We help companies develop compelling selling conversations that connect with their best customers, both internal and external, offline and online. When that happens, our clients sell more stuff. Think of us as a creative juice bar for fresh ideas - branding, advertising, graphic design, copywriting, TV & Radio concept and production, social media strategy & more.
Take a look at this classic VW spot from 1969. It is a minute long, was very successful, and surprisingly, doesn't even mention the client's name until the end of the spot.
Many marketing types today believe you have to state the client or product's name in the first 10 seconds of every spot and then trumpet it at least every 10 seconds thereafter. But customers won't remember your name if they don't remember your commercial. You have to give them a reason to remember. Either a compelling stiuation or a relavent marketable truth, or ideally, both.
This VW commercial does both. It creates a compelling and entertaining situation, causing people to hang on to the end of the spot where the marketable truth is revealed as well as the name of the product that can deliver on that promise.
Take a look. Who knew (advertising) history could be so fun.
The coupon was born 125 years ago. 125 years later with millions of the little suckers being redeemed every day, it seems it was a good idea... unless you ask J.C. Penney. J.C. Penney is celebrating the coupon's birthday by trying to kill it at their stores. Their goal is to save women from these awful discount devils by removing them and other promotional devices from it's pricing model. Bright idea, or dim?
Rule #1: Know Thy Customer.
One possible answer comes in the form of a recent survey of women in the US by Valpak. The survey reveals that a lot fewer women than J. C. Penney would have us believe are wigging out over the plethora of coupons regularly arriving at their homes (see commercial below). In fact, 70% of women surveyed say saving money with coupons is as American as apple pie and they "love saving money and getting great discounts."
84% of them say they use coupons they get in their mail, and in newspapers - 84%! Hmmm. Women don't hate coupons after all. Could be a problem.
Rule #2: Hope For The Best.
Penney's new pricing strategy contradicts the survey results with a move away from a high-low pricing model driven by coupons and discount promotions, to more of an everyday low pricing (EDLP) formula for success. Their advertising strategy is targeting what they apparently believe (or perhaps their own research shows) are women who are fed up with coupons and discounts. According to the Valpak survey though, that's not a lot of women. Regardless, Penney's ads to introduce the concept featured women screaming in apparent suicidal fear and frustration as discount signs dangle above their heads and coupons pour from their mailboxes. Apparently, the ads must feature the mere 30% of women who don't think coupons are as American as apple pie, and/or the 16% who don't use them (according to the survey, that is).
Rule #3: Don't Believe Everything You Read.
Of course this is just one survey, admittedly conducted by a company who's life depends on coupons. And if it's wrong, or skewed a tad, J. C. Penney may be onto something. If it isn't, 70% of women who "love saving money and getting discounts," and 84% of all women who use coupons will be going elsewhere to get their discount fix. And Penney might be going back to the drawing board.
Here are a few factoids from the survey:
More than eight in ten women (84%) say they use coupons received via mail, such as Valpak, and those found in newspapers.
However, digital couponing is gaining momentum; among surveyed women:
65% use online coupons from retailer websites.
55% use coupon websites.
34% use coupons from social networks such as Facebook.
25% use deal-site coupons.
19% use mobile/SMS coupons.
Nearly six in ten women (58%) say they have increased their coupon habits over the past few years.
They say confession is good for the soul. So here goes:
As a somewhat Mad Men type guy myself, a CD/writer type who worked at a major agency on accounts including BP, Red Roof Inns, Bennigans, Steak and Ale, Mazda, Kroger, Meijer, etc. and now at a smaller agency where I am a partner working on local and regional accounts (sound familiar?), I love watching Mad Men becuase it echos (if somewhat distantly) the real world of advertising.
Now here's the confession part: I DVR-ed the 2-hour season premier of "Mad Men" and purposly started watching 20 minutes late so that I could zip past the commercials. I must be "Mad!!!" Here I am, a guy who makes his living and his career off of commercials, watching a show about people who make commercials, and I didn't watch the commercials!
Ah, there, I feel better. Now I did pay attention closely as I zipped past the commercials and noted that there wasn't a single one that I hadn't seen before (I watch a lot of TV). But the bigger point is this -- when a TV commercial is crammed into a 4-minute commercial break, even a pro-commercial person like myself has a hard time staying tuned in, let alone the multitude of folks who could give a crap.
My solution is to have fewer commercials per break. The human mind can only store so many messages at a time, anyway. So have fewer commercials, charge more to air them (clients will scream at first, until they understand that there is more of a chance people will actually watch them), and make Mad Men and Mad Women TV viewers a little less mad!
The theory being, that you wait six months and the stock would have appreciated and provided a profit of close to 30% of the price of an entry level iPad. Well, we missed that mark six months later by about 8%. BUT...if you had hung onto those two shares until today (roughly one month short of two years), the shares would have appreciated a whopping 144%. Which means your original investment of $484 (2x$242) would now be worth $1184 (at current stock price of $592). Which means you could sell one of your shares, buy an entry level iPad 3 (or add $7 from your pocket and get a 32GB iPad3), and still have one share of Apple left to appreciate further! Or wait three more months and pocket another quick $5.30 from the just-announced new quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share!
Either way, it supports a wise piece of advice I heard about investing a few years ago. When faced with a great item, you can choose to buy the product or buy (a piece of) the company. If you have a little bit of time, it's often better to buy the company!
Nissan is at it again. First they had a spot where their pickup races onto the tarmac to help a jet land by letting it put it's semi-extended front landing gear in the bed of the truck. Clearly fake, what does that say about the pickup? Since it's fantasy, NOTHING! I could just as easily (with a special effects budget and matting software) have my daughter's 2001 Chrysler Neon with a bent fender and 126,000 miles on it, race out and save the jet by putting it's landing gear on the roof. Both say the same for the Nissan pickup -- Nothing! Okay, you might remember the Nissan name. But once you think about the fact that they have no real benefits to talk about (which is why they present a fake scenario that no pickup could live up to) you're not going to seriously consider buying it. And isn't the whole reason advertising exists, is to try and put your product or service on top of someone's consideration list?
AND NOW...they come up with a snowboarding pickup. At least this time they try to avoid looking like they are LYING to us or trying to FAKE US OUT by clearly disclaiming it as FANTASY. So again, why should I buy the Nissan pickup??? Just because someone at their ad agency had a wet dream about depicting the vehicle like it was a snowboard and doing impossibly fake flips and jumps over snow covered hills? Substitute a Ford F-150, a Dodge Ram, or a rickshaw as the featured vehicle and the commercial would work equally as well, ie. not at all!
While you're at it, Nissan, if you're going to live in a fantasy world, why not just give your truck lazers, afterburners, and submarine qualities in your commercials, too? No real truck has those, either.
At least when I walk away from an F-150 commerical I remember a benefit or two, like Eco-boost. Or with Dodge Ram, towing capability. But with a Nissan Pickup commercial, other than the dubious entertainment value of "gee, I'd like to see a truck do that", there is no resaon to buy one, because, "gee, NO truck bound by the laws of physics can do that."
Sure a TV spot has to be attention getting, entertaining and likeable, but once the spot is over, if you want people to buy what you're advertising, it needs to have a marketable truth. In today's economy, it's not enough to have someone remember your product or service's name, they need to have a reason to part with their hard earned money to purchase it.
At Atomic Ideas, we're in the communication business. The stragegy of, the formulation of, the proper transmission of, and the tracking of, your marketing messages. So naturally, we appreciate when such a message goes wrong. Whether it is an actual ad, a parody ad or in this case, "an educational film" (which, when produced by a lobbying organization, is really just a long-form commercial) that was part of a Simpson's episode. Enjoy.
Marketer's have long known the value of the customer testimonial and have done commercials and info-mercials based on that premise. Like for instance, Ronco's big-selling, but short lived, spray-on hair. (Click below.)
Now, let's face it, social media is basically cutomer testimonials on steriods. If people like you or your product or service, they will forward that 'thumbs up" to friends. The difference between social media and an infomercial is that in social media, REAL people are using the product (not paid actors) and everyone knows it. So for social media to work, your product or service has to actually deliver what is promised (and work in real-world situations). If it doesn't, REAL people will dump on it and your offering will be DOA. You won't even enjoy a short-lived success of the spray-on hair variety!
You've been marketing your product or service so long that you really know your customer... or do you? Economic conditions change people's values, new generations with different goals rise to prominence, people move, demographics change, neighborhoods turn over, and every year, some of your best customers leave the market completely. So what's a business, that wants to sell more stuff, to do? Simple. Challenge your assumptions about what your customers want....by asking them.
A little market research from time to time is a tonic for stale messaging. Challenge even your most basic, "everyone knows that" facts. This gem was brought home in an entertaining fashion while tooling around "You Tube." I, like everyone else on the planet "knows" that cats don't like water....or do we? Take a look:
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