Thanks to Han Lee for permission to use this Photo.
I have found in my many years in the advertising business that a way to keep perspective is to know and respect the customer. For example, if you are developing advertising for a restaurant, go to the restaurant and experience it as a regular customer. Observe the service, the menu, the décor, and the atmosphere. Observe the customers around you. Are they families or single persons? Do they appear to be locals who live in the area, or are they visiting from far away? How are they dressed? What items are they ordering? Observe the staff. Do they seem happy or harried? How much time do they spend conversing at each table? These kinds of first-hand observations can add knowledge that research figures cannot provide. This is especially true in Internet marketing.
Your web development team has just finished creating a whole new web design for the company. However, many times the company finds out that regular users can find a web site confusing. Because it is so easy for someone to abandon a site in the middle of a shopping experience, it is essential to ensure an easy navigation system for the most basic of users. Many companies will bring in focus groups consisting of people in their target market to click through the proposed site design and make any suggestions before the site goes on line.
If you are working for a company that manufactures parts sold to other businesses, visit those businesses, if possible. Talk with the people who actually use the parts to assemble the final product. Find out what they think of your product versus that of the competition. What do they think of the advertising for the parts? Is it truthful? Is it meaningful to them?
As I discuss throughout Ashworth’s Internet Marketing Program, the best business owners and managers stay in touch with their customers. There is no substitute for meeting the customers and the people responsible for selling your product.
Thanks to Gene Hunt for permission to use this Photo.
I finally took the time to read a book that I’ve been interested in checking out for awhile. It’s called The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris and its’ innovative perspectives on how almost anyone can create an entrepreneurial lifestyle for themselves is definitely worth reading. Instead of summarizing the contents of the book here, I’ve included this podcast interview with Ferris conducted by Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur’s Journey.
I think all of our students will be motivated by Mr. Ferris’s very pragmatic ideas on how you can break free from “the system” and pursue your own business endeavors with confidence. Please share your thoughts with your student community on the Ashworth Student Forum. I’ll talk to you again soon. Thanks…
When I was the account executive on Mr. & Mrs. “T” Cocktail Mixes, the responsibilities of the advertising agency extended beyond creating advertisements. The agency also prepared shelf talkers, table tents, and other point-of-sale items. The client directed us to produce these promotional items because he wanted the product advertising incorporated into all trade and sales promotion materials.
For example, “T” ran print ads in trade magazines targeting the grocery trade and the retail trade. The objectives were to convince grocery buyers to carry the Mr. & Mrs. “T” brand of cocktail mixes. For the retail trade, the objectives were the same: to convince bars and restaurants to buy and sell the “T” line of products. These advertisements utilized the same visual as the consumer ads. This strategy recognized that trade buyers were also consumers, and likely to see the same ads. However, the ads included modified copy, which spoke directly to the trade audience by addressing their needs. The copy detailed the advertising support behind the Mr. & Mrs. “T” line of products. This information was included to encourage purchases by demonstrating a consumer pull strategy. The copy encouraged grocery chains and retail outlets to carry the full line of products to fulfill anticipated consumer demand.
We also developed sales sheets for use by the “T” sales force. The front of the sell sheets featured, once again, a consumer print advertisement. The back of the sell sheet summarized the consumer advertising schedule. The Mr. & Mrs. “T” sales force used the sell sheet on sales calls with brokers and retailers to demonstrate the advertising support behind the brand, and encourage clients to buy the “T” line of cocktail mixes.
Furthermore, the agency developed contests to provide additional incentives to the trade to purchase the line of cocktail mixes. The media planners and the account team negotiated merchandising with the various consumer magazines chosen for the media plan. Southern Living and Sunset magazines were included in the media program in part because of their high reach against the grocery trade. (Research had shown that many purchase decision makers in the grocery store business read these magazines to keep informed of product introductions and consumer products for their stores.) Magazine merchandising supplied by these titles included tickets to college football bowl games. The client used these tickets as incentives for grocery buyers to stock and order more of his product. Through this integrated approach to advertising and promotions, Mr. & Mrs. “T” was in a better position to achieve its marketing goals.
The insights of cultural/media theorist Douglas Rushkoff are always contemporary and often prescient. He was deciphering the social codes of the virtual psyche, lifestyle, and marketplace before such concepts were formally identified by the so-called “machine.”
In this video snippet from Rushkoff’s presentation on “word of mouth” marketing at the CMA’s Word of Mouth Conference, he summarizes why the death of traditional advertising may not be such a bad thing for businesses willing to listen to the voices.
Here’s a little comic relief for all of you in these worrisome times. Microsoft terminated their recent advertising campaign starring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates, a campaign which some advertising pundits have called the worst advertising campaign in history! The campaign only debuted two commercials that were supposed to help make Microsoft Windows sheik and hip, but instead seemed to be about nothing, much like the old Seinfeld Show. It did nothing to promote the Microsoft brand or help instill confidence in Vista.
Microsoft quickly initiated a new “I’m a PC” campaign that shows the ubiquitous nature of Microsoft Windows. Contrary to the stumbling advertising attempts of Microsoft, Apple has had the very popular and effective “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” campaign. In order to add some balance, a number of people have created their own commercial parodies of this campaign and poke fun at Macs. In addition to the video above, here are a few of my favorites. You can find lots more.
I guess that being paid $10 million for the advertising campaign and appearing with the chairman Bill Gates might be the sole reason why Seinfeld is joining forces with Microsoft, but maybe not. It might not be the money, and certainly not the fame (even though Seinfeld might be less famous now than 10 years ago). I believe that his reason might be all related to creativity and the opportunity a huge advertising campaign brings. Seinfeld is a comedian, and he is a creative person. He is one of the best people in the business, and now he has the chance to work with some of the best people in marketing. The advertising campaign will most likely be really cool, and people will be talking about it for months.
But what is he going to promote?
My first thought was that he can’t be hired to promote something like “start using Microsoft Windows”, because way too many people are already using it. But according to Washington Post, that’s exactly what he’ll be doing, and it’s all because of Apple.
The next question is how?
The first thing that comes to my mind, is the “Get a Mac” ads. But hopefully they will do something completely different, because trying to do the same thing, that would be just plain stupid. The funny thing is, if you look at most of the Seinfeld episodes, you’ll see a Mac on his desk in the corner. Maybe that’s what they’ll be focusing on in the advertising campaign, that Seinfeld finally switched from his old Mac to a PC, and started using Microsoft Vista?
My tips to a creative and cool campaign would go with Truth or dare, Jerry Seinfeld vs Bill Gates. (more…)
Thanks to Kit Kowan for permission to use this Photo.
Seth Godin’s ability to reinvent conventional perspectives in an original framework has earned him celebrity status in the marketing world. Praised for his seemingly prophetic insights into developing digital trends, Seth is the kind of entrepreneur who doesn’t find it necessary to break the rules in order to generate consumer attention; he simply interprets the rules in ways that the “experts” had said were too undefined, open, and ironically enough: consumer-centric. The communications channels that Seth proposes to reach customers (get their attention) should be understood by any entrepreneur trying to make it in online marketplace, which is already yesterday’s— a reality that has informed Godin’s strategic principles throughout his career. The following video is a nice introduction to the sometimes bizarre, but always inspiring perspectives of a truly creative business mind. Click on the image above to watch this video. We encourage you to share your thoughts with the community afterwards. Take care.
The insights of cultural/media theorist Douglas Rushkoff are always contemporary and often prescient. He was deciphering the social codes of the virtual psyche, lifestyle, and marketplace before such concepts were formally identified by the so-called “machine.”
TheMerchants Of Cool is a brilliant analysis of the incorporation of youth pop-culture that Ruskhoff created while working as a correspondent for PBS Frontline. This is a very entertaining documentary. You’ll learn a lot too. Let me know what you think in the comments section.
Thanks to Chris Metcalf for permission to use this Photo.
In the hyper-competitive business environment of today, there are millions of dollars invested and mistakenly often wasted by companies looking for the “next big thing,” the elusive innovation that will electrify the marketplace. When most people think of innovation, they automatically consider it in the technological sense, but innovation means much more than producing a faster computer or a telephone that doubles as a home entertainment system; innovation is ultimately about ideas. In the following video, innovation expert Charles Leadbeater discusses how innovation isn’t just reserved for the corporate giants with infinite capital, but rather how independent thinking entities, people like you and me with a vision, are now empowered like never before to compete in the marketplace on our own terms. I found this presentation both informative and inspiring. I hope you feel the same way after viewing it and approach your next lesson with a sense of enthusiasm. Click on the image above to watch this video.
There’s that store over on the corner. It is one of your favorite stores or you just go there once in a while. But the next time you go by, it’s closed. Not just closed for the day, but closed for good. You feel bad as you liked going in there, but you may not have gone in there that often. You think to yourself if you only knew that they were near that point you could have done something – blogged on them, told your friends or simply went in there more.
For me there were 2 such places, an awesome Vietnamese/fusion restaurant and a coffee shop. Now a jeweler and a check-cashing store stand in each respectively. But what if each owner reached out to its customer base for help, would I have responded? I asked myself as I read about Toscanini’s, an ice cream shop I have visited in Cambridge, MA in a recent issue of Inc. magazine. In this case, getting behind on paying their taxes resulted in the store closing, and after an Internet appeal they were able to raise enough money to reopen.
As I said before, you can’t mess with the numbers. However, they did and paid the price for it, literally. Had they reached out earlier to their customers, how would they have reacted? How would I have reacted? (more…)
Subscribe to Feed
