The consumer is not a moron, she is 'WhoKnows?'

She is your wife , said the great David Ogilvy.

We are often blind sighted enough by the heat and light of our own work to miss that fundamental truth. The consumer is a flesh and blood person.

Who in our agency world has not had the experience of having the excitement of running a special campaign watered down by an indifferent outside world - including, yes, the spouse ! - that's either not seen it or is considerably less enthused about it ?!

The consumer is your wife. She hasn't seen that great special execution you spent all of the budget on within a single week.Could some of that money have been used for a less costly if less sexy option to reach over over the following weeks ?

Who knows ?

It is , however , so important not to lose sight of the obvious : the consumer in us and the consumers that are our families and (non-industry) friends

BUT , and here's the thing , only to an extent. Because this game also runs the other way !

While the consumer is not a moron , she is also NOT your wife ! That is the corollary David - a big and early proponent of research as a fuel for creativity - would have agreed with. The fact is that we as practitioners can often also end up extrapolating our own lives onto the consumer universe. The Madison Avenue-isation syndrome , if you will , or closer home , the Dubai Media City syndrome !

Yes, the young Saudi woman is on the Latest Social Platform all the time these days. But has she seen your ad there ? And does she remember it ?

In the end , it's all about striking the right balance between having a pulse of the 'real world' - the consumer as your wife - and understanding the limits of that pulse and the need to understand more through objective outside sources - the consumer as your not-wife.

Easier said than done, yes, but not so difficult either !

The common underlying strand behind both poles is that old conceptual framework of advertising as a weak (or, indeed, strong) force. Anybody remember that one ? Here's an old piece by John Philip Jones on the topic (read here). While these things have been all but shoved to the back of the warehouse, I think it is more relevant today than ever before as technology provides people with the means to do what they have always wanted to do : avoid ads.

IMHO , the starting point to any planning should be the presumption that you are up against the challenge of everybody wanting to avoid your ad and so - what are you going to do about it ? Prepare for the worst to work for the best, Understand the limits inside out in order to breach them.