Achieving better product recall with consumers and the dangers of bombastic PR

The ad shows a guy waking up in a commune type flat with musical instruments and electronica lying around the place.

He gets ready for work and in the process grabs a can of Lipton out of the fridge. The viewer expectancy is dashed however as the Lemon flavour ends up as cologne and not used to drink.

"Be yourself, naturally" is the punch line and the aforementioned technique is the rather obvious one of taking a product and using it in an unusual or unorthodox way.

The point is not whether it is possible to use Lipton as cologne but the recall that viewers have about the product. The word "naturally" is also a great mnemonic and many viewers will remember this ad even if they didn't see it, as work colleagues and friends will no doubt talk about it even if it is only to criticise it.

A rather amusing print ad appeared over the weekend in the Sunday Times that also highlighted the power of mnemonics when writing copy. South African Airways were punting their sponsorship of the 93rd SA Open with the punch line, "Beware of flying objects".

Whether the immediate connection in the reader's mind is positive and related to golf balls or negative and related to SAA aircraft is debatable, but somebody should have vetoed this clumsy approach in the current era of the very real fear of flying objects.

When it comes to PR the ANC don't always use subtlety and their manifesto being launched live on SABC has reopened the can of worms around the independence of our national broadcaster.

It is tempting to take advantage of things like this when in power and cloak it as being in the national as well as continental interest but this could return to haunt them especially as the opposition will gain mileage by demanding similar treatment.

Successful advertising and PR is based on assessing the overall affect of words and media coverage. The reader or viewer does not necessarily get the message in the same format as it was sent and may actually see it as negative rather than the positive angle intended by agency and client.