Category: Phil Bernstein

Is Now The Time to Raise Your Prices?

There are plenty of people who will tell you that a recession is a great time to increase your marketing budget. Me, for instance.

But I was intrigued to read Paul Brown’s column in the New York Times, examining the theory that in addition to increasing your marketing, it may be possible — and even proper — to raise your prices when everyone else is lowering theirs.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.

So… Why’d You Mail This To Me?

I received a piece of direct mail today from Energy Trust of Oregon.

On the front it said “Light up the Savings! Free!”, with a picture of a compact fluorescent light bulb. On the back was the offer — fill out the form and get four CFL bulbs for free. There’s only one problem:

I’m not eligible.

The offer is only for households who “heat with oil, propane, kerosene or wood… If you heat with electricity supplied by PGE or Pacific Power, or natural gas supplied by NW Natural, you are not eligible for this CFL offer.”

Thanks, guys! I’m a NW Natural customer, so the only useful thing I can do with this particular piece of junk mail is burn it for warmth.

Perhaps it’s not possible to separate out electric-heat households from the folks who just buy electricity for other stuff… but couldn’t they at least have bought a list of NW Natural customers and cleaned those households off the mailing list?

Instead they paid to print the piece and mail it — with a real first class stamp, no less — to thousands of households who will look at the offer, find it appealing, and then learn that they don’t qualify.

In addition to the money they wasted on the mailing, they’ve lost some credibility with those households, who are more likely to look askance at the next Energy Trust offer.

It’s a shame… as quasi-public institutions go, Energy Trust is one of the good guys. But this is a case of direct mail gone bad.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.

Metaphor, Bad Taste, and Salesmanship in Advertising

This afternoon, Rick Lewis directed my attention to AdAge.com. On the site, Matthew Creamer salutes Kimberly-Clark, whose brand Kotex U is

…keeping a cheeky Australian campaign featuring a woman, her animated beaver and the tagline “You’ve only got one. So for the ultimate care down there, make it U.” Not surprisingly the ad has sparked complaints (over 150), but it’s also helped Kotex gain two share points in the $250 million market and overcome the perception that it’s not as reliable as rival products.

He’s got the TV ad embedded on the site, and it’s worth watching both for the junior-high-quality laugh and because it teaches a good advertising lesson.

Because of legal and/or societal restrictions, Kimberly-Clark can’t discuss what the product does, or what its target consumer is supposed to do with it. So they’ve got to tell their story without actually saying anything.

The beaver both catches your attention and reminds you (in case you need reminding) where the product goes. The scenes of attractive women having fun tell consumers that with Kotex U, they can live their lives without worrying about… well, what they would otherwise worry about. And the observation “You’ve only got one” drives home the point that when choosing a feminine hygiene product, it’s important to choose the right one — Kotex U.

Kotex U employs risque humor in the best possible way — as a tool to deliver a strong sales message.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.


When Your Unique Position Becomes Generic

Years ago, back when it was fun to sell cars, I put together a radio advertising campaign for an Oregon Mitsubishi dealer. The hook was “I’ll buy your gas for a year”. Basically, if you bought a new Mitsubishi, you got a $500 gas card included with the purchase.

As I write these words now, it seems really weak. I’ve seen hundreds of gas card promotions in the last few years. But back then, we were the first dealer in town to make the offer, and customers poured in to take advantage of it. The customers were happy, and my guy was the #1 Mitsubishi dealer on the west coast.

Then his arch-rival in Vancouver started making the same offer, followed by another Mitsu store in Portland. Then a Volkswagen dealer got into the act, and two months later, the unique had become generic.

I was reminded of this when I read the Church of the Customer post on Whole Foods. Whole Foods built its business on organic products. Now that organic has gone mainstream, the grocer is suffering.

What do you do when your special idea becomes commonplace? You find a new niche. Check out Jackie Huba’s suggestion by clicking on the link above.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.


The Power of a Strong Opening Line

“It was the day my grandmother exploded”.

That’s the opening line of The Crow Road by Iain Banks. The book opens in the chapel of a crematorium in Scotland. The narrator has returned for a funeral. Although this is from a novel, it’s a great example of an opening line that compels the reader, or listener, to stick around to hear the rest of your message.

In a print ad, it’s the headline. In a radio commercial, it’s the first sentence of your ad. In either case, as Dan O’Day is fond of saying, it’s the “commercial for the commercial.” If your opening line is good enough, the listener will keep listening to hear what you’ve got to say.

The opening line has to grab the listeners’ attention, and give them a reason to continue to pay attention. You either need to surprise them, intrigue them, or offer them, up front, a significant benefit.

If all you’ve got to say is “We’re celebrating our seventh anniversary!”, they’re gone.

That’s Lesson #1 of The Crow Road. That line was so good that I absolutely had to keep reading until I found out exactly how Grandma blew up. It took 22 pages to get to the explosion.

I was hoping for an epic detonation, but the actual grandmother-explosion turned out to be a minor pop. Before reaching Page 50, I put the book down, and never opened it again. Lesson #2 is that your opening line is a promise, and you’d better deliver on it.

Somewhere, as you’re reading this, a woman is listening to the radio. The station she’s listening to has just gone into a commercial break. In the next five seconds, she will decide to either

1. Pay attention to the first commercial, or

2. Tune the whole thing out.

If it’s your commercial she’s listening to… how strong is your opening line?

___________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.