by Jill Klinedinst
Like most businesses, you’re probably wondering how you can get the most from your employees. Maybe you want to increase productivity, decrease absenteeism or simply make the work environment a little more comfortable. There’s an easy way to do all of these things – a simple four letter word: DOGS.
By Jill Klinedinst
If you’re lucky enough to work with a professional media buyer – someone who subscribes to, pays for and actually understands the ratings and demographic data in your market – then you don’t need the following advice. But, if you’re not fortunate enough to work with an agency that offers this service, BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL! It’s easy to get burned. The following advice will help you avoid those too-good-to-be-true media packages that I call “fire sales.”
Too many times I’ve seen clients get sucked into bad media purchases because they were fire sales. You know the salesperson drill: “We only have three more media packages left, and today is the last day! With this amazing deal, you’ll get all these spots at this great low price! Should I sign you up?”
Not so fast. Usually these types of sales are urgent appeals, generally meant to sell inventory that is unsellable. Sure, you’ll get three prime time spots, but you’ll also get twenty-three that run throughout the night… or worse yet, what’s called a Run of Schedule (ROS) spot (which they might as well call a WTH spot, because it means the station can run them Whenever the Heck they want). But what portion of your target audience is watching a ‘Rockin’ to the Oldies’ infomercial at 2am? That’s when the majority of your spots will air with a ROS agreement. The only legitimate reason to pay for a spot that will air overnight is if you’re selling mattresses to people who wish they were sleeping. If you’re not appealing to insomniacs, stay away from ROS media plans. They’re worth nothing to you.
When it comes to purchasing media time, don’t be fooled by the numbers. Remember, most of these fire sale packages are designed to sell you the air time that nobody else wants. Sure, 250 guaranteed spots during the second quarter of the year sounds great, but if only a percentage of your audience will see them, what good are they to you?
So how do you get the most bang for your buck with your media budget? Just put your money where your audience is. The best thing you can do to determine the value of a media package is to assess what shows are WORTH paying for, and then compare that total with the price of the package. Here’s what I mean: let’s say a media package offers a ‘reduced rate’ for primetime or access (the hour before primetime shows). To assess its true value to you, add up the individual costs of air time for each show that provides good ratings in your target demo. Do NOT add the costs of the shows in the prepared media package that are of no value to you. For example, if you don’t want to air during daytime court shows, don’t add the cost of those spots. Then compare that total with the actual price of the fire sale. Chances are, you’ll find that your money is better spent creating your own plan.
These last minute sales are called ‘fire sales’ for a reason. You guessed it – you might as well burn your money. So use caution the next time one crosses your desk. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Jill Klinedinst is a professional media planner at Big Idea Company, where all media ratings and demographic data in the northern Indiana/southwest Michigan region are used on a daily basis to build effective media plans for large and small clients throughout the region.
by Ryan Faist
I started a war in my last post, but this time I come in peace. Yes, I am taking a break from the battlefield to examine a little rivalry in the marketing world. Actually, it’s one of the longest running marketing feuds in U.S. history, affecting more than 200 million Americans every day.
As G.I. Joe taught me in the eighties, knowing is half the battle. So, before I jumped into the battle ring with two heavyweight companies that together generate more than $60 billion in annual revenue, I decided to conduct a little investigation of my own. I presented five people each with two unmarked cups filled with a different but similar beverage. Then, after recording which one they thought tasted better, I asked, “Do you consider yourself a Coke person or a Pepsi person?”
Coke and Pepsi have been battling each other for market dominance longer than any other two companies in the country. Pepsi tries to position Coke as boring and unhip; and Coke tries to position themselves as the original, authentic cola that can’t be replaced. They’ve been battling this way for decades now, with Coke enjoying a slightly larger share of the cola-drinking population.
But I don’t care who sells more or which one tastes better. What I want to know is: why are people are so loyal to their cola? In the cola world there are Coke people and there are Pepsi people. Everyone knows this. But it’s not like that with potato chips, candy, hot dogs, etc. What is it about this carbonated beverage that divides an entire nation of people?
Logic would submit that people choose Coke or Pepsi based on which one they think tastes better. I wish it was so. You may recall that Pepsi conducted a taste test much like my own back in the seventies. They called it the Pepsi Challenge. Surprisingly, most people who said they liked Coke actually preferred the taste of Pepsi. So Pepsi posted their results in a series of popular commercials that increased sales for a few years. But then, for unexplained reasons, things went back to normal and Coke jumped ahead again. Much to their dismay, the Pepsi Challenge suggested that even people who preferred the taste of Pepsi eventually resumed their loyalty to Coke… it was as though they couldn’t help it.
The fatal flaw in the Pepsi Challenge was that it never tested the “loyalty” of its subjects. It is my hypothesis that loyalty has nothing to do with taste. And after reviewing the results of my own study, this is what I learned: of the five people who participated in my blind taste test, two claimed loyalty to Coke and blindly preferred the taste of Coke, two claimed loyalty to Pepsi and blindly preferred the taste of Pepsi, and the fifth person was indifferent. Needless to say, I was puzzled. According to my results, loyalty does have something to do with taste.
But I just don’t believe this. If people were loyal to the cola they thought tasted better, why would the Pepsi Challenge prove otherwise? This is the question nobody has thought to ask… the question that certain people don’t want you to ask.
I have since developed a new theory about the Coke vs. Pepsi rivalry, and it has nothing to do with taste, nothing to with the cola your parents drank, and nothing to do with your DNA.
It’s the government. It has to be. There’s no other explanation. Big Brother decided your cola for you before you were old enough to say your first words, I just know it. How, you ask? Why, you say? All good questions. But remember, this is the government we’re talking about; they can do anything. So just picture this: you’re young and in love. You get married. You start a family. Everything is perfect. And then one day the doorbell rings and two federal agents in black suits are standing on your doorstep with a little brown briefcase. Enough said.
Think about that the next time you pick up a glass of your favorite cola. But act normal. Don’t let them know you’re onto them. Just take a sip, smile big and raise your glass to the federal government. They’ll be watching.
by Ryan Faist
I haven’t wanted to do this… but you’ve pushed me too far. I’m talking to a certain group of writers who have somehow advanced their troops to the frontline of American media. Well, I’m here to tell you that this is as far as you go.
For you innocent civilians reading this, I will explain. My enemy is any writer who inflates their prose with sensationalism. That means hype. Sensationalism is when a writer takes a banal experience, like walking down the street or brushing your teeth, and turns it into some kind of melodramatic or extraordinary experience. It’s what my father would refer to as B.S.
To make sure you understand why I’m about to pick a fight, I’m going to get a little technical. First off, you have to realize why my enemies want to sensationalize their writing. It has to do with creating conflict, or tension. You see, in any piece of prose there are two types of conflict: macro-tension and micro-tension. Macro-tension is the major conflict in the article or story. In a murder mystery, it’s the “whodunit?” Micro-tension is a series of minor conflicts that help advance the story, but aren’t necessarily related to the major conflict. For example, in a murder mystery, micro-tension may be when the protagonist runs out of gas on the highway or when the phone rings and nobody’s there. We want to know what happens, so we keep watching… or reading. That’s micro-tension.
Sensationalism, on the other hand, is a lazy technique that bad writers use to keep you reading when there is no organic tension. For example, instead of running out of gas on the highway, a writer using sensationalism might describe how the highway brought back painful memories of riding to the pumpkin patch with his mother when the hero was a child. It’s creating tension where there is none, and it’s the lowest form of writing.
I’m not just talking about fiction. Every piece of prose has to have some kind of conflict. I don’t care if you’re writing an article about a new treatment for wrinkles or a press release about an old man who sings the alphabet in Spanish pig-Latin. If you want people to read it, you’ll find the natural trouble – notice I said find and natural.
Too many writers have developed the awful habit of inventing the trouble. That’s sensationalism. Instead of discovering the tragic root of the old man’s peculiar singing habit, the lazy writer might try to invent tension by comparing him with a famous tenor like Mario Lanza, and then alluding to his tragedy of never becoming famous himself. Unless the old man is actually as good as Lanza, and had even a remote chance of becoming a successful tenor (which is doubtful), then the entire comparison was sensationalism: phony tension, a sorry attempt to make the writing interesting. It happens. You’d be surprised at the lengths my enemies will go in order to sensationalize their writing because they’re unable to find the true tension in the story. It’s becoming more and more common every day.
Here’s the point to remember: micro-tension is good, sensationalism is bad. My enemies don’t know the difference. They don’t know that readers can always tell when you’re faking it. If they could just learn to distinguish micro-tension from sensationalism, their writing would instantly comes across as more genuine, and therefore more appealing.
But they never will. They’ll keep writing their B.S. until someone stops them. So allow me.
Those of you guilty of this literary travesty know who you are. But your fun and games are over. Consider this post both a declaration of war and a first offense. So round up your army and meet me at the frontline. We shall see whose pen is mightiest.
by Ryan Faist
Credit: The Pack
I was waiting at a stoplight, staring at a six-foot tall dog with a newspaper jammed in its mouth. It was an advertisement on the back of the truck ahead of me. When I stared longer, I realized that it was an ad for a landscaping company. The dog had nothing to do with the message; it only served to grab my attention, which it did. But after seeing it, I wasn’t compelled to treat my lawn. Instead, I was asking myself why Americans’ attention spans have shrunk to the point where some advertisers will stray so far from their message to grab a person’s attention.
It’s not just advertisements. It’s all forms of popular media. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the average scene-length of movies and television shows has shortened significantly over the years. Even the style of most blockbuster novels today is much more fast-paced – tension on every page. I’m not saying any of this is bad, but I am saying that we Americans have become an inpatient culture. And the media knows it.
Some people will argue that technology is to blame. The internet, social media, iPods, blackberries, yada yada yada, have all collectively spoiled us with immediate access to information. That makes sense, but something else is bothering me.
Let us suppose that America suffers from attention deficit disorder for whatever reason. Fine. Advertisers and marketers have to adjust as the playing field changes, just as any businessperson must. I understand this. But the giant dog staring at me from the back of a commercial truck was something much more frightening. At first, I thought it was an ad for the local newspaper, or maybe a dog-catching service. That would have been okay with me, even though I like dogs. But when I realized it was an ad for a landscaping company, I became enraged. In a strange way, I felt like the people who created it were contributing to the degradation of a once patient culture… just so they could make a few bucks. No, I’m not crazy.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe in the power of a good advertisement. But I can’t help but wonder about how the current state of advertising is dealing with the shortened attention spans of American consumers. Even worse, I wonder if some advertisers are somehow helping to shrink attention spans even more with ads that ignore the rules once practiced by the advertisers of previous generations. Maybe people will get used to advertisements that use arbitrary and shocking images to catch their attention, just as they’ll get used to short scenes and fast-paced novels. Where will it end? How about the Statue of Liberty dressed in fish net to sell macaroni and cheese? Why not a three-eyed gargoyle floating over the moon to promote toothpaste?
I’ll tell you why. It’s stupid. Creating advertisements is a craft, and just like any other craft, there are techniques, guidelines and aesthetics to every good ad. It’s within these boundaries that you find your creativity. Once you become a rebel ad-maker with no respect for anything done in the past and a willingness to do anything in the future, including arbitrarily exploiting people’s short attention spans, you risk more than just failing your clients with bad ads. You may unknowingly participate in the degradation of our culture by contributing to the shrinking of the average American attention span until it reaches the point where 1) we as a people have no patience for anything other than instant gratification, and 2) ad-makers become more and more willing to stray even further from good ad-making principles in the lazy effort to grab your attention. Both are grim forecasts for a brave new world.
Your Guide to the Most Popular Radio Ad Faux Pas of Our Time
by Ryan Faist
credit: bbaltimore
If you’re looking for a good way to ruin your next radio ad, just turn on the radio and listen. That’s the best place to find world-class examples of how to do it. I guarantee you’ll hear ads that may have looked good on paper, but somehow manage to just add more noise to the two minutes of indistinguishable and ineffective clutter that is sandwiched between the actual radio programs. So how does this happen?
Well, there are many simple ways to ruin a radio ad. Some people like to start with a bad idea. That always works well. Others prefer to kill a good idea with poor execution. But most of the time, it comes down to the strategy when writing. Addressing the wrong audience, speaking from your business’s point of view instead of your customer’s, and wasting precious time repeating a phone number that nobody will remember are all good ways to ruin a radio ad.
However, the best way to ruin a radio ad is the one used most often. It’s the trump card of ways; the easiest method to ruin your radio ad no matter how good your idea or how great your execution. And chances are, you’re doing it already.
First, you need to know that nearly every ad on the radio is overstuffed with information. That’s a fact. Sometimes you can actually hear how the voice-over has been sped up electronically just to fit it all in. Overstuffing your ad is the single most effective thing you can do when you don’t want people to remember anything about it – other than its bloviating. It’s also the most common way to ruin a radio ad because you can do it without even trying. Hell, most people overstuff their ad accidentally. They don’t even know they’ve done it!
All you have to do is write too much voice-over. That’s it – the trump card for ruining your radio ad. Here’s how it’s done. To be certain a sixty-second radio ad sounds like all the others, write more than 160 words of voice-over. If you can get it up to 200, you’re on your way. The more, the better. You want your narrator speaking so fast that he or she sounds like a tongue-twisting spokesman rattling off bids at an auction. What you don’t want is for your narrator to speak slowly and clearly. Radio ads rarely do this because it’s a good way to ensure that people actually hear what is being said. It also increases people’s chances of recalling that information later, which may actually increase sales. You don’t want that.
So you see, it’s not so hard to ruin your radio ad. There are lots of ways, and I’m sure you can find one that suits you. But if you’re looking for something that will work every time, something that promises to ruin a radio ad that otherwise might have been great, just write too much voice-over. It works like a charm for everyone else.
How Lazy Ad Makers Perpetuate a Self-Serving Myth At Your Expense
by Lou Pierce
What follows will be heresy to the dinosaurs of the advertising world. I shall make no friends there. Never- theless, allow me to address the most pervasive hoax that the world of advertising has ever perpetrated upon an unsuspecting corporate and institutional world. It is the industry’s self-serving myth of “creativity” – you know, that pretentious, self-important, ego-driven myth that ad makers are somehow gifted while the rest of us are not.
As an ad maker myself, I dare incur the wrath of professional colleagues by revealing that there’s nothing mysterious, Divine or magical about the “creative” process. Award-winning professionals in our industry are no different from over-achievers in any other industry. Our work is just that: work. “Great advertising” is always the product of very hard work. There are no shortcuts. And, anyone who tells you that there are shortcuts is either lazy, pretentious or both.
So why bring this up now? Well, recently a couple of advertising veterans have been whining publicly via blogs about their “creative” work being treated like a commodity. This perception of their work as a commodity is a serious issue for them. It affects what they can charge and even their long term viability in the business. So, there’s no question, no doubt that they need to be very concerned – but, concerned about their work.
Instead, their published opinions make preposterous claims that the entire industry suffers from this malady and that it is actually the clients who are to blame. That’s right, the clients! It is their published opinion that clients don’t appreciate “creativity” anymore and that they are not willing to pay for it.
Well frankly, that’s hogwash. In a September 11, 2009 interview at the annual Ad Tech Conference in Chicago, Cliff Kaplan, President and CEO of Design Back Office, one of the most successful wholesalers of design services in the world, pointed out that this is a time when smaller, more nimble agencies are actually growing, while larger “dinosaur” agencies with all of their overhead are having trouble meeting client expectations to do “more for less.”
“More for less?” That’s a real conundrum if you simply cannot meet expectations because your overhead prohibits it. But, blame the client? That’s unheard of in any other industry. Maybe the people who sold the self-serving myth of advertising executive superiority can get away with it. Time will tell.
But I’m not so sure. For me, there’s a mathematical problem with all of this. The excuses, the rationale; none of it makes sense. Products become commodities when they become common. It’s that simple. “Creative” work of a common garden-variety nature is most assuredly by definition, a commodity.
What is the fix if you’re really concerned about this “commodity” issue and are determined to do something about it? How can you get your work off the commodities list?
Stop pretending that the whole industry is suffering along with you. It’s not. Stop blaming clients for the common everyday advertising that you churn out. Stop pretending that Divine intervention makes for award-winning work. And, break a sweat. Remember sweat? It’s what the rest of us do. Make your common work uncommon. It won’t be easy. It never has been and it never will be. But, at the end of the day, it’s the only thing that matters.
by Lou Pierce
Our recommendation regarding social media adoption for businesses and not-for-profits continues to be one of cautious optimism and careful planning. Will you miss the boat if you don’t jump immediately? Of course not. Are there compelling reasons to think this through before taking the leap ‘willy-nilly?’ Absolutely. Unclear objectives and the lack of operational plans for day-to-day management of your social media presence are recipes for failure — even disaster. So, slow down and smell the most recent research.
Twitter may be the latest darling of the media, but July 2009 results from a LinkedIn Research Network/Harris Poll finds that very few advertisers see it as an effective promotion tool. Keep in-mind, the results from this latest research may or may not change as Twitter moves forward over the next couple of years. But trends, especially those hyped by mass media, should be scrutinized carefully prior to adoption. Too many of those often hyped trends turn out to be busts.
by Ryan Faist
David Ogilvy is the most well-known advertising wizard in the history of the business. As a writer, I am apt to compare him with my favorite writer – Ernest Hemingway. Here’s why: like Hemingway fans, I suspect many Ogilvy fans are merely attracted to the idea of admiring a man of such greatness more than they are attracted to the acquired principles and hard work which made him great. Cynical, maybe. But I have met many Hemingway “fans” who have never read For Whom the Bell Tolls.
After reading Ogilvy on Advertising, I can say that David Ogilvy’s writing is superbly succinct, a characteristic that many also attribute to Hemingway’s works. His paragraphs often end with a sharp anecdotal sentence that drives the point home and leaves you chuckling at his tone of confidence. Hemingway was confident too.
In fact, I enjoyed the book so much that I can’t refrain from sharing with you a few Ogilvy sentences that I find particularly poignant.
by Ryan Faist
In the old days, if you passed a dead- line, they killed you. There were no excuses, no com- promises, no second chances. They shot you right then and there.
Yes, you’re thinking of the right word — that notorious little noun that often looms over the heads of writers, students, marketers, salesmen and countless other professionals every day.
Of course, failing to comply with a deadline is no longer a fatal offense. Nowadays, students can often turn in assignments late for a letter-grade deduction. Writers sometimes play the inspiration card, proclaiming to the powers that be, “It’s the best thing I’ve ever written, but it’s going to take one more day.” And certainly plenty of business people are guilty of pushing the product launch date back a week or two.
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