5 Modern Marketing Ad Campaigns You Missed
Every now and then a clever marketing ad flies under our radar. Sometimes this happens because budgets only allow for limited marketing, they were local ads, or for some unknown reason the ads never went viral. Maybe these will give you a creative head start in your next poster or postcard campaign. Here are a few that we found worth re-presenting to you.
1. The Rubik’s Cube 25th Anniversary
Super Bowl Ads Still Up for Grabs
NBC has said that it still has eight 30-second spots advertising spots still open for the 2009 Super Bowl. Most of the 67 spots were sold in September, but the spots that weren’t picked up then are still open. Super Bowl ad regulars FedEx, Garmin Ltd. and General Motors Corp. won’t be seen during next year’s game held February 1 in Tampa, Florida.
NBC says it is negotiating with other potential advertisers for the open spots. Of course, at a time when many companies are struggling to keep budgets afloat, the nearly-$3-million spots are hard to fit into the budget. Brian Walker, senior director of communications at NBC Sports in New York, said “This is a time to show strength and confidence in their brands in a challenging economy.”
Check out this video for last year’s Super Bowl Commercials:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6Ce-SJreIA]
Of course, everyone knows the time to unveil your greatest, funniest ad is during the Super Bowl. The NFL championship is considered to be the “premier advertising event” of the year. Walker doesn’t seem worried – the spots can be sold up to the last minute before the event. He didn’t comment on whether NBC is facing any pressure from advertisers to discount rates.
GM has reported that although it has bought ad spots for almost 10 years now, the current economy and request for federal funds is not the reason for not buying a traditional ad spot. GM is saving the ad money as part of a restructuring plan that has been in place for a while now – before the request for bailout.
FedEx didn’t give a reason for not buying a spot for the ’09 Super Bowl. FedEx has been a Super Bowl advertiser for a dozen years and has plans in place to grow revenue by 10 percent and earnings per share 10 to 15 percent per year. Is the $3 million part of that 10 percent? FedEx isn’t saying.
Garmin’s spokesperson Ted Gartner said that although Garmin bought ads in the past two Super Bowls, it won’t in ’09 because its strategy has changed, not because of the tough economy.
Among returners: Monster, Inc. and Anheuser-Busch. Monster hasn’t bought an ad in the Super Bowl since 2004, and A-B keeps on buying – it bought 10 30-second spots for ’09, some of which will run back to back, to run as 60-second spots.
According to CNNMoney.com, the United States is obsessed with Super Bowl ads. Many people hype up the new ads just as much as the game. USA Today has the most well-known Super Bowl ad critique. But a study by Los Angeles-based consumer research firm OTX found that consumers that watched what they were told were Super Bowl ads commercials were not “very informative about the company,” although the consumers felt more emotionally connected to the ads just because they were told they were Super Bowl ads. Super Bowl ads are expected to be funny, outrageous and better than any other ads viewed at other times of the year. If you don’t have the budget for a Super Bowl spot, it might not be such a bad thing after all – you’d have to have a homerun, or I mean, have a touchdown of an ad for it to even be worth it.
Carefully Choose Your Marketing Colors
If you choose the wrong color for your marketing materials or Web site, it’s possible you could be turning potential customers away before they even read a word. There’s much psychology behind color, and knowing how to use colors to get the feelings you want people to experience will help you get the marketing results you want.
Understanding Color
All color comes from two basic colors: red and blue. Browns come from a mixture of both. Purple, indigo, green and others on that side of the color wheel come from blue. Orange, yellow and pink all stem from red tones. The eye focuses on blue colors in front of the retina, which means blue tones move away from the eye. This makes them seem non-threatening and can make people feel drowsy or relaxed. The eye focuses on red tones behind the retina, which means red tones move toward the eye. This makes red tones seem energetic, aggressive and excited.
Color Psychology
So, from how we see color, it’s easy to speculate that blue tones will make people relaxed and red tones will energize people. And that’s exactly what color studies have found. In one study that was featured on the ’70s show “The Human Body”, colicky babies in a hospital room lit by red lights cried more often and more intensely than when the same room with the same babies was lit by blue light. The researchers switched the lights of the room from red to blue and back again, and when the lights were red, the babies cried more than when the lights were blue. The blue lights actually quieted the room.
Blue shades and tones emanate feelings of stability, logic, relaxation and professionalism. A spa or a doctor’s office would do well to create a blue motif in their marketing materials. Since red tones get people excited, red would work well in marketing materials created for a sports items, money, motivating products and cars.
Of course, each color on the color wheel can produce different feelings. For instance, black is seen as a color of authority and seriousness. White implies cleanliness, which is why surgical gloves, and doctors and nurses wear a lot of white. (Notice white, blue and green scrubs and items in many hospitals? This combination produces a feeling of cleanliness and calmness.) You can check out more color meanings at InfoPlease.com or do an Internet search for “color psychology.”
As you can see, colors can mean all the difference in whether your marketing materials are read with an open calmness or a distrusted aggression. The right color for your marketing materials depends on your brand message and what you want consumers to feel. There is no right color for everyone, but there is a right color for your brand and your product.
The Five Best Books on Advertising, as Chosen by Ad Exec Jerry Della Femina
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Jerry Della Femina, but I hadn’t until today. As I was perusing through advertising articles (as is my usual), I came across an older Wall Street Journal article that asked Della Femina to list the top five books on advertising. I was thinking, who is this guy and how is he qualified to answer that?
Turns out the guy has been named as one of the most influential advertising people of the century by Advertising Age (#71, by the way). Interesting. He called himself a “publicity slut” – even more interesting. He has made other outrageous comments throughout the years that’s gotten him some headlines. (Good work for the ad guru!). He also wrote an anti-establishment book in 1971: From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor, which was a best-seller. He’s owned a few advertising agencies since 1967 and is still going strong.
So, now that I’ve established for myself and for you what Della Femina’s credentials are (and someone should probably shame us both for not knowing) let’s move on to his expert opinion.
1. The 100 Greatest Advertisements 1852-1958 (Julian Lewis Watkins, Dover, 1959)
A collection of the best print ads that produced remarkable results, such as spots from Coca-Cola, “The Pause That Refreshes” and RCA Victor “His Master’s Voice.” It opens with a classified ad published in London in 1900: “Men Wanted for Hazardous Journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success — Ernest Shackleton.” He got a ton of responses! And yet, we can’t get enough recruits in the U.S. Army, which spends millions on advertising that promises an education and a future.
2. Confessions of an Advertising Man (David Ogilvy, Atheneum, 1963)
And of course, no list would be complete with a book by David Ogilvy. This is the ultimate how-to book on advertising from the “Father of advertising” who reigned from the 1940s to the 1970s.
3. Bill Bernbach’s Book (Bob Levenson, Random House, 1987)
Written by Levenson, whom Bernbach mentored, about “the man who changed the face of advertising.” Bernbach earned Advertising Age’s top spot of the most 100 influential advertising people of the century. Bernbach changed the way ads were designed and influenced the advertising world into what it is today.
4. A Technique for Producing Ideas (James Webb Young, Advertising Publications, 1940)
A short read at 60 pages, this is a great resource for learning how we get ideas, and the steps everyone “must take to stimulate their minds and produce ideas.” As Della Femina says, “Without ideas, there would be no advertising.”
5. Reality in Advertising (Rosser Reeves, Knopf, 1961)
You’ve heard of a USP (unique selling proposition). Here’s a book by the man who created the term that helped his ad agency, Ted Bates, to sell more candy, cigarettes, toothpaste and breath mints than any other agency in the world. Ever heard of this one? “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” Reeves was a serious man in his ad agency, but he allows some humor and flair into his book.
3 Basics of Target Market Research
When it comes time for business owners and CFOs to cut budgets, marketing and advertising are often the first places they turn to. As a marketer, you need to be able to recognize why this isn’t such a good idea and be able to voice your reasons. It’s tempting for businesses to try to cut money from something in which they don’t see immediate results, but doing so could spell disaster for the business in coming months and years.
By evaluating how effective your marketing is, you can present a strong argument to the CFO about why marketing and advertising budgets are not where cuts should be made. Or, maybe you can at least lessen the cuts and allocate the marketing budget into areas that will prove to be stronger than others (like moving money into the successful direct mail budget from the unsuccessful billboard budget). But evaluating your marketing is hard to do if you don’t first do research into who makes up your target market. Once you know that, you can measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaign more accurately.
Do Your Target Market Research
Traditionally, marketing involves four broad steps, which all have their own sub-steps: planning, creative development, execution and measurement. I’d like to talk more about the planning step, because I think it’s most important. Good planning sets the stage for the rest of your marketing campaign.
The insight you get from knowing your customers and their preferences will impact your marketing position and distribution channels, your media selection, the price of the product or service and your advertising offers.
Of course, researching your target market could go on for months, and can get as detailed as you want (and as detailed as you can afford!). But there are three absolute basics you must know about your customers:
Demographics: This consists of age, gender, occupation, education, income level, location and family circumstances (kids, single, married?). Lifestyle factors can also be included here. Do people have a long commute? Do they spend a lot of time outdoors? What roads do these people generally drive on?
Behavior: Is your target market full of people who love the outdoors? Are they spenders or savers? Do they like to watch TV or read magazines? What do you they like to do and what do they spend their money on?
Needs: What do they need? Why would they need your product or service? Do they know they need your product or service? Do you need to have late hours for those that work or can you be open during the day for stay-at-home moms? How can your product or service fulfill a need?
These three basics will help you create a rough sketch of what your target market looks like. Knowing these basics will allow you to create and product effective print brochures and color posters, choose the right colors in your logo and choose the right distribution channels for your marketing efforts. You have to know your audience before you can create a product or service that they’ll want to spend their hard earned money on.
Inspiration for Creative Ads
When it comes time to map out a new ad, whether for a billboard, brochures, a magazine spot or any other multitude of media, it’s hard to come up with something creative that people can just look at and instantly “get it.”
And creating a creative ad doesn’t automatically mean success. If your target audience doesn’t understand it, or if the content isn’t relevant, no amount of creativity will bring in sales. It’s easy for designers to forget that the purpose of the ad is to bring is sales when all they want to do is be creative. Likewise, it’s easy for the ad account managers to see the positive attributes of a really creative ad if they don’t see the sales potential right off the bat.
But, a creative and effective ad can be done. There are plenty of successful, creative ads out there that prove it. Get inspired by this Exposed SEO blog post that showcases 23 interesting, creative ads that don’t need to be contemplated to be understood. Many of these use the environment or an existing venue to play the ad off of (check out the bus exhaust coming out of a person’s mouth like cigarette smoke). Creative, clear and motivating.
And creative ads don’t only come from pros. Students show just as much, if not more creativity, in these ads on Advertnews.com. These feature an ad for Toblerone using what looks to be a bike rack and an ingenious, yet so simple, Windex ad.
To get a creative idea, you have to look outward, I think. Yes, inward is where the creativity flows, but you have to look outside yourself for ideas. And not stealing other ad ideas, but just looking at a tree and seeing it as a palette for something bigger, like a landing spot for a blown piece of gum (see the Exposed SEO blog).
There are four key elements of making an effective, yet creative ad:
1. It must be relevant to the customer.
2. It should contain a promise to the customer.
3. It should be well understood by the customer, yet not talk down to the customer.
4. Always put the product in the center of the ad.
Many creative ads get the creative part down almost too well, which means the product gets ignored. A number of studies have shown people remember a certain TV commercial, but they can’t remember what product the ad was selling. This is referred to as vampire creativity. If your ad is too entertaining or too involving, it obscures the product.
As you can see, there’s a fine line between being effectively creative and obscurely creative. By having your creative mind(s) working with the business-oriented mind(s), you have a better chance of achieving the right balance for a great ad. Teamwork is what it’s all about, just as in any other business.
Newsflash: Political Direct Mail Ads Are Negative
The Washington Post article “Direct Mail Ads Have Become Mostly Negative, Experts Say” caught my eye, what with me being in marketing. I must say I was disappointed when I read the article and it was all about political direct mail ads. No mention of politics in the headline, just something interesting that marketers and advertisers would all want to read. If I would have seen the word “political” somewhere in the article’s title, I would have thought, “yeah, what’s new?” Which I’m sure is precisely why the newspaper left it out.
But, hey, it’s still interesting to me even though I feel bamboozled thinking it was an industry-wide theme.
A review of 24 direct-mail ads sent from Obama’s campaign and McCain’s campaign shows a “below-the-radar battle in which the public message of the candidates becomes something more spiteful, more exaggerated and often more ominous.” The candidates are trying to get the swing states on their side, obviously. That’s where all of these direct-mail ads were sent to. The Democratic Party warned voters that McCain is “hiding something he doesn’t want us to know.” The Republican National Committee sent the message “Barack Obama: Not who you think he is” to 6 swing states.
Both candidates say the other is being unfair with all of the lies in the mailings, even as they approve their own direct mail attacks. Direct mail has a 30-year history of swaying voters late in elections, so it’s not likely that they are going to slow down in the next few days.
Direct-mail ads can be more alarmist, more negative because they aren’t produced for the masses. Direct mail is more focused, you know the neighborhoods and the way certain counties have voted in the past, so the direct mailers can choose a well-placed negative ad to give that county or that city the slightest push it needed to vote red or blue.
Direct mail has been used in campaigns since the late ’60s. And now it’s becoming more influential. Candidates feel like they can be more candid in direct mail because it’s proven to be less damaging to their image to attack through mail than on TV or radio.
The North Carolina Republican State Executive Committee sent out a picture of Obama next to the quote “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Most people would assume that Obama said that, but in fact it was Bill Ayers, a ’60s radical whom Obama later met in Chicago. Of course, the brochure didn’t attribute the quote. That’s just plain out lying if you ask me.
But, unfortunately, some court decided long ago that political ads were part of political speech. And political speech is covered under the First Amendment, so it’s okay to have lies in political ads. Is that ridiculous or what?
Obama’s camp has sent out flyers saying McCain’s campaign is run by “seven Washington lobbyists.”
The Wisconsin Advertising Project conducted a study that found that McCain’s ads are 74 percent negative while 60 percent of Obama’s ads are negative. (These numbers are for all ads, not just direct mail.)
And the reason they keep sending out the negativity? Because that’s what people remember. They don’t remember the good deeds. People don’t even want to hear about the good stuff; they just want to hear the bad. That’s why newspaper headlines are always negative; people complain, but negative headlines are what sell newspapers and are what people respond to.
How can we break this negativity cycle if that’s what the people want?
Ads That Make You Remember Them
What is it about certain ads that make you remember them? A great jingle? “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is!”
Or is it a great saying: “Whassup?” The Budweiser commercial featuring the Whassup guys has been updated and remade by 60Frames, who makes original Internet programming.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJmqCKtJnxM]
Now though, it’s turned political (surprise, surprise!). The commercial shows the same guys, but the economy has gotten to them and one guy is watching a political commercial or speech on TV. It’s a sad update of what’s taken place since the commercial aired 8 years ago. The thing is, even though I haven’t thought about that commercial for years, as soon as I saw “Whassup” I knew exactly what commercial was being referenced. So the first thing to make your ad memorable is to make up a word or someone change a word so that everyone wants to copy you.
There were no cute animals, like in the other Bud commercial with the talking frogs. Now, I’m not a beer fan, but Bud seems to have some pretty good commercials. The Bud-Weis-Er frogs came on the scene during the ’95 Super Bowl and ranks at #5 on the MSNBC list for best Super Bowl ads ever. So, include talking animals. That almost always works!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVcbasIb8lQ]
The Federal Express commercial featuring fast talker John Moschitta Jr. is ranked #1 on New York magazine’s list of “The Most Memorable Advertisements Madison Avenue Ever Sold.” And isn’t Moschitta Jr. lucky – his fast talking got him at least 10 spots on VH1’s “I Love the ’80s” show. This is memorable because it still applies today to everyone’s “hurry up and wait” mentality. Plus, it aligns quite well with Federal Express’ brand. So, pick an idea that brings your brand to life. (If only it were that easy, right?)
And we love little old ladies who don’t act like little old ladies. Maybe you should add one to your next ad for some memorability. I’m sure you remember the old lady asking “Where’s the beef?” in the 1984 Wendy’s ad. I was just a little kid then and didn’t even know what Wendy’s was and I know that saying. “It’s arguably the best line in a commercial over the past 25 years,” says David Apicella, a vice-chairman at Ogilvy. When Homer Simpson repeats your slogan or quotes your commercial, you know you’ve got a winner!
Even though this is a logo and not an ad, I couldn’t leave out the “I [heart] NY” logo. And what about the “I [heart] NY” T-shirts that are still all the rage? I didn’t know the logo was over 30 years old, but believe it or not, it was created in 1977. And, it was created for free. That’s right, Milton Glaser created the logo for New York tourism for free. New York magazine says the logo “is among the world’s most recognizable, initially concocted to boost tourism to New York State as the city teetered on the brink of insolvency.” So that goes to show you that you don’t have to pay thousands of dollars to create a great logo. Just give it a simple design with lots of meaning. You can do that, right?
4 Low-Cost Marketing Ideas
In a rough economy, the time to increase (or at least, maintain) marketing and advertising is now. I know it seems counterintuitive, but you need to keep up your presence with the public and your customers so that when the economy rebounds, they’ll be right there at your door.
Even if you have to cut back on your marketing budget, that doesn’t mean you have to cut it out completely. There are still many cheap marketing techniques you can use until you get more money in the bank. And these marketing techniques will be part of the reason why you get money in your bank – because you keep on marketing!
Here are some ideas you can use that won’t cost you thousands of dollars. Most won’t even cost hundreds of dollars!
Start a Web site or blog. You should already have a Web site, but if you don’t, now’s the time to start one. If you do have a Web site, you should start a blog. You can get them for free from Wordpress.com or Blogger.com. There are plenty of other blogging sites, but these are the most popular and easiest to use. Blogging is a great way to build a relationship with your customers and prospects because you can start a conversation with them.
Participate in forums. Here’s another free way to get online. You can give out your expertise for free on forums and direct people to your Web site. People like to buy from experts. Also, you get a dialogue going with customers, who will get to know you, and then want to be loyal to you and your business.
Give something away. Something else that seems counterintuitive, but what you give away doesn’t have to be expensive! It just has to have value for the customer. If you have an auto repair store, you can give away an inexpensive tire gauge. A dentist could give out a free teeth cleaning (which is how I found my current dentist!). Give away something that is low cost to you, but is of high value to the customer. That will get them in your store so that you can build a relationship with them. And that’s what it’s all about.
Host a charity event. If a charity is looking for a venue, what better place than your store! If you don’t have the room, sponsor something in the charity event. A DJ could provide the music for free, or a caterer could provide the snacks or dessert for free. This gets your name in the program or on a sign at least. You could also provide a door prize or a bigger prize in lieu of holding the event at your place. Get your name in there somewhere! People like to do business with companies that help out charities.
Remember that customers buy from people they know and trust. That’s what your marketing campaign should do during tough times – remind people that they can trust you. You probably have many competitors with similar products, so establishing a relationship is key to having people spend their money with you over your competitors. Competing on price alone won’t work, even in a recession.
Should Advertisements Be Entertainment or Informative?
According to an Advertising for Peanuts blog post, ads should be entertainment. The author, Jim Morris, even comes up with a new definition of advertising: “n. Entertainment with some commercial message or agenda of some sort in there somewhere.” Morris believes that the advertising industry should stop trying to fight the fact that ads have to be entertaining first.
But I say, if advertising is firstly entertaining, how does that translate into higher sales? Isn’t the point of advertising to get info out about a product, and to sell the product? I’ll agree that entertaining people is a good way to help them remember info about a product, but I think that selling a product should be the first goal of advertising, not entertaining people. That’s what sitcoms, drama shows, books, magazines and movies are for!
In a CNNMoney.com article, Paul R. La Monica states “It’s a disturbing trend for many large corporations, who may find that instead of boosting sales, they are wasting millions of dollars on advertising campaigns that simply boost the egos of marketing executives and ad agency types who dream of being the next Martin Scorsese or Woody Allen. Advertising is increasingly morphing into another form of entertainment, and not as something that effectively conveys a company’s brand message.”
Why Advertisements Need to Be Entertaining
In an age where people can TiVo their favorite shows and skip the commercials, people need a reason to watch the commercials, and entertainment is that reason. Others argue that people see all kinds of media on the Internet and on TV, so to really stick out, you have to be funny, which is what “entertaining” translates to in this conversation.
But some people take it too far in this YouTube era where all entertainment all the time reigns. “There are some spots on TV where people say, ‘Gee, that was really cool. But what was the product?’” Neal M. Burns, professor of advertising at the University of Texas at Austin, told CNNMoney.com.
Why Advertisements Need to Be Informative
Ad agencies are taking the entertainment factor too far that their message is totally lost. If there was even a message at all. After the 2007 Super Bowl, CareerBuilder’s new entertaining, funny TV ads were poorly rated. For the sake of entertainment, CareerBuilder’s ad agency, Cramer-Krasselt, changed CareerBuilder’s lovable monkey motif ads to a jungle themed ad. The ad flopped and was poorly rated in many Super Bowl commercial reviews. CareerBuilder put its ad account up for review, which angered Cramer-Krasselt, which also created the monkey ads. Peter Krivkovich, president and CEO of Cramer-Krasselt said he was disappointed with CareerBuilder and told CNNMoney.com: “People have gotten confused between what is entertainment for entertainment’s sake and what is actually smart marketing messaging. The YouTube generation of advertising has forgotten that,” he said. “You can have a brilliant, unique, funny ad, but if it’s not coupled with insight it will be forgotten.”
We Need a Balance of Entertainment and Info
All entertainment ads don’t work because people don’t know what the ad is for. All informative ads don’t work because they’re too boring for people to pay attention to. So, as with just about anything in life, moderation is key. Add a moderate dose of entertainment and a moderate dose of information that people can use about your product, and there’s your magical dose of the “just right” ad.
