Oregonian – Phil Bernstein's Advertising, Marketing, and Sales Training Blog

What’s Missing From This Ad?

This appeared in our local paper, The Oregonian, a few days ago:

outdoor ad

Here’s the text:

Our name has changed, but we haven’t. We’re still the same place we always were. We’re still the place with the most experience and the same great service. We’ve got 15 stores across the Northwest, and they all share our unbeatable knowledge of our customers’ needs. The name may be new, but we’re still your local experts.

There’s a crucial piece of information missing — information without which the core message makes no sense at all. Care to tell me what it is?

These words were spoken, I’ll wager, by a couple of companies who recently advertised in the Oregonian. And it wasn’t the O’s fault. Names are withheld in the hope that they decide to give radio a try — why embarrass them publicly when we could play the hero instead?

Advertiser #1 is a local clinic specializing in sclerotherapy — a treatment for spider veins. Their beautifully-laid-out display ad gave their web address in big, bold letters. Unfortunately, the address belonged to an identically-named business in Memphis, Tennessee. Two weeks later, it’s still not working properly.

Advertiser #2 is a practice specializing in elective surgery. Their ad, in a recent Sunday paper, said “To obtain information about this procedure, and the Portland-based surgeon who performs it, please call [phone number] or visit [web address].The web site had no information at all about the surgeon, and no contact information for the practice. It invited potential patients to come to a seminar, but there was no information on when or where the seminar would be. And if someone happened to call the phone number on Sunday or Monday, here’s the message they received, in its entirety:

“I am sorry, no one is here to take your call. Please leave a message.” No business name given, or any other information at all. Not even a promise that someone would call back. Speaking as someone who recently spent some time talking to surgeons, I’d want a little more before I’d consider climbing onto the table.

Both of these businesses spent good money on advertising that might have generated results… but they forgot to check on the basics.

This is Mistake #6 in my white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them. If you’d like to read about all seven, click the link at the bottom of this post and I’ll send you a copy.

As you get ready to launch a campaign, you need to take some time and check your sales funnel.

· Is the phone number correct in your ad? Pick up the phone and dial it.

· Do you have people in place to answer the phone or check the web inquiries? Have your ad rep make an inquiry and see how quickly someone responds.

· Is someone responsible for following up each lead in a timely fashion? Make sure that person is held accountable.

· Do the links work on your web site? Click on them!

· Do your people know what’s in the commercial? Are you sure? Gather the staff together and play the ad for them before it hits the air.

· Is the featured product in stock, on display, and marked at the correct price? Go through the store and check.

A good ad campaign with poor follow-up is money wasted.

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

A Missed Opportunity

Over the holiday break, this ad ran in the Oregonian at least twice. My guess is that it ran all over the country, and the people who designed it didn’t feel like customizing the ad for specific markets.

Which means they blew it.

Brooks Brothers wants their prospects to respond in one of three ways: ordering online, calling their 800-number, or visiting their store. Logically, the retail store is where people would go if they wanted to try on a suit and get it altered. But Brooks Brothers doesn’t tell you where the store is.

The downtown Portland Brooks Brothers store has only been open a few months, in a mall that’s seen some hard times, and a lot of their target customers don’t even know it’s there. This would have been a perfect opportunity to tell them about the new store, lure them in to save money on shirts — and measure them for a suit or two.

It would not have been hard to leave room for store addresses in each market that had a retail store. But someone at Brooks Brothers couldn’t be bothered, and they’ll never know how much money they lost.

Today’s lesson is: if you want your prospects to do business with you, make yourself easy to find.

By the way, you can find me at 503-323-6553.

Update on the Freak Dancing Story

The Oregonian’s Sunday print story on the issue was solid. It presented views from principals, chaperones and students. It also touched on the history of skirmishes between parents/educators and teens about their dancing — which, apparently, dates back at least to the nearly 1900’s and the Turkey Trot.

[This last tidbit came from Julie Malnig, a social dance historian at New York University. I had no idea that there were jobs available as social dance historians.]

It seems as if the Oregonian knows they’re supposed to be using this web video thingy, but they can’t quite figure out how or why. Below the subhead, the O once again tries to lure you to their web site to see “video from last weekend’s Blackboard Music dance in Beaverton.” The pitch is accompanied by a color photo of teen torsos. Don’t listen to the carnival barker, folks. There’s still nothing interesting under the tent — it’s the same poorly-lit, substance-free video that was on there yesterday.

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Give the People What They Want?

All us traditional-media types recognize that all roads head to the web. My radio group knows it, the TV stations know it, and the local newspaper knows it. What we’re all trying to figure out (along with everyone else in the country) is how to get our erstwhile listeners, viewers and readers to move to our web sites when they make the move.

In today’s print version of the Oregonian, they go for the lowest common denominator: a promise of hot teenagers engaging in sexually-suggestive dancing.

“Teen’s freak dancing revs up controversy”, screams the headline. “No matter what you call it, the sexually-charged movement is changing the high-school dance.” There’ll be a story in Sunday’s paper, but if you just can’t wait, you can “watch a video on freak dancing at www.oregonlive.com/news/multimedia.”

While I respect the O’s desire to get people onto their web site by any means necessary, they’ve made a couple of big mistakes:

1. The video itself is difficult to find. A trip to OregonLive’s Multimedia Page presents you with one featured story (at this writing, it’s about a church fire). If you want the freak dancing video, you’ve got to hunt for it.

2. Once you finally get there, the video itself is virtually substance-free. The scenes of actual dancing are very poorly lit, so concerned parents won’t learn anything about the dancing itself. Nor is there an in-depth study of the issues involved — if you’re wondering about the evolution of teenage dancing, and how this version of teen dance differs from what’s come before (weren’t they complaining about this stuff in the 50’s?), and what it all means, you won’t find it in the video. A couple of high-school kids get some face and mic time, but they have nothing interesting to say.

If you’re going to lure your readers to the web site, you need to reward them somehow when they get there.

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Category: Oregonian

What’s Missing From This Ad?

“My Advertising Didn’t Work”

A Missed Opportunity

Update on the Freak Dancing Story

Give the People What They Want?