Marketers, Please Stop! 6 Creative Themes to Banish Forever
It was the Honda Presidents' Day Sale TV spot that finally put me over the edge: Yet another marketing campaign with an overused creative concept that makes consumers roll their eyes and wonder what marketers and their agencies are smoking.Why do so many marketers continue to develop ad campaigns that have no originality or insult the audience? Can’t we agree as agencies and marketers to stop the madness?As a marketing consultant, I’m sure I speak for millions when I say I’ve had enough. Here are six marketing approaches I’ve seen far too many times and hope never to see again.
Branding Strategy: The Power of a Positioning Tagline
Which candy “Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hand"? Which car is “the Ultimate Driving Machine”? Which auto insurance company puts you "in good hands"?If you're an American consumer, you know the answers to these questions without even having to think, because smart marketers like Mars, BMW, and Allstate have created unforgettable positioning taglines that have become powerful components of their brands.What is a positioning tagline? Does your brand need one? And how do you create a great one?In part one of a two-part post, I explain why marketers use taglines in branding. In my next post, I’ll share seven tips for developing a tagline for your brand in a smart marketing strategy.
Is That Super Bowl Ad Effective Marketing? 7 Ways to Judge
An estimated 111 million people will be watching this year’s Super Bowl and a recent survey showed that many American adults prefer watching commercials to watching the game. That’s why marketers are willing to spend an average of $3.8 million for a 30-second spot.When you have an audience that big and that eager to hear your message, your ad had better be great.But how do you know if an ad campaign or creative concept will be a winner -- or be worthy of such a huge marketing investment? What makes an ad effective?As a marketing consultant, I believe the principles of great advertising are the same whether an ad appears in a mega-event like the Super Bowl or in a small industry trade publication.Here are seven criteria I use to assess the effectiveness of advertising in a smart marketing strategy. Keep these factors in mind when you’re evaluating Sunday’s Super Bowl ads.
Why Listening is the Most Powerful Skill in Marketing
A successful career in marketing requires many skills, such as copywriting, graphic design, and project management.But there’s one skill everyone in marketing needs to master, no matter what their role: Listening.Here’s why listening is essential for marketing success and 10 tips for doing it better.
10 New Year’s Resolutions for Smart Marketers
At the beginning of a new year, most of us will resolve to live healthier lives and clean out our closets.New Year’s resolutions also can extend to marketing – and many smart marketers use the turning of the calendar page to make some long-overdue changes to their marketing strategies.Here are 10 resolutions to make your marketing more effective in the New Year.
5 Reasons Your New Marketing Campaign May be Doomed to Fail
A brilliant creative concept is often at the heart of a great marketing campaign.But sometimes the creative goes too far -- and what seems like a breakthrough idea at the concept stage results in marketing that misses the target and confuses the audience.Here are five signs a new marketing campaign is a little too creative to succeed and some tips for avoiding these mistakes in your smart marketing strategy.
11 Ideas for Using White Papers in a B2B Marketing Strategy
If you’re a business-to-business (B2B) marketer, white papers can be a powerful way to demonstrate your expertise and differentiate your company from competitors. In part three of a three-part series, here are 11 ideas for using white papers as marketing tactics in a smart B2B marketing strategy.
And the Winner is…You! 10 Tips for Winning Business Awards
Winning awards for excellence is a valuable way to distinguish your company in a competitive marketplace, especially if you’re selling business services. Here are 10 tips for increasing your chances of success in business awards competitions and using awards in a smart marketing strategy.
Advertising: Still the Most Fun You Can Have with Clothes On
Famed ad man Jerry Della Femina, the creative genius behind many brilliant ad campaigns (remember the singing cats of Meow Mix?) and the author of From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor, once said that “advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.”I’ve spent my entire career in advertising and marketing and have owned a marketing consulting firm in Cleveland, Ohio for 20 years. Here’s why I believe Della Femina is right about advertising and marketing and my advice for anyone considering a marketing career.
Who Owns Your Marketing Campaigns? You May Be Surprised
Many companies hire marketing agencies or freelancers to develop marketing campaigns and materials. But marketers often overlook a critical step in the process: Ensuring that they own the intellectual property they’ve paid a marketing team to develop. And marketing agencies often fail to protect their legal rights to materials they’ve produced. What are the most common intellectual property mistakes marketers and agencies make and how can you avoid them? Here are some tips for your smart marketing strategy from Sharon Toerek, an expert on legal issues in marketing.
How to Create Great Advertising with Storytelling
Top 10 lists are everywhere this time of year. One of the most interesting lists for marketers is the Top 10 Most Viewed Ads on YouTube, as reported on Mashable.com. These are TV spots people chose to watch online, by the millions. That’s an advertiser’s dream. But what makes these ads so popular? It’s not crazy gimmicks or over-the-top production techniques, though some of the ads have spectacular visual effects. I think it’s about storytelling. The most watched ads of 2011 engage viewers in a compelling story. Here’s why storytelling is such an effective advertising technique and how to tell stories in your smart marketing strategy.
10 Ways to Get Great Client Testimonials for B2B Marketing
There’s nothing more powerful in marketing than a testimonial from your customers about the value of your products or services.That’s why so many smart marketers, especially companies that sell business-to-business (B2B) professional services, use client testimonials in their advertising, sales presentations, brochures, and websites.So how do you get a client to give you a great testimonial for your marketing campaigns? Follow these 10 tips.
Branding at Birth: How Young is Too Young for Marketing?
Did you see the recent article in Adweek about efforts by major consumer marketers like Disney to establish brand preferences in children ages 0-3? The Next Great American Consumer by Brian Braiker provides a fascinating look at this development. Braiker says branding at birth is “a trend—fueled in part by the growth of digital devices—toward aggressively targeting a demographic that didn’t exist, in marketers’ eyes, until recently: infants to 3-year-olds. By getting their logos and iconic characters in front of babies—even those with still-blurry eyesight—they hope to establish brand-name preference before she or he has uttered a word.”Is this a smart marketing strategy? Or is this the scariest thing you’ve seen all week? The answer to both questions is yes. Here’s why.
Can Your Marketing Campaign Pass the “Huh?” Test?
A marketer has a few seconds at best to engage the audience in an ad or marketing message. But many marketers forget this simple fact when they develop marketing campaigns using elaborate or confusing creative concepts.When the audience’s reaction to an ad is “Huh?” instead of “Wow!,” it’s a painful waste of marketing resources. Here are three examples of advertising and marketing campaigns that fail the “Huh?” test – and three tips to avoid making mistakes like this in your smart marketing strategy.
New Prospect, Bad Client? 7 Red Flags for Marketing Agencies
Every advertising and marketing agency is in a constant search for new business. But as a marketing agency president, I’ve learned the hard way that not all prospects should become clients.Even if you're a marketing agency looking to grow, sometimes it's smarter to walk away from prospective new business than enter into a bad relationship. How do you know when to stay or go?Here are 7 warning signs that a new prospect could become a bad client for your marketing agency.
#FAIL: The 11 Most Overused Creative Themes in Marketing
A fresh creative concept is crucial for effective advertising and a smart marketing strategy.But too many advertising and marketing campaigns recycle the same, tired creative themes and copy phrases over and over and over.This is more than annoying. It’s a guaranteed audience turn-off and a misuse of the marketer’s resources.Here’s the 2011 edition of my annual list of the most overused creative themes in marketing. How many do you recognize?
The 7 Most Important Things to Do with a Sales Lead
Business-to-business (B2B) marketers often use such tactics as direct marketing, e-marketing, advertising, trade shows, and web marketing to generate sales leads.But a smart lead generation marketing strategy goes well beyond the creation of the marketing campaign.If your goal is to build a relationship with a business prospect, increase your sales conversion rate, and maximize the value of your sales resources, you need a careful plan for what happens after the lead comes in.Here are the seven steps you should take with a marketing-generated sales lead to achieve success.
Talkin' About My Generation? Using Cultural References in Marketing
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” I heard a marketing consultant say in a recent meeting.I knew he was quoting the scene from The Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal that the Wizard is just an ordinary man. But judging by the puzzled looks on their faces, the twenty-somethings in the meeting had no idea what he was talking about.Situations like this don’t just make you feel your age. They painfully illustrate the fact that cultural points of reference are constantly shifting and big gaps can exist between generations.If you’re marketing to a specific generation and using cultural references in your marketing campaign, your message will miss the mark if you don't get it exactly right.Here’s advice for how to use cultural references effectively in your smart marketing strategy.
What Makes Bad Advertising So Bad? It’s Not Believable
When an advertising campaign is so bad it makes you groan out loud, there’s usually a simple reason: It’s not believable.The worst offenders are campaigns that attempt to portray real-life situations. The dialogue often is so forced or the setup so phony that your only reaction is to roll your eyes and think, “Yeah, right.”But lack of believability in advertising is more than annoying. It’s a waste of the marketer’s money.Here are two ways to achieve believability in your advertising and two examples of smart marketers, including one in Northeast Ohio, who are doing it right.