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Martin Lindstrom is a fascinating individual, he did a seven million dollar marketing study on the brain and wrote a book about it; Buy-ology: The Truth and Lies About Why We Buy. I encourage you to read it but what got me thinking was a recent podcast put on by Duct Tape Marketing’s John Jantsch.  Talking with Mr. Lindstrom, they simplified it down to semantic markers.  Lindstrom says, “Semantic markers are like a slap on the chin” in a negative or positive way.  Our subconscious makes most of the decisions for us so brands should be trying to create these subtle markers in our minds. Lindstrom goes on to say that small companies should be taking advantage of semantic markers to get a lot of value out of the marketing effort with very little effort.

So how do you create a semantic marker in someone’s mind?  By going to extreme’s and doing something completely unexpected but so memorable it is embedded in our minds.  Remember how good Burger Baron’s billboards were?  They were different and were actually funny that they stuck out in our minds, you’d chuckle to yourself when you thought of Burger Baron.

How about the Roughrider’s Watermelon heads?  Difficult not to talk about those.  It allowed Roughriders fans to show the league how dedicated they really were.  It was different and definitely not for everyone.

Just recently the apparel company 22 Fresh came out with a new outlet store on Facebook.

The only way you can buy anything in the store is if you have “Scrilla”, and you can buy Scrilla or earn it.

This store isn’t for the average person, then again, regular people don’t wear 22 Fresh, it’s cool, it’s new, and you have to have the Scrilla to afford it.

What’s different is memorable.

Lindstrom also discusses why we don’t see more of this ingenious advertising regularly and he attributes it to organizations being too conservative and trying to please the masses.  When you set out to tell everyone a message, no one hears.  Most of the advertising messages we see are targeted at a large number of people and the result isn’t surprising.  The more conservative, politically correct, respectful, polite the message is, the easier it is for us to ignore it.

So the next time you want to tell everyone about your product don’t, come up with a different message, a different medium, cross the line, offend someone, do something that has never been done in your industry, evoke emotion. Otherwise you are just making noise.

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I drove by Sobey’s today and a large magnetic sign out front said “Chicken legs, $1.19 /lb”.  It struck me as odd because I would assume that sign should entice me to come in.  I know what you’re thinking, that some people did go to Sobey’s because the sale on chicken legs, you’re probably right.  But couldn’t they come up with something better than chicken legs?

This got me thinking and led me to look up the four big grocer’s in Regina, those being Sobey’s, Safeway, Superstore, and Co-op. Click on any of these stores and it will take you to their flyer page.  All four have a sound online presence except Co-op, their flyer is in PDF form and is 5.8 Mb in size, but I guess if you’re looking up the Co-op flyer you have ten minutes to wait for it to download. Safeway is the only one on Twitter and all they tweet is feel good sayings and nothing that’s going to convince me to shop there*.

In the past people were loyal to a grocer, my Mom was a devout Superstore customer, she’d never set foot in a Safeway.  Our generation is different, we like convenience and a good deal.  I prefer Superstore over the rest because I think it is cheaper but the fact of the matter is I will go to where is most convenient.

A useful site would be a real time comparison of the deals offered by the big four, break it down, give me a reason to shop at your store.  Get on Twitter and tweet your unbelievable sale items (by unbelievable I mean the ones that will entice me to come in because you know I’m not only buying Chicken legs when I shop). I would love to check UberTwitter on my phone for deals at Sobey’s if I’m near by.

I feel this industry is behind technology wise because they have to cater to the baby-boomers who do the majority of shopping.  When the purchasing power shifts from baby-boomer to generation Y prepare for a change.  We will not only expect change to occur, we will demand it.

Have you recently thought about how your customer is/will be changing?  Or are you just putting up magnetic signs telling everyone about your chicken legs on sale?

*-Looking at Safeway’s Twitter feed I found a online promotion for a free box of Tangerines for their Twitter followers with purchase of $25 or more.  Limit 25,000 Followers 305 including myself.  Hey it’s a start!

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SaskEnergy has put up billboards all over Regina about their latest offering.  If you need a furnace you can get a loan from SaskEnergy for prime plus two percent.  Seems like a normal billboard right?  Wrong.

SaskEnergy obviously understands that many households are in need of a new high-efficiency furnace but can’t afford one.  How do you help out low-income homeowners and create some goodwill for your organization without spending thousands of dollars?  Offer an affordable method of obtaining a furnace.  The two percent covers the cost of advertising and admin work so they are probably breaking even financially, but in the eyes of the community SaskEnergy looks great.

SaskEnergy went out to advertise their newest offer and came back with some goodwill.  If only more of our crowns would set out to attach some goodwill to their advertising.  

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Have you noticed an increasing trend in your city with these digital billboards?  Animation on an illuminated sign offering state of the art advertising, sounds like the future doesn’t it?  Hardly.  If you haven’t noticed, these signs are popping up all over the place, a friend and I counted off the top of our heads how many there are in Regina, sixteen. (to see them all click here) sixteen billboards all claiming to offer thousands of “views” per day depending on the location.

With the city being saturated with these digital boards paired with the difficulty to measure their effectiveness, paying clients to fill the spots are becoming sparse.  So who’s advertising on these boards?  The surrounding businesses.  Count the next time you’re at a red light how many ads show up that are for business in the vicinity of the sign.  It’s astounding.

So if the sign owners aren’t making the money and it’s still not a good medium for your company to buy time on, who wins?  Obviously the sign manufacturer’s stock is rising.

Now I would hate to complain about this phenomenon without offering a solution.  If you still want one of these signs we put together the perfect formula.  If you’re going to buy one ensure you put it up in the area with the most businesses around.  Find the part of your city that is saturated with businesses and put up a digital board, that way you will ensure getting the most out of the sign.

For more information on why I don’t like this as a medium read Martin Lindstrom’s Buy-ology.

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