Marketing | Business | Life
This was made for a Superbowl commercial in Canada, but will out last the game itself. That should be the goal of any campaign: make it so awesome that it achieves word-of-perpetual-mouth-motion.
This is marketing done right.
This is what we should all be shooting for.
via: @cc_chapman
Tom Asacker on Super Bowl advertising:
Most commercials will probably be about nothing. There won’t be a compelling reason to consume their stuff weaved into the ads, since their stuff is pretty much the same stuff as their competitors’ stuff; think beverages, salty snacks, and candy bars. Their solution: Get you to like and remember their brands, so when you walk through the store you’ll (hopefully) reach out and grab a few.
Therein lies the problem. Gobs of money being spent on something (save for a few ads each year) that most people will remember come Monday morning.
The solutions he outlines in the post are much better and will lead to a more lasting brand and (most likely) more and better customers.
I, like Tom, would have to have exhausted every other option before buying an ad in the Super Bowl. I think that, until a company is nearly perfect, the cost of the ad could be much better spent in improving the experience for the customer.
Ultimately, the real cost goes beyond the dollars and into lost/missed opportunity.
Lately, though, it seems permission has changed. Or at least the way some people define permission has changed.
It used to be that there were so few avenues that required you to “opt-in” or give your permission that the tactics were fairly straght forward. At least for those people who were following Seth’s advice of getting permission rather than interrupting their audience.
What has permission become?
Now, it seems that any action a person takes is considered granting permission.
The typical scenario I see is this:
1) Come up with an offer of some sort (a contest, a giveaway, a free gift, whatever the “hook” is).
2) Require someone to give their contact information to get that “thing.”
3) Assume that means they gave you permission.
When you get down to it, it’s really just requiring more effort on the part of the audience to push the same interruption on them they always did.
What permission really is
One thing that is missing from that list, that always seems to be forgotten is the concept of being up front about what you intend to do with the permission. It almost seems that marketers don’t feel that what they have to offer or the story they have to tell is interesting enough to a potential customer so they feel they need to trick them into giving permission.
Wouldn’t a better solution be to have a story worthy of passing along and telling the person that’s what you intend to do?
Too many marketers look at the size of their list rather than the quality. They figure that since they’re sending out hundreds of thousands of emails, they’re doing good work. What if 1,000 of the people on that list were actually receptive to that message and responded? Would the results have been any different if they did the work on the front end and found out who those 1,000 people were and focused on them?
I think it’s time that we look at what permission is.
Don’t just satisfy the letter of the law. Get real permission from real people and give them real value.
I was watching this season’s first episode of Wipeout the other night. (Incidentally, if you’re not watching this show, you should check it out)
Since I was watching on a DVR, I was about to fast forward a commercial when they did something I had never seen before. They were going to commercial and said, “Stay tuned during the commercials for some never before seen Wipeout footage.” Then, halfway through the ads there were a few clips that hadn’t been on the show.
Is this the next attempt of TV advertisers to hang on to some sort of relevance?
Will we see more shows putting outtakes, unseen footage, or even essential plot elements in the middle of ads in an effort to keep people watching? Do you think it’ll work?
By the way, I just fast forwarded to the clip, watched it and fast forwarded the rest of the ads.
Everyone knows the “rule of 7″ when it comes to advertising. It takes someone 5-7 views of an ad to be driven to action.
This may (have been) true, but I wonder if it is still as important as it once was.
Sure, if you see something enough times, it may stick in your head…but if it’s not relevant, what difference does that make? I think that frequency is being eclipsed by relevance and content.
In an age where people are utilizing technologies to skip as many advertisements as possible, is it still realistic to simply churn out more versions of a bad ad and expect results? Doesn’t that just result in people just skipping MORE bad ads? Which leads advertisers to churn out more to try to get people’s attention.
I’m not “anti-advertising.” I think it is and will always be a necessary tool to reach new potential customers. For all the talk of engagement these days, we need to remember that people must first be aware in order to engage.
I just don’t think that the answer is more ads. Or ads more often. It all comes back to the Purple Cow concept. If your offering is compelling enough, people will come.
