Casual Fridays

I have a friend who owns a restaurant business. He does all his own marketing and advertising… and he’s quite good at it.  It’s really fascinating to see what he comes up with and how tightly bound it is to his objectives and his brand.  Part of the fascination is of how rare he is. Most small business owners can’t do what he does. Why? Because few people have the same level of creativity, humor and understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

I’m not going to say that every business should hand off every aspect of their marketing to an agency or consultant.  In fact, I think too many businesses live in the extremes on this issue. Either they do it all themselves or they hand it all over to a third party.  In almost every case, I think this is a mistake.

Turn on your TV or tune into your radio and you don’t have to wait long to encounter an advertising train wreck.  You know what I’m talking about. The ads you know are horrible, but you can’t take your eyes off them. Most of these are cases where the advertiser is working directly with a station or a production service, without the advice of a professional.  Some are cases of creativity gone awry as an agency has taken too many liberties with the client’s message and have lost the integrity of the brand which my restaurateur buddy manages so well.

Business Week had a recent article which did a great job of bringing light to this issue entitled Why Your Advertising Isn’t Working.  In this article, Steve McKee does an excellent job of hitting seven of the greatest infractions in advertising.

Here are the top 3:

1. It’s boring. Yep, boring. Why do we watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper, or go online? Three reasons: information, entertainment, and engagement. Ads that fail to offer at least two of these three benefits flop. Just as nobody reads every story in the newspaper, nobody pays attention to every ad. You have to engage your prospects with something that is interesting or entertaining before they’ll give you their valuable time and attention. Creativity has always been the coin of the realm, but in our time-starved culture it’s truer than ever.

2. It’s boorish. You shouldn’t think of your advertising as being about your brand, you should think of it as an extension of your brand (see “A Practical Guide to Branding”). If it’s loud, annoying, insulting, offensive, or self-centered, people will think the same of your products or services (see “The Cocktail Party Test for Advertising”). Remember the first sentence in the best-selling hardback book in U.S. history, The Purpose Driven Life: “It’s not about you.” What’s true in life is true in advertising; if you focus only on what you can get, you’re not going to get much. Instead, focus on giving, and good things will begin to happen.

3. It’s safe. The first time I saw a Ford Taurus (F), I took note, and I suspect you did as well. So did a lot of other people, and the Taurus went on to become the best-selling car in America. If the Taurus had been another in a long line of boxy sedans, it probably would have been just another car. Instead, it turned automotive design conventions upside down and made history. While being different isn’t in and of itself a guarantee of success, what you do is a lot more likely to get noticed if it hasn’t been done before. And keep in mind that when you do something different, people may not like it—at least initially. Most of us were shocked at our first sight of the Taurus’ curved lines, but it went on to have significant influence on automotive design. If you worry too much about offending someone, you’re likely to not attract anyone.

See the rest here.

Whether companies work with agencies or not, they still may fall into these traps.  It’s just a whole lot easier to fall into them if you don’t have a guide.  Choose wisely.

As the political rhetoric heats up, it’s interesting to see which messages are insightful and which simply incite.

Does this candidate’s ad really tell you anything new about him, his platform, his party, his opponent?  Or does it simply stimulate something you’ve always believed?  Does it stir emotions and feelings?  Or does it change the way you think about something?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with inciting.  In fact, I think your message is much more potent if it connects on an emotional level.  

What IS dangerous is incite without any insight.

By attaching a new perspective… a new way of thinking… a powerful idea…  to an emotion, you do more than just PUSH people.  You push them in a different direction.

Push them in the door.

Push them in front of a mirror.

Push them in front of a train.

Big difference.

The military spends tons of money to make something blend in and then loses it. Sounds pretty stupid when the army does it, yet advertisers do something even more inept. They spend an insane amount of money buying ad space to get attention, but then camouflage their ads. They still remain invisible because of clutter, attention-spans (Oh, look, there’s a bird!) and generic messages.

Top 5 Ways Advertisers Use Camouflage:

1. Look like the competition.

Ads should highlight what makes you special. To quote the Incredibles, “When everyone is special, then no one is.” That’s especially true when everyone tries to be special in the exact same way.

This Reebok ad is very similar to the Nike ad below (10 years before the Reebok ad).

(source: AdPulp)

Let me emphasize this point.

One of my clients has an employee who previously worked for the competition. Before I worked with this client, their ads were very similar to their biggest competitor’s spots. The employee said before we came in and changed my client’s ads, the competition always knew when my client was advertising because they had more shoppers coming in THEIR doors.

By looking like their competition, my client was sending customers to ‘the enemy.’

2. Advertise where all the competition is.

Why do advertisers have to be right next to their competition? It’s like the CEO went to the marketing department and said, “Castrol is on a NASCAR, why aren’t we?” So then their logo is slapped next to MOROSO and something unreadable (even in a close-up) typed in a script font.

What if you had the audience to yourself, like Sweet Pete’s Bicycle:

(source: Guerrilla Promos)

You get an audience all to yourself.

Likewise, an motor oil company could “rent” a parking spot from their local Auto Zone. Place a temporary sign stating the spot is reserved for users of their product because their engine runs better, fewer leaks, etc.

3. Being irrelevant.

Who cares:

How long your furniture store has been in business?
You’re the #1 car dealer in the metro area?
Your kid is in your TV ad?

When creating your ad, only think and talk of yourself and the customer never will.

Think and talk about the customer and your relationship with them, and they’ll reciprocate.

4. Never change the ‘wrapping paper’.

Has anything changed in your business over the last five years? I would guess so. Then why are you running the same ads?

First, those who didn’t respond to your message yet, won’t.

Second, maybe some responded and didn’t like it. Now they think nothing changed and they’ll still be dissatisfied.

I’m not saying you have to change the brand message, but give it some new wrapping paper every once in a while. If you have a powerful enough message, then it should have legs to adapt.

5. Basically… play it safe.

Being different seems risky. But being the same is even riskier.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
— General Eric Shinseki, retired Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

—————–

If you’re going to spend money, time and effort crafting a message… don’t throw it all away by painting it camouflage.

“Ugh, another post about branding. I’ve already heard and read too much about that.”

I agree.

This post isn’t intended to give you more information about branding. It’s intended to help you discard what hasn’t been useful.

I’m reading an interesting new book called The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam. Early in the book, he talks about creating a useful website. He dissected the primary components as Brand, Content and Function.

Brand – What will people REMEMBER?

Content – What do people want to KNOW?

Function – What do people want to DO.

That’s as concise and accurate an explanation of branding as I’ve ever heard.

It made me think:

1. This is why most ‘elevator pitches’ don’t work. No matter how short your pitch is, if it’s not memorable, it’s not effective.

2. This is why many branding campaigns don’t work. People won’t remember what they don’t believe.

3. Most vision statements aren’t branded well. They’re usually so long and full of business buzz words, I never remember them. Like branding campaigns, they’re also based on what the company believes about themselves, not what people remember.

Most branding is forgettable. We’re much better at creating brandnesia than brand memory.

How does this change what you put into your:

• Marketing
• Resume
• Website
• Sermon

While attending the ARISE Arts Conference, I sat in on a session called Attack of the Never-Ending Brainstorms by Tony Biaggne. It was an entertaining and enlightening session discussing idea generation for churches (I volunteer on a creative team at Liberty Church in Broken Arrow, OK).

Tony used this Derren Brown video clip as an example:

After viewing the video, two questions come to mind:

1) How can I be better at embedding messages superfluously? I tend to stop promoting a message at the point of adequacy. As Derren shows, there is a level of subliminal saturation to reach in order to be truly persuasive.

2) How many of my decisions are driven by these subliminal messages, instead of being driven by my core beliefs and values? Great! Now I’m even questioning whether eating at Pei Wei last night was my idea or a string of subconscious prompts (probably both in reality).

There is a rule of thumb that people must see your message 5-7 times before they’ll act on it. As with any rule of thumb, there are exceptions. (An incredibly powerful or creative message may be a catalyst at first impression. A boring, uninspired message may never break through.)

But, what if the message is packaged differently each time, or you repeatedly expose people to different elements of the same message – as Derren Brown did?

Maybe the whole isn’t always greater than the sum of its parts.

A few weeks ago, I was doing research on eHarmony commercials. I thought I’d show you what we did with that research.

These were some fun TV ads we created for a Tulsa area business. It really fits their brand, since they’re known for matching people with just the right appliances. We’re hoping to build on this concept.

As a fun little riff, I thought I’d share with you a variety of snapshots from my cell phone and a few thoughts on each:

This is called a Whisper Phone. Our daughter’s elementary school teacher showed it to us at a parent/teacher conference. Children use the whisper phone so they can hear themselves read out loud, but not disturb the other students. Our innovative teacher had created hers out of PVC materials and spend less than a dollar on each phone. The manufactured versions retail for about $8.

Interesting how homemade is a style instead of a process now. Trust me, Ryan did not make this at his home. If it were homemade, you think it would come with a mass-produced sign containing a registration mark?

OK, who was the genius who decided to use Boise State quartertback Jared Zabransky to promote NCAA 08 in Oklahoma Wal-Marts?

I understand he’s on the cover of the game, but don’t they realize Boise State upset OU last year in the Fiesta Bowl (it was an amazing game, by the way)? I would think the promotional materials, if not the game cover itself, would be made as appealing as possible to each region it’s shipped. A Big XII player would have been much more appropriate. But being an Oklahoma State fan, I find this rather humorous.

I’m sorry, but I have a hard time sympathizing (literally) with someone who doesn’t put the name of their pet on their sign.

Tulsa is finally getting an Apple Store! This one is within just a few miles of my home. It won’t be done in time for the iPhone debut today. Below are the construction photos I took through a hole in the facade (geek alert).

Looks like we’ll be waiting a bit longer for our Apple Store to be fully operational.

Why have this sign at all if the exclusions are so broad? Why not put stickers on the Quarts that do come with a free pint? Of course this same frozen custard shop locked the doors behind us at 9:45 when their sign stated they close at 10:00. They had a bucket of mop water on the customer side of the counter (YUM!). They turned the outdoor lights out as we were enjoying our deserts al fresco. Guess they were in a hurry. Too bad we inconvenienced them with our business.

This picture isn’t very good, but you can probably tell it’s a flat tire. Nothing surprising, until you see what this tire is attached to.

It’s the tire rack at our local tire and lube center. The irony was too good to pass up.

Hope you enjoyed today’s SnapThoughts.

I was doing research on an upcoming project recently. While looking for examples of the eHarmony.com ads, I came across this post on Adfreak.

Maybe I’m naive, but I had no idea people found the eHarmony ads so offensive/repulsive.

Here’s a comment from a viewer YouTube:

They are annoying beyond belief. The people in them are a bunch of yuppie losers who like to show affection on TV and rub it in everyone’s faces. They all need to die.

Wow! I knew some people didn’t like the Apple vs. PC ads, but this really throws me.

What are your thoughts? Do you like these commercials or hate them? Do you have any idea why someone would hate them enough to make an implied death threat?

Beyond Marketing & Advertising Ribbon Cutting

My business partner Sandy cuts the ribbon with me, Alee (hiding behind me), and the Jenks Chamber of Commerce.

Sandy and I are excited to announce the opening of Beyond Marketing & Advertising, a full-service ad agency outside Tulsa, OK.

Our office is located inside the beautiful RiverWalk Crossing center in Jenks, OK.

I’ll still be blogging here at Casual Fridays and will continue doing some work (speaking & consulting) under The People Brand. We feel like Sandy’s broadcast advertising experience balances nicely with my non-traditional approaches to marketing.

So, it’s an exciting time over here and changes keep happening.  Just thought I’d share the happenings.

Here are a few tidbits from my presentation yesterday. I spent most of my blog time (and more) preparing to speak at Entrepreneur’s Day, so this might be my only post this week.

The Marketing Proverb

If this is a marketing proverb, what is the moral?

or, some ad agencies prefer to

…simply entertain.

Do you ask this question?

How did you hear about us?

TV

Radio

Newspaper

Direct Mail

Billboard

Other

Hey car dealers… want to see some results?

When you see 71% of car purchasing decisions are influenced by word of mouth…

You’re right, but you can…

How do you influence word of mouth?

I’m not talking fashion trendsetters (unless you’re an apparel company). If you’re a technology company, these are the geeks. They’re the raving fans of your industry.

Do you make it easy for people to hand off your message to others?  More on this here.

The coupon above might get one person to show up, but it doesn’t encourage them to hand off the baton.

This coupon creates social currency. “You’ll like me more because I got us all free drinks.”

Online (blogs/message boards) or offline (customer advisory boards/customer events).

So, maybe we add two lines to our marketing proverb:

And the moral of our NEW proverb is…

Nearly 2.5 million views in two weeks.

I can’t stop playing this video.

I think the beauty of it is how a big, polished production doesn’t get in the way of the even bigger idea.

The music’s pretty good too.

Send a link to your friends.
Bloglines viewers click here:

Hat tip: Bill Kinnon

johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) pointed out that U.S. Airways is rolling out advertising space on airsickness bags. Someone apparently misunderstood the concept of viral marketing.

Personally, I think johnmoore is being too harsh. Sure, it would be a horrible idea for CBS to advertise their new Fall lineup of shows on barf bags, but there are other marketers for whom this may be a perfect fit. So, below you will see an example of those I think could benefit from this advertising opportunity:

Feel free to submit your ideas in the comments.

Flickr photo by feefee.

I advised a political candidate recently to follow up with a blogger who had contacted him.

“The blog probably doesn’t reach as many people as TV, radio, or direct mail.” I acknowledged. Then I explained, “But the people who read it are influencers. By engaging them with your message, you can hope to affect watercooler talk across the city.”

Seth makes the point much better than I did.

What if you’re not a politician? Should you care about watercooler talk?

I’m excited to announce I’ll be transitioning to a new position next week.

I’m joining the team at Hahn Promotions, a marketing and advertising firm across the river from Tulsa in Jenks, Oklahoma. I’ll be coming on board as partner and Vice President. I’ll be handling creative director duties, online marketing, and Word-of-Mouth efforts.

Sandy Hahn and I have worked together quite a bit over the years and it made sense for us to join forces. We’ve been working on making this happen for over a year. We’re both very excited about what the future holds.

If you know anyone in the area who needs help with marketing and advertising, have them give us a call.

Hahn Promotions
300 Riverwalk Terrace, STE 220
Jenks, OK 74037
(918) 296-7400
www.hahnpromotions.com

DUST!N
So, we’re segueing into your book, Warriors, Workers, Whiners & Weasels and you have an accompanying blog with that, which is blog.warriorsandweasels.com. Can you tell me a little bit about the book?

Tim
Well, it’s a management philosophy that I’ve been working with for some time and thought I’d put it down on paper. Basically, what I’ve found over the years is that I’d classify people into those four categories and it became an easy lexicon so that you didn’t have to explain things. You’d be working with your managers and say, “Oh, we’ve got a whiner here.” and everyone would know what that was. It became a time-saving classification system.

In the book I break down into those four categories. I offer hints as to how you deal with people, because there’s a lot of people on the cusp. They’re making that career decision that they’re going to be a worker or a warrior… or they’re going to go down into whiner territory and stay there for the rest of their lives.

So the book is written from two perspectives:

The manager’s perspective to say, “OK, this is a helpful way to help me classify people with some hints of how to manage them.”

From the personal perspective to say, “Wow! Am I acting like this sometimes?” As I was writing the book I thought I’ve exhibited all these traits myself at one time or another. I found it helpful to look at a decision I have to make and go, “Boy, if I make this decision… bottom line is I’m being a weasel. Am I comfortable with that?” or I’m whining here.

DUST!N
You’ve got a lot of experience starting up a lot of different companies throughout the years. Is this something you’ve just distilled from your experience of all the different companies you’ve worked with?

Tim
Absolutely. Not only starting my own companies, but I might work with 40 or 50 clients in a year. We’re a project-based agency and I’ve been in this business now 20 years doing this kind of work. And there’s a lot of businesses where you get to see a lot of clients… but it’s pretty interesting. Not only in how I manage my own staff and my own personal life, but when you work with all these companies, you see a lot of dysfunction. I can look at my clients, and you see enormously successful companies and you say, “Wow! That guy’s a warrior. I can see why they’re successful.” Sort of the personality of the organizations. The concept seemed very extendible across the board.

So, around the office, now we can communicate really quickly.
“How’s the new client?”
“Well, the head guy’s a real warrior, but we’ve got a whole level of weasels in this department. It’s going to make our life very difficult.”

You have to figure out how to help make those organizations be successful when they have the wrong people in the wrong positions.

DUST!N
There are some different books out there and resources that use some similar concepts. Even some people using allegories to get the point across. Like, if you took the DISC model for personality types, you might say someone was a high D or S… or a DSC.

For me, it’s kind of hard to apply that in the scenarios you’re talking about applying it across different contacts in the organization. So, do you see your 4 W’s as something people can apply pretty readily and easily to their clients and within their own organization?

Tim
Well, I think so. I think it’s real common sense. And stringing together four attributes that people think of anyway, it doesn’t make me brilliant. The book to a certain extent is about how you proceed up or down that scale and the steps you take to get there.

Also, with a full acknowledgment that you’re going to deal with all four classifications… a lot. The problem is, when you get weasels in an organizations… they don’t do things for… it’s a real minority of people luckily, but there are people in life that do things for no apparent reason. It’s a very ego-intensive, evil way to deal with things. I’d rather deal with someone who’s incompetent, because I can deal with that.

DUST!N
(laughs) So, who would you say this is written for? Who’s the audience for this book?

Tim
Hopefully we’ll find two audiences… (Read More “Interview with a Warrior – Tim O’Leary Pt. 2)