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Are You Sure You Want To Know? |
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When the caveman chiseled out, “Wheels for Sale-Satisfaction guaranteed” did he have any idea of the mammoth collection of rules that would evolve to protect the consumer from false or deceptive advertising? Could he have grasped the number of agencies that would stand up for truth in advertising? Is truth in advertising an oxymoron? There are federal agencies, state and local consumer protection agencies and private groups, such as the Better Business Bureau, whose responsibility includes holding advertisers accountable for “keeping it real.” Every state has consumer protection laws that govern ads running in that state. And there are more laws for ads that have specific products like consumer leases, credit, 900 telephone numbers and products sold through mail order or telephone sales.
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This Business of Advertising...(a point of view) |
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Anyone who says that advertising is an exact science or claims to know everything there is about advertising is in fact advertising falsely. I suppose advertising began when someone figured out that “showing your goods”(interpret that as you may) is profitable. But for the most part, advertising began along side of the printed word. In the immortal words of W.C. Fields: “It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money.” The basic idea is to get someone to buy But still adverting is generally truthful today in our world of “lawsuit happy” consumers. When caught reading his bible, W.C. Field’s had this to say… “I’m looking for loopholes”. This is the invisible territory between the printed laws and the slammer.
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Sell Diversity or Create Alliances? |
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A few years ago I was asked by a life insurance organization to deliver a workshop on “Diversity Marketing”, a popular topic that hasn’t yet faded away. I began the workshop by this statement… “I am an Appalachian American” and it was quite the shocker in a room full of many of people from the leaders in the life insurance industry. My point was simple. People aren’t as stupid as the guys back at corporate headquarters think they are. As the CEO asks if there is a way to get a Polynesian face squeezed on to the fourteen faces in the art for the company’s “Winter Holiday” card - I’m sorry, enough is enough. Today’s audience understands the truth. Patronization won’t do anything but make corporate feel good.
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There is no simple formula to follow to create an effective ad. We define an effective ad is one that increases revenue. You may have the funniest, most clever and highly memorable ad on the planet. The plain truth is; if it doesn’t increase revenue, add to the client list or cause a transaction, it has failed. Everyone needs to be careful about judging from simple appearances. I recently had a client that I offered TV as a new advertising medium for them. After the ads had ran for a week or two, a potential customer drove 35 miles to look at a product and he asked a question and then suddenly left. The customer, all alarmed said, “Is this TV hurting us?” My answer was - “not at all”. The potential customer remembered some of the details and as a response took time out to check it out. If your salespeople aren’t asking new customers and recording “Where did you hear about us” you are loosing a lot of important data. Often times this is the only effective monitoring tool.
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Ideas are an asset. If you are ever in a meeting and a management facility asks “ does anyone have any ideas…” and no one talks¾run. If the culture doesn’t respect and grow people respect relating their thoughts, it defines for mediocre. In advertising there are two themes that I’d like to address¾thought leadership and idea generation. Thought leadership is related to brand development and idea generation is more tactical. People/The Team/The Agency, current need to depict in our open and honest environment, to cooperate thought leadership in a category. The category could be as large as financial services or as local as a retail business.
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