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When looking forward leads to backward thinking.
Every smart advertiser knows that in order to succeed, you are constantly looking ahead with key questions in mind:
• What are we going to accomplish?
• How can we anticipate people’s wants and needs?
• How is the fundamental relationship changing between our product/service and customers?
These core considerations should always be top-of-mind as you maintain, manage and create campaigns designed to accomplish your objectives. However, looking ahead too far when it comes to tactics is an error we see repeatedly. Especially when it comes to new digital channels, social media and tactical options that may not be based in reality.
The desire to implement cutting-edge communications quite often supersedes the common sense of focusing on your objectives, the target audience and what makes your product unique. Add to that the seductive lure of instant tracking (as opposed to long-term ROI) and you have a recipe for wasted resources.
Digital and social media options are growing and can be extremely effective when implemented at the right time, with the right audience and adhering to your core brand premise.
But, plan your tactics to the reality of your identity, target audience and the actual use of mediums and channels at the time of the campaign, or you might find your career having a Second Life.
Posted by 3 at 06:51 PM | Post a comment
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Insights about insight.
When most people see or hear a true insight about people, it resonates. Famous leaders, philosophers, writers and comedians are gifted at identifying a simple human truth and then explaining it in a way that we all nod, smile and think, “that is so true.” Usually these insights are not merely clichéd generalities, but offer something more piercing into the human condition.
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers.
Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.
At the core of every great advertising campaign is an equally simple, compelling truth about the people we are trying to reach: our target audience. The hard part is getting to it. Because we can’t just find any human truth, we have to find a human truth that is addressed in some meaningful way by our client’s product or service.
The insight is there, somewhere, but to reach it you almost always have to do an extraordinary amount of work,
an incredible amount of listening and be extremely disciplined so you don’t get distracted or mislead into
false conclusions.
Insight is the most valuable part of your marketing strategy. It elevates your brand experience beyond the merely transactional and into something meaningful.
Posted by 3 at 10:45 AM | Post a comment
Thursday, July 5, 2012
The devil is in the body copy.
"Nobody reads ads. People read what's interesting. Sometimes it's an ad." Famed advertising copywriter Howard Gossage's timeless words serve as a guiding reminder to those of us who create messages, and to clients who pay agencies to shape them.
Advertising is interruption. We are the distraction between pages of Entertainment Weekly, the banner ad above the compelling online news story, the commercial before the wrap-up on CSI. No one seeks our messaging, but we must find interested recipients nonetheless.
The key is in being meaningful and relevant, no matter where your message runs. Too often, advertisers respond with the wrong solutions: Be louder. Get attention no matter what it takes or costs. But these solutions only build consumer resentment and resistance.
When in doubt, remember Gossage: Stand for something. Be clear.
But most of all, be interesting.
Posted by 3 at 04:35 PM | Post a comment
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