I enjoyed a recent post from advertising practitioner: games, flow, mystery.

The author commented that games have been very successful over the last 20 years. People not only spend money on expensive systems, but also on more and more new games. He wrote:

"I suspect there's much the advertising and media business can learn from the games industry, not least because they know how to create something people want to spend time with, playing, interacting, hanging-out, learning. "

The author argues that people responded well to the famous Cadbury's drum-playing gorilla for much the same reasons they respond well to games; the ad engages them and makes them work out what is going on. The author's argument is for more complicated and clever ads that engage the viewer.

An example of the other side of the argument is this post from Marketing Genius: A to Z of Marketing: C – Clarity

The author writes about a very clever ad she came up with for a restaurant client that fell totally flat. It was too clever; something straightforward and simple worked better.

So what's the moral? I'll borrow a comment from Edward Gossage:

"People don't read advertising. People read what interests them and sometimes it's an ad."

It comes down to what people are interested in. Maybe they want to be entertained, or maybe they just want to know where the cheap food is.

What does your audience want?