Lesson #8: Address the elephant.
A peek behind the curtain: Our Creative Department has been revisiting the classic ad bible Hey Whipple: Squeeze This, and within the first couple chapters, this tome pays for itself. (And, erm, not just because it was a gift from the Brokaw brothers.) Author Luke Sullivan encourages everyone to address the elephant in the room—the problem that a client might be dancing around.
In this specific case, it was Domino’s, shall we say, pathetic excuse for pizza. By acknowledging customer complaints—and then showing how they’re being resolved—the chain got way more than their slice of the pie. (Wink.) Of course, it might be awkward to vocalize those thoughts (they’ve likely gone unsaid for a reason) but once they’re acknowledged, that long-ignored elephant can become an unignorable solution.