Tools : Cool Vaughn vs good Vaughn

By SimonHendery

The marketing bumph for September’s Digital Now conference in Auckland billed one of the presentations as a no-holds-barred, bare-knuckled verbal spat between two Y&R creative heavyweights.
CD Vaughn Davis and Digital CD James Stanton were due to slug it out on stage in a fiery debate to decide what was better: the type of new media campaigns that are “good” or the kind of campaigns that are “cool”.
On the day, however, Stanton didn’t front. I don’t know why – maybe he was scared? He should have been. Left alone to fight with himself, Davis did an impressive job.
First, Cool Vaughn landed some bruising rhetorical body-blows, then Good Vaughn hit back with an equally verbal attack. After a hard-fought 30 minutes, digital strategic enlightenment was the winner on the day.
Even before the bell for round one, Davis was showing superb form. You know how arranging a text response campaign is a complex and costly exercise? Well not for this man.
He’d been down to Dick Smith, bought three cheap cellphones, and there they were on stage. The numbers were on the screen and the 260 Digital Now delegates were told to pick one, depending on whether they bought the “good” argument, the “cool” argument, or just wanted to win a phone.
A random draw would be made from texts received to each phone and the winner would get to keep the cellular device in question. Simple, immediate, brilliant.
So down to the debate. Cool, Davis said, is the sizzle rather than the sausage. It’s the techno-wizardry that draws people over to your desk to have a look. It’s iPhone apps and augmented reality. It’s the eye-catching stuff but does it actually sell product?
“If you’re talking about technology, it’s probably cool,” he said.
“I’ll make up a number, eh, and you can quote me if you’re in the media. Ninety-five percent of that technology’s main use is to put on cafe tables and show to other people that you have that technology. It’s only when you get past that point and actually look at the content that you start doing your job for your clients if you’re an ad guy like me.”
And, as Davis pointed out, the number of iPhone users in NZ is about equivalent to the population of Timaru. So what’s an example of “good” digital work? The Scary Washing Machine auction on Trade Me earlier this year, he said.
It worked on the medium it was designed for, sold what it was meant to sell, involved great copywriting and cost nothing to execute.
“If we’re talking about the content [rather than the technology behind it] it’s probably good,” was his conclusion.
There were many more gems that space limits don’t permit me to repeat, and at the end of the day the audience spoke and the el-cheapo text campaign recorded a win for Good over Cool.
Davis declared himself pleased. “I would have lied about [the results] if this wasn’t the case [but] we’ve collectively decided that it’s better to be good than it is to be cool.”

www.twitter.com/SimonHendery
simon@businesswriter.co.nz

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