Show what people really think. About the opposite sex, their job, or relatives.

Show how people really feel. About money, their spouse, or financial security in old age.

How people really dress and act at home.

What people really think about at work. Like sex and petty insults.

Depict the attitudes, jealousies, and insecurities that rattle around inside us all.

Like many creative techniques, there is a spectrum from moderate to extreme in the way you get really real. From the nose-picking, overweight, insecure side of life. To the kinder, softer side that people present to children, friends, pet animals.

For FMCGs, the realism might be found in the history of the product. For instance, you could explore the feelings a young housewife has towards her mother, who used the same product.

For a B2B products and services you might explore feelings of competitiveness, of over-sized egos, or greed. On a specific level, that could translate to stealing from the company or spreading malicious gossip.

For luxury consumer good, consider ads that explore feelings about "keeping up with, or surpassing, the Jonses. " That is, the desire to be better then the guy next door, or the woman in the office down the hall. Here we're talking about the desire to incite envy or jealousy. Or to show, "I'm better than you."

To inject realism into your advertising you must understand people. Perhaps with your own insights into human nature. Or with qualitative research into the attitudes and behavior of the target audience.

Be natural and realistic in the copy or dialog you write, in the characters you cast. "Real" people are not "beautiful" people.

It can help to look at, to understand feelings people genuinely have -- emotions that relate to the target audience, the product category, or the service. An example is the classic automobile campaign featuring a car salesman making wildly exaggerated claims about gas mileage, resale value and so forth. Many people think car salesman tend to lie.

A few final thoughts. This is a difficult ad technique to do well. Which is surprising, intuitively, because what could be easier than being "real"?

this technique is easier to sell in the West, particularly Europe and North America, where there is a history of openness about feelings, as well as a thirst for reality TV shows and tabloid news.

It’s an approach that can be more difficult to sell in other parts of the world, such as some Asian or Middle Eastern countries, where feelings tend to be guarded, more private. But there you have a creative opportunity.