Marketing Mistake #4 – The case against brand advertising

Dear professional,

Not a day goes by when I open up the entrepreneur, the local newspaper or any other type of business publication when I see some form of advertising being sold. I have no quibble with advertising – if it works (and you make money).

But most of the time, it simply doesn’t.

It’s not that brand advertising cannot work, it’s just that I would rather play poker with a side of aces instead of a penny slot machine.

Wouldn’t you?

Image ads, brand advertising or simply putting a name out there is abysmal at best. I’m talking about those ads that does not sell anything or the ones that don’t ask for a response back.

Here’s why they suck:

You do not know if it will work, because you have no way to measure response. It’s costly, clunky and carries waste. A lot of waste. Your chances of success are there – but I guess every once in a while someone wins something playing slots.

You may hear traditional media men say: but look how many consumers see your ad each day, look at the circulation, look at how your competitors are buying our ad space. Look at how we rotate your ads. See how your name will look on that billboard/newspaper/magazine ad.

Really?

I don’t care about circulation or any other statistic. Nor does it matter how pretty the advertising looks. If it’s pretty and it doesn’t sell – what’s the point?

Yeah sure, they can show you studies of how many people might see your road sign. But is there a way to measure how many people read it? Listen – No person can buy from you unless:

·         They read your ad;

·         They want what you have;

·         They believe you;

·         They have a way to respond;

Let’s take billboards as an example. Media people may say that their billboard gets shown to 200,000 people per month. Well, maybe only half of those people (100 000) did look at your billboard. And maybe half of those started to read and were interrupted (50 000). And maybe half of those read the whole thing, but forgot who the company was due to the robot turning green, the baby crying in the car and so on (25 000). And maybe half of those even read the whole thing, but did not have a pen to write the phone number or website down (12 500). 

We are now down to only 12 500 people who have merely glanced at your sign. 

See the problem with this? You paid for your billboard at the robot to be shown to 200,000 people, yet in reality, it was only shown to 12 500. A fraction for what you are getting.

And 12 500 is being overly optimistic…

So what we have here is known as waste circulation. And that is one of the many, many, many reasons I loathe so called traditional brand advertising.

You think brand advertising isn’t all that bad? You say you want another reason? Here you go:

Image advertising in a trade publication is shown with 10 or more of your competitors. In fact, prospect are so used to seeing this type of advertising that they automatically filter those type of ads out before they read them. 

Still not convinced? 

Roughly 3000 commercial messages gets shown each day. Can you guess which types of ad gets shown by 95% of companies? The creative type ad that tries to make the company look intelligent with some type of deep hidden message, often with a dash of humor.

Guess what? Nobody cares. You read correctly. The only reason people buy is because they do it in their own self interest. There’s only one radio station playing – the what’s in it for me station (WIFM). Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from Monday to Sunday.

One more reason against brand advertising?

Simply throwing a company name with a phone number and a slogan out there appears cold. It does zip, nada, nothing to help prospects warm up to you. Folks, if you are in business right now, hark unto me, you are in the relationship business. And people cannot form a relationship with an institution.

People form relationships with people, and…

People buy from people!

No matter whether you sit high up in an office in a penthouse. No matter if you do not even have a face to face interaction with your clients. Listen to this:

You can never lose sight of the people you serve. You can never stop looking through eyes. If you want to sell what John Jones buys, you have to see through their eyes.

Note, I am not against brand building. Having a strong brand in the marketplace should be your #1 marketing priority. A strong brand allows you to sell at higher prices, more often and in higher frequency than any one of your competitors.  But more on brand building later.

For now, cut the cancer loose and stop all 'image type' ads.