![\"BrandMe](\"http:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/brandme_building-the-bridge-to-success-300x225.jpg\")
And, there are no other products and circumstances like the one we\u2019re in now, so it\u2019s a unique situation, and there\u2019s only so much to be gained by studying what worked five years ago.<\/p>\nThe reason spectators spend billions of dollars watching sporting events is that at the end of the contest there is a winner and a loser. Few things in life, however, are as clear cut as the outcome of a football game.<\/p>\n
The question of \u201cdid we succeed?\u201d must always be paired with the question \u201cfrom where did we come?\u201d If we\u2019ve launched a brand new product to a national audience under tight budget restrictions and a subpoena by the government, and…you get the idea.<\/p>\n
As marketers, however, small business owners and boards of directors are going to want to know \u201chow did we do?\u201d and that is why an industry was developed to track viewership with electronic boxes or why advertisers speak of \u201cimpressions,\u201d however fleeting they may be. It\u2019s easy to see that consumers\u2018 lives are cluttered with thousands of impressions, from seeing a product placed in a TV show to the discount pizza ads wallpapering televisions at dinner time. That\u2018s why creative departments are under pressure to produce something that \u201ccuts through the clutter\u201d that at least a small segment of the audience is trying to get rid of by canceling cable TV subscriptions. Get this: Huffington Post is now advertising a print magazine based on the notion of \u201cslow news.\u201d<\/p>\n
If your product doesn\u2019t fit, create the counter product. One of the most successful TV ad campaigns of all time was 7up branding itself \u201cthe uncola.\u201d Which says it all.<\/p>\n
And, there are no other products and circumstances like the one we\u2019re in now, so it\u2019s a unique situation, and there\u2019s only so much to be gained by studying what worked five years ago.<\/p>\n
Once the creative side is reconciled with the business end of the product, it\u2019s time to advertise. As the director of a political advertising effort, I saw millions of dollars spent in rather casual fashion because campaigns are fairly complex, so when a campaign meets an ad team that can \u201cdo it all\u201d–production and ad placement–the ad men and women can command top dollar. But, the ad man offers buying smarts to plaster your ad all over 35 or so of the most highly watched cable channels at the most opportune times of day. If you\u2019re already dealing with the title of marketing director, you probably don\u2019t have time to play media buyer too.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to know whether the ad campaign pays off. If the product is a bust, no one is going to care that you had a killer ad campaign. If the product is a success, it will be hard to know how much of the success was due to advertising, because no one will ever say \u201cit took a great ad campaign to sell our lousy product.<\/p>\n
If the value of advertising is hard to measure, how about public relations? A PR person can be a blizzard of press releases and phone calls and still not get the treatment she\u2019d like from the media, because of factors beyond her control. Perhaps it\u2019s an unknown product, or a product consumers don\u2019t willingly seek out, like dentistry. Although it may not be measurable in column inches, businesses have to have a measure of faith that keeping the message out there is valuable in itself even if there\u2019s no payoff three hours later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The reason spectators spend billions of dollars watching sporting events is that at the end of the contest there is a winner and a loser. Few things in life, however, are as clear cut as the outcome of a football game. The question of \u201cdid we succeed?\u201d must always be paired with the question \u201cfrom where did we come?\u201d If we\u2019ve launched a brand new product to a national audience under tight budget restrictions and a subpoena by the government, and…you get the idea. As marketers, however, small business owners and boards of directors are going to want to know \u201chow did we do?\u201d and that is why an industry was developed to track viewership with electronic boxes or why advertisers speak of \u201cimpressions,\u201d however …<\/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":[166,164,165],"class_list":["post-452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing-advice","tag-marketers","tag-success","tag-winning"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452","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=452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandme.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}