Marketing in Progress Interviews Phil Bernstein

Brett Duncan of Dallas writes an eclectic blog called “Marketing in Progress”. I check in often to find out what’s on his mind, and, occasionally, steal an idea or two.

Not long ago Brett and I had an extended email conversation. You’ll find Part 1 here. Among other topics, we cover personal branding, where radio fits in a, “Advertising 2.0” world, and the value of shorter messages. Click on the link, enjoy the conversation, and then check out some of Brett’s other posts.

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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.

A Hidden Opportunity for Bankruptcy Lawyers

If you’re an attorney specializing in personal bankruptcy, you’ll be interested in this recent article from the New York Times. You probably already know that the economic downturn has greatly increased the number of people filing for bankruptcy — those people are calling you now.

But here’s something that may be a little less apparent:

[Professor Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law] said many borrowers had been left with the mistaken impression that they could no longer file. And, she argued, “the widespread perception that bankruptcy is not available to help families makes this economic crisis worse.”

In other words, there’s a large second group of potential clients for whom bankruptcy may be a good option. But they’re not calling you, or any other attorney —  they mistakenly think that because of the law changes of 2005, they won’t qualify. If you are the attorney who tells them that they may qualify, there’s an extremely good chance that you’re the lawyer they’ll use.

One way to accomplish this: a radio campaign telling these prospects to find out about their options by calling your office.

If you’re a Portland or Vancouver-area bankruptcy lawyer, I may be able to help you with this. Email me here, or call me at 503-323-6553.

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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.

Losing With Too Much Hype — and Winning With None

For 40 years, Bruce Springsteen has managed to keep himself in the public eye while making his efforts seem like a natural outgrowth of his art. Recently he (or someone in his employ) turned the hype machine up a little too high.

The result, after much buildup, was about 80 seconds of “Working on a Dream” shoehorned into an NFL halftime show, and buried under football noises. Following the inevitable backlash, the formal release of the song was greeted mostly with shrugs.

Now, another new song has emerged. No NFL hoo-hah this time, just a possibly unauthorized posting of “The Wrestler” on Youtube. So far, it’s still up — and unlike “Working on a Dream”, this one is drawing raves on the message boards. Is this a true bootleg, or just the Springsteen organization going viral instead of mass-media?

Thanks to Steve Duin , of The Oregonian here in Portland, for the Youtube alert.

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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.

Your Testimonials = Free Publicity

Joan Stewart, the Publicity Hound, rarely crosses over into the realm of real-live advertising. But a recent blog post had a great tip for leveraging your paid ads:

If you buy newspaper or magazine ads and you’re pleased with the results, let your advertising sales rep know and offer a testimonial on what results you have seen from the ad. You might mention, for example, how much additional traffic or sales the ad brought to your website. That almost guarantees that if the publication uses your testimonial, it will include your URL. Newspapers love these testimonials and will often use them as “filler ads” that can be used if an advertiser pulls an ad at the last minute.

Although her post deals specifically with print, I can tell you that her approach will work with radio, too — if you’re a paying advertiser, many stations would be delighted to record your testimonial and use it when there’s unsold commercial inventory. If the ad is constructed carefully, it will act as an effective commercial for the station and your business.

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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.

Opportunity in a Recession

The Internet is a funny tool — one moment you’re watching some guy play “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on a ukulele, and the next you run into a really interesting piece on marketing and innovation in a downturn.


Thanks to a series of links — Brett Duncan’s Marketing in Progress blog sending me to Paul Dunay’s post on Marketing Profs — I recently stumbled onto a paper called “Innovation Through Recession” by Professor Andrew J. Razeghi of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. In 12 pages, he examines some companies who stuck their necks out during economic downturns, and reaped huge rewards. Among them are three from the Great Depression:


  • Henry Luce of Time, Inc., who started Fortune Magazine four months after the stock market crash of 1929.

  • Galvin Manufacturing, who put out a successful car radio in 1930 — the “motor-ola”.

  • Kraft Foods, who launched Miracle Whip 1933.

Since I toil in the persuasion industry, I was especially interested in Razeghi‘s description of a McGraw-Hill study of 600 companies — specifically, their approaches to advertising during the recession of the early ’80’s:


…businesses that maintained or increased their advertising expenditures during the 1981-82 recession averaged higher sales growth during the recession and in the three years following. By 1985, sales of aggressive recession advertisers (those that either maintained or increased spending) had risen 256% over those that cut back on their advertising. Likewise, in 2001 another study found that aggressive recession advertisers increased market share 2 – 1/2 times the average for all businesses in the post-recession economy.

Professor Razeghi’s thoughts on why that might be, and how you should approach communicating with your customers and prospects in the current downturn, make for fascinating reading. You can download the full paper (registration required) here.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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.