Посты с тэгом: extreme consequence

Marketing Innovation: The Extreme Consequence Tool

Published date: May 7, 2012 в 3:00 am

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Commercials that show the benefits of using the product are likely to be ignored because consumers expect it.  The message becomes cliche.  If the advertiser shows how the consumer is transformed by using the product, consumers become skeptical.  Telling viewers they will become young and adventurous by drinking a soft drink lacks credibility.  It is wishful thinking, but unrealistic.  The ad is tossed aside.

But show these same product benefits in an extreme, unrealistic way and the advertisement is likely to be more memorable.  The message sinks in.  That is the goal of the Extreme Consequence Tool.  This tool creates ads that show the absurd result of using the product.  Over exaggeration of the promise is viewed as clever and credible versus traditional exaggeration.

The tool is one of eight patterns embedded in most innovative commercials.  Jacob Goldenberg and his colleagues describe these simple, well-defined design structures in their book, “Cracking the Ad Code,” and provide a step-by-step approach to using them.  The tools are:
1. Unification
2. Activation
3. Metaphor
4. Subtraction
   5. Extreme Consequence
6. Absurd Alternative
7. Inversion
8. Extreme Effort

Here is an example from Mercedes Benz.

Innovation Sighting: Cannes Lions 2010

Published date: June 28, 2010 в 3:00 am

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Cannes Lions, the International Advertising Festival, is the world’s only truly global meeting place for professionals in the communications industry.  It celebrates advertising winners each year in a variety of categories.  The 57th festival was held last week.

The Young Lions Film Competition is held the same week.  Two creatives have 48 hours to write, shoot and edit a 30-second commercial. At the beginning of the week, the teams receive a brief from a charity chosen by the Festival. Forty-eight hours later, the teams’ work is judged by the Film Lions jury.  Here is a winning commercial from this year’s Young Lions Film Competition:


This commercial is an example of the Unification tool, one of the eight advertising tools described by Dr. Jacob Goldenberg and his colleagues in their new book, Cracking the Ad Code.  The tool works by making new use of existing resources.  There are two unification approaches: use components of the medium, or recruit a new medium in the environment.  In this example, a water goblet has been given the additional “job” of “sounding the alarm” about the lack of access to water.  Commercials using this tool tend to be cost effective, memorable, and most importantly, creative.

Here are all eight of the advertising tools.

  1. Unification
  2. Activation
  3. Metaphor
  4. Subtraction
  5. Extreme Consequence
  6. Absurd Alternative
  7. Inversion
  8. Extreme Effort

If you had only 48 hours to innovate an award-winning commercial in Cannes, these tools would be the best  place to start!

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