Archive for March, 2009
Learning from the Best
In “Reason in Common Sense,” Volume 1, George Santayana wrote “Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.” For the world of marketing, I would paraphrase his words to “Those who ignore history are bound to make unnecessary mistakes.”
There is much to be learned from the greats of advertising and marketing. Despite new technologies, expanded media and a marketplace exploding with product choices and competition, the ways to influence consumers, position brands and motivate purchases are basically unchanged.
Advertising creates brands. Consumers align with brands. They buy the brands that reflect their image of themselves. Consider that there are Read more »
The Power to Persuade
As Washington continues to allocate funds to financial sectors and select corporations, and as it supposedly puts money back into consumers’ wallets through the stimulus package, I can’t help but observe the greatest oversight of all when it comes to stimulating the economy.
And that is advertising.
There is not a penny put in any package to stimulate advertising.
Yet advertising is the single most important industry that needs to survive if Read more »
Low-Cost Ways to Boost Cash Flow
Feeling the pinch? Looking for ways to keep your brand alive and healthy during a sick economy?
To fight the blight of a tight market, it’s time to pull out guerrilla marketing strategies. With guerrilla marketing, instead of the big-budget, splashy ad campaigns you might use when cash is flowing, use stealth marketing to motivate consumers without looking like advertising as usual.
Quite simply, guerrilla techniques are the unconventional, innovative and imaginative approach for reaching customers in ways and places that are Read more »
The Discount Dilemma
As the competition and search for customers deepens, along with economic bad news, it becomes tempting to use price to entice customers into a buying mood.
Especially when discount brands seem to be the ones enjoying growth.
WalMart, with their every day low prices, saw a 9% sales growth in 2008 . Generic and private label brands now have nearly a fourth of the market while consumer brand sales slump, despite millions in advertising.
If you think that price-cutting is the answer to slumping sales, and you’re tempted to slash and cut your way into revenue growth, there are a few Read more »
Think Like a Customer
In December 2000, Paramount Pictures released the movie “What Women Want.” Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt starred as competing advertising execs working within the same agency, challenged to come up with a campaign idea for Nike, targeted at women.
Through a freak accident, Gibson finds he can suddenly hear what women are thinking but not saying. He uses the women’s secret thoughts to develop ad ideas and slogans that connect with women. In the process, he realizes how off-target he was in the way he used to think when developing ad campaigns.
The result is, he starts to think like the customer.
It is one of the most important lessons a business can Read more »
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