Marketing – Page 103

“Scientific Advertising In The 21st Century” – Part 1

“Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book (Scientific Advertising) seven times. It changed the course of my life.”
– David Ogilvy

One of the foundation books in the canon of Direct Response Marketing and Copywriting literature is “Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins (usually found twinned with his autobiography “My Life In Advertising”). Hopkins was one of the pioneers of modern advertising and copywriting in the years spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

But is the book still relevant in the 21st century and the age of the internet? Not having read the book for a while, I decided to revisit “Scientific Advertising” to see for myself. This post is the first in a series taking a look at each chapter of the book.

The first chapter is titled “How Advertising Laws Are Established” and Hopkins sets out his philosophy and the basis for the book. He opens the chapter as follows…

[Read more…]

Marketers – Is This One Reason For The Huge Success Of This Company?

I am a huge fan of the UK’s biggest supermarket chain Tesco’s.

Now, I know that it’s probably very unfashionable of me, but I have nothing but admiration for the company and it’s boss Terry Leahy. It’s a giant, accounting for over 30% of all spending in supermarkets in the UK.

And it’s achieved all this the old fashioned way by being very good at what it does and providing customers with great value.

And there’s something else that it does as detailed in this article that I came across in today’s UK “Daily Telegraph” – “Tesco’s Hidden Test Centre Reveals A Taste Of What’s In Store For Shoppers”.

The company has a rigorous process that it uses to test all products before they are allowed in the stores. Interestingly, the testing panel is made up of ordinary people who make up a pretty representative sample of the company’s customers.

So, if testing products in advance makes sense for a succesful company like Tesco, it might well be worth thinking about doing yourself. The harsh facts are that most new products fail. You can weight the odds in your favour by firstly doing your market research properly.

But once you’ve done that, why not take it a step further and see what your intended customers think?

A Marketing Lesson From Master Yoda

Have I mentioned I’m a big movie fan? Very excited about a couple of upcoming new movies. The new “Indiana Jones” episode and the “Iron Man” movie (yup, I’m a big comic book fan too!).

Interesting, of course, to observe the build up to a big movie release. Marketing lessons there for product launches and building up anticipation. Video trailers are an obvious way to promote new movies. Checking out the “Iron Man” trailer on YouTube I was amazed (or maybe not) to see that almost 4 million people had viewed the video. An example of the incredible “reach” that the internet provides marketers.

Anyway, that’s not what this post is about. As you might have deduced from the title this is about “Star Wars”, more precisely something from “The Empire Strikes Back”. There’s a scene in the middle of the movie where Yoda is training Luke in the ways of the Force and he instructs Luke to raise his crashed space fighter out of the swamp.

Luke looks dubious about the whole thing but says “OK, I’ll try”. At this point Yoda turns on him and says…

“Try not – do or do not – there is no try”.

What a great line! When you think about it, the word “Try” is so weak. It kind of contains an expectation of failure.

So, I have banned the word from my vocabulary as far as possible and substituted instead the word “Test”. You might like to consider doing that yourself.

For marketers in particular, this might be worth thinking about. Instead of “trying” something, how about “testing” a new approach? Testing should be an integral approach of your marketing in any case. It’s amazing the difference in response you get from different approaches.

Talking of testing, I recently purchased “The Secrets Of A 10% Conversion Rate” by Paul Hancox. Despite being in a self-imposed period of not buying any new copywriting or marketing products, Michel Fortin wrote such a great review I felt compelled to check out the report for myself!

(As an aside, I guess that’s a good marketing example of the power of an endorsement from a “trusted source”!)

Now, a great deal of the report is about testing and that is one of the secrets of getting a high response rate. But there’s more and when I’ve finished the report I’ll let you know what I think about it.

In the meantime…”Do or do not”!

More Marketing Idiocy From A Big Corporation

Came across a great blog post today from Mark Widawer. The kind of post that made me think “Gee, I wish I’d written that!”

Anyway, it’s titled “Bad Advertising – Ford Needs To ‘Learn One'” and it’s all about the latest strategic marketing campaign just announced by the Ford Motor Company in North America (I hope for Ford’s sake they don’t use it elsewhere).

Now, I’ll make a confession here. I actually have a bit of a soft spot for Ford. Near where I grew up in the UK there was a big Ford assembly plant and the company was a big employer in the area (Ford Europe HQ was nearby as well). The classic Ford Cortina and then the Escort XR3 (not to mention the Capri Ghia 3.0) were all objects of desire for me at one time or another.

And although I might be opening myself to some ridicule, I think the current Ford Focus is just an excellent car.

However, what is it with big car companies today that makes them so utterly clueless when it comes to marketing? In his article, Mark Widawer reports on Ford’s latest “Big Idea” that is supposed to get dealers and customers excited and the sales rolling in.

It’s (drum roll)…”Ford: Drive One”!

Er…quite. A classic example of image advertising at it’s worst! Anyway, read the whole thing. Mark makes some excellent points and has some interesting suggestions as to what Ford could do as an alternative.

Big car companies are a seemingly endless source of marketing case studies. Ford, of course, will never live down the fiasco of the Edsel. General Motors wrote the book on market segmentation (niche marketing before people even know what niche marketing was!) before forgetting everything they knew and becoming an abject example in how not to run a car company (or any kind of company, for that matter).

As an aside, Mark Widawer is quite an expert on traffic and conversion. He has a number of excellent products out including “Landing Page Cash Machine”. If you need to get up to speed on landing pages, I can recommend that particular program.

Yet Another Example of Mainstream Advertising Agencies Wasting Clients Money

Had to smile when this article (“Advertisers: Men Are Not Idiots“) from Advertising Age came to my attention…

Bashing Fathers and Husbands Isn’t the Right Way for Marketers to Sell Products

The way the advertising industry portrays men has drawn increasing scrutiny in both the trade press and the mainstream media. Defenders of the status quo — in which men are depicted as irresponsible fathers and lazy, foolish husbands — are starting to feel outnumbered. It’s an understandable feeling.

The article goes on to describe the backlash that’s occurring and the negative impact on a couple of large companies.

Gee, who would have thought that insulting and alienating 50% of your potential audience would have negative consequences for sales (and profits of course)? Those geniuses at the mainstream advertising agencies who buy in to this kind of nonsense…

Defenders of the advertising status quo generally put forth the following arguments: Males are “privileged” and “it’s men’s turn,” so it’s OK to portray them this way, and that men simply don’t care how they’re portrayed.

OK, maybe I’m being a little unfair. Perhaps someone was thinking that as women apparently make some 70% of all purchasing decisions, then appealing to them would more than outweigh any negative consequences of alienating men?

Well, if so, didn’t work. Apparently, most women are turned off by this approach as well!

Hey, I know it’s something of a staple that Direct Response Marketers think that mainstream “Image” advertising agencies are complete idiots. And I’m sure there are some good ad men (and women) in mainstream agencies. However, this sort of thing and countless other examples all illustrate how “conventional” advertising is often a complete disaster for clients.

And it all goes back to one of the biggest sins in marketing and advertising. Being more concerned and wrapped up in your own perspective rather than that of your audience. The “creatives” who came up with the “Men Are Idiots” ads probably thought they were being terribly clever, witty and sophisticated. “Socially progressive” as well, probably.

Too bad the market doesn’t agree with them and as a result their clients are losing money.

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