Marketing can be a lonely enterprise. Sure, at first it’s fun to know you have a hand, or maybe an entire arm, in fashioning a message for your product or client, but soon enough the marketer is confronted with the “down in the weeds” decisions over medium (print, TV, Web?), message, cost, and reach (who do we want to see this?).
One advantage marketers have is that good and poor examples of marketing abound. You’re throwing them away with the junk mail. You’re flipping around them on TV. You’re buzzing by them on the radio. You’re failing to take notice of them on the Internet.
Why? Do they lack impact? Are they merely annoying (see: Geico lizard)
or are they downright insulting (Miller beer ads)? What makes you tune them out? And what makes you re-watch an ad you’ve already seen?
Speaking of impact, there’s a magazine parody of an ad that shows a dog with a gun to its head. The “ad” says, “Buy this magazine or we’ll shoot this dog.” Funny, but true. How many times have you seen an ad in which the chief feature is a child or an animal. It’s so popular that by now everyone has tried it. Now, when you see the latest “talking baby” spot, is it for a brokerage firm, a tire company, a dessert topping? Does high impact become no impact, because it’s been done to death? You decide with your remote.
Another consideration in your ad campaign is whether you want to go “high concept” or “low concept”? High concept would be the DirecTV campaign of escalating disasters. It’s high concept because the viewer needs to make the connection between bad cable service and the seemingly unrelated series of disasters that befall cable viewers.
Low concept is “save big money at Menards’.” It doesn’t even say what Menards is (it’s the third largest home improvement chain in the U.S., behind Home Depot and Lowe’s.) Boring, but quite possibly effective. Listeners don’t have to make the connection between Menard’s message and what’s being sold.
Note that both high concept and low concept advertising has a call to action. “Ditch cable,” is the DirecTV call to action, “Check out these savings,” might be the Menards message.
Though high concept advertising is going to be more interesting, low concept advertising might be more apt, depending on the product being marketed. Car mufflers? Low concept. Perfume? High concept. Look through your junk mail and try to figure out what’s high concept and what’s low concept.
Also, don’t forget the economic climate. Many businesses–think restaurants–are in hand-to-hand combat in which discounts are used as weapons against competitors. Can you afford to play this game?
If not, you may have to go upscale, and market your product on its technology, trendiness, snob appeal (“Have you any Grey Poupon?”), or some other “hook” that doesn’t involve price.
Watching examples of good and bad advertising allows you to take advantage of millions of dollars in research that others had to pay for. They’re not always right, but everything you see in marketing is there for a reason.
