There are certain categories of employment which automatically enjoy good press. It is for example de rigeur that a game or talent show audience when informed that the plucky contestant is a nurse or a fireman, should with little encouragement from the tearful host come over all Pavlov’s dog, and burst into rapturous applause no doubt garnished with a little whooping. Of course there are those occupations which can be guaranteed to draw exactly the opposite reaction. Any aspirant hoping to win that week’s holiday for two in Malta or warble their way to a place in the judge’s house, might well be advised not to let on that when away from the studio lights they earn their crust as, for example, an estate agent or banker. Cue boos and jeers.
Human nature being at times envious and resentful, it should come as no surprise that the latter group considerably outnumbers the former, for in addition to the foot soldiers of the NHS and perhaps the arguably less deserving firefighters, only (and this depends on whether or not the public has the sight of fresh body bags in mind) members of the armed services similarly qualify.
However, we would like to make the case for a further overlooked cadre to be embraced within the comforting maw of this rare public approval. So, let’s hear it for the marketing people. Now, we accept that depending on when this suggestion is being conveyed to the reader, spoons of porridge may have been left suspended twixt bowl and lip in astonishment or instead of bathing the palate, that small sip of Scotch has been sprayed down the reader’s shirtfront. We apologise, but that will not dissuade us from making their case. Or having the case made for us by this recent advertisement from the gunmaker’s, Browning.
There is no making light of a daily challenge that involves the care of the sick, the quelling of the inferno or the defeat of the nation’s enemies, but daunting though these challenges are, none includes the horrendous prospect of picking up the gauntlet thrown down by the daily requirement to come up with something different, eye-catching and stimulating. We live in a world flooded with advertising messages most of which, whatever they say on the surface, have the subtext of ‘we would very much like you buy what it is we are selling’. Finding a way of disguising that message for long enough so that it slips under the wire of our natural resistance to listening to it, is what separates the foie gras from the Quorn cutlets. And, alas, what Browning has served up shows just what happens when the search for originality ends up in the middle of the woods, which as the image illustrates, is especially fitting.
The copywriter or designer’s aim is clear. The new B525 Liberty Light has been produced with the smaller shooter in mind. The message emphasises Browning’s not being one of the herd and whilst avoiding the suggestion that the gun is made to measure, nonetheless the use of the words in the body copy “Like a tailor…” deliberately or otherwise leaves that impression. Such an inference is nonsense of course, otherwise we should shortly expect the Browning Freedom Fat Boy for those of considerable girth and the Browning Tilt for shooters with one leg shorter than the other. But the copy is what it is, no better or worse than one finds anywhere in the shooting press and beyond. The problem lies with picture. Illustrations should confirm the copy not confound it and, in the search, to find a way of highlighting that the new Liberty Light suits the person of smaller stature, they have chosen to make the point with these two pairs of boots.
Quite apart from the fact that to the casual reader the image occupying more than half the page would leave them with the impression that the ad is selling footwear the attempt to confirm the headline claim that, whether small or tall no one need to give up on performance, fails because it is all too obvious the boots do not differ much in size and have been artfully set apart – the larger boots are closer to the camera – to try and help make this point.
Does it matter? Probably not too much, because once you have done the heavy lifting in the form of establishing a brand, then the process is one of reiterating to the consumer their wisdom in having bought into it in the first place and Browning is a very established brand and the B525 a massively popular series.
Whilst marketing does not earn the admiration reserved for those who nurse others, nor inspire the heroics of armed forces, the fact that for its practitioners it lies at either end of a pendulum swing where their efforts make no difference whatsoever or at the other producing damaging ridicule does make a case for them to stand alongside these other professions, in the cosy spotlight of public goodwill.