75 DON’T MINCE YOUR WORDS

Some years ago cattle farmers in Queensland, Australia were becoming worried at the falling sales of their beef. They decided that the answer might lie in an advertising campaign.

They duly invited a number of advertising agencies from Sydney to come up and pitch for the business, but the slick planners and creative types didn’t mix well with the straight-talking ranchers. The ranchers didn’t think much of all their talk of brand positionings, core target groups and image building, and didn’t see the need to differentiate between stimulus and response.

In short, they thought the “luvvies” were talking a load of bullshit. The admen didn’t seem to get the fact that the ranchers just wanted to sell more beef. So the creatives and the suits went back to Sydney empty-handed. The farmers were still convinced that they needed something simple, strong and direct, however. Since it didn’t seem that difficult, they decided they would do the ads for themselves.

“What’s so difficult about it? All we want to do is tell the bastards to eat more beef,” said one.

And so one of the world’s most famous campaigns was born – on billboards, T-shirts, in butchers’ windows and on car stickers, the (in)famous tagline was soon appearing:

“Eat More Beef You Bastards”.

And the moral is that it pays to know your target audience. With what tone of voice should you be talking to your potential customers?