I recently had a chance to visit the Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral. When we got there, the tour bus had already left, so all we could do was check out The Rocket Garden and the Shuttle prototype turned into an exposition.
I didn’t need a tour: There was something that blew me away without that tour. The old rockets.
They turned out to be so unexpectedly plain jane and low-tech. So… what’s the word… mundane. The gloss of a picture in the book comes off, and what’s left is a sheet of metal clumsily wrapped into a tube. I found it difficult to imagine them fly… Even more so to imagine someone crawl into that tin bucket called the cabin and fly these things.
Nonetheless, there they were, artifacts of the glorious past, a testament to the courageous epoch.
Now think about your marketing. Are you spending money on the looks? The only person that’s going to be impressed is you. Your customers won’t care. Are you trying to make it fancy or to make it work?
If you’re going to study ads, start with those plane jane all-text ones that trick you and make you think they are editorials. People who run these ads treat them as their sales force: if these ads don’t produce sales they get immediately pulled just like a sales person that doesn’t sell gets fired.
The gawky machines that helped the man conquer the space didn’t need to be slick. The ad that will help you conquer the market won’t be a slick one either.
I agree with you. I do think we need make marketing just a little more simple these days. No one seems to be impressed anymore with the “bells and whistles”.
As a Publishing Company with lots to offer authors and writers of all types, my Wife & I would like to make us more visible to all authors and writers who want to get their work published and sold. We have contacts with PR, Websites, Internet Marketing, Advertising, Accountants, Lawyers, Sales, Fulfillment, Editing, Proofreading, TV/Radio, Books Fair, and other companies that can start or grow the sales of any type of written material. We, Vincent Press Publishing Inc., in San Diego, CA can be reached by email at jeffmuchnik@yahoo.com or by telephone at 619-697-9684. Thank you to all who are Mensches.
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Why is it that sleek, noisy, “rocket science” and “over your head” type ads are the majority I hear and see, even for business products? Is it because they are more beautiful, prestige, and exclusive? Maybe, but what do these feelings they supposed to invoke in me have to do with my need for, say, an affordable, reliable, and easy-to-use printer to do custom letters, presentations…and thousand other things a small business owner needs to print? And how do these ads help me to decide between different brands, models, and the Copy Center at my local Business Depot?
Get me to see a common sense ad, a “gawky rocket” type ad that helps me decide which printer to buy and you may get my business…
I have a few remarks… In times such as now when money is JUST FLUSH — it’s everywhere and it’s easy to be had — can a “tin can” strategy really be more effective? (But I do see your larger point throughout your blog… there are more obscure places where low-cost advertising could be done more effectively, instead of using “tricks” even there.) As per “bells and whistles” and “gawky rocket” type ads, doesn’t a lot of this glitz support a “social psychology” that’s foundational to business today? With FINANCE being the modern-day engine of growth, with so many businesses’ bottom lines being more and more determined through the FINANCE game, and with many second- and third-parties throughout playing along, there are a lot of psyches that need tending if “confidence” is to prevail. In other words, the power of ad glitz tied to a company name adds social credibility to the mountain of financial paper the business has outstanding. How many of the millions who see an ad on TV for Boeing are gonna go out a buy themselves a 747? And of all the millions who see these Boeing ads, do even 10,000 of them choose their flights exclusively on Boeing aircraft? So much of advertising these days is feeding social psychology that DEMANDS confidence in a very heavily leveraged financial environment. Now, when I read in another blog that “no one seems to be impressed anymore with the ‘bells and whistles’” … that tells me something… financially speaking that is…
Hi DrTDSP,
Here’s what I think.
There are two kinds of advertising.
There is advertising that wins creative awards and caters to the owner’s ego, making it almost explode.
And then there is advertising that results in more sales.
That’s how it works in small business.
Now, in the corporate world, you’re dealing with a different reality. The people at the top of the company typically care more about what financial institutions the investors think of them. So the “client” in this case is not that customer who comes to them with a few dollar bills crumbled in their fist. They don’t care about that little guy! To them, the “client” is the board of directors who decide how long the current management team gets to steer and enjoy the perks that come with the job.
And that’s how those 747 ads come into existence.
Alex