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I don’t want to worry you, but I’ll bet Greg Dyke’s piggy bank to

an old Daz storyboard that you suffer from an incurable affliction you

don’t even know you’ve got. It doesn’t have a posh Latin name and it’s

not in medical books, because it was not discovered by a quack but by

the 18th century French writer Diderot. The ailment is l’esprit de

l’escalier - the spirit of the stairs. I suffer from it too.

Chronically.

L’esprit de l’escalier means having ideas just after it’s too late. As

Diderot used it, it is the spirit which inspires brilliant thoughts as

you are going down the stairs. But like a gremlin it can strike

anywhere: in corridors, lifts, or in the loo. When l’esprit de

l’escalier is after you, you can run but you can’t hide.

How often have you exited from a discussion and immediately thought of

a damn clever answer to that damn stupid question? How often have you

put the phone down and remembered something you forgot to say? How

often have you kicked yourself after a presentation for omitting a few

charts which might have made the oaf who dozed off stay awake?

L’esprit de l’escalier is a bane of human existence, and one of the

worst maladies to befall all marketing guys.

I have just published a book that took two years to write - two years

in which I should have collected every single thought and left nothing

to chance. Yet, since its publication, I have been plagued by

innumerable esprits, each one more depressing than the last.

The esprit giving me most grief right now is that, in the book, I

tried to describe how advertising can enhance a product and add value,

but cannot make a lousy product into a great one. ’Advertising,’ I

wrote, ’cannot turn puddlewater into Krug. But it can make a can of

soup taste more toothsome. And if it tastes more toothsome it is more

toothsome.’

I stand by that. But critics have questioned where the borderline

lies.

If advertising (and branding) can enhance taste sensations, why can’t

they turn puddlewater into champagne? What can advertising and

branding achieve, what is beyond their powers?

And here is my l’esprit de l’escalier. The effect of advertising on a

product is like the effect of a painting on your perceptions of, say,

the sky. After you’ve seen a Turner or a Constable you may see the sky

in a new way - as sunnier or more threatening, paler or more purple.

And after you’ve seen an ad you may see a product in a new way. But no

painting can change the sky. The sky is the sky, just as a product is

a product.

A painting can make you feel different about the sky, but the reality

cannot be transformed.

Is that esprit clear? If so, those of you who have bought the book can

send it back and I’ll scribble an amendment in the margin.

Winston Fletcher is chairman of the Bozell UK Group, and has just

published Advertising Advertising - It’s Good For You.