Your audience is stoned
In this guest post, Tom Donald reckons advertisers should wake up to the fact that their audience is often high on marijuana.
From Cheech and Chong in the 1970s through to recent Judd Apatow films, we all recognise there’s a cinematic genre best enjoyed under the influence: “stoner movies”. And we all know that most music genres – from jazz through psychedelia, metal, hip hop, house and electronica – sound best when your mind is altered by booze, blunted by weed, or tweaked by a chemical substance.
Yet we never openly talk about ‘stoner ads’, which is curious as they are some of our industry’s most successful.
Think about the most talked about, viral, socially shared, creatively awarded, and Effie winning advertising efforts of recent(ish) times:
Never a truer word spoken methinks! I plan to use the WWJAD approach on my next consumer targeted project!
Mad article man *smokes blunt*
is it April 1?
This reminds me of that KFC campaign from a few years back: “Get the munchies”
On reflection stoners probably make up a significant portion of their clientele!
Priceless!
The insight that dare not speak its name.
You sir, are a fucking genius.
By programming to males of a certain age demographic, digital channel 7mate, inadvertently created Australia’s first stoner channel IMHO. Ads on this channel should reflect this reality.
ahhhh, reminds me of the 1st time my mum asked me if I was on drugs. I just answered: “It takes one to know one”
Nice to read a bit of fantasy every now and then.
Your article induced the phantom munchies for this reader, but unfortunately the ‘insights’ that lead to your supposition worked as the neutralising agent.
Plenty of research around how viral works. But thanks for the ride!
Oh Agency people….. God bless you for casting aside reason, measure and the actual sale of a good and grasp at straws like this….. I do at least find that your quest to get closer to the audience novel….. But the guesswork continues. Just give business people sound strategy based on actual understanding rather than more bubble boy style guesswork……. Nice step in the right direction.
Thought provoking. Great article.
There are not enough mind expanding things in advertising – this is one of them.
Wow Tom you are really brave to say this out loud ; )
Gold. Give this man an agency
Thank you for the kind words and critique. Both appreciated.
(I should go on record as saying I’m not a pot-head. Don’t abuse the stuff daily, or even weekly. Rarely monthly. And I meant “stoned” to include booze, too. Further, the piece was tongue-in-cheek, and I hope it’s taken as such… A “Friday Fluffer”…)
That said, I now realise there is one serious point that underlies it. And it’s one that Ferrier and others who approach planning from a psychology and behavioural economics POV might appreciate. It’s one that challenges most market research (which is mostly methodologically bankrupt, yet we continue to do it… but that’s another story) and the way most marketers and planners think about their target audience. But it’s very simple: Context is everything.
What do I mean?
We assume the “insights” about target audiences uncovered by demographic analysis and traditional market research techniques are relevant and useful for developing effective marketing communications. But behavioural economics (and other stuff by folks like Mark Earls, Duncan Watts, and Nassim Taleb amongst others) reveals that who we are and how we respond to things is entirely dependent on the moment we are in. Right here. Right now.
But traditional market research – focus groups, phone/online surveys, panel data – is entirely divorced from situational context. No one watches/reads/hears advertising in a focus group room, or while on the phone or online answering a survey.
This means that the profiles and archetypes we build of our audiences or segments have no understanding of who those people are at the moments in which they consume the ads.
All of this leans towards the importance of ethnography (in all its guises) which is not new news to planners. Why? Because only ethnography will reveal that a more useful insight (from a marketing communications POV) about your audience than anything you can derive from demographics or what they’ll tell you in a survey or focus group, might be that they’re stoned at the time they see your ads. (Or similar.)
Long story short: More ethnography and more hard data about actual behaviour (as opposed to reported behaviour) and less lazy reliance on focus groups and surveys.
OK… where’s the bourbon… 😉
I make it a personal rule to . . . never be stoned when shopping or driving.
Also I never act upon wish-lists concocted by my brain in the wee small hours.
However I realise it is not the same for most Australians, who do indeed seem to have a completely different agenda.
Hire this man.
yes, love all those ads, sober and tanked. Have I bought any of those products as a result> Nup, zip. Advertising industry is so far up its own clacker its completely lost sight of what its supposed to be doing.
@Woody: You’re making the micro to macro error. (Projecting from a small sample – yourself – onto the world.)
Advertising is supposed to be about selling products, right?
And the best evidence available suggests ‘stoner ads’ are very effective at moving products:
Old Spice sales are through the roof.
Gorilla caused a demonstrable rise in UK chocolate sales.
Awareness for Soul is up, and US perceptions of Kia changing with younger people.
Whassup? entered the cultural vernacular – what more can you ask for? – entrenching Bud’s status as the King of Beers and the beer for no-bullshit best mates.
Tongue positively impacted the Extra Dry brand awareness and sales.
And CP+B’s Burger King work improved the fortunes of the business for a while (until McDonald’s woke out of its stupor)
Based on that, I’d say ‘stoner ads’ are entirely focused on what advertising is supposed to be doing: selling stuff. And they do it better than most…
This marks the official start of the silly season…
I don’t know what to say… can I have some stoner products to then view the ads, to see what I think?
Next time I run groups to evaluate comm’s I just might put out a plate of special cookies….
Actually I have had the odd stoner or two in my groups over the years come to think of it
How does 15% of people saying they used illicit drugs at least once in 2010, mostly marijuana, lead to the assertion that audiences are often stoned?
The assertion is baseless without an understanding of the frequency of use.
I didn’t write the byline.
I meant “stoned” in the broadest sense: booze, weed, drugs, whatever – under the influence. Hence the link to this – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_intoxication – from the word “stoned”.
Chill “version”. Have a bourbon. Or a blunt. It’s nearly Xmas.
😉
Tom your on fire.
Love it. Keep challenging the everyday.
sure, but try taking this insight to the client and let us know if u get sign off. a good ad is a good ad whether ur high or not. that will remain the angle even if one day society’s flimsy taboos on the topic are finally lifted.
Izzard (tangentially) on the difference between stoner films and non-stoner films.
http://youtu.be/TjC3R6jOtUo
Pretty much on the money with context. (Which was the actual point of story.)
I’m a cognitive scientist who does research into decision making and we have the same problem. Conducting research in the lab may give very convincing results and insights into people behavior however the real challenge is getting data from the field when people make the same decisions. In recent years the area of naturalistic decision making has grown and one of it’s aims is to take into account the the external and contextual effects that occur in the real world as opposed to the highly controlled and sterile conditions of the lab.
Putting electrodes on people in the mall and shocking them as they shop is so much more insightful (and entertaining) than in the privacy of a lab.. 😉
http://devastatingexplosions.com/
Need I harp on any further…