Was Ogilvy right? Is it necessarily not creative if it doesn’t sell?

“If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative”. That’s a quote attributed to advertising guru, David Ogilvy. It might sound somewhat controversial to some but I have to say that I know exactly where he’s coming from. However, what do you do if your product is about as dull as ditchwater?  What if your client was a manufacturer of basement sump pumps? How would you make your client’s sump pump sound sexy? How would you make it more interesting than the sump pump made by your client’s biggest competitor?

 First, let’s decide what a sump pump is and does. A sump or sump pit is a hole in the ground in a basement. It is designed to collect water. They would typically be found in areas that are susceptible to flooding. A sump pump is a submersible water pump that is used to pipe water out of the basement. They look kind of like they sound – not particularly inspiring to advertising and marketing professionals!

 One manufacturer will insist that the marketing agency uses a picture of his sump pump to be the main feature on a leaflet and will also insist that technical specifications fill the sheet. This is not a creative answer to an advertising problem.

 The other manufacturer will ask, how do I get the homeowner to buy my pump? The agency will tell the manufacturer that the homeowner needs to be told what the product can do and how quickly it can do it. The homeowner also needs to be persuaded to actually read the information and so a creative medium must be used. This is where the Whitney Woods range of products comes into its own.

 Let’s use a dissolver and an age-old ad device – “before and after” pictures. The “before” picture shows a flooded cellar and the “after” picture shows a dry cellar with a smiling housewife on the photo. The headline says, “My flooded cellar was dry in just one hour!” Simple yet persuasive but the creative thinking is in the use of the dissolver. We have three options that could do the trick – a cover operated version, our double dissolver and our original picture dissolver.