Category: Marketing

Advertising Invades the Shopping Cart

The advertising onslaught you face at the supermarket is about to increase — a company called MediaCart, in partnership with MicroSoft, is unleashing targeted video advertising in the cart itself. According to Online Media Daily,

Using Microsoft’s technology, MediaCart will execute anonymous ad targeting through data obtained from ShopRite’s customer loyalty card program. For the system to work, shoppers must first scan their card in the system. They then receive ads and promotional offers based on past purchases and saved shopping lists, which can be uploaded from a home PC.

Will shoppers love this, or will they set their carts on fire in protest? Stay tuned — the experiment will begin later this year at ShopRite stores on the East Coast.

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Bad News For Portland Advertisers

I just finished Day 2 of Dan O’Day’s Copywriting Master Class. Just Dan and ten students. Two flew in from Australia, one from Canada, and one from Fiji.

Although there are lots of people writing and producing radio commercials in Oregon and Washington, I’m the only person from the Pacific Northwest at this seminar.

So if you’re a Portland-area businessperson, and you’re working with anyone other than Phil Bernstein, your media rep isn’t here. If you’re working with an ad agency, your account executive isn’t here. Neither is the agency creative director, or any of the copywriters. I guess Los Angeles was just too far to travel.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is for those people who work with Phil Bernstein. Because I’m here, and have spent 14 hours so far — with another 7 to go tomorrow learning the most effective techniques for writing and producing effective radio commercials.

Want to find out what I’ve learned, and how it can help you tell your story, find more customers, and make more sales? Call me at 503-323-6553, or email me here.

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Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising Blog.

Request your free copy of my white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Copywriting Wisdom

A short post, as I’m at Dan O’Day’s Copywriting Master Class for the next three days. Dan delivered this gem in the morning session today:

“Don’t talk to me about your grass seed — talk to me about my lawn.”

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Request your free copy of my white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Super Bowl Advertising — Another Chance For Experts to Miss the Point

Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal article on first-time Super Bowl advertisers begins this way:

Super Bowl viewers will be on the lookout for rookie mistakes — and not just on the field.

Advertising at the big game is a gamble for newcomers not just because of the rising cost of buying the ads — advertisers are paying up to $2.7 million for a 30-second spot this year, up from $2.6 million in 2007 — but also the risk to their reputations if the commercials fall flat or offend.

When the game’s over, there will be articles and polls on which were the “best” and “worst” ads. Most will judge the commercials on artistic merit, missing what should be advertising’s ultimate goal — to sell something.

One advertiser from last year’s game who kept its eye on the prize was SalesGenie, whom I wrote about a few weeks after the game. Just about all the experts hated their commercial. SalesGenie cheerfully accepted the abuse, and kept bringing truckloads of money to the bank.

Here’s another, according to the Journal:

One of last year’s newcomers, Garmin Ltd., the maker of GPS devices, is coming back this year despite coming in low on some ad poll lists with an ad featuring a map that turned into a Godzilla-inspired monster. Reaction “was a mixed bag but it was still a success,” says Ted Gartner, media relations manager at Garmin. “As long as people are spelling our name right and still purchasing the Garmin units, it’s all good.”

 

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Can You Solve All Your Problems With a 30-Second Spot?

The short answer is… um… no.

A longer and more interesting answer appears on a recent episode of the public radio show This American Life. The episode is called “Shouting Across the Divide” (it originally aired in 2006) and concerns “what happens when Muslims and non-Muslims try to communicate, and misfire.”

In a segment called “America, the Ad Campaign”, the US State Department hires an ad agency to “sell American values to the Muslim world.” It doesn’t work out so well. The show runs an hour, and the segment is about 15 minutes. You can listen to the episode, or download an mp3 for free here.

The episode delves into some fairly contentious areas of racial and cultural politics. I will carefully avoid them here, and offer two observations for those who, like me, write ad copy for a living:

1. If your business has big problems, advertising won’t fix them.

2. It’s tough to sell anything — a product, service, or idea — when you don’t like or understand the people you’re marketing to.

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Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising Blog.

Request your free copy of my white paper, The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Advertising and How to Fix Them here.

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