No, not I love you!
This month saw Santander launch their biggest ad campaign to date with their 'Simple, Personal, Fair' message. Santander state in the new campaign that these 3 little words sum up their banking service. Keith Moor, chief marketing officer at Santander, explained “Our brand new campaign is about showing customers how we aspire to be Simple, Personal and Fair, showing them we are listening and doing all we can to build a better bank........” Whether or not this is their actual customers opinion or what they would like their opinion to be (!), it set me thinking.
Our strapline at McCann Erickson was always 'Truth Well Told' which was indeed what we always strived to do as marketeers. However, confining your company's service or offering to 3 little words is quite a tricky ask? Although it does focus the mind. Why not give it a try?
What 3 words best describe what your company offers? It might take you longer than you thought!
For Footprint Marketing I would choose 'Experienced, Focused, Accountable'.
Bye for now!
If I threw 5 tennis balls at you how many would you catch?
If you're anything like me, you'd drop them all, but I guess the more agile amongst you might catch one but certainly not all 5!
However if I threw a single tennis ball, you're much more likely to catch it!
The same principle applies to advertising, if you have 5 different messages you're trying to get across in your advertisement, chances are your audience won't take in any of them. If your advertisement is too busy, if there's too much information to wade through, take it from me, your reader won't read it. Looking at the press advertising this week in our local paper, I am mortified by the number of advertisers who will have spent a lot of money on their precious advertising space, only to fill that space to the gunnels with headlines, offers, deals, long paragraphs of text, not to mention beautiful photographs which just don't reproduce well in black and white!
When you're placing an advertisement, think about the environment in which it will appear, chances are you'll be surrounded by similar busy, content filled advertisements all jostling for readers attention.
My advice is to stand out from the crowd, stop the reader in their tracks, remember one word 'KISS', Keep It Simple Stupid!
Stick to one tennis ball! In other words, one clear message and execute that message clearly and succinctly. You have a very limited chance to grab and hold your readers attention so make sure they get your message within a few precious seconds before they're on to the next page, offer, deal.
Less is most definitely more.
Handcuffs, sketchers and a lot more besides!
Click on the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvVKadC8YiA
This is one of my commercials from the 'hall of advertising', rewind 20 years and it was pretty cutting edge!! Yes really! The task was to launch a hip and trendy music station with limited budget. The campaign was loud, proud and ever so slightly offensive, running as a cinema commercial, supported by outdoor posters.
Imagine if you will, a 3metre by 6metre road side poster depicting pierced nipples, tampons and condoms scattered around Bristol city centre. Church goers were not amused with the pierced nipple version appearing outside their front door! It caused a stir and consequently Galaxy 101 got loads of FREE publicity off the back of it! The lady sporting the 'pierced nipple' was even interviewed on local TV.
All in all, a successful campaign, which far outreached the scope of the original budget because the creative was clever and controversial.
The moral of the story.............think outside the box!!
