Category: Phil Bernstein

Trying to Sell Without Selling

Thursday’s Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article about Unilever’s efforts to promote Axe deodorant by producing a television series called “The Gamekillers”. It details the sometimes contentious negotiations between Unilever — who wanted to make sure that viewers got the connection between the program and Axe — and MTV, who feared that an explicit connection would turn viewers off.

The end result was an entertaining show that may or may not have contributed to Unilever’s bottom line. Axe sales increased 60% in 2006, so obviously Unilever did something right. But without any response mechanism besides a Gamekillers Myspace page, how do you measure the results?

My white paper, “The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them” is still available at no charge. It neither recommends nor opposes creating your own television series, although right now I’m leaning against the idea. Click to download your copy

The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes

I recently completed a 13-page white paper called “The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them.” It’s a study of some of the most common ways that companies waste their advertising dollars — along with suggestions to make those dollars work harder and smarter.

Among the subjects I cover are:

Why trying to reach the largest possible audience can actually hurt your results.

What your prospects are really interested in (hint: it’s not you),

How many topics you should cover in each ad

The one item that must be in your advertising if you want to generate results

Why you should stop agonizing about reaching “The Right People” — and what you should concentrate on instead.

Why you may be leaving money on the table even if your marketing generates new customers.

You can download a copy of this report at no charge by signing up here.

Does Relentless Advertising Work?

One answer to this question comes from a study conducted by the Stanford University School of Medicine and Packard Children’s Hospital. According to AdAge.com (thanks to Rick Lewis for alerting me to this), kids 3 to 5 years old were fed two sets of identical foods — some in McDonald’s wrappers and some wrapped in plain paper.

They overwhelmingly preferred the stuff when it came with a Mickey-D’s logo.

Each child was given chicken nuggets, a hamburger and french fries from McDonald’s, and baby carrots and milk from the grocery store… With one exception, significantly more children said the McDonald’s-labeled product tasted better.”

McDonald’s spends an enormous amount of money to advertise to children, and apparently they have purchased brand loyalty beginning at a very early age. If you’ve ever driven past a McDonald’s at lunchtime with a car full of kids, you’ve seen brand loyalty translate into sales.

McDonald’s has enough money to be seen and heard just about everywhere; the rest of us have to be more selective in choosing market segments and media opportunities we can afford to dominate. But even without a huge marketing budget, you can still follow the basic principles that have kept McDonald’s at the top of their category:

1. Have a consistent theme and spokesperson — the Golden Arches logo has been there forever, and Ronald McDonald has been a significant part of the marketing effort for decades.

2. Establish a long-term plan, and stick with it. The most successful markets map out a year at a time, and they don’t cancel their ads after a bad weekend.

3. Make an offer. A small portion of McDonald’s advertising is for image, but most of it gives the target consumer a specific benefit — a coupon, a new product, a movie tie-in — for doing business with them today.

It takes careful planning, patience, and money to establish a dominant position in your market. And attention spans are shorter than they’ve ever been. But the basic techniques for gaining the consumer’s attention, interest, desire, and action haven’t changed.

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The Danger of Sale-Only Advertising

“Your customers buy when they want to buy — not when you want to sell.”

—– Clate Mask, Infusion Software

Jane sells high-end furniture to homeowners in the Pacific Northwest. As a general rule, she only advertises when she has a sale or special event.

In 2006, she decided to have a storewide year-end clearance sale. She bought a strong radio and newspaper schedule — good copy, great frequency, and a really good offer — and almost doubled her sales goal for the month.

She was so happy with the results that she put on another big sale in January. Sales weren’t as strong as the last event, but they were pretty good. So at the end of February, she had another sale.

The February sale was a bomb. Not much traffic, not many sales. Jane decided that the advertising wasn’t working anymore — and she’s decided not to advertise again until the fall.

What happened? Did people stop reading the paper and listening to the radio? Or were there other factors at work?

In my mind, Jane made three mistakes:

1. She patched together a series of short-term strategies rather than a long-term plan.

2. She created “sale fatigue” among her customers by holding three big sales in three months. By the time the third one rolled around, it didn’t feel like such a bargain.

3. She didn’t create any value in the customer’s mind before cutting prices.

Instead of deciding not to talk to her prospects until the next big sale, she might want to consider the philosophy of Dale Carlsen, President of Sleep Train Mattress Centers. Reflecting on the fact that the average consumer buys a new mattress every seven to ten years, Dale had this to say:

“If a customer doesn’t walk into my store when he’s in the market, I won’t have another chance for seven years. And I don’t know when he’s going to decide he needs a new bed. So I want to be talking to him every single week, all year long.”

The most successful marketers recognize that people make purchasing decisions for many reasons. Some, it’s true, are motivated by a big sale. But especially for big-ticket purchases, many consumers won’t buy until they’re ready.

If they’re not ready when your sale happens, the best advertising in the world won’t bring them in.

On the other hand, if they decide they’re ready to buy right now, they could very well buy at full retail. But they’ll only buy from you if they remember you’re there.

You don’t need huge budget to craft an effective long-term plan. If you can’t afford to be in multiple media like Fred Meyer, pick one. I’m partial to radio and internet, but any medium will work if the message is good, your frequency is strong, and you stay put.

If you can’t afford to be on a bunch of stations all the time, pick one. If you can’t afford to be on the #1 station all the time, pick the #10 station. To paraphrase Roy Williams, you’d be surprised how many couches 50,000 people will buy in a year if you talk to them enough.

“The only difference between lettuce and garbage is timing.”

—- Bill Glazer, Glazer-Kennedy Marketing

You can’t control the timing of customer demand. They’ll buy when they want to buy, not when you want to sell. That’s why Dale Carlsen advertises all year long, and why Les Schwab, Fred Meyer and The Shane Company don’t cancel their campaigns after a slow weekend.

Want the results the best marketers get? Do what the best marketers do.

Salesmanship Vs. English Grammar

In the space of a couple of hours, I read a couple of articles that contradict each other on the subject of language.

First (in order of when I read ’em) was a capsule review of the book Branded Nation by James B. Twitchell. “Twitchell,” wrote reviewer Steve Cone,

“is unusual among college professors in that he teaches both English and advertising, two disciplines that make perfect sense together.”

Offering a different point of view is direct-response copywriter Bob Bly. In his blog, Bly tackles the occasional conflict between good grammar and effective selling. A subscriber to his newsletter had complained that the expression “free gift” was redundant. “Is there any other kind?” wrote the reader.

Replied Bly:

…your argument is that ‘free gift’ is redundant — like ‘armed gunmen.’ But, tests prove that in direct marketing, omitting the word ‘free’ and just saying ‘gift’ actually depresses response. I teach in business writing classes to avoid redundancy … but I am not sure that’s always good advice. The reason for redundancy is that some people need to read a thing several times before it sinks in.

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