Comparison advertising. It’s been around for a long time. In days of old, it was the way to go. Choosy Mom’s choose Jif, the Pepsi Challenge, We’re number 2, so we try harder, the demos showing how Bounty was the “quicker picker upper.”
During the boom years, comparison advertising became passe among market leaders- why give credit to your competition.
Typically, it was a way to leverage a smaller brand against the leader.
Audi challenges BMW and loses
It’s a dangerous proposition. Look at the smackdown Audi gets from BMW in their billboards in Santa Monica on the right. Those who don’t study their craft are doomed to get hit twice. Honda fired Chiat/Day from their motorcycle account. Their new agency came up with “Follow the leader” to which Chiat/Day came back- now working for Yamaha with “Don’t follow anyone.”
When the economy goes bad- all bets are off. It’s time to go into the cage for a brand on brand death match.
While scrapping for every dollar might not be an option as consumers cut back, the damage it can do to a brand is real. Do you really want to be the cheapest, lowest price product when the money starts flowing again.
Chuck Porter once said at the Cincinnati Ad Club “Anyone can do a better price and product ad, all they have to do is have a lower price” so it sort of shocks me when Crispin Porter + Bogusky starts running ads for Microsoft based on price.
Where “Laptop hunters” Lisa and Jackson go to buy a laptop for under $1,500 and do a comparison between Apple and a PC.
After the drilling Apple has given Microsoft with their “Get a Mac” campaign, which has won an Effie, and has been credited for doubling market share, Apple had to see it coming.
But, this is the kind of attention Microsoft wanted when they hired the best ad agency in the country to try to breath life back into their bankrupt Windows/Vista brand.
Crispin Porter + Bogusky is again proving that edgy, strategic advertising can get people talking about a brand differently, quickly, by pushing buttons.
[The reality is: both Apple and Microsoft will be in trouble if some 17 year old does for Linux what Blake Ross did for the Mozilla code base to create Firefox.]
Realize that Microsoft isn’t even comparing their product to Apple in the ads- they are comparing their partners hardware- people aren’t validating Microsoft in the buying ads- but Sony, HP, Dell etc.
How many companies would spend their marketing dollars on promoting their marketing partners?
When times get tough, consumers do spend more time evaluating major purchases. However, it’s not price that they look at as much as value. Giving consumers reason to talk about your brand value is only a good idea if it is really there. Look at the response to a Business Week story on the subject of the Microsoft challenge- compared to a holy war.
Maybe the best advice still comes from that old Chiat/Day ad: “Don’t follow anyone” and don’t compare. Leadership has its privileges.
Everyday we see ads that try to sell us on a products FAB (Features, Advantages and Benefits). Maybe what we should be concentrating on is telling people what other people prefer? In fact, a UCLA professor did a study and dramatically changed the outcomes by a changing the message to be “inclusive” more than “exclusive.”
Noah Goldstein has a Ph.D. in social psychology. He teaches at the prestigious Anderson School of Management at UCLA and tosses around esoteric terms like “injunctive norm.” But today he’s talking hotel towels.
Noah Goldstein: There are these signs in hotels that ask people to reuse their towels to help save the environment.
That’s the standard environmental appeal. The Ph.D.s thought they could do better.
Goldstein: A second one that we created specifically informed guests that the majority of others did reuse their towels sometime during their stay.
The result of that message? Twenty-six percent more recycling. And when Goldstein and his colleagues tweaked the sign further to say the majority of guests in that particular room had re-used their dirty towels, recycling improved 33 percent. Goldstein says it’s an adaptive, herd-like response.
Even though “average” means a majority of people, 95% of people will tell you they are above average- and when people are given a choice between trusting professional reviewer or someone they don’t know who they think is just like them- we’re seeing a movement to trusting the “untrained joe.”
Social media, which connects people in even more random ways than was previously possible is driving this change in consumer behavior.
So next time you are looking at ad copy, think about the power of the herd so you can be heard.
One of the problems with affinity programs is that they force the customer to carry a card for every retailer. The same can be said for membership programs- like my Y membership card. Besides making my wallet thicker than a Whopper®, the amount of time searching for the right card slows down the check out/in process.
Some of the credit card companies have experimented with RFID chips in small dongles, “speed pass” etc, yet, this is just another piece of branded trash that’s being forced into my pocket.
In Japan, cell phones have been used to connect to everything from soda machines to public transit, with the billing being handled by the telco provider.
We’re not there yet in the USA, but, a new software application for iPhone or iPod touch allows consumers to carry the barcode image on the card in their phone:
Mesa Dynamics and CardStar have announced CardStar for the iPhone/iPod touch
its latest mobile application for personal card management. The program allows users to digitally upload their customer-reward and club cards, enabling cashiers to scan the barcode displayed on the touchscreen, instead of having to bring the card with them. CardStar contains a merchant list of over 100 companies, with six different categories, and supports barcode formats for most commonly used cards including code 39, code 128, EAN 13, and UPCA.Available categories include travel, retail, grocery, gym, entertainment, and drug store. An advanced option allows addition of cards that are not currently included in the merchant lists. CardStar can be purchased from the App Store and is priced at $1.
Marketers should be rushing to embrace this kind of customer centric use of technology to make it easier for consumers to keep connected with your brand.
Besides, I keep breaking my YMCA keyfob membership number, but, knock on wood, my iPhone can’t snap in half.
With the latest economic crisis, the phrase “too big to fail” has been bandied about as a mantra of justification for a businesses right to exist (or be “saved”) yet, something is starting to sound inherently wrong about “economies of scale” in today’s networked market.
If there is one thing that is clear from The Long Tail, it’s that focused, niche products and services can find their customers easier and more efficiently today than ever before. Communities can pop-up almost anywhere, where like-minded consumers can meet and discuss their passions, without any intervention or support by business (such a community has popped up on this site for fans of WMMS, a rock radio station that dominated the Cleveland market in the late 70’s).
So, as we watch big banks, big car companies, the titans of Wall Street falter, the question of what will survive isn’t as important as what is the business model of the future. I’m starting to think it’s not WalMart, Best Buy, or even Target- although Target has done a better job of finding a target to market to.
It’s pretty obvious that deregulation came along with a total disregard for anti-trust as well. It was deemed anti-business to try to make sure that there was true choice in the marketplace.
The first place to really see the failures of this policy have been the very companies that fought regulation the hardest: the media giants. With deregulated markets we saw the elimination of competition in newspapers and the dumbing down of the press at the exact same time as we moved to an information economy. The answers of big business were to give us less info- at a time when people were virtually drowning in it. The same happened in TV and Radio broadcast, with an appetite for bigger audiences, the money believed the answers were bigger broad market programming, when audiences were increasingly able to pick and choose what fit them best.
The same has happened to mass-market retailers, who can easily be out-maneuvered by niche internet retailers, as long as the shipping costs aren’t too high, or the need to experience first hand a big part of the buying experience.
Even preferences in shopping experiences have changed from big malls to lifestyle centers, with big box “power centers” losing some of their appeal.
All of this points to a future that probably isn’t in the hands of the giants anymore- but to the most adroit marketers who have built a network of other symbiotic businesses to support each other. Working together as a loose network to promote unique experiences, products, services are going to not only be keys to business survival, but of communities, who can’t afford to trust those companies that are “too big to fail” yet still do.
The survival of social networks and open source development depends on the number of users/size of community that adopts the service and contributes. In business, the number of connections that are built, and the sharing of support functions like marketing- will work the same way.
The answer to success in this new economy is less about getting big, but in getting connected. Relationships are more important than ever and the best way to build your business may be by helping someone else build theirs as long as there is reciprocal behavior. Networks of independent businesses are part of the model of Amazon and EBay, two of the most successful online marketers. Google is making inroads by giving away services, software and social connections in return for relationships that can be exploited softly as time goes by.
While we’ve been teaching and preaching the benefits of Web 2.0 for several years, we’re just starting to push our clients to reach out and work together with other similar small businesses. If Goliath is going to fall, it’s because either he’s gotten so big as to miss opportunity- or that the guerrilla’s have organized to out network and out maneuver him.
Just as the transfer of electrons at almost no cost and high speed has changed the media markets, over time, some of our big cities may find that they are having a hard time competing with smaller walkable communities as gas prices rise, as people’s time becomes more valuable and our love of big loses its luster.
Yes, too big to fail now, may be the kiss of death very soon.
It’s time to think of your network and working on your niche.
Our part of Ohio recently got hammered by a windstorm that did billions of dollars in damage, knocking out power for over a week for many people. While the national news has been covering the financial crisis and the effects of Hurricane Ike that wiped out parts of Galveston, for the people in the Midwest their immediate issues were with putting things back to normal.
Some astute companies turned the disaster into opportunity, while others lost respect. These are just some observations about how to turn lemons into lemonade when a disaster strikes.
Home Depot wins points for taking out full page ads offering no-interest for six months on purchases over $299 on their credit card to help repair storm damage. This came across as a sincere attempt to share the burdens of the storm with their customers.
Cincinnati Bell on the other hand, took this as an opportunity to mock Time Warner and digital phone which requires both a connection and electricity to work, while their phone service only requires a connection. Yes, the people who had switched to digital phone service had learned this lesson, however, gloating over the failure came across as crass and opportunistic. Their offer of a free Trimline phone, a $14.95 value was an even greater insult. Phones access in a crisis can be a matter of life and death for some, but, touting a $15 “gift” when people are sitting in the dark with rotting food in powerless refrigerators is just classless. There is also the question of deliver-ability- even if you called to take them up on their phone service- how fast could they hook you up while lines are still down?
Call centers also are an opportunity to make a good impression. Comparing the automated systems of the power company, DP&L with the cable company, Time Warner was a lesson in how to do it wrong from DP&L to how to do it right from Time Warner. The DP&L system never once acknowledged their failure to deliver a critical service or apologize for the outage. No information was available via phone, or online about projected repair time. Time Warner on the other hand, acknowledged their failure, apologized for service outages, explained what was causing the outage and advised that they were working as fast as possible to restore service but the nature of the storm and their dependence on DP&L to provide power was causing delays.
Even with the power out, many people were using laptops, cell phones, wi-fi hot spots to connect online and seek information. Restaurants that were open and serving food, did well to notify their customers via their site and through e-mail blasts. Hotels that had power, had customers. The ability to quickly update a website with the latest status, inventory or answer frequently asked questions online separated the winners from the losers in the midst of the crisis.
A large part of a brands value is measured in “goodwill” and when the chips are down, it is often the best test of how well you understand your brand and it’s position in the consumers psyche. Remember, it’s ok to reach out, but do it with a kind heart, not a greedy hand. Also, always address, acknowledge, apologize for any decrease in service. Pointing fingers usually end up sticking you in your own eye.
Doctors spend a lot of time in school learning how to diagnose our ills. They run up big school debt. Then they are expected to start a business, usually with very little capital.
Even if they do have money- medical office marketing, as practiced by most physicians maybe one of the boringest categories of all. A picture, a name, a location and “now accepting new patients” makes up 90% of the ads. A few might say something like “specializing in smiles” or provide a laundry list of services or accreditations. Of course, comparative advertising is verboten by the medical society- because as my friend who failed the bar exam 7 times and is now driving a truck says: “what do you call the guy who graduated at the bottom of his class from Medical school? Doctor.”
So, if you do happen to have an exceptionally talented physician, who graduated near the top of his class, and you’ve known since he was just an Air Force captain working on bomb carrying model airplanes and was the kicker for the Air Force Academy, and is a really nice guy with a down home touch… and a small budget to create ads- what do you do?
Have fun!
Who wants to go to a doctor who is already going to bend you over- who runs an ad that looks like he has a stick in his ass before he’s even met you?
Meet Doctor Christopher Blasy, DO, who will not only be your favorite general practitioner if you live in Hinesville Ga, right outside Ft. Stewart and close to Savannah Ga. Besides giving Dr. McDreamy a run for his money- Chris will make you feel comfortable- even if he does have a rubber glove on and is coating it with KY. We had to make that come across in an ad- before he even had his formal “I’m a doctor” picture had shown in our e-mail:
No photo, no problem. Dr. Chris Blasy opening office ad.
The people at the publication got the ad- and offered to insert a bad photo that they had of him- they didn’t get the ad.
When the “official looking” photo came in- with the white lab coat- a standard medical ad didn’t seem right either:
Find the Doctor. This is your first exam.
While it doesn’t exactly say “now accepting new patients” this ad also serves as a social filter- making sure that his patients have a sense of humor (science had already proven that people with a sense of humor live longer) thereby guaranteeing his patients will live longer than the competition. Good marketing can even improve your patient mortality rates- but don’t tell that to the hospitals who still like to run ads inviting sick people in for the highly risky procedures as opposed to working on preventative medicine.
There will be more ads for Dr. Blasy- but we thought we’d share some of our ideas for medical advertising to help other doctors realize your ads don’t have to be as boring as your med school text books.
