Tag Archives: Advertising and Marketing

October 13, 2015 · 12:27 pm

I’ll Take Bad Ads

I’m sure you’ve had the experience of going into a store where the staff is charming and can’t do enough for you, but you left without buying anything.  You’ve also probably seen a wonderful product description in some online store, only to get to the customer reviews and find out that the product wasn’t nearly as good as the advertising.  That is a truism in marketing:  good ads can’t sell a bad product.  Conversely, even the worst marketing can’t keep a great product out of consumers’ hands.   Give me the bad ads every time and a great product.

I put customer experience right in there as part of product.  That experience isn’t just customer service.  It’s any engagement your product and brand has with a customer – social media, email, etc.   Since the product is more important than advertising, improving those engagements can yield a significant competitive advantage.  Having an ongoing, transparent, truthful series of interactions with your customers as well as consumers at large will probably have a larger effect on your business than doubling the ad budget.  You want to improve your product without retooling, repackaging, or developing a better formula?  Improve the customer experience and you’ve done so.

So why aren’t brands spending more to improve those engagements and the products they support?  Beats me.  Maybe it’s because they didn’t have it in last year’s plan.  Maybe it’s because you can’t run that on TV.  Maybe because we tend to emphasize creativity over basic blocking and tackling. Whatever the root, it’s something to think about.

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October 5, 2015 · 11:17 am

It’s The Solution, Stupid

One of the great meme/clichés since 1992 has been the form based on James Carville‘s famous slogan for the Clinton presidential run:  The Economy, Stupid.  The popular version always adds “It’s” upfront, as I have done above.  The point of his slogan was to keep Clinton campaign workers focused on the main points the campaign was trying to make (it was one of three).  My point is to keep you focused on the marketing you should be doing. That introduction out of the way, let us address my point – it’s the solution.

The first point on all three lines L 1–3...

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat with clients and listened to their spiels to potential investors or customers and come away not understanding why either of those groups would give the client any money.  I used to wonder the same thing from the other side of the desk when I was listening to people pitch me new partnerships or technologies when I was at the NHL.  In both cases the person speaking would explain the features of their product or company but they’d miss the most important point: how what they had solved a problem.  Actually, how it solved MY problem.

If you’re a marketer, you can’t assume your audience has any clue what your product does or what problem it solves.  I’m amused by the brands that go straight to paid search marketing or other immediate calls to action, never having done any brand building.  The classic framework for marketing (AIDA) begins with “attention.”  Branding campaigns get that attention and build awareness.  That’s the time to educate the audience on one thing: how the product solves a problem and why that solution is the best one for the audience.

So it’s the solution, stupid.  Identify the problem you’re solving, make sure it’s a big enough problem (one that a large number of people have, even if they don’t know it yet) and then market the solution. Advertising the product, not the solution, is a recipe for disaster.  Make sense?

 

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September 30, 2015 · 11:13 am

Gagging Your Customers

I love the Streisand Effect.  You know – some person or company takes umbrage at what someone else has written somewhere and decides to “fix” things.  Usually, that fix creates even more awareness of the original negative  item and so the attempt to hide it has just the opposite effect.  Some genius at a Florida company that sells weight loss products decided to solve the negative item problem in a different way.  It allegedly made false claims for their products, and then threatened to enforce “gag clause” provisions against consumers to stop them from posting negative reviews and testimonials online.  How great an idea was this?

Seal of the United States Federal Trade Commis...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a complaint filed in federal court, the FTC alleges that Roca Labs, Inc.; Roca Labs Nutraceutical USA, Inc.; and their principals have sued and threatened to sue consumers who shared their negative experiences online or complained to the Better Business Bureau, stating that the consumers violated the non-disparagement provisions of the “Terms and Conditions” they supposedly agreed to when they bought the products. The FTC alleges that these gag clause provisions, and the defendants’ related warnings, threats, and lawsuits, harm consumers by unfairly barring purchasers from sharing truthful, negative comments about the defendants and their products.

Hmm.  Maybe not such a good idea after all, huh?  Telling consumers that they would be subject to $100,000 in damages for posting reviews isn’t exactly embracing the customer.  In fact, I can’t really imagine a circumstance where preemptively threatening to sue a customer for anything short of non-payment makes any sense.  In this case, not only has the Streisand Effect kicked in but so too has a stream of legal fees and, potentially, fines and damages.  As it turns out, the FTC alleges that the product’s weight-loss claims are false or unsubstantiated – you know, the stuff they’re selling just doesn’t work. That will move a lot of product, right? Just to kick them a little while they’re down, the FTC also charges that the defendants failed to disclose that they compensated users who posted positive reviews.

The takeaways (none of which are news to anyone who has read this screed before): don’t threaten your customers, don’t lie about your products, don’t pay for fake reviews and don’t actually follow through and sue them when someone posts a negative comment (these guys did file a number of suits).  Sure, if someone is spreading out-and-out lies, you need to respond but hopefully not in court.  If what they are saying contains a fair amount of truth, however, the fault isn’t the customer’s.  Agreed?

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