Archive for the 'Advertising' CategoryPage 3 of 4

Benefits > Features

Published
by
Matt
on Jul 18, 2007
in Advertising, Marketers, New Marketing and Products
. Comments

Unless you’re in the computing or automotive industries, highlighting features is a bad way to sell your product.

Features tell us what a product has, what it’s made up of, or how it’s made. The only problem is, most people don’t care about that at all. The thing people want to know is, “What can it do for me?”. Explaining the benefits will get you much farther.

If features are the only thing provided, people mentally convert them to benefits anyway. It’s a natural progression that we’ll call The Derived Benefits Model:
See feature listing >> Think about features (in relation to self) >> Figure out derived benefit from features

For example:
The TV is capable of 1080i resoultion >> The picture will be sharper >> I can enjoy my favorite shows more because of the clearer image

So why let people go through that entire process when you could just explain the benefits right away? If you cut out the middleman and get right to the benefits, it cuts down on the work people have to do to understand your offering.

Instead of advertising the 100gb hard drive on that DVR, let people know that they can save entire seasons of Lost, 24, and Grey’s Anatomy. Instead of talking about a carbon fiber frame on your sunglasses, tell people that they’re so light they can wear them all day. Instead of explaining the depth of the spikes on your cleats, let them know they’ll get a great jump stealing second base.

So the next time you’re writing copy, giving a speech, putting together materials, blogging, or talking to a customer - just remember Benefits > Features.

What They Don’t Know, Won’t Brand You.

Published
by
Matt
on Jul 17, 2007
in Advertising, Branding and Marketers
. Comments

Sometimes a big factor in branding is a lack of information.

By now, many people are familiar with Blue Moon Belgian White Ale.
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This particular beverage, which was founded in 1995, has captured the attention of many beer enthusiasts - and increasingly the general public - because of it’s unique, compelling taste, and it’s down-home, handcrafted image.

What most people don’t know however, is that Blue Moon is brewed by the Molson Coors Brewing Company, the world’s fifth largest brewer by volume. People don’t know about this, because they don’t advertise it. Blue Moon does well because of it’s micro-brew image, and connecting it to Molson Coors would disrupt that.

Or take Radio 104.5, the newest rock station in Philadelphia.
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On the air only a few months ago, Radio 104.5 bills itself as an anti-establishment radio station, and the way they do things on-air is different than most. They don’t have DJ’s that talk all the time, they don’t have stupid contests or other useless stuff, they just have music. And lots of it. Sure it’s interrupted every once in a while, but that’s to be expected with free radio. But before returning to the music, Radio 104.5 runs short quips about how they’re different and thanking you for listening.

Radio 104.5’s omitted info? They’re owned by Clear Channel Communications - the largest radio station owner in the United States. Many have taken to 104.5’s rebellious image, and liken it to “sticking it to the man”, but really, “the man” is just “sticking it to” himself.

These two instances highlight the importance of focus in branding. Neither of the facts above are secrets, nor are they even hard to figure out (Blue Moon says Coors right on the box and 104.5 mentions CC every now and then) but they’re not stressed.

Sometimes in branding, what you leave out is just as important as what you put in.

A Marketing Lesson from Captain Jack Sparrow

Published
by
Matt
on Jul 11, 2007
in Advertising, Marketers and New Marketing
. Comments

Cap’n Jack

“The only rules that really matter are these: what a man CAN do and what a man CAN’T do.”

This wise words from the Cap’n are equally true for marketing.

You CAN create a product that people love and want to talk about. You CAN’T force people to care through excessive advertising or in-your-face PR.

-You CAN make yourself a part of the community with honesty and openness. You CAN’T try to force your way in or ignore it all together.

-You CAN study demographics, psychographics, and any other statistics you want. You CAN’T substitute them for real human insight and interaction.

You CAN come up with new, clever, and inventive ways of marketing. You CAN’T get away with simply tricking people.

You CAN choose to change, adapt, and evolve with the market. You CAN’T win if you don’t.

T.I.M.E. - 4 Things Every Viral Campaign Needs

Published
by
Matt
on Jul 5, 2007
in Advertising, New Marketing and Viral Marketing
. Comments

Managing a viral campaign is a both an art and a science. To increase your success rate with viral marketing, make sure your campaign has all the following elements:

Timing - Often the most overlooked of all viral elements. Timing can make or break a campaign. You have to make sure that your idea is novel and that it’s different than other things (viral or not) happening at that time. Similar ideas or executions can lessen your impact and slow your spread rate, reducing your chances at success.

Incentive - This is why people will invest their time/attention/money in your idea. With all the clutter out there, campaigns and ideas that don’t offer any perks will be swept aside or ignored completely. The benefit itself can vary greatly, it can range from a discount to the fact that people look cool or “in the know” for discovering and sharing it with their friends.

Mystery - This generates the excitement. Unraveling your plan slowly keeps people interested, and it keeps them coming back as well. The key here is to give them just enough information to get them hooked, and then slowly release more as time goes on. The tricky part can be finding the balance between mystery and obscurity.

Ease - If it’s not easy to spread your idea, then it won’t be viral. It’s that simple. You need to do everything in your power to make it easy, or sometimes even necessary, for your idea to be passed along. Put in links for E-mailing, Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Facebook, and anything else you think might facilitate sharing. Make it easy to talk about and explain.

Big Opportunity with Small Businesses

Published
by
Matt
on Jul 4, 2007
in Advertising, Bad Marketing and Marketers
. Comments

A lot of local advertising makes me either cringe or shake my head. Their attempts at humor or gimmicks usually fall flat, and in the end, they usually do more harm than good.

With the large number of people receiving marketing or advertising degrees every year, who is there to work with the local advertisers?

Someone needs to sit down with small businesses and tell them to forget about the gimmicks and just be informative. We know you don’t have a big budget, so just focus on the message.

Working with these local businesses isn’t high powered and sexy like a Madison avenue agency, but there might be a lot more opportunity.

Do you know Chuck’s Secret?

Published
by
Matt
on Jul 3, 2007
in Advertising, Analysis, New Marketing and Viral Marketing
. Comments

NBC has begun running the following commercial for it’s new show Chuck. The commercial, which intentionally appears subliminal, runs about 30 seconds. See what you can pick up.

It’s a great shot at viral marketing. My guess is that they intended for people to TiVo or DVR this commercial, slow it down, and watch it again and again to try and figure it out. When a company gets you to voluntarily watch their ads, I’d say thats a success.

Here’s the video slowed down so you can read the captions.

You can go to www.chuckssecret.com and watch the same video, but this is where NBC falls short of a true viral campaign. Underneath the video is a link to the NBC fall preview page that gives you an entire two minute trailer for the show and explains everything. The right amount of mystery is what makes a viral campaign really work, and by giving it away already, NBC takes a lot of the momentum away.

If I were running this campaign I would have started three months ago with just a ten seconds of a blank frame except for the words “Chucks Secret”. I would run that for a month and stir up some interest and then add www. and .com to it, so it would read “www.chuckssecret.com” where the video would be playing. Then I would open up and start playing the thirty second spot on TV and then a month or before it airs, I would run the whole trailer.

NBC shows a good effort towards some new marketing ideas, but gets a little trigger happy with the exposure, canceling a lot of the viral effects.

How would you run this campaign?

My Own Shop

Published
by
Matt
on Jun 26, 2007
in Advertising, Bad Marketing, Business and Marketers
. Comments

Have you seen any websites for marketing or advertising firms lately?

Go ahead. Open another tab and search for some. Look at a few of them. Notice anything?

They all look the same. They all have a short section about the firm, a quick list of their “core values” or “goals,” they list samples of their recent work, and then they say something to the effect of “…we deliver a unique experience for our clients to build brands and engage audiences..” (What does that stuff even mean?)

My question is this: If they can’t even differentiate themselves, how can you expect them to do it for you or your product? Sure flashy graphics and novel interfaces add a little value (see Leo Burnett), but with the same old information, it’s like putting a brand new paint job on your 1987 Toyota Camry. Sure it looks better, but it runs just the same.

If I ran an agency, the first thing you would see on my page would be a phone number. And not just a number leading to nowhere, but one that put you in touch with an agency rep that had the power to get things rolling. Sure it’s important to feature some of your work for people who are just browsing, but the ability to deliver real, personal insights immediately makes a big difference.

Another thing I would feature on my site would be a live chat room, where members of my team are both encouraged and sometimes directed to hang out. The purpose of this room is to provide some interaction for people with questions, and also just to set up a forum to talk marketing. If you’re considering hiring an agency, you want to know how they think, and what better way than to discuss it with them.

So there it is..a couple ideas from me. Look for me opening up my own shop sometime in the next 20 years. Look forward to hearing from you.

You at 65mph

Published
by
Matt
on Jun 25, 2007
in Advertising, Marketers and New Marketing
. Comments

Imagine all you have is a highway billboard.

Can you be attention-grabbing, witty, and informative all in one sentence?

What would you write about you/your business?

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