French decadence and high culture.

Sidney made $2bn off that message. Grey Goose sells millions of cases a year.

Champagne it ain’t. Champagne it sure as hell feels like.

Cîroc launched in 2003 with some shitty confused message about it being just as luxurious as Grey Goose but made from grapes although it didn’t taste of owt. Like the worst brandy ever. It sold 40,000 cases.

Instead of refining that message, Cîroc took a short cut. They told an influencer he could have half the profits on every bottle sold in the USA.

In 2007, Cîroc was the official vodka of that influencer’s new year’s party. It sold 2 million cases that year.

Problem is, that party had a theme. It was a White Party. If that sounds familiar, you’ve seen where this is going.

The influencer was P Diddy. His parties weren’t just Cîroc marketing events, they were fronts for crimes like racketeering and sex trafficking.

He’s in prison now. Diageo are ditching the whole Cîroc brand. So are consumers.

I explained all of this to my foe as we clashed bottles, ending with a flourish and a statement that getting your message right is timeless, and can’t be sunk by outside influence from notorious sex criminals.

Presented with all this evidence of marketing superiority and influencer noncery - along with my lightning quick hands and skill with the bottle - even Johnny Strawman had to put his glass dagger down and hold his hands up.

Not least because GMP were telling us to.

We laughed all the way to the cells. Just like Diddy didn’t.

Bet Johnny wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

Bet Cîroc wished they’d put their message first.

Something mint - nothing mint this week

Sorry. Had the flu, so not had chance to do my usual deep dive into good ads.

However, here’s two awful pieces of signage (one spotted by me, one by Nick Pagan) and a great one shared on LinkedIn by the Trotts (aptly)

What’s wrong with “This door’s stuck, please use the other one?” Why get so granular about the point of failure.

And this one goes the other way. It’s not granular, but I’ve not learned anything.

This one, however. Magnificent. That horrific is doing a hell of a lot of work. Word choices matter, people.