by Steve Fodor.
I’ve been participating in a lot of discussions lately on social media and its benefits to the marketing mix. I’ve seen and heard points of view ranging from “it’s a panacea to our marketing issues” to “it has no applications and it’s stupid” and just about everything else in between.
What also has intrigued me is how many people are saying that “traditional advertising simply does not work.” I’m not so sure about that.
Traditional advertising is just another tool in the marketing mix. Just like social media, direct mail, e-mail, outdoor, radio – whatever – it’s not necessarily the medium’s fault if you did not see positive results from your marketing effort. I would contend that it’s your message. Media in any form is simply the messenger that delivers your brand’s proposition to the intended target audience, regardless of their age, position or social class. How you craft that message within the medium will determine your success or failure.
I watched some of the Super Bowl last weekend. And like many of my colleagues in the communications business, I was rather disappointed with the quality of the advertising messages I saw. There were many that seemed trite, tried too hard to be funny and were just plain dumb. I see a lot more advertising messages in consumer and trade publications that try to “pound” a long list benefits into the reader's head without having any real or unique point of view.
Great advertising should make your audience feel about your brand the way you feel about your best friends in life. Advertising should connect with commonalities and shared interests. It should present useful information. It should talk “with” instead of “to” people. It should respect people’s intelligence. It shouldn’t be boastful or condescending. And, if done effectively, advertising should let the reader or viewer reach a positive conclusion about your brand without having to pound benefits alone into their heads.
If you’ve tried advertising before with disappointing results, I’d suggest that you may not have an advertising problem. Rather, I would suggest that you may have a brand problem.
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