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Hi All,

Thought i culd share this with u...

Depending on whom you ask, you will get told many “truths” about advertising. The question I have for you today is this – “Is the only bad advertising, no advertising?”

Before we begin, it might help us to agree on what advertising is, so here’s one definition:

“Advertising is the non-personal communication of an individual’s paid persuasive information regarding products, and or services via various media.”

In other words, someone is trying to “sell” us on something – be it a product, or a service, or just picking up the phone. Advertising is all about getting people to do something – well, for the majority of us, it should be.

So, if advertising is about selling stuff, then perhaps we can answer our question now: “Is the only bad advertising, no advertising?” Of course not! You could create a really bad advert that did a terrible job of selling… and that would easily be a bad advert.

“Repetition, repetition, repetition!”

Is the battle cry of the ardent advertiser. “You must have repetition to have an impact.” Do you believe this? A healthy dose of scepticism is always handy at a time like this. But before you start patting yourself on the back thinking that you’re right I think you might want to hear this.

Repeating an advert works. Studies have shown conclusively that a ‘sale’ regularly occurs between the fifth and eighth exposure to a sales message (sure it can happen sooner, the point is that one-hit-wonders are rare). So repeating an advert works – BUT… and this is quite an important “but”… the advert must be having an effect (or working) for the repetition to be meaningful.

Flogging a Dead Horse

Permit me to explain. If your advert tanked on the first run you may have a bad advert on your hands. You will need to think carefully about what you do next. Experience tells us that this might be a fluke or a freak of circumstances so it warrants at least another run – may be two.

However, if the advert is not performing at all well after a couple of exposures to your market place, exposing that advert continuously will NOT (I repeat NOT) improve it. In this instance, repetition is quite simply a waste of time and money.

However, if your advert worked well then keep running the advert. For how long you might ask? The answer to that is actually very easy. Keep running performing adverts until the numbers tell you to stop. That’s right, let the sales numbers tell you when that advert needs a rest.

Great Adverts Need A Vacation Too

Adverts are like people, they get tired and need a break. Just because an advert eventually loses some steam doesn’t mean that after a suitable ‘rest’ it cannot go right back to work – performing flawlessly. So how do the numbers tell you when to pull the advert or give it a rest? When all the costs of running the advert outweigh the sales the advert is bringing in. Remember to take a more pragmatic view and consider the long term sales value of a new client. In a previous article I explained that a client you acquire has a ‘lifetime value’ not just a ‘now-time value’. Include the future sales this client will bring you when deciding if the advert is no longer effective.

Size Does Matter!

So how big should your advert be? That’s easy, it should be ‘dominant’. After all, your advert is trying to do its first job – CATCH ATTENTION! This is easier to achieve with a larger advert. All things being equal on the page, the bigger ads get more ‘eye time’ than the smaller adverts. As with all things though, there are exceptions to the rules and a small advert developed properly will outperform a big advert that is poorly designed.

There are other advertising ‘secrets’ we copywriters have learned that help us gain the edge when writing adverts. For instance we know whether colour makes a difference and when to use it, we know which single colour out performs all other colours and why, and we know which fonts (yes fonts) make a difference to an advert… but sadly I’m out of space again so we’ll have to save those tidbits for another time.

Author: http://www.JamesBurchill.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Posted by K.Sriram (from India) at August 1, 2005 7:05 AM

Has anybody noticed also that most of the adverts for products in relation with delicate body issues are performed by women?

Posted by Omara at August 1, 2005 9:58 AM

Omara, that's because most men don't think much about their bodies, unless they're losing their hair.

I wonder, if life imitated art, if that woman in the commercial was wearing Planned Parenthood's "I Had An Abortion!" t-shirt. And that's the problem. In both cases, life don't imitate art.

For me, an ad is good if the situation in the ad is believable. And no, Steve, I haven't seen any women I work with flashing their DEPENDS packages lately.

Posted by Ron at August 1, 2005 10:20 AM

Sometimes the best ads are the REALLY BAD ones. They're the ones that people talk about so often. The only literally "bad" ad is the one that fails to perform its objective. Aesthetics is meaningless if the product doesn't sell.

Funny, but recent ad campaigns in Ireland for Tampons took the opposite approach from Depends. They sold the discreetness of the product very well. In the ad, people thought the tampons were sweets when taken out of the woman's bag because the packaging was so small, with a candy-like wrapper.

make it memorable!

Posted by Tom O'Leary at August 1, 2005 11:35 AM

I think there are plenty of commercials associated with male body issues as well. Great abs, bowflex, shaving, baldness, deodorant, erection disorders... Perhaps part of the reason why there appears to be more targeting on women is because:
a) society didn't target women in advertising for quite some time when it came to their bodies, so now the perception is that there is a ton more.
b) it's well-known women are more likely to spend money on issues with their body. That's supply and demand.

I guess it all 'depends' on how you look at it.

Doh.

Posted by Doug Karr at August 1, 2005 12:49 PM

Re: Tom's comment about "aesthetics (being) meaningless is the product doesn't sell." It depends on your worldview. How a package looks is just part of the equation. As Seth Godin or Tom himself would say, it's ultimately about the authenticity of your story. As Steve correctly pointed out, the Depends story related by the copywriters doesn't match the story conveyed by the package designers.

And it's not true that repetition istelf is effective. Remember, people only notice changes. If you repeat something too many times, you no longer notice it.

Posted by femmebot at August 1, 2005 12:56 PM

I think the old "Oops, I Crapped My Pants" satire-ad from Saturday Night Live is better.

Seriously, though, how many of us could name any other adult undergarment brand? For discretion, you can at least buy them online instead of plunking them down at the register in front of everybody at the supermarket.

Posted by Michael Martine at August 1, 2005 1:10 PM

but isn't this exactly what advertising and much of our society has been taught by the Bush White House PR: "your customers [or citizens, etc] will accept a dissonant message just because you say it."

Posted by Arif at August 1, 2005 4:04 PM

There are at least 181 key players in the adult Incontinence market! Never would have guessed!

Now, does that fact that most of us are only familiar with Depends brand signify that the others' aren't advertising as well? Or are the other producers just targeting their market effectively?

Also, could one of you successful business people purchase a copy of this market report for the adult incontinence industry for my own curiosity? It's only 3,850 USD.

http://pharmalicensing.com/intelligence/reportsearching.php?action=toc&productID=812955

Leading Producers in the Global Adult Incontinence Market (2002) - Percentage Breakdown by Production Volume for SCA, Kimberly-Clark, Tyco/Kendall, Hartmann, PaperPak, Uni-Charm, and Others

apparently, also included in this report:

- there are oral remedies/alternative treatments threatening the diaper market.
- there is a rising share in private labels.
- women are more prone to incontinency than men.
- the market is growing as a result of aging baby-boomers.

Posted by Tom O'Leary at August 1, 2005 4:55 PM

Arif - here we go again . . . Iacocca said "if you find another car, buy it" long before anyone heard of Dubya . . . the Bush clan owns a lot of Halliburton, not Depends . . . P. T. Barnum's suckers born every minute would buy products from badvertising, whether Clinton or Bush was President . . . frankly, my dear, you're letting your hatred of Bush get in the way of common sense.

Posted by Ron at August 1, 2005 5:41 PM

I mean "if you can find a BETTER car, buy it!" Sheesh, I love the blogosphere, but mistakes stay public forever . . .

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The point is made, though. Iacocca had the mindset of "Chrysler cars are good because I said so!" long before the Bush-haters said that Dubya has that mindset. I guess they'll take any chance in any forum to bash Bush . . . (yes, I'd write the same thing if you replace "Bush" with "Clinton".)

Oh, by the way: I did find a better car, and I bought it. And it wasn't made by Chrysler.

Posted by Ron at August 1, 2005 6:00 PM

Given the ability of modern medicine to extend our lives beyond belief, I would imagine that at some point each one of us may light up with joy when we spot that large-print logo and signage for dependable Depends. Let's face it, by the time that we are depends-ready, our eyes may be so bad that we won't care who else can read the letters so long as we can spot the large-print logo in the aisles of our favorite pharmacy. And, if we are lucky, our memories will have deteriorated to a point where we won't remember that the stinking product has some negative social stigma related to a bodily function.

viagra 50mg dosage online

Given the state of medicine and Americans' passion to deny the need for health-promoting habits, I think investing in Depends stock is a good idea. I suggest that the manufacturer of Depends forges a strategic partnership with all of the new meds coming on the market. If you watch any of the endless ads for meds to cure common maladies or to extend normal bodily functions,you will find that each advertisement winds down with a long list of side effects that sound more unpleasant than the symptoms for which the product is marketed. Depends may be just the antidote to one of their significant and rather unpleasant side effects-- and that side effect may be the Number One reason, still unspoken, for why people depend on Depends. So I say that they market the Depends with the current meds that address common maladies of depression, aging, or stomach upsets. How about a "Buy One, get One free?"

Posted by Pam Brill at August 1, 2005 8:01 PM

The "discreet, yet easy to find" copy is a classic. I laughed out loud and feel almost certain this was done by an in-house team. Although O&M seem to have other exciting Kimberly-Clark products on their roster. Funny that no one fesses up to having the Depends account.

Steve do you do anything other than rant? Condemning bad advertising with an incontinence ad is a cheap trick. I sure hope there won't be any karmic payback for this post.

Posted by Paul Davidson at August 2, 2005 12:43 AM

Back in my advertising days, my Creative Director always used to remind us that we were in the business of Relevant Abruption. An ad had to be interesting enough to make the audience stop and consider it. But much more importantly, it had to be relevant.
In our case, relevant meant that it had to be targeted at the right person and it had to show this person how the product would solve their problem. That's all there is to it.
So I don't agree that advertising is about publicity. Just because they are talking about you does not mean they will buy from you. It could even mean they are deriding you.
Good advertising is about Relevant Abruption. It makes you stop to consider the product. And then it makes you think that the product will solve a problem you have.

Posted by fredd kambo at August 2, 2005 7:28 AM