JephMaystruck.com » Advertising

Sour Milk and Your Marketing Strategy

Jeph — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:28:45 +0000

When you pour sour milk into a glass, it comes out in globs and chunks, not very consistently. When you dabble in one medium and then try a different tactic it is not very consistent, that does not help your brand. People notice consistency.

When your efforts are focused on a certain task over time, by default your competency increases and you create consistency. Your customers or clients have an expectation of your work and you must deliver on that expectation consistently. People notice consistency.

In a world where products and businesses can be developed over night, it can be difficult at times to differentiate the good ones from the bad. Whether you own a small business or are developing your next marketing campaign, keep in mind that consistency over a period of time speaks louder than any chunky one-off sour milk promotion. People don’t like sour milk, but love consistency.

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3 Reasons Why I Hate Text-Message Advertising

Jeph — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 18:15:04 +0000

Have you experienced this yet? A random number texts you “HUGE SALE ON (Insert product), BEST PRICE IN TOWN, LOOK NO FURTHER FOR YOUR (Insert product) NEEDS!”

It has happened a couple of times now and I don’t like it. Here’s why if you use text-message advertising we’re both losing.

1. I have not given you permission to interrupt me on my phone, doing so makes me strongly dislike whatever the message is you want me to read.

2. You seem lazy and disrespectful, I want to return the favor. I’ll call you back or MySask411 your number to see who you are and when I find out I’ll realize how elementary your understanding of marketing really is. I will not forget this.

3. The more niche focused your text-message deal is, the better your chance of it being completely unrelated to my purchasing patterns. EXAMPLE: Niche focus, “HUGE SALE ON GRANITE” Broad focus: “HALF OFF ICE CREAM AT COLD STONE” – The first one you lose all credibility, the second only works if the person receiving the text sees value in what you’re texting.

Moral of the story? Lay off the Spam sandwiches, you’re hurting your personal brand and wasting my time.

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Cause marketing: a diamond in the rough

Jeph — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:27:35 +0000

Cause marketing is utilizing a non-profit organization as a means of putting a for-profit brand or product in front of someone in return for fundraising and awareness. Anytime you partner with a charity for anything it is a win-win situation. The charity gains funding and exposure to a group of people it may not have been able to touch and the company gets to show people that they actually do care by helping out a charity.

Cause marketing is growing in part because some large players are getting involved such as Pepsi with it’s refresh project. Other companies have the charity aspect as a part of their day to day business like Toms Shoes, their fascinating business strategy is worth a read.

The example I love to tell people about is a local company. Coda Clothing & Shoes (@CodaClothing) throughout the year does not promote the store or sales via any mass media type other than the large billboard on the side of their building shown here:

Instead of telling everyone in Regina to come to Coda, they host Charity fashion shows where a large amount of money is donated to a specific charity and Coda gets to show off their new line of clothing. It’s difficult not to like companies like Coda that are active in the community, that care about your city, and that want to give back.

I love the concept behind cause marketing because in this ever-changing marketing world you can never be certain as to what is the best medium to be broadcasting your message on. Cause marketing works because it’s like putting a huge sign on your company’s building that says, “WE CARE”.

So when you’re thinking about the next big ad campaign to roll out with, why not pair up with a charity and try help them too, you’d be surprised at what you can do.

Pictures courtesy of Coda Clothing & Shoes

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The Bonnie Raitt Philosophy of Marketing

Jeph — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 22:54:17 +0000

“Let’s give them something to talk about”

If you go about your marketing efforts keeping this philosophy in mind you can’t go wrong. Let me explain.

If your target audience sees your billboard and it doesn’t strike them with any emotion, you’ve lost. If someone hears your latest radio campaign and it doesn’t standout in their mind, again, you lose. If your marketing campaign can’t give someone something to talk about, what are you doing? Just making noise, that is all, and we are extremely good at ignoring advertising noise.

Get creative, be provocative, evoke emotion, pick a fight, disagree, challenge a norm, standup for something, show your passion, give me something to talk about.

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Saskatchewan Ministry of Health Misses the boat…again?

Jeph — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:31:16 +0000

In March of 2010 this was posted to the Nudge blog, explaining why social norms are a proven method to curb binge drinking among teens. The post features an advertisement from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Health attempting to use guilt and shame to convince teens not to drink. The other example is from the National Institute of Social Norms campaign at Georgetown University. From this case study you can read about it’s effectiveness.

The same day of the Nudge blog post, Advertising Age published this article on a study done at Northwestern University. Using guilt or shame can actually influence the intended audience to take part in more of that behavior, says Kellogg marketing professor Nidhi Agrawal; ”People who are already feeling guilt or shame resort to something called “defensive processing” when confronted with more of either, and tend to disassociate themselves with whatever they are being shown in order to lessen those emotions.”

It didn’t bother me much knowing that the Ministry of Health did that one set of ads, but to my astonishment they are producing more and now short videos too? The new campaign is titled: “What else got wasted?” Well it appears your marketing budget was.

Just because you “think” it’ll be an effective campaign doesn’t make it true, the proof is in the research and there is plenty out there.

Please, comments are welcome.

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Your Marketing Strategy? Start with a goal…

Jeph — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:50:36 +0000

If you own a small business in Saskatchewan what do you do to market yourself?

If someone gives you advice on an advertising tactic you “should” be doing, ignore it. In todays marketing world you must define your goal before any thoughts of a tactic are brought up.

Do you buy the big billboards on Ringroad? Maybe a large ad in the Saturday Leaderpost? Nah, make a Facebook fan page, everyone’s on Facebook, right? How about a commercial on the Wolf, Regina’s most popular radio station, that oughta bring in some new clientele! All these tactics I’m sure would work for some organization if executed correctly but that does not mean you should be using them.

Yes social media is growing but in Saskatchewan the adoption rate is much slower. Yes billboards have worked in the past but that does not mean they’ll work for you.

Define your goal first then look at your at your tactical options. Confused? Give me a call I can help you clarify.

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13 Reasons Why Letter-Board Advertising Sucks

Jeph — Fri, 14 May 2010 20:47:20 +0000

If you’ve ever driven around Regina you’ve seen these ghastly sites many times. They pull and prod your attention for a split second until you realize what you have found and quickly jerk your neck away, hopefully never laying eyes on one ever again.

Ok, they aren’t that bad but these fluorescent letter board signs are growing in numbers at an alarming rate. Why?

Obviously it is cheap, and businesses are trying to get their message out to a local market but do they ever wonder if this hurts their brand? Besides the signs not being on the “cutting edge” of artistic design, don’t you think you’d want to at least standout a bit? I mean, the thirteen (13) photos posted here were all taken within a three block section of Rochdale Boulevard. In less than one Kilometer you are shown thirteen different messages, what are the chances that you remember one?

They are not all terrible, I don’t mind giving away something free, just too much text on this one:

Subway’s not doing too bad either, that’s a pretty good deal for a sub.

The average driver has less than three seconds to get your message, how easy is this to read?

A personal favorite. I wonder how the conversation went when they decided to go with this master piece;

“Everyone else on Rochdale has a sign”

“We should too, but lets be different.”

The lightbulb goes off.

“I got it! Lets put our sign on a blue background, that’s sure to get attention!” The result:

The ghostly 9 is a little creepy here:

Beginning to notice a trend of yellow, white and fluorescent pink by now.

This one gets the point across, if you’re searching for the most extensive 2 for 1 glasses offer anywhere.

Another good deal, my only complaint is where’s the fluorescent pink? I don’t think a letter sign will ever be visually appealing.

Obviously the Pita Pit owners are in cahoots with the Denture Clinic, again personal favorite, love the blue.

If you do decide one of these signs is right for you, at least offer the correct phone number.

Too much writing and again, where’s the pink?

Short and sweet, good idea, I don’t mind what Arby’s is trying here but it seems as though Arby’s is cutting costs on their advertising by using this type of messaging.

This is troublesome, the BARGAIN! shop has on special right now, spring fashion and fun. What if you enter the store and it isn’t fun? Chuck E’ Cheese could use this, not the BARGAIN! shop.

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Sexist? or Smart Advertising?

Jeph — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:19:58 +0000

This ad has been creating controversy in the media this past week and for good reason. Originated on the CBC Canada website, the article talked about the condo developer taking the ad down and offering a formal apology as well as the agency that created them offered an apology but the comments on the article are much more interesting than the article itself, I have quoted a few below.

“They are sexist, tasteless and old-fashioned. They will attract the wrong sort of people who think this sort of thing is okay.”

“has anyone ever heard of this popular slogan: SEX SELLS”

“I don’t know about the rest of you… but I’m not wasting any of my 25 year old scotch on a 25 year old Blonde.”

“The ads don’t appeal to me. But you have to be pretty uptight to let these harmless ads bother you. Wil Knoll says he wouldn’t want to be in a room with people who thought it was a great ad. I don’t think I’d want to be in a room with Wil Knoll.”

From Twitter:

@Jaynauta: I bet the goal of that condo ad was to cause I huge uproar. I’m a guy in Regina not looking for a condo and I saw the ad.”

Yes it may have been a bit sexist but people are going to complain regardless of what you do. Remember, advertising that’s targeted at everyone is effective on no one. Timothy Ferris once said “Belief’s, belongings and behaviors, threaten these and you will get a response.” You don’t have to believe me, just look at the statistics so far on this ad:

275 Diggs on Digg.com

367 Comments

203 Recommends

It’s all over Twitter just search “Sexist Calgary”

Finally this is the comment that summed it up for me, I say smart advertising.

TimPaper wrote:

“Oh, lighten up, everyone. The ads were targeted to men – and they appeared in men’s washrooms at nightclubs. They didn’t target children. And they didn’t target women.
All they did was put in an ad in a place where only adult men could see the ads the very thoughts that go through the minds of 99 per cent of men when they’ve got a few drinks in them at a bar.
This is really a tempest in a teapot. You don’t like the ads? Fine, don’t buy a condo. But, please, get a life. All the overly-sensitive new men who complained about this ad managed to do is get a heckuva lot more publicity for the condo developer.
In fact, the cynic in me wonders if the complaint about sexism wasn’t orchestrated by the developer or the marketers of the project specifically to create a media fury and get a lot of free exposure. If they didn’t do it on purpose, well, they were born under a lucky star because I’m sure this nonsense really helped their sales.”

Read the full article at: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2010/03/24/calgary-ads-sexist-condo-midtown-withdrawn.html#socialcomments#ixzz0jWtcGHAb

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31 books you need to read

Jeph — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:38:39 +0000

31 books you need to read on the topics of entrepreneurship, creativity, psychology of advertising, strategy, motivational, psychology, sociology & economics, new media and general business. Let me know what you think and add one in the comments if I missed one.

Entrepreneurship:

Creativity:

Psychology of Advertising:

Strategy:

Motivational:

Psychology, Sociology & Economics:

New Media:

General Business:

Again, if there are any you think should be on the list please comment below and leave the link.

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Fire the Marketing Department

Jeph — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:05:21 +0000

We’re about to hit a tipping point in Canada. Yes in Saskatchewan as well but I presume it will be a short time after Canada tips. Stories like this one, about how Canadians for the first time are on the internet more than television should mean a lot to marketers. The minds behind the marketing industry should be doing more to accommodate the shift. They’re not.

I think it’s a generational issue as well as somewhat of an egotistical issue. If you’ve been doing something for a long time and it has worked, no HBR blog post, University of Massachusetts study, or book is going to convince you to change. More examples of closer to home success stories will be the TSN turning point in this battle. But if you’re waiting till your competitor gets on Twitter to make the shift from advertising in the Sunday Sun to online, think again. The companies that get in early to understand the media will be the ultimate winners in the end.

Large ad agency’s aren’t nimble enough to change their strategy and it seems as if they may be left behind with the billboards and newspapers of the old World. The smart companies are testing the waters and doing their research, asking why before adopting an online platform.

For younger marketers this opens up a large opportunity in a very undiscovered and underdeveloped medium, the internet. Soon a marketing department’s most valuable person is not the VP who’s been around for 30 years, it’s the new hire that develops iPhone apps at home in her spare time, who has a vast understanding of new media. This younger generation understands that you can not buy your way to a success using mass media anymore (re: Pepsi trying to force upon Canada’s chant, “Eh Oh, Canada… I don’t think so”)

Organizations now have to be accountable and transparent because of the near real time communication we have, this should be a positive externality but many companies still view it as a negative. If your organization fits in this category your best option may be to fire the marketing department altogether.

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