Portland advertising – Page 4 – Phil Bernstein's Advertising, Marketing, and Sales Training Blog

Too Much Info

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” — Herbert Simon, American Cognitive Psychologist, 1916-2001

I saw the quote in Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide — a very interesting look at how the human brain processes and reacts to everything it has to handle. I thought of it recently when I heard a radio commercial for a Portland-area pet hospital. In 60 seconds, the commercial discusses:

Open since 1972
Offers the newest models of CT and MRI scans
In-house ultrasound and lab testing
Cancer treatment since 1978, including radiation and chemotherapy
Dental care
Flea and tic care
Microchip identification
Assistance with pet insurance
Courtesy exams when you get your pet from the animal shelter
Boarding services — dogs are walked 4 times a day at no extra charge!
And they are pampered with grooming services
National and International health certificates if you travel with your pet
Monday-Friday hours
Saturday hours, which are different from Monday-Friday, so we have to list them, too.
Address
Phone number

Can you get all that into 60 seconds? It turns out that you can, if you talk fast enough. Will listeners remember any of it? I’m not optimistic.

In my white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them, this is Mistake #1.

If you want to make an impression on your busy, distracted customers and prospects, don’t make them dig through a pile of information looking for something of value.

Choose one thing for them.

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Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

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?

Brochure Copy Word Choice: A Nice Example

While sitting in the reception room of a local med spa (a sales call, I assure you), I picked up a brochure for a product called Radiesse.

wrinkle correction

The key word here is “correction”.

They could have said “filler” (in fact, they do, in the inside copy). Or “smoother”. Or “eraser”. But “correction” gives the process a completely different implication.

You correct an injustice. You correct poor vision.

“Corrected” changes wrinkles from a natural result of the aging process to a medical problem. And using Radiesse is converted, in the target’s mind, from an expensive exercise in vanity to a necessary treatment of a health condition.

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

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, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

How to Waste Your Direct Mail Budget… And Anger Your Customers

comcastflier

This is the third piece of increasingly shrill mail we’ve received from Comcast in the last few weeks. The previous two envelopes had this on the outside:

IMPORTANT! ACTION REQUIRED TO ENSURE UNINTERRUPTED ACCESS TO ALL YOUR CHANNELS.

The gist of the message inside was that in order to continue receiving all of the channels we’ve been paying for, we needed to get a digital converter box from Comcast. We’d been under the impression that we had the proper box, so we’d ignored the first two notices.

This new one, however, seemed pretty sure of itself — “ACT NOW OR YOU WILL LOSE CHANNELS” is not at all ambiguous. So my wife called Comcast to make arrangements.

“Oh”, said the perky customer service rep who answered. “You’ve already got the converter box. We send these notices to everyone!”

I spend a significant portion of my workday trying to convince local companies to spend money on advertising and marketing. For the past six months or so, just about everyone I’ve encountered is looking very carefully at every penny they spend.

Not Comcast.

They own the mailing list, and should be able to determine which customers were going to have a problem and which ones already had the proper equipment. When my wife called, it took the phone rep a couple of seconds to figure it out.

Instead, they appear happy to waste large sums of money designing, printing, and mailing multiple, and unnecessary, threatening letters to its subscribers.

Since my monthly check helps pay for this misguided marketing effort, I’m having trouble sharing their joy.

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

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, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

It’s All About the Story

Over the last 14 years, I’ve met with hundreds of business owners. It’s my job to learn as much as I can about the business, figure out what’s special about it, and effectively communicate that story to customers and prospects.

A couple of guys named Rhett and Link somehow crossed paths with TDM Auto Sales in High Point, North Carolina. The business itself appears to be nothing out of the ordinary — it’s just another used car lot in a small town. But Rhett and Link found something special: Rudy, a Cuban immigrant with a thick accent. Rudy’s last name is never given. He may or may not be the owner.

But Rudy has a story — he was once a gynecologist in Cuba — and a sense of humor.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b5CKSqlz60&feature=fvw]

Don Fitzgibbons, the Guru of Ads, likes to say that there’s only one way to tell a good ad from a bad one — find out if it worked. So I’m asking:

If I have any readers in the High Point, NC area, please advise — is this commercial driving genuine car-buying traffic to TDM Auto Sales?

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

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, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.