The Yellow Book...

is using borrowed interest in an awareness-raising campaign. An awareness-building campaign using borrowed interest? That's almost an oxymoron.

The commercial I've seen suggests that Yellow Book could expand into all sorts of other businesses - skate boards, clothing, and four or five others. Each suggestion has the Yellow Book prominently displayed on a skate board, etc. Then it ends by saying, well, perhaps we'll just continue as a phone directory.

If you had no awareness of Yellow Book, this would certainly be a confusing ad. If you did, it gave you no reason to use it.

I was a newly-hired account executive with a prominent NYC ad agency back in the 1960's on an account called SBC - Service Bureau Corporation. It had just been "unbundled" from IBM and needed to establish awareness with the business community.

Our creative staff came up with a campaign based on borrowed interest. Each cartoon-like illustration featured an irrelevant character (I remember a trapeze artist) and a headline that said something about "this guy doesn't need to know about SBC".

I quietly told the account supervisor about my doubt that this approach would garner relevant awareness, but in this shop, creative was king. He told me to go sell the campaign.

Two months later, I was gone, and the campaign lasted just another couple of months before SBC changed agencies.

For me, I'd find things of interest and relevance in my company and its products. Then I'd promote them to people who might have an interest in those benefits.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, or maybe I'm a sly old fox. What do you think?

Martin Jelsema
Signature Strategies

Helping smaller companies profit from the power of branding