This probably wasn't supposed to happen, but today I saw the advertising agency's concepts for my company's national–advertising campaign. And all of a sudden I didn't have to worry about a column for this week.
The agency, which is a reasonable agency brain-wise and not so large that it's completely substituted billing for caring, delivered four concepts fleshed out into print advertisements.
Now you can argue convincingly that of all the promotional material an advertising agency could show a company which does not sell consumer packaged goods, full-page print ads are the least applicable to actual, you know, marketing. Our organization has a national print campaign, but neither myself nor my colleagues have seen any evidence of it, and that campaign isn't going more high-profile in 2011. Show us a sample Twitter feed, a Facebook page, a video, a banner, anything but a print ad. Or a direct-mail piece. But I digress.
The four concepts neatly sum up the prevailing approaches to advertising, both in graphic execution and in the fact that three of the four are completely wrong, and one is partially wrong.
The first concept was a continuation of the current campaign and slogan. Cover up the copy – and really, only about three words of the copy – and you can't tell whether the advertising is selling credit cards, feminine protection, or cheese. It’s all canvas and leather, made to look handmade and old when it’s really mass-produced and brand-new. And Chinese.
The second concept used graphics and small pictures in a late-'50s/early-'60s sort of way on a heavy solid-color background. The execution was semi-playful while remaining unfocused, and the copy once more was apropros of nothing. The complete concept could only be considered powerful if you sold orange ink.
I can't tell you anything about the third concept, because I can’t remember it.
The fourth concept got a little closer. While it shared the nondescript graphic look of the first campaign, its message had bite. We're the best, it said in so many words, and no one else can do what we do.
The message lacked fear, which made it seem so fresh and strong and atypical, because modern advertising and marketing lacks nothing so much as courage.
It takes zero intestinal fortitude to go the modern route and say, “Come to us for solutions,” because most of the problems these solutions purport to solve aren’t problems. Dancewear solutions? Final-expense solutions? Really? If you gotta dance, clothes aren’t a problem. Gene Kelly pulled it off as well in a tux as he did in a unitard as he did in a sopping-wet sack suit. And if you can’t afford a coffin with a USB port a pine box will suffice just fine. Trust me.
The moxie level takes a leap when you say, “We’re the best. Come get us,” yet that’s where the money is (and as anyone who’s matriculated at the Willie Sutton School of Marketing can tell you, you market where the money is).
Organizations invest vast sums in training and infrastructure. They hire the best people, provide them state-of-the-art tools, sweat every detail down to the molecular structure of Tab C, yet when it comes time to proclaim how wonderful and category-leading it all is, they can only muster enough courage to say, “We provide extruded-die solutions.”
Stop with the faux modesty already. People want to buy the best. They want to associate with the best. Your organization needs to find what it’s best at, and if it’s something that matters to its customers, your organization needs to proclaim that to the heavens.
There is no okay-right-fine-whatever in this statement. It needs to. Sales are at stake. Dollars are at stake.
The only company that ever got traction out of not being the best was Avis, and it actually took a roundabout way to bestness by saying, “We don’t sell the most, but our service is best.” Service is a tangible asset in the car-rental business, as anyone who’s stood in line at midnight in a stifling off-airport rental hovel can attest. Avis’ roundabout way worked, but try it again and prepare to have your lunch handed to you.
It’s like playing king-of-the-hill. The kid who sits at the bottom of the hill because he doesn’t want his stocking cap pulled off never gets his stocking cap pulled off, but he never gets to be king, either.
Some organizations need to sit at the bottom of the hill and guard their stocking cap. I get that. But they are one in a squillion. The rest of us need to be fighting for that hilltop, and once we’re there we need to shout, “We’re on top!” to the world.
The world will come and get you, and try to knock you off. The world always does. But the world’s coming to climb over you anyway. As long as they’re gunning for you, you may as well give them something real to shoot at.
If you’re good, say it. Say it in your ads, your e-mails, your mission statement, and your social-media marketing. (And, yeah, in your print ads, too.) Make sure your salespeople buy into it, and make sure they’re telling their customers.
Several lifetimes ago, in my packaged-product days, the sales VP handed out note pads and T-shirts with the slogan, “It’s About Being The Best.”
Now, “It’s About Being The Best” is no “Coke Adds Life,” but it’s truer. It is about being the best – and then when you get there, it’s about having the courage to say you’re the best. Say it, though, and you’ll discover that it’s the sales message that outsells all the rest, and always has.
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