Sins of Omission

It happens all the time in the world of print advertising. Ads are created to be flashy, bold, edgy, and innovative. In the broadcast world, commercials are created to be entertaining, funny, provocative or shocking.

What gets tossed aside in this maelstrom of innovation is the heart of what advertising should be – information. The radicals, rebels and revolutionaries of the creative world see their challenge as one of art and not communication. Yes, there are times where advertising is art and art is advertising. Andy Warhol did more to build the Campbell’s Soup brand than the Campbell Twins ad campaign.

Realistically, however, most businesses prefer that their advertising delivers customers and ROI rather than be perceived as breakthrough creative or artistic excellence. Rarely are advertising awards given for results. In these lean times a front page article in Ad Age Magazine, in discussing the recent international advertising awards show held each year in Cannes, proclaimed “it is no longer about being flashy but is about solving problems, building brands and building customer relationships.”

The truth is, it has never been about being flashy. Great advertising is always, and has always been, about communication and results. Yet at every level, from local media to international brands, that truth is ignored time and again. The media is filled with ads and commercials that fail to inform the consumer, communicate essential information, educate the consumer about the product, service or destination being promoted and provide no motivation for a customer relationship.

The sins of omission are many. It takes little time to find examples to support this statement. From my personal ad exposure during just the past week, here is my list of what is frequently missing from ads and commercials.

Location. I heard a radio commercial for a restaurant. Radio, of course, is a medium with a broad reach, and this particular station has a reach of at least 6 counties. The restaurant’s commercial talked about the food and the ambiance. It gave the name of the street where the restaurant is located. But it never said in what town or city I would find this restaurant.

Restaurants are destinations. How stupid to create a radio spot for a restaurant and not say where it is! Too often people buy radio time and place spots without taking into consideration the broad reach of listeners. If they think consumers will remember the name and take the time to search online for the location, they’re wrong. All the pertinent information should have been in the commercial.

Location Again and Phone Number or Contact Information. I received a multi-page direct mail flyer about a new store that opened in my county. The store is a part of a chain. Among the merchandise featured was something that interested me. I looked for the store’s address to see where it was located as I planned to go purchase the items that caught my attention. On the back page there was a listing of the various cities in my state where the chain had store locations.

There was no address listed for my area. All that was listed was the name of a shopping plaza that I had never heard of and therefore had no idea where it was located. An address would have been better. There wasn’t even a phone number I could call.

Not providing the location in advertising is the most prevalent sin. This is inexcusable for businesses such as retail and restaurants that are destinations. But even companies that are not destinations list only phone numbers and Website domains without realizing it is still important to prospective customers to know their physical location. It adds legitimacy.

Hours. While looking through a regional magazine an ad for an art gallery caught my eye. I recently moved and have wall space that is crying out for some art. The phone number was prominent, the location was complete, but there were no hours listed. As a working person, my shopping is limited to evenings and weekends.

Owners of retail stores should know that the hours of operation are exceedingly important to anyone planning to visit the store. Especially in my area where locally owned businesses that are not in malls frequently have reduced or limited hours on Saturday and Sunday. Since the gallery’s ad was promoting art for sale I classify it as retail. If you’re in a retail business, the hours you are open should not be secret information.

Directions. If you are a destination that expects to attract customers from beyond your immediate vicinity, provide directions so new customers know how to get to you. Perhaps in this age of GPS and MapQuest, advertisers feel this isn’t necessary. But here’s the rub. Often the address isn’t mentioned either or is incomplete. So even looking up directions on MapQuest or entering an address into the GPS isn’t possible.

The truth is if you aren’t on the well-known beaten path, you need to create the path for customers to follow. Putting some simple basic directions or points of reference in your advertising and commercials will help new customers find you.

Relevance. One evening this past week I received a phone call from an automated call system with the pre-recorded message that I have missed my last three mortgage payments so I must be having financial difficulties and would I like to speak with them about debt consolidation. Having sold my house more than a year ago, and at the present time renting an apartment, it is no wonder that I have made no mortgage payments. I have no mortgage.

Not only was the call intrusive, it was also insulting and irrelevant. Companies are still marketing to me as a homeowner more than a year after selling my home. I receive bank solicitations for home equity loans and solicitations from financing companies to refinance my mortgage. I do not own a home and therefore have no mortgage, both of which are pieces of information that are easily available and should be used by banks and finance companies. Fishing expeditions should be left to the charter boat industry.

Every day businesses spend wastefully to create advertising that is incomplete. It is a fact that the more difficult you make it for people to do business with you, the less effective your advertising will be.

I have seen ads created with such “cleverness” that in focus group research or three-second tests, the people looking at the ads were clueless as to what was being advertised.

One of my favorite examples of this cleverness approach in advertising is a direct mail postcard I received from a business. It was in full glorious color, with a mouthwatering photograph of a hamburger topped with colorful fixings – a slice of red tomato and green lettuce – with French fries on the side and a cold glass of iced tea topped with a lemon slice. It looked like the cover of a menu. The copy headline was “Yes, there is a free lunch.”

I turned it over expecting a coupon for the hamburger shown on the front. There was no coupon. The postcard was inviting me to a seminar where the company could pitch me about their services, and, oh yeah, they would provide the lunch. At no place in the card did it mention what topics would be covered in the seminar. Their assumption was that people will do anything for a free meal. I called them just to see what kind of response they got from that card. 2 people signed up.

Had they used the direct mail postcard medium to market correctly – inform and educate prospects about what their business does, focus on the benefits of their services and clearly define what makes them better or different than others in their industry - they would have had a much better response.

This is important because bad advertising affects us all. It encourages people to tune out and disregard ads because they are irrelevant, superfluous, or sometimes just insulting to our intelligence. And when people condition themselves to ignore advertising, even the good stuff stops working.

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