Ad Marketing

Even though there is much hype about how much longer print magazines, newspapers, and trade journals will continue to exist in our ever-growing digital environment, ad marketers (and the ancillary Creative Directors, Brand Managers, Graphic Designers, etc.) still have a lot of opportunity to validate the importance of a print ad spend in a social media world.

Case Study Example: Your company is XYZ, Inc. and you are planning for a Q1 new product launch.  How about incorporating a specific discount code into the ad that you create and place within each publication?  Like:  “For a 10% special reader discount, please visit www.xyz.com/fastcompany” or “… www.xyz.com/wired” or “… www.xyz.com/wallstreetjournal”

When you utilize this strategy, you can immediately start tracking the ROI on the overall campaign (both click-throughs and sales). You can also measure the overall reach of the ad (e.g.  If someone passes long the discount code/url to a friend, you don’t care that the 2nd person didn’t directly see the add only that the message got to them and they took action).  In addition, you can track how each specific publications performs based on their unique urls and codes.

Then, the next month, you can implement A/B split testing on your print ads.  Running ads in the same publications, now you need to alter just 1 thing about the ad– different verbiage, a different offer/discount– change 1 thing about the visual creative, etc.  Now, see what your ROI does.  Again, tracking the same campaigns.  The next month, tweak one more unique thing; you are constantly looking for improvements.  Eventually, you may end up with completely different looking/saying/feeling ads for each publication, but each will be targeted at the readers of those publications.  The point is engaged customers and sales.  This comprehensive strategy integrates your print ads into your online marketing where you have a much easier time validating effectiveness.

Jay Baer of Convince & Convert highlights Trident gum and their integration of print and social media saying,  “On December 18, 2009, Trident ran this full-page ad in USA Today.  The print ad asks readers to visit the brand on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/tridentlayers.  I’m not sure that particular tactic was successful, as the account has just 226 followers (a far cry from USA Today’s 1+ million readership).  The ad also includes a QR (Quick Response) code in the bottom left (which I snapped with my nifty Microsoft tag reader).  Doing so also takes you to their Twitter account.  Handy if you’re reading the newspaper without Internet access nearby, and it also provides another tracking mechanism for the brand.”

When XYZ, Inc. is able to effectively track print ad ROI, it gives them negotiating power in securing ad space within publications.  Conversely, if print publications would require reporting of their advertisers numbers, it could support justification for publications to raise their rates.

What Wendistry and VSEllis recommend that XYZ, Inc. measures:

1.  Revenue and Business Development: (benchmark before and after the print ad/ online marketing initiatives begin)

• Speed/length of sales cycle
• Number or % of repeat customers
• % of customer retention
• Number of customer referrals (new business), net number of new leads
• Transaction value per customer
• Customer lifetime value
• Conversions from blog/email subscribers to leads or customers
• Website conversions for leads or sales
• Organic search rankings > converted leads
• % of Converted leads from online vs. offline sources

2.  Potential Cost Savings:

• Shorter customer service/issue resolution time
• % of issues resolved via online vs. offline/live channels
• Number of support calls before/after outreach effort
• Recruiting costs through online presence (vs. recruiters)
• Training costs
• % of quarterly or annual customer/account turnover
• Overhead costs for communication (measure costs of online outreach vs. analog as compared to resolution ratios)
• Number/ ratio of viable community-driven product ideas
• Length of concept-to-development cycle (Use of online community as testing/focus/idea development)

3.  Value, Awareness, and Influence:

• Brand Loyalty
• Sentiment of posts online – advocates vs. detractors
• Share of conversation/voice
• Number and frequency of mentions in media (online or print)
• Net Promoter Score (likelihood of recommendation)
• Subscribers to blog/email/newsletter
• Comments/engagement on posted material, downloads of ebooks, etc. (interaction with content)
• Inbound links to site/blog (total as well as on-topic/relevant)
• Number of Tags, votes, social bookmarks
• Fans/followers/group members for social profiles (implication of a brand following)

So, here’s a final note about Cause and Influence… For all the metrics you track, you have to realize that the path from initial contact to desired result is a winding one when it comes to marketing.  Direct marketing efforts like “get postcard, enter code, buy said product” are more obviously causal and can outline a clear sales path.  But in a social and online world where there are literally hundreds of touch-points in effect at any given point, metrics themselves don’t indicate success or failure, just continuous opportunities for improvement.

Why Your Advertising Isn’t Working

Of all the ads you see in a typical day, how many engage your attention?  According to an AdweekMedia poll of LinkedIn members, two-thirds of respondents said “a small minority of them.”  Another quarter answered “none of them.”  Together, that’s a whopping 91%.  Only 1 in 100 respondents said “most of them.”  (Probably a marketing executive)

If you’re smart, you already know that the vast majority of ads don’t register with consumers.  Your own advertising may fall into this category.  If you find yourself nodding your head and wringing your hands right now, keep in mind this simple business axiom:  Companies get the advertising they deserve.  Here are 7 straight-up reasons why your message probably isn’t getting through.

1. It’s boring: Yep, boring.  Why do we watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper, or go online?  Three reasons:  information, entertainment, and engagement.  Ads that fail to offer at least two of these three benefits, in a word, flop.  Just as nobody reads every story in the newspaper, nobody pays attention to every ad.  Be creative… be interesting… be different.
2. It’s boorish: You shouldn’t think of your advertising as being about your brand.  You should think of it as an extension of your brand.  If it’s loud, annoying, insulting, offensive, or self-centered, people think the same of your products and services (see “The Cocktail Party Test for Advertising”).  The key is the first sentence in the best-selling book, The Purpose Drive Life... “It’s not about you.”  If you focus only on what what you can get out of others, you’re not going to get much.  What’s true in life is true in advertising.
3. It’s safe: The first time we all saw a Ford Taurus was quite a shocker.  It went on to become the best-selling car in America.  If the Taurus had been another in a long line of boxy sedans, it probably would have been just another car.  Instead, it turned automotive conventions upside down and made history.  Most of us were quite surprised by the Taurus’ curved lines, but it went on to have significant influence on automotive design.  While being different isn’t a guarantee of success, being safe is a sure bet for eventual failure.
4. It’s trying to do too much: The best an ad can do is communicate one single, compelling idea, and in the age of the Internet- when people know they can go online to get all the additional information they need- it’s crazy to try and jam every single message you have into 1 ad.  Just because you have a lot to say doesn’t mean anyone will listen.
5. It hasn’t been given time: You can’t rush water to boil.  You can’t hurry a plant to sprout.  All you can do is apply the right amount of heat, water, and sunlight and then wait.  The same is true of advertising.  If you expect too much too soon, you’re sure to be disappointed.  Depending on your prospects’ level of interest in the category and frequency of purchase, it could take weeks, months, or even years for your message to sink in.
6. You like it: Okay, I know… this one hurts, but you simply are not the best judge of your own advertising.  You can’t be because you know too much about your brand to be objective.  Your advertising is not only about you and your tastes.  It isn’t even for you (i.e. you’re already drinking the Kool-Aid).  It’s for everybody else who isn’t.
7. It’s not an advertising problem: A common mistake some companies make is trying to use advertising to fix what in reality is quite another problem…. faulty product design, an uncompetitive cost structure, customer service complaints, legal regulations, sub-par management, on and on.  Yes, we all know it’s easier to put on a new coat of paint than it is to fix the foundation that’s causing the building shift and crack.  Until you can maintain a solid track record of excellent performance, spend your money on internal improvements… not advertising.

Excerpted from Steve McKee at BusinessWeek Online.

You are What You Buy

Rob Walker is The New York Times Magazine’s “Consumed” columnist and author of the new book Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are.  In the following interview, Kevin Zimmerman, Senior Editor of “The Marketing Xfactor,” asks Walker about his arguments that no consumer is “brand-proof” and traditional marketing tactics still carry a lot of weight. 

Q:  How did Buying In come about?   A:  As I was writing “Consumed,” I thought there was something bigger going on.  All the talk about how the new empowered consumer was indifferent to brands, was “brand-proof,” was so out of line with what I saw happening on a regular basis.  I think you can probably make better decisions if you can get over this idea of being brand-proof, and get a little more realistic sense of what’s going on in your own head and in the marketplace.

Q:  One of the key takeaways from your book is the concept of “murketing.”  Can you explain what the term means?   A:  It’s about the murkiness we see now between what is branding, and what is everything else.  What’s happening as the result of TiVo and some of these other emerging technologies is the potentially lessening of the impact of such initiatives as the 30-second commercial.  However, people in the business of marketing are clever.  They saw this trend coming, and unleashed quite a bit of creativity in terms of where marketing could be in our lives.  That could take the form of television shows that are essentially a spin-off of a creative brief of a brand, as happened with (male grooming product) Axe and its show Game Killers– you can’t really TiVo the ads out; it’s the show.

On the flip side, word-of-mouth agencies came along and didn’t hire an actor to go out and pretend to like a product in public.  It was more of a voluteer basis, where they’d say, “Hey, sign up, you average consumer, and maybe youo’ll get some free products and tell your friends about it, and then tell us aboutthat.”  You would think intuitively that given what we say in polls about hating commercials, no one would do that, but in fact tens of thousands have signed up.

Q:  Another example you cite in your book is the fact that Ramones t-shirts outsell Ramones albums by an exponential factor.  What does that tell us about iconography, especially when it arguably comes at the expense of the icon– in this case, the music– itself?   A:  People are slightly resistant to the idea of logos in general, but the Ramones logo means something that’s so instantly translatable.  It’s different to different people, but it serves as shorthand for “maverick spirit” and “independent music.”  The same is true for the CBGB t-shirts, where the club doesn’t even exist anymore.

It’s not conspicuous consumption, where you’re trying to show off to other people; it’s more a self-signaling situation where you have a story of yourself in your head and what’s consistent with it, and what isn’t. 

Q:  Is there a pitfall involved when people take that approach, that “I am defined by this brand / product?”   A:  That’s the payoff I build to, what I want readers to think twice about.  Is this a reflection of who you are, or more a hope or a building block?  You can’t really build a self through the things that you own.  It’s a basic point of psychology.  People get tired of things.  We do a poor job of evaluating how long the happiness of acquisition will last. 

If you’re trying to build a self through acquisition of symbols, it becomes a never-ending loop.  You can’t decide to go to the mall to see who you are; you have to know who that is first. 

 

Is MySpace.com Your Space?

Social networking sites such as MySpace.com are some of the most trafficked on the Web… MySpace had 53 million unique users in April and features over 100 million personal profiles posted by users, many of whom are in their teens and twenties. What’s more, the average MySpace user clocks in two hours per visit on the site.

But MySpace and its rivals have also come under fire from law enforcement officials, policymakers, and parents, who worry that they are a haven for child predators.

Given that backlash, is MySpace a safe bet for advertisers? Apparently so. To market their summer movies, a number of Hollywood studios struck advertising deals with News Corp, MySpace’s owner, including several who crafted profile pages featuring movie characters.

Yet, my opinion is that this site and other social networking forums have their own distinct brand image and user demographic.  Some companies really don’t mind the racy image of MySpace, or the chumminess of Friendster, and most companies are best suited to only consider LinkedIn.com for advertising.  However, it also depends on your business’s brand image and product/service.  Sell high-end digital office printers is one thing (maybe a LinkedIn possibility), selling vacation packages to South Beach is quite another (I’d go for ALL of the social sites).

Professor Deighton says that MySpace is a really exciting marketing frontier, fertile with new possibilities. It is a rival to paid search, and products like MySpace might conceivably evolve into something even bigger.

Google’s limitation as an interactive marketing medium today is its insistence on respecting the anonymity of its users whereas MySpace puts the power of individual identity in play. You’re not anonymous on a social networking site—you’re exactly the opposite. You’re presenting a managed self to the world.

MySpace will evolve with its users. It relies on user content, so this is bound to happen. As member tastes grow up, so will their profiles.

Of course the appeal of a platform for self-crafted identity projection is most intense in adolescence and young adulthood. It is likely that there will always be an age demographic skew to these products. But a new generation is growing up in the glare of Friendster and MySpace and YouTube and LinkedIn, and I for one don’t have a clue what they will be getting into when they are senior citizens.

Excerpts taken from a Q&A with the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, John Deighton, an expert on interactive advertising. 

Mobile Marketing Medium

Marketers, industry pundits, media buyers, and vendors all agree that we are in the midst of great uncertainty and change across all media channels. Since the experts are trying to figure out how to leverage emerging forms of media (social networking, online video, viral marketing, blogging, and mobile), obviously spending on these various forms of new media advertising will continue to grow while traditional media (print, newspaper, TV commercial, radio ad) will diminish.

Consumers now want to interact with media when they want, where they want, and how they want. Marketers and advertisers will never be able to go back to the days of pushing messages to the consumer (with the exception of the SuperBowl annual commercial-fest).

With this in mind, I have a brand new company here in Dallas that offers mobile marketing solutions at incredibly affordable rates for companies of all sizes: Mobile Marketing Solutions, LLC. Yes, they are a client of mine… yes, this is blatant promotion. Don’t care. They’re a friendly and reliable team of professionals that can help you get your company directly in to the palm of your customers’ hands.

Spitting and Sucking… Yeah, that sounds about like the Super Bowl

Okay, I had to wait an extra day before I commented on some of the Super Bowl ads… just to let my brain wrap around the stupidity of it all.

To explain my title this morning:
1. Spitting– The ETrade baby sitting in front of the computer screen talking to you in a grown up voice, then promptly hurling baby food after telling you about his brilliant and instantaneous stock trade.
2. Sucking– Justin Timberlake being “slurped” across town through the straw of a fabulously tasty Pepsi (cue the Tony Romo cameo).

Now, the point:
After seeing over $160 million worth of advertising in one afternoon, I know that viewers must pay attention to the ENTIRE commercial because they will only figure out what the hell company the commercial is for in the 2.5 seconds at the end.

Entertainment-wise– A+, you brilliant advertisting agencies, you. ROI-wise– F-, way too many who-the-hell-cares moments. But, maybe that has become the point. Maybe, the Super Bowl is the one day a year where we expect every single moment of the TV to entertain us, not inform us. And, certainly not contribute to these companies’ brand value.

Geesh… but, what do I know. I’ve got a gigantic pizza hangover.

How NOT to Launch a New Product (or Business for that matter)

You’ve built the better mousetrap, now you’re expecting the proverbial path-beating to your door. Here are some classic mistakes companies make while getting ready to launch.

1. Don’t plan the launch until right before the release date– Nothing is more disheartening to a PR or marketing consultant than to have a client call and say, “We have a great new product ready to launch next month. Can you develop a plan by next week?”

2. Carve your launch plan in stone– Few new product introductions go exactly according to plan. Manufacturing snafus occur. Distribution gets delayed. Be sure to build flexibility into your launch plan. Always ask the unpopular question, “What if the launch date gets delayed?”

3. Put the head honcho in charge of the launch– Brand managers or product managers are best suited to take primary responsibility for the launch process—not senior personnel whose multiple and competing duties can impair focus and tactical expertise. The involvement and support of the CEO, president and other senior leaders are critical to the success of a launch, but not on a daily basis.

4. Don’t educate employees until after the news breaks elsewhere– Your employees are your most important word-of-mouth brand ambassadors. Educate them about the launch plan and prepare them to talk about the product with their family and friends so they can begin to build the buzz.

5. Use the same forms of media you’ve always used– The number of potential media outlets that can talk about your new product grows daily. Don’t just dig out the same media list you used for your last launch. There are 6,200 magazines and 240 television stations available today, with hundreds more being introduced each year. Don’t overlook Internet media outlets that might not have existed when you executed previous launches.

6. Skip the crisis plan– The number of things that can go wrong when a new product hits the market is limitless. Brainstorm all potential pitfalls to ensure your plan provides remedies for what might go wrong. It’s always better to have a crisis plan in place rather than trying to create one while facing a major issue that could tarnish your brand.

Favorite ad-copy Friday!

As a marketer, I’m always on the lookout for companies with print ads that REALLY grab you. Maybe it’s their images, maybe it’s their creativity. Most of the time, for me, it’s their wordsmithing. Here’s just a few of my favs…

“Being boring is a choice. Those mild salsas and pleated khakis don’t buy themselves.”

“Confidence doesn’t whisper. It grabs a bullhorn.”

“Dear Ketel One Drinker– If aliens ever land here, chances are, you’ll be one of the people they want to talk to.”

“Life is a banquet, and most dumb bastards are starving to death. Get thee to the table… your seat is waiting.”

“Look behind you… that’s the pecking order.”

“Prefers now to never. Always plays hard to forget.”

“Live vicariously through no one.”

Have a great weekend!!

Word of the Day: ECO-PORN

Put some NEW in the Old School

So, I’m having a client meeting this morning in the Downtown Dallas Starbucks and I notice they have this interior signage that says “I need a new tan line strategy…” Appropriate for summer, but it also got me thinking.

How often do companies need a new image / new perspective / new way of looking at their customers? In other words, although change is good, where is that sweet spot of delighting your customer with fresh, ah-ah moments and just plain confusing the hell out of them with your randomness?

Hmmmm…

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