Ad Agency's Contest to Find "The World's Greatest Salesperson" Simply Won't
OgilvyOne's competition to find "The World's Greatest Salesperson" -- who must sell a red household brick via YouTube to win -- unintentionally says more about the agency than it does about its respect for the sales process.
The contest is an amusing one -- anyone can enter with a two-minute video uploaded to OgilvyOne's YouTube channel. The author of the best video will win a three-month "fellowship" at the agency to help write a guide to selling in the 21st century. Fair enough.
I've spent a brief period of my career in cold-call sales and found it to be a humbling experience. So allow me to be a humbug about this for 30 seconds:
Check out the agency's brief for the contest: It's a rambling, unfocused document that spends as much time describing why bricks are obsolete (they're no longer used in larger, modern buildings) as it does giving a pocket history of Sumerian civilization (they invented bricks -- and glass-blowing -- it turns out).
While confused briefs are expected from clients seeking agency help -- by definition, a brief wouldn't be confusing if the client didn't need outside help -- I was hoping for more from Ogilvy. This is an agency that's seen hundreds of daft client demands, and given a free hand to write its own it instead adopts all the faults of the genre. Here's a sample:
Target audience: Who are we trying to convince: This is open for you to decide but it should be someone who could actually take action for consideration or purchase. Sure, construction, but who else do you think could use it?Right there, you can tell that what Ogilvy knows about the brick business can be written on the back of a very small brick indeed. Woe betide the salesperson who decides for themselves who might buy a product.
The most disappointing part is Ogilvy's version of what counts as a "sale":
What do we want them to DO: Take action today towards buying a red brick for their use.So, no actual brick sales are required. Only an ad agency -- or in OgilvyOne's case a "direct marketing and interactive marketing network" -- could believe that joining a relevant social networking site was the equivalent of a sale. "Or visit store" is almost an afterthought, even though that's the whole point.How do we want them to respond: You have the option of how you want people to respond but it must include some kind of measurable response. Examples: Phone call, SMS, email visit web site, join relevant social network or visit store.
So entrants should be aware going in that the winner will be the most entertaining sales video maker -- and not, in fact, the world's greatest salesperson.
Image by Flickr user oskay, CC.