Rehabilitating Rosser Reeves

Rosser Reeves was the champion of the hard sell at the dawn of television advertising in the early 1950s. His commercials, and those produced by Ted Bates while he headed the agency, were all based on a functional product benefit supported by a reason why:

"Wonder Bread builds strong bodies eight ways."

"M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand."

"Colgate toothpaste cleans your breath while it cleans your teeth."

The commercials were about as subtle as a cinder block. Which was exactly what Reeves had in mind. That hard-sell pounding was extremely effective at the time. The U.S. economy – and society – had just left behind the shortages and rationing of World War II and were still in a needs-driven era. Television was such a fascinating new phenomenon that viewers watched avidly even during hard-sell commercials.

As prosperity inaugurated a wants-driven economy, the relationship between people and brands changed. The transactional sale – Reeves' classic definition of advertising as "...an extension, if you will, of the merchant who cries aloud his wares," gave way to the relational sell in which emotions and feelings about the product and its place in the prospects' lives became paramount.

The creative revolution of the 1960s reflected those changes in the economy and society. Bill Bernbach charmed consumers, David Ogilvy flattered them and Bill Backer touched their emotions. Once they'd been artfully romanced, audiences found Reeves' brusque approach unacceptable. The hard-sell fell out of fashion, and trendy creatives reviled Rosser as a tasteless Philistine.

Although Reeves' executional style is now the province of the cheesiest of used car dealers and discount furniture stores, some of his underlying concepts are still valid and valuable. To many ad folk they are inextricably linked with Reeves's pounding hard sell. But they were the precursors of stand-alone principles at the core of almost all effective advertising today.

USP. The Unique Selling Proposition is disparaged as the functional benefit in product-based commercials. And although that's how Reeves used it in the early television era, the concept itself is applicable across a wide range of possible "propositions." It can be an emotional reason why, a subtle reason why or even an identification with a corporate ethic. The key factors are that it is unique (or can pre-empt a characteristic shared with competitors), that it offer a reason to buy, and that it offer a benefit to the consumer. "Ben & Jerry's is socially responsible so buying their ice cream makes me feel socially responsible and therefore I feel good about myself when I suck down a pint of Cherry Garcia," fits the formula every bit as well as the Anacin spot.

Usage Pull. Reeves recommended researching the effectiveness of commercials by comparing intent to purchase among matched panels of people who had and who had not been exposed to the advertising. The difference was the "usage pull," generated by the advertising. This was a pioneering attempt to track the probable sales results (as opposed to recall) of media advertising. One of the startling revelations was that usage pull could be negative. A lot of advertising actually reduced sales. The concept is the Genesis of all of today's marketing communications ROI analyses.

Vampire Video. Reeves was one of the first to point out that distracting the audience with messages or visual elements unrelated to a commercial's main point reduces effectiveness dramatically. He called these (usually visual) distractions vampire video because they can figuratively suck the life from a commercial. Generations of copywriters and producers since have had to re-learn the lesson over and over again. Even worse, some never learn it, and win awards for advertising that "skates on the slippery surface of irrelevant brilliance," to quote Reeves' contemporary David Ogilvy. The danger of vampire video transcends media, and web pages, newspaper ads, outdoor or direct mail can be weakened by irrelevant elements just as easily as the TV spots that were Reeves' métier.

Reeves' book, Reality in Advertising, is now hard to find, even on auction sites. And a great deal of what is says is self-serving. But amidst the bombast and the none-too-subtle sales pitch there are some nuggets on unchanging principles of the craft of persuasion.

There's still a great deal to be learned from Rosser Reeves. Although no marketing communication professional today would perpetrate a commercial like that 1952 Anacin spot, we'd all like to triple our clients' sales.  

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