Tag: advertising

Is the media or the message getting in your way?

Posted on by Red Slice

The old adage, “Is it the medium or the message?” has never held more weight than it does in today’s marketing arena. You have a story to tell (your brand message) and you have a dizzying array of mechanisms through which to tell it (Twitter, website, blog, ad, events, signage, Facebook….) So when it comes to evaluating success, you have two factors to consider: the message and the medium itself.

 

Seth Godin’s blog talks about how organizations use PowerPoint appallingly these days. Never has a tool come along that seemed so easy to use, but people forgot about honing basic presentation skills before cutting loose on this software. It’s just like blogs or DIY websites – just because you “can” doesn’t mean you “should” or even that you are doing it “right.” You could be doing more harm than good in communicating your message simply because of using the vehicle incorrectly. You have to adapt your message to the medium you are using so you leverage it effectively.

 

In addition, a third layer to consider is choosing the right vehicle to reach your target audience in the first place. So let’s say you have a great message AND you are using the medium correctly – you still might be singing beautifully to an empty room, because no one that needs to hear your message is actually present. This is what happens when you get caught up in the next new shiny thing, and forget to evaluate if your target audience responds to it.

 

Messaging can be complicated. You can’t just assume messages “didn’t work” if they fail, simple because you got no response. Look at how you are using the media first: are you leveraging it fully, are you understanding how audiences are properly consuming the information, and did you design the message to fit the specific medium? Then look at the media itself and if it’s the right vehicle to reach the people you wanted to reach. Hopefully, you put all this thought into it before you embarked on the campaign, but if not, take a step back and look at these factors.

What are your favorite TV shows subliminally telling you to do?

Posted on by Red Slice

We all know about product placement as a way to cut through the ad clutter and still enable content providers to attract marketers. This is when they embed the product into the actual show, like Coke strategically placing branded cups at the judges’ table on American Idol or Cisco’s video conferencing equipment playing a crucial storyline role on CSI.  The other day, I even saw one of the most blatant (and frankly, tacky) ones on Bones: two female characters are driving along and the passenger says to the driver, “Do you have kids?” The driver says no, and the passenger asks her why she has a Minivan. The driver says, (paraphrasing) “Oh, I love my Sienna. First of all, I’m an artist so there’s room for all my stuff. And I don’t even have to struggle with parallel parking anymore, which I hate.” I’m sure the show’s writers cringed and felt like they needed a shower to wipe the cheesiness off of them after writing those lines.

But I’m okay with product placement if it allows us to enjoy good content without having to pay a lot for it. Subsidizing content development with advertising  is a better alternative to me – I always find it funny that people want something for nothing in this world. And seriously, product placement goes way back: remember, “soap operas” are so named because of the early days when soap and detergent companies would sponsor them.

But the newest thing is “behavior placement:’” sending softer messages through TV content so that advertisers can then have a more receptive audience to their message. This WSJ article talks about how NBC Universal plans a week of programming across their networks that emphasizes healthy eating and exercise or environmental responsibility and the shows’ storylines address this behavior in some way. For example, “The Office” had a storyline about Dwight being a “Recyclops” superhero as he humorously and overzealously encouraged the office to recycle.  A Telemundo show had a character whose job was to recruit people for the Census – an important message to the Latino community, which is usually undercounted. And “Top Chef” promoted buying locally grown foods by having competing chefs prepare a meal using only organic and local produce and ingredients. Some behavior placements are more subtle, as when a plotline on NBC’s new show, “Trauma” involved someone reporting an emergency from their hybrid vehicle or when Bravo’s “Millionaire Matchmaker” featured a client who owned an eco-friendly clothing line.

As NBC Universal coordinates these themes across their shows during certain time periods (like Green Week), they are then able to attract advertisers who benefit from those behaviors. For example, Soy Joy, a health food manufacturer, or carmakers pushing Hybrids. They can even offer special ads with characters from the shows, as Kenneth the page from “30 Rock” did for Pepsi’s Sun Chips brand who had just launched a compostable bag: they produced a skit with him that will run during a commercial break.

The networks know they can’t be too pushy or preachy or they risk alienating their audience. And if the behavior makes sense in context and maintains the show’s flow and integrity, that is cool with me. “The Office” producers say they had been thinking about doing this with Dwight’s character even before the network came to them and ordered “an environmental storyline.”  But what are your thoughts? Would you rather pay more for programming development devoid of such tactics? Or are you fine with a few ad messages here and there if it results in quality programming at a decent price for you?

Why I (heart) joy…and BMW

Posted on by Red Slice

BMW

Photo credit: orangewheels.co.uk

What a treat to unfold my WSJ the other morning and have an 11×11 object fall out.  It looked like a color brochure, printed on heavy stock, and folded into squares.  The top square said the following:

We do not make cars.

We are the creators of emotion.

We are the keepers of thrill.

We are the guardians of one three-letter word.

JOY.

Intrigued, I unfolded it to reveal a gorgeous  4 foot by 3 foot poster ad for BMW.  One one side, each square held a wonderful vignette of people interacting with their car, with captions like “Joy is maternal” and “Joy is youthful”. Others read “Joy is who we answer to”, “Joy can be counted” and “Joy is timeless.” They interspersed what can only be described as “car porn” in some of the pictures, showing BMW’s latest models that are nothing short of breathtaking and modern.

This piece exemplifies all the best things about good brand marketing:

1) It’s believable: I really do believe BMW’s claims that their loyalists find joy in driving their cars, and that they find joy in making beautiful machines.

2) It’s credible: Hey, it’s BMW. They are no slackers.

3) It’s benefit-driven: They focused on a mission and an emotional purpose of eliciting joy in their customers. They focused on the thrill of driving a great car, not just the features and gadgets.

4) It’s differentiating: Others might be out touting fuel efficiency and safety these days, all noble, important benefits for many audiences. But instead of singing the same song, this piece caught my attention because it only tried to do one thing and did it well: it tapped into my emotional thrill for a gorgeous car

4) It’s gorgeous: Truly, the piece was visually stunning and also in line with BMW’s brand and what I would expect.

5) It’s unexpected: It didn’t show up in my overwhelmed in-box or as just a normal full page ad in the WSJ. It literally fell into my lap.  Could get annoying after a while if to many people start doing this, but for now it just made me pay attention.

6) It had a call to action: There was a 1-800 number on one of the squares to call for your nearest dealer. Not all brand advertising has to be as esoteric and abstract as perfume ads, ya know. After all, they want to sell cars.

Well done, BMW, well done. You caught my attention. And ironically, just when my husband and I were debating whether we would buy a Mercedes or BMW if we had a choice. Were you eavesdropping?!

Web radio – what do you think?

Posted on by Red Slice

What do you think of web radio as an advertising vehicle? I’m not necessarily talking just the streaming music sites like Pandora or the like, but I’m talking content shows available on networks such as BlogTalkRadio and Contact Talk Radio. There are a slew of experts of every ilk who can now be their own Oprah or Good Morning America, usually by paying for the privilege. As one who has secret dreams of this someday (coming soon?) this is especially enticing.

Stats on web radio listenership are very hopeful for prime buying demographics. And these stats are from 2006 – I bet they are much higher now. With the super easy ability to download archived shows as podcasts and take them with you, you have infinite possibilities for getting your message in front of people.

Many folks are using these shows as marketing vehicles of their own, to highlight their expertise or business. And I think that’s a good call if it makes sense for your field.

So are you advertising on niche web radio shows? If so, what has been your experience – did you have success? What web radio shows do you listen to?

When Brand Advertising Goes Bad

Posted on by Red Slice

Catching up on some football this weekend, a TV ad provoked such ire in me, that I had to share.

Before I reveal it, let me defend why I have such strong feelings. Marketing and branding has rceived such a bad rap over the years as litle more than “pretty pictures” and wasted budget. OK, this might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I’ve never not had to fight and claw my way through an expenditure justification meeting with a CFO. And I get it, I really do. There has been such misguided marketing shoveled out over the years (and I admit, I shoveled my share of it, too). And you can’t just spend money with no ROI – you need to be able to track and manage ROI on any investment you make. That’s just sound business, and while I might be in marketing, I did earn a business degree so I understand that the name of the game, at the end of the day, is revenue.

So I have spent my career learning to be a diligent “measurer.” Whether that’s tracking website visits, leads, conversion rates, unaided recall, PR hits, focus groups, etc. the Type A in me has always enjoyed the challenge of proving that marketing – when it’s done right – should affect the bottom line and is not all fun and games. It takes a lot of skill to tap into people’s needs and prompt them to act. Yes, sometimes it still all falls down because of product quality, a flawed business model or some sales reps who can’t seem to close the deal – but you can only control what you can control, right?

And then, I see advdertising like I did this past weekend. And I want to slap somebody. Hard.

Pacific Life is running a TV ad that I’m sure cost a pretty penny. It’s an ad showing dolphins jumping up out of the ocean, set to an epic soundtrack. Then, the Pacific Life product categories (annuities, etc.) flash across the screen for about a second and the commercial ends. Someone feels so smug about this ad, they actually have it on the home page of their website, titled Dancing Whales.

What the…..?!

Yes, the logo has a whale on it. Yes, whales are cute and I like watching them. Yes, I believe that not all ads should be dry, feature-function-benefit informercials, but can showcase a lifestyle or an attitude. But whose idea was it to say, “Hey, our logo has a whale! Let’s spend money on a 30-second spot with jumping whales and that will definitely show people a) why we’re different from every other financial services company out there; b) will help people get to know our values; and c) entice them to contact their Pacific Life rep today!”

This is indeed what happens when people that think marketing and advertising are easy make decisions. OK, maybe I’m being harsh for comedic effect, but truly: how does this ad in any way help them differentiate, tell their story, show me what value I get from being their customer, or all of the above?

I call this the “Perfume ad conundrum” You know how some perfume ads have gone so far down the lifestyle branding path that their abstract ads are now mocked for being pretentious and nonsensical? That’s a result of someone saying, “Consumers are dumb, If we just put 30 seconds of (enter adjective here) up onthe screen, will associate us with (insert same adjective) and we will be ‘branded’.”

Uh uh. Not how it works. A good branding campaign does not forget the fundamentals of communication and marketing: value propositions (even if you just focus on 1 per ad, as Apple doesso well), differentiation (how can only this company provide what they are promising?), and clear mssaging (can I understand exactly what they are telling me?)

Ok, you could argure that I remembered this ad and am ranting about it, so didn’t it work? Um, not all talk is good talk that makes people buy your stuff. Many “water cooler” ads are ones in which the gossipers can’t remember which company they were even for, so how does that help people spend their money on you?

So, yes, I get a little out of joint when I see millions of dollars being spent by big companies that should have experienced marketing professionals who know better. Otherwise, it just makes it that much harder for those of us who value the depth and discipline of marketing to get our budgets approved. It’s bad enough that brand marketing is cited as pretty fluff (when execs are being kind) and a money sinkhole (when they are not) – can’t those of you blessed to get your budgets approved practice it at a more worthy level that positively impacts the bottom line?