Advertising Continues to Suck.

Advertising Continues to Suck., 4.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating

I don’t watch much TV, but when I do from time to time, I always like to watch what the advertisers are doing. One of the interesting things I’ve noticed is how ineffective so many ads are – in fact, how some make no sense at all.

Large companies with massive advertising budgets can afford (I guess) to waste most of that budget trying to build “brand awareness”. This is the time honored, money wasting tradition of simply putting the brand out there without really much focus, if any, on the benefits, quality, or purpose of their products and services. Their point is, through repetition, to bring top of mind awareness of their brand in the public at large.

Here is the problem… that kind of marketing and thinking is not working anymore, and it takes greater and greater amounts of money to achieve the same top-of-mind awareness today than it did just a few years ago. This is due to the ever increasing capabilities of people everywhere to consume media from ever growing sources. Seth Godin in his book “Unleashing the Ideavirus” pointed out how today top-of-mind awareness occurs because of new ideas/products/services or “viral interests” that spread fast through these various media channels.

So getting back to my main point: Advertising Continues to Suck.

Why?

Why do we still see these ads for local auto sales where some overweight guy waving his hands wildly screams that he can “beat any price” for this 2012 Toyota Camry?

Do I care that the owner of the Ford store down the street is sitting atop a full size oxen as he yammers on in a bad southern accent? Or that his wife and daughter are standing next to a car dressed in their Sunday best with plastered on smiles?

No.

Nobody is listening to this. We haven’t been for some time. Again quoting Seth Godin, this “Interruption Marketing” does not work anymore. People tune this stuff out. This is such a waste of time and money on the part of the advertiser.

Meanwhile, I see KIA using computer graphics to show the “Soul” within the context of a “Gears of War” game with the dancing hamsters. The idea here is to simply capture the imagination and place the Soul vehicle as “cool”. Then by using social marketing via YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and other internet marketing channels, top-of-mind awareness is achieved. I see a lot of Soul cars driving around these days.

What can we learn? Well – our advertising dollar goes a lot further if we put it in the right channels – and those channels are evolving and growing fast! The old way of doing advertising from 20 years ago will not cut it today. And this goes for your online marketing business as well as offline car sales.

Here are 5 tips for modern advertising that will help you sell more no matter what your business is:

1.) Know your “Unique Selling Proposition” – wow! This alone would removed about 90% of the ridiculous and frankly boring ads from all media channels. I see ads for “Cotton, the fabric of our lives” – Um… yeah? so what? Who is selling this? What are they selling? Now look at E-Trade: They get a talking baby using internet tricks everyone knows from YouTube and they Advertise their trading services and software. Now that is how you do it! they have had enormous success since they started this. They know their own USP.

2.) Be Current – Like the Kia Soul example above, know what your market is into now,and know how they like to consume their media! This is how you spread your message like a virus today. Do you know where your current prospects are? Do you know what they do and how they consume their media? You better find out!

3.) Promote Diagonally – handing out pens with your company logo is not going to cut it anymore. In this day you need to leverage the technology that is out there – do you have a Facebook for your company or product? How about a phone QR code for your website or product on the back (or front) of your business card? Do you promote by giving away free memory sticks with product data on the stick or with viral videos, phone apps, etc? Do you know where to find cheap developers of these sorts of promotions? Check out freelance sites like www.elance.com or www.guru.com and many others.

4.) Testimonials with Bite – There are too many fake looking and sounding testimonials out there, but you know what really gets peoples attention? Honesty. There is so little of this that it is refreshing and if you position it correctly you can make it sparkle. Make these easy to find, objective, and scrupulously truthful – and have full contact information. Yes, those types of testimonials are hard to find and hard to get – you have your work cut out, but if your product is worthy of selling, then you can get these.

5.) Do the Hard Thing – Bottom line, everyone wants to do what they know, even if it is worn out. It’s hard to learn something new, and harder still to create something new. If you are willing, however, to do the hard thing, then you are going to be in an arena with very little competition. Stop being the used car salesman, yelling the same old tired tactics. Be the next Facebook, or Silly Bands, Angry Birds App – be an ideavirus.

Keep Pounding!

-The Hammer.