Testify. That’s what the CEO long shot is all about. The man in charge addresses the lone camera and reassures and convinces all by uttering his precious words aloud. Just by making his thoughts known they become real.
CEOs are the best magicians!
Here’s the leader of Jersey Mike’s thanking his franchise owners, not his employees, because he doesn’t see them as his employees. The sandwich makers work for the franchise owners.
How do you talk an eager CEO down? In my experience, it takes a client tamer. In this case, the client tamer would have helped Mr. Cancro understand that his restaurant’s customers relate to the people behind the counter, not the people behind the country club gates.
Selfies Are Safe
The CEO of Perdue Chicken took a different approach to his testimonial. For one, he shot it himself with the help of a selfie stick.
Given all that’s going on with COVID-19, Perdue decided to scrap the creative they had planned to launch on March 30 and come up with something new to acknowledge the situation, and in particular thank all of the people who are working overtime to keep the food supply chain up and running during this crisis.
Working with The VIA Agency, the food brand quickly decided the best way to send this message was straight from Chairman Jim Perdue’s heart, in his words, into his own cell phone. In just a few days, VIA’s team came up with a plan, script, and very unorthodox production plan that included Jim filming the spot himself in “selfie mode” while VIA directed remotely.
Most importantly Perdue thanks the farmers, truck drivers, restaurant workers—the people who are rarely seen and even more rarely thanked—for their contributions.
Before COVID-19, Execuspeak Also A Problem
Have you noticed that high tech bros favor sales over marketing? For the tech bro who is a sales guy at heart, advertising is just an expensive sales presentation.
The thing is there is absolutely nothing wrong with featuring the authentic voices from the company in the company’s advertising. If…
If you can get them to spit out the corporate talking points and replace them with genuine human language.
And if you can get to the heart of the company, which in most cases means getting as far away from the executive suite as you can get.
Then, by all means, cast the team members in the company’s commercials.
But when the sales dude CEO veers from the plan and starts pitching and the buzzwords fly every which way, someone who knows how to make effective advertising must speak up. Or the work will suffer and the client’s desire to become rich and famous won’t be facilitated by advertising.
