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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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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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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For those in any industry who agonize over their media choices and then have someone “just bang some copy out”, here’s more evidence that every word can be precious.
Interesting article on msn.com about how the choice of words in a listing can increase — or lower — the perceived value of the house.
“In real-estate listings, what’s the difference between describing your home as “beautiful” versus “move-in condition”? About $12,500 on a $250,000 home. Professor Paul Anglin, a real-estate economist in Guelph, Ontario, says that homes described as “beautiful” in real-estate listings sell for 5% more while “move-in condition” has no effect on sale price.”“
Word choices can also affect the time it takes to sell.
“Listings with the words “beautiful” or “gorgeous” sold 15% faster. “Landscaping” in a listing hastened a sale by 20%. Describing a property as in “move-in condition” quickened the sale by 12%. Calling a home a “handyman special” cut sale time by half (researchers excluded listings that used the term to describe a workshop or hobby area). “
The article’s especially valuable for the chart that matches individual words up with their effect on listing price, sale price, and speed of sale.
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My former colleague Randy White is an activist in the Peak Oil movement. On his Lawns to Gardens Blog he’s posted a split-screen video.
On the right side, a very attractive young woman, dressed for extremely warm weather, does a dance that would melt a glacier. On the left side, the same woman (I think), in much more subdued clothing, gives her views on what’s going to happen when all the oil runs out.
In addition to being an ironic commentary on the advertising business, it illustrates the attractions and pitfalls of using sex to sell:
1. I watched the video from beginning to end — nearly four minutes in all. This would not have happened in the absence of the hot dancing chick.
2. On the other hand, the speaker’s message did not register with me at all. I was too busy watching the hot dancing chick.
We’ve all seen TV commercials that made us laugh, only to realize later that we can’t remember what the ad was for. Sex, like humor, can be an effective way of holding your prospect’s attention long enough to deliver the sales message. In order for the sales message register with the prospect, the sex or humor needs to be integrated into the pitch. Without that integration, your prospect won’t remember what you are trying to say.