Advertising
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Albert Lasker, a seminal advertising figure and CEO of Lord and Thomas (a predecessor agency to FCB) and a copywriter by the name of John E. Kennedy had a discussion in 1905 about a Kennedy theory suggesting advertising is no more than “salesmanship in print.” Smart dudes Kennedy and Lasker.
If the goal of salesmanship is sales and the goal of advertising is sales, then shouldn’t this notion still be applicable? Sure. But more often than not, advertising today is a loose federation of benefits and features packed together in designer wrapping paper, with a promotional bow.
The sign of a good salesperson is you believe them, trust them and are convinced by their expertise. You may remember the salesperson but you are more apt to remember the product. Similarly, the litmus of a good ad is its ability to be remembered for the product selling idea, not the ad execution. And to be remembered the day after it was seen.
Messrs. Lasker and Kennedy were right back in the day and they are even more right today. They knew the best ads are not about “me, me, me,” but about the consumer. Sales people know this, ad craftsmen often forget. When done correctly, advertising in print, broadcast or digital is salesmanship not packaging. Peace!
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Tags: Advertising, Albert Lasker, FCB, John E. Kennedy, Lord and Thomas, whats the idea, whatstheidea, “salesmanship in print”
Where do key marketing insights come from? Where does creative inspiration come from? Where do sales come from? Nice questions, no?
Key market insights come from people (consumers or business buyers) and market data. Market data, however, is just an aggregation of consumer activity and the patterns they throw off.
Creative inspiration, in this machine that is the marketing and agency business, comes from the creative brief. Where on the brief? Many would like think it jumps from the boiled down “selling idea,” “key thought,” or “engagement trigger” — whatever it’s called these days. But realistically it comes from anywhere on the brief. Inspiring creative people can’t be mapped, it just happens. People are complicated.
And sales? Sales come from stores, catalogs and websites but really from the hands and minds of people.
So duh, the common denominator in this serial journey to a sale is people. The most effective marketing teams are those who make all three legs of this stool work together.
This is your silo issue, not revenue by agency type or department. It’s not about break though work. It’s not about sales spikes. Or the most powerful media tactic or database. It’s about getting people to see patterns, inspire others, and learn what sells in a specific category – then forming a community around the brand that fosters those activities. Agencies come and go. Campaigns come and go. Communities (unless you’re the Aztecs) not so much. Peace!
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Tags: Advertising, aztecs, creative inspiration, digital agency, market insights, marketing communities, Marketing integration, marketing silos, sales, whats the idea, whatstheidea
Advertising isn’t ineffective because it’s a dying medium, it’s ineffective because it’s ineffective. Good branding is about “Claim and Proof.” Advertising, an important, controllable means of branding, needs to follow the same “Claim and Proof” dictum.
Toyota, a company playing defense peppered with catch-up promotions, ran an ad in The New York Times paper paper today – a perfect example of badvertising. All claim, no proof. Here’s the copy:
No matter who you are or what you drive, everyone deserves to be safe. Which is why the Star Safety SystemTM is standard on all our new vehicles – no matter what model or trim level. It’s a combination of five advanced safety features that help keep you in control and out of harm’s way. Toyota is the first full-line manufacturer to make the features of the Star Safety SystemTM standard on all vehicles. Because at Toyota, we realizes nothing is more important to you than your safety.
I forgot the headline and I only read it 10 seconds ago. The call to action, where one might actually find the proof, is prominently displayed below the copy — Toyota.com/safety. This ad is one expensive call to action and a lot less. Fail!
Who is at Fault?
I’m not sure who is responsible for this $20,000 piece of “we’re here” advertising but everyone is to blame. The creative person who said “People don’t read long copy.” The strategist who approved it, the client who agreed and paid for it. Frankly, The New York Times should be ashamed. Isn’t someone over there watching this stuff?
This business is easy: Find a great claim and support it with compelling proof. Compelling proof. Compelling proof. Compelling proof. Peace!
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Tags: Advertising, branding, call to action, promotion, star safety system, the new york times, toyota, whats the idea, whatstheidea
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that about 90% of the workers in advertising and marketing are consumed by tactics. “I want a new website. We need an acquisition program. Our sales force is up 8% year over year. The innovation team is cranking out some really great ideas.”
We build things, we buy things, we read, write and communicate. We hire and manage, then count the metrics and the change. But are these efforts always undertaken towards a strategic purpose? More often than not the answer is “no.”
Every company needs to have a strategic mission. A brand strategy. And it needs key operating principles: Brand planks. Every employee at the company needs to know the mission and the planks. Go out today and ask a worker what their company strategy is, and with the possible exception of Zappos you are likely to hear “make money” or “be more profitable.” Then probe “What are your company’s three key operating principles?” and you’ll get that look dogs give you when you put the ball behind your back. Try it. Peace!
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Tags: Advertising, brand planks, Brand Strategy, marketing, tactical world, whats the idea, whatstheidea, zappos
Here’s the thing: In marketing, part of winning is understanding your competitors’ weaknesses. Some marketers spend time shooting arrows. Others focus on building and presenting strengths — a less overt negative focus. When I worked at a big NY ad shop with mondo-million dollar budgets, if the client wanted to do a formal acquisition program and use our direct arm, the agency begrudgingly agreed and teamed it up. It wasn’t quite Yankees and Mets – more like Mets and Binghamton Bisons (the farm team.)
As we saunter forth into the digital world we’re seeing more marketing silos grow daily. The silos will come down but it will take a while and a good deal of wealth redistribution in the meantime. Just as media was once siloed (print, TV, radio, OOH) and now better integrated, online and offline will come from one house. Smart business people recognize this and are trying it out. Ouch, they say, as the arrows hit them. Other smart business people are going negative, protecting their silos and they’re making money, if not friends. The web is often about removing boundaries. The sooner siloed ad, digital, direct and PR shops get on board, the sooner client market ROI and ROS (return on strategy) will hockey stick and change will really occur. Peace!
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Tags: Advertising, cant we all just get along, digital, Marketing integration, marketing silos, whats the idea, whatstheidea
Just got back from my daughter’s Dean’s list luncheon. She’ll be graduating from Loyola University in a month with a psych degree. She’s a bit nervous about what’s next.
When I graduated from Rollins College with a BA in behavioral sciences my love was anthropology. “What are you going to do with an anthropology degree?” everyone asked. “Be a teacher? Work in a museum?” Anthropology is the study of people, adaptation, culture and patterns. Who’d a thunk digging through dirt and southern hemisphere ethnographies would have prepared me for a job in advertising and marketing? Not me. But today my interest in people, behavior and patterns generate ideas that position and sell products from engagement rings to web services. Account and brand planners with similar backgrounds often have an edge over B-school grads these days.
In a meeting recently, I mentioned my love for NYC. How the diversity of behaviors and cultures offers great inspiration for selling insights. “I can find selling ideas in people’s parked cars.” Patterns. The absence of patterns. Observation and a functional understanding of behavior are what good account planners bring to creative teams. New, meaningful ways to see things.
Everything matters: What you study in school. What you study thereafter. So Princessa, “What are you going to do with your psychology degree?” The sky’s the limit! Peace!
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Tags: Account Planning, Advertising, anthropology, Brand Planning, business school, college graduation, Loyola University, marketing, Rollins college, whats the idea, whatstheidea
“Here we are now, entertain us” is a lyric from the Nirvana song Smells Like Teen Spirit. A classic. The need to be entertained is a very human trait. Generally, when you go to the movies or turn on the TV you are seeking entertainment — news shows aside. Is Facebook about entertainment? And if so, what percentage? Forrester or the Altimeter Group should do a research study to find out what people are actually doing on Facebook. It might help with their monetization model.
When people use search engines, what percent of their queries are about entertainment? People read books for entertainment, but many only read nonfiction. Is that entertainment? Humans are complex animals and require different levels of entertainment but one area where we overdo it is in advertising. Just look at the ads on the Super Bowl. Advertising isn’t supposed to make you warm and happy so that when the selling proposition is delivered you are smiling, ads are supposed to make you feel something, then do something.
Ad agents, be they traditional or digital, need to dial down the entertainment factor and dial up the selling factor. Entertainment is easy, especially poor entertainment. Selling and persuading are hard. Consumers need reasons to buy. Peace!
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Tags: Advertising, altimeter group, facebook, forrester, Nirvana, smells like teen spirit, whats the idea, whatstheidea
Blackberry’s current TV campaign built around the Beatles song “All you need is love” is goofy. Pretty to watch, great editing, hum it and smile – but it really has no inherent brand building value. And in a slipping market for Research In Motion, manufacturer of the Blackberry, this is not good thing. Enter a print ad today on battery life. The headline reads “Imagine falling in love with a battery?” Does anyone hear the “beep, beep, beep” of a truck backing up here?
The Blackberry is a stud phone. My son in college has one. My friend’s high school daughter has one. As does his wife, for work. Now we don’t live in “the valley” and I know that the kids might like an iPhone as an accessory, but they are sold on the Blackberry’s ability to get them on the net and text with grace and ease. Why? Because it works. It delivers. Blackberry owns the word “work” — in its two dimensions. Get on mass transit and see who is using Blackberrys. Fill up a gym with kids – put the Blackberrys on one side, the iPhones on the other. What do you see?
Research will tell you love is strong, but it’s not reason to buy a Blackberry. This is a difficult, difficult category for brand planners. I don’t have the inside track, but I will tell you this: “Love” isn’t it. Beep, beep, beep. Peace!
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Tags: "all you need is love", Advertising, apple, beatles, blackberry, Brand Planning, iphone, Research in motion, whats the idea, whatstheidea
Back with a flourish.
Back in the day, so the story goes, Smith and Wollensky’s Steak House was about to close its doors for lack of business. Poppe Tyson and creative director Fergus O’Daly created an ad for them – a full page in The New York Times – with a life-size picture of a Smith and Wollensky’s matchbook in the lower right corner atop a small headline: “Finally a match for the Palm and Christ Cella.” The rest, as they say, is history.
Steak for Stock
Today in that same New York Times Smith and Wollensky continues its great run of print advertising with “Steak for Stock.” Not sure if Alan Stillman (CEO) is still behind the advertising but it certainly feels like him. The “Steak for Stock” ad invites you to bring in valid stock certificates in exchange it for a juicy, aged and perfectly charred sirloin. Can’t you just smell the certificate paper?
Smith and Wollensky has made a living with its wit, its wine, its relevance and its meat and spinach. I’m probably borrowing this from Ben Benson’s, another brilliant NY steak house, but Smith and Wollensky’s is, indeed, the quintessential NY steak house. Great to see them mixing it up again. Peace!
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Tags: Advertising, Alan Stillman, Ben Bensons, Christ cella, Fergus o’daly, ny steak house, poppe Tyson, Smith and Wollensky, stock for steak, The Palm, whatstheidea. whats the idea
Coverage
In my mind Verizon is putting a beat down on AT&T when it comes to the wireless wars. By now everyone knows 3G is the network that runs iPhones and smartphones. Most also know that iPhone coverage over the AT&T network is pretty poor, with dropped called aplenty. If you know someone with an iPhone, you’ve heard the complaints.
Advertising
Then there’s the advertising. Every day I open my paper paper to find three successive full page, all type, orange ads with B- headlines such as “Don’t dumb down your smart phone” or “Is AT&T Better? Appsolutely” or “When you compare, there’s no comparison.” Today’s investment in The New York Times alone probably cost north of $200,000. These ads which have been running every day for weeks create no muscle memory for AT&T. Together they tout what I’m sure research indicates is AT&T’s 4 key customer advantages: “faster, simultaneous talk and web, most apps, and most popular.” They package these 4 things under the line “a better 3G experience.” Too much.
Verizon on the other hand and its “phone wars” tested ad agency McCann-Erickson are pushing one primary idea: 3G coverage. The brilliant TV ad where the kid’s dense Verizon map blocks out the football game creates a memorable game-changing branding idea. Coverage. It’s smart on so many levels. Coverage = no dropped calls = good sound quality = fast. AT&T and BBDO need an idea (as in one) or it may soon be a TKO. Peace!
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Tags: 3g coverage, Advertising, at&t, bbdo, mccann erickson, New Your Times, Verizon, whats the idea, whatstheidea, wireless
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