Tag Archives: Marketing and Advertising

July 1, 2019 · 3:26 pm

Make Yourself Uncomfortable

I’ve been thinking about writing this rant for a few weeks now. I’ve refrained, hoping that what’s prompting it will go away but it hasn’t so today, I rant.

I spent nearly my entire professional career in some sort of advertising-related business. I sold media. I was a media publisher. I’ve bought advertising on behalf of consulting clients and my own businesses. I’m pretty well-acquainted with how the business works. It’s rare, therefore, that something ad-related surprises me but this has. Lincoln is running an ad called “Sanctuary” for its Navigator vehicle. It features Sarah Vaughan’s recording of “Make Yourself Comfortable,” a song I like from an artist I like as well. At least I used to.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t watch a ton of non-news or sports programming via traditional TV. You can pretty much find me on a news channel or sports channel if it’s old-school TV or a streaming service otherwise. I bring this up because what I’m about to rant about isn’t caused by my rapacious consumption of TV.

I have seen the aforementioned ad at least once every half hour for the last month. In fact, I’ve seen it far more often than that, often once every few commercial pods. I am now at the point where when I hear the thunderclap that begins the ad I reach for the remote. I am sick of the song. I have so tuned out the ad that I didn’t even notice that it’s Serena Williams sitting in the car. I could see this happening if I was on a ton of channels in lots of different programming but I’m not.  I’m about 10 more impressions from setting fire to the next Lincoln I see.

Who do I blame? Let’s see. First, the media buying agency who apparently has never heard of frequency-capping. When your ad is running every 10-20 minutes FOR HOURS on the same channel you’re well into overkill. Second, I blame whoever sold this schedule. Maybe it’s a ROS deal (run of schedule/station) and they’re just filling pods with creative to run up the bill. You might be making a few bucks but you’re losing at least this loyal viewer. Third, I blame the client. Aren’t you looking at the reports? Aren’t you running research that tells you reach isn’t increasing while frequency is off the charts? For the love of all that is holy – make another commercial – you’re killing me.

OK, I feel better. But if you’re a marketer and you’re not asking your people about frequency distributions and commercial wear out, do yourself and your prospective customers a favor: ask ASAP. Deal?

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June 28, 2019 · 11:28 am

Intentional Mislabeling

Let’s start with a question this Foodie Friday. If I offered you two carrots, one of which was had a label that said “non-GMO” and the other didn’t, which carrot would you choose? “GMO” as I’m sure you know means that this food wasn’t made from genetically modified crops. Would that make a difference in your selection?

It’s a trick question, actually. There are no genetically modified carrots in the marketplace, at least not yet. Neither are there GMO strawberries. That won’t stop you from finding carrots or strawberries labeled as non-GMO though. You’ve also probably seen that many chickens are labeled as “raised without antibiotics” while others don’t bear that label. Does that influence your thinking? It shouldn’t: antibiotics have been banned on chicken farms for over a decade.

Some labels in food can be horribly misleading while others are not. “Organic”, for example, really does mean that the food was grown without synthetic pesticides and fertilizer. It’s a legal term meaning that there are penalties for its misuse. You might think that non-GMO foods are organic and, therefore, better for you. Unless they also say they are organic, non-GMO foods are conventionally grown using synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.

Why I bring this up in a business blog is that the misuse of these and other terms in marketing is not due to confusion about them. It’s due to the willful deception of the consumer by an unscrupulous marketer who at best is just jumping on a bandwagon and at worst is looking to charge more for an inferior product. Your “cage-free” chicken still lives indoors in a jammed coop and those “free-range” chickens for which you pay a premium probably haven’t been outside either. It just means that they have access to go outside if they can find and get through one of the few doors in the henhouse.

I’m a fan of clear, enforceable labels in all products, not just food. What the hell does “skin organics? mean on a cosmetics label? Chemical-free sunscreen? Not possible, yet some brands are labeled just that way. The labels don’t write themselves and as marketing people, we need to hold our customers’ interests paramount. Their health too since it’s rather difficult to get a dead consumer to buy much of anything. Make sense?

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June 21, 2019 · 10:41 am

No Strings

It’s Foodie Friday and it’s also the first day of Summer. Actually, it’s felt like July down here in the Carolinas since May, but I digress. In honor of the day, Dairy Queen is giving out coupons for a free soft serve ice cream cone. Yum! What better way to celebrate the new season?

Well, not to be the one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but of course, there are strings attached. You see, in order to get said free cone you need to purchase something else at DQ. Not that I’d generally mind doing so but that little bit of fine print sort of chills my enthusiasm (see what I did there?). Oh yeah, one other thing – in order to get the coupon you need to have installed the DQ app on your phone. I mean, who doesn’t want yet another app tracking you, sending data to who knows where, taking up room on your phone and hitting you up with “big announcements” every hour or so?

My point is a broader one that just beating up on Dairy Queen. I’ve always had an issue with seemingly benevolent marketing or charitable offers that are really self-serving. You know what I mean. How many offers have you seen for “buy this and we’ll make a donation to this worthy cause”? If the cause is so great, why don’t you just make the donation? Then there are those “free” offers that cost you in other ways. Opera, the browser company, offered “free” VPN a couple of years ago. Of course, you had to agree to let them track your usage and share the data with third parties.  Sure, it’s supposedly completely anonymized but if it includes a device identifier of any sort or location data, it’s not hard to merge it with other data.

Gift horses may, in fact, be Trojan Horses too. There are way too many “free” offers that are really scams. We’ve all seen the “free” product that involved paying shipping and handling charges that are detailed in tiny print and quite costly. Then there are the “free” products that require you to hand over a credit card, ostensibly so that if you make any “optional” purchases it’s a seamless transaction or maybe they’ve enrolled you in something that will charge you monthly once your “free” period is up. Illegal? Actually no, if it’s disclosed (you read all the mouse-type every time, don’t you). Shady as hell? You bet.

If you’re going to make free offers or do something nice for your customer, do so without strings. A gift involves altruism. If there is an ulterior motive lying within, it’s not a gift, right?

 

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