Marketing can be a lonely enterprise. Sure, at first it\u2019s fun to know you have a hand, or maybe an entire arm, in fashioning a message for your product or client, but soon enough the marketer is confronted with the \u201cdown in the weeds\u201d decisions over medium (print, TV, Web?), message, cost, and reach (who do we want to see this?).<\/p>\n
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One advantage marketers have is that good and poor examples of marketing abound. You\u2019re throwing them away with the junk mail. You\u2019re flipping around them on TV. You\u2019re buzzing by them on the radio. You\u2019re failing to take notice of them on the Internet.<\/p>\n
Why? Do they lack impact? Are they merely annoying (see: Geico lizard) or are they downright insulting (beer ads)? What makes you tune them out? And what makes you re-watch an ad you\u2019ve already seen?<\/p>\n
Speaking of impact, there\u2019s a magazine parody of an ad that shows a dog with a gun to its head. The \u201cad\u201d says, \u201cBuy this magazine or we\u2019ll shoot this dog.\u201d Funny, but true. How many times have you seen an ad in which the chief feature is a child or an animal. It\u2019s so popular that by now everyone has tried it. Now, when you see the latest \u201ctalking baby\u201d spot, is it for a brokerage firm, a tire company, a dessert topping? Does high impact become no impact, because it\u2019s been done to death? You decide with your remote.<\/p>\n
Another consideration in your ad campaign is whether you want to go \u201chigh concept\u201d or \u201clow concept\u201d? High concept would be the DirecTV campaign of escalating disasters. It\u2019s high concept because the viewer needs to make the connection between bad cable service and the seemingly unrelated series of disasters that befall cable viewers.<\/p>\n
Low concept is \u201csave big money at Mitchell\u2019s.\u201d It doesn\u2019t even say what Mitchell\u2019s is, but let\u2019s assume it\u2019s one of those home improvement stores. It might be boring, but quite possibly effective.<\/p>\n
Note that both high concept and low concept advertising has a call to action. \u201cDitch cable,\u201d is the DirecTV call to action, \u201cCheck out these savings,\u201d might be the Menards message.<\/p>\n
Though high concept advertising is going to be more interesting, low concept advertising might be more apt, depending on the product being marketed. Car mufflers? Low concept. Perfume? High concept. Look through your junk mail and try to figure out what\u2019s high concept and what\u2019s low concept.<\/p>\n
Also, don\u2019t forget the economic climate. Many businesses–think restaurants–are in hand-to-hand combat in which discounts are used as weapons against competitors. Can you afford to play this game?<\/p>\n
If not, you may have to go upscale, and market your product on its technology, trendiness, snob appeal (\u201cHave you any Grey Poupon?\u201d), or some other \u201chook\u201d that doesn\u2019t involve price.<\/p>\n
Watching examples of good and bad advertising allows you to take advantage of millions of dollars in research that others had to pay for. They\u2019re not always right, but everything you see in marketing is there for a reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marketing can be a lonely enterprise. Sure, at first it\u2019s fun to know you have a hand, or maybe an entire arm, in fashioning a message for your product or client, but soon enough the marketer is confronted with the \u201cdown in the weeds\u201d decisions over medium (print, TV, Web?), message, cost, and reach (who do we want to see this?). One advantage marketers have is that good and poor examples of marketing abound. You\u2019re throwing them away with the junk mail. You\u2019re flipping around them on TV. You\u2019re buzzing by them on the radio. You\u2019re failing to take notice of them on the Internet. Why? Do they lack impact? Are they merely annoying (see: Geico lizard) or are they downright insulting (beer ads)? What …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[7,93,159],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing-advice","tag-marketing","tag-marketing-tips","tag-poor-marketing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}