September 16, 2009

Is Your Advertising Working?

More than half the advertising most businesses are participating in do not register with the end consumer. Below are seven reasons why Steve McKee, from BusinessWeek believes this is true:
1. It's boring. Yep, boring. Why do we watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper, or go online? Three reasons: information, entertainment, and engagement.Ads that fail to offer at least two of these three benefits flop.

2. It's boorish. You shouldn't think of your advertising as being about your brand, you should think of it as an extension of your brand (see "A Practical Guide to Branding"). If it's loud, annoying, insulting, offensive, or self-centered, people will think the same of your products or services (see "The Cocktail Party Test for Advertising"). Remember the first sentence in the best-selling hardback book in U.S. history, The Purpose Driven Life: "It's not about you."

3. It's safe. The first time I saw a Ford Taurus (F), I took note, and I suspect you did as well. So did a lot of other people, and the Taurus went on to become the best-selling car in America.

4. It's trying to do too much. As the poll results above demonstrated, most people don't engage with most ads. And even when they do, for how long do they pay attention? Thirty seconds? Ten? Five? The best an ad can do is communicate one single, compelling idea, and in the age of the Internet—when people know they can go online to get all the additional information they need—it's crazy to ask an ad to do more than that. Just because you have a lot to say doesn't mean your audience will sit still and pay attention.

5. It hasn't been given time. You can't rush bread out of the oven. You can't hurry a seedling out of the ground. All you can do is prepare the ingredients properly, tend the garden with care, and wait for the loaf to rise and sprouts to appear. The same is true of advertising.

6. You like it. O.K., this one may sting a bit, but you are not the best judge of your own advertising. You can't be, because you simply know too much about your brand and have too much affection for it to remain objective.

7. It's not an advertising problem. A common mistake many companies make is trying to use advertising to fix another problem. It may be faulty or outdated product design, an uncompetitive cost structure, customer service letdowns, or any number of other things. It's not as if they do so intentionally; it's just that it's a whole lot easier to put on a new coat of paint than it is to fix the foundation that's causing the drywall to crack. No company executes flawlessly, but until you can maintain a solid track record of excellence, spend your money on internal improvements rather than advertising. Paint may mask the problem for a short time, but soon new cracks will begin to appear.

Why not take a few minutes today and evaluate your advertising campaign and see where there is room for improvement.

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