The new BT advert puts the consumer in control of the outcome, apparently! Thought it was quite interesting that the latest in this long line of BT adverts give you the chance to vote on the outcome. Not that original but it does help in keeping this long running series alive and seems to be working. Pop over to BT and VOTE NOW. Continue Reading
All posts tagged Advertising
Sales Focused Marketing
At MW marketing we like to think we take a pragmatic, sales focused view to the advice we give to our clients. One of the influences on our approach was the inspiration behind the recent TV series phenomena ‘Mad Men’; Rosser Reeves.
Rosser Reeves was a hugely successful advertising executive and pioneer of television advertising. He believed the purpose of advertising is to sell. He insisted that an advertisement or commercial should show off the value of a product, not the cleverness of a copywriter.
Reeves generated millions for his clients, the Ted Bates agency where he rose to chairman. His ads were focused around what he called the unique selling proposition, the one reason the product needed to be bought or was better than its competitors. These often took the form of slogans such as M&M’s ‘melt in your mouth, not in your hand’
Reeves pointed out that to work, advertising had to be honest. He insisted the product being sold actually be superior, and argued that no amount of advertising could move inferior goods. He also disagreed that advertising was able to create demand where it did not exist, he believed it was a waste of money to claim uniqueness that doesn’t exist, because consumers will soon find out, and they won’t come back to the brand.
Some of our favourite quotes:
Advertising is, actually, a simple phenomenon in terms of economics. It is merely a substitute for a personal sales force – an extension, if you will, of the merchant who cries aloud his wares.
No, sir, I’m not saying that charming, witty and warm copy won’t sell. I’m just saying I’ve seen thousands of charming, witty campaigns that didn’t sell.
Unless a product becomes outmoded, a great campaign will not wear itself out.
You must make the product interesting, not just make the ad different. And that’s what too many of the copywriters in the U.S. today don’t yet understand.
Let’s say you have $1,000,000 tied up in your little company and suddenly your advertising isn’t working and sales are going down. And everything depends on it. Your future depends on it, your family’s future depends on it, other people’s families depend on it. Now, what do you want from me? Fine writing? Or do you want to see the goddamned sales curve stop moving down and start moving up?
Advertising, Cutting the Costs
Fortune favours the bold!
While working for one of the UK’s fastest growing organisations in the automotive sector we were becoming more and more concerned with the level of advertising expenditure. In particular a leading weekly publication for C2C and B2C buying and selling.
After much debate we cancelled all advertising with this publication. Expenditure was almost £10,000 a week and they had been advertising with them for over ten years so it wasn’t a decision that was taken lightly; but sometimes the only way to find out if something is or isn’t working is to stop doing it.
After the advertising was cut the impact on sales was immediately evident, there wasn’t one! Although the publication was very reputable and also the market leader in its sector it wasn’t right for them. They could have gone on pouring money into advertising that wasn’t working but instead we freed up resource for other initiatives with no loss of revenue.
