by admin | Sep 3, 2012 | Blog
“Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment”, part four of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” provides a path for changing attitudes and behaviour, which is after all the main objective of advertising and marketing communication.
Whether we are discussing leadership in an organisation or thought leadership in an area of professional expertise, great brands are leaders in consumer advocacy in their product or service category.
Here’s the original list compiled by Dale Carnegie:
1. Begin with praise and sincere appreciation.
2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly
3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticising the other person.
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
5. Let the other person save face
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement.
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.
One of the most powerful techniques in selling, be it in person or through communicating in any media, is asking questions and either letting the audience arrive at their own conclusion or suggesting one for them! “Tired? Stressed? You’ll Feel Better on Swisse”.
Brands that have admitted their mistakes and promised to learn from them tend to have recover quickly but those that try to defend their actions and shift the blame tend to lose trust and damage their brand reputation.
Things will go wrong in business and mistakes will happen, and today in the world of social media, where there is nowhere to hide, the strength of a brand’s relationship with its customers is about how it deals with failures.
Domino’s pizza did this in 2011. In the ads, Domino’s admitted that its pizzas were terrible, explained that it redesigned them, and asked people to give them a try.
“Viewers of these ads described them as “bold” and “refreshing,” and gave the company credit for acknowledging what everyone already knew. More important, people tried the pizza and found they liked it. The result: store sales rose and quarterly profits doubled. Domino’s took a failure point — its horrible pizzas — and made it a rallying point. The company saw negative comments as a gift from customers, an opportunity to improve the product, rather than a liability.”
Ref: HBR Blog Network: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/03/the_art_of_admitting_failure.html
by admin | Feb 14, 2012 | Blog
90% of SME Communication not only does not maximize ROI, but is WASTED because it doesn’t build or have a cumulative effect!
Most SME business owners do it themselves or let the job be done by the media or designers. Their expenditure lines the pockets of media companies, web developers, designers, printers who are not aware of simple and proven Scientific Advertising Principles.
- Develop an Advertising / Marketing Communications Brief
- Designers need a good brief from a marketer / advertising professional.
- Great advertising / marketing communication is a result of a collaboration between: Marketing Professionals (Strategists – on the Client or Agency side, or both!) and Advertising Professionals (Creatives – Creative Directors, Copywriters, Art Directors, Designers)
- Great advertising / marketing communication provides Hope and Optimism, and in general in a recession customers will block out messages based on FEAR. Emphasize reasons, especially Functional Features, provide evidence that the Brand delivers value and emphasize “family values” if applicable.
Here are are our best marketing resources, free of charge, use them to satisfy the needs of your clients and surpass your competition.
by admin | Feb 13, 2012 | Blog
People today more receptive than ever before to Clear Solutions and Clear Messages. Clarity promises Peace of Mind in today’s chaotic world!
Here is an example by a jewellery chain that produced amazing results:
A simple headline was changed from:
“We guarantee the quality of the diamonds we sell”
to:
“If the Gemological Institute of America doesn’t confirm our diamond’s colour, clarity and carat weight to be at least as good as we promised you, we’ll buy back that diamond for the price you paid, reimburse you for the cost of grading, and pay you an additional five thousand dollars. If other jewelers aren’t willing to match this offer, you’ve got to wonder why.”
for spectacular results!
Does your brand provide a guarantee like this? Examine your Brand Promise and aim to deliver on it each and every time!
by admin | Feb 13, 2012 | Blog, Content
When working with content development, solutions we offer have to be immediately comprehensible otherwise they become problems and add to the sensory overload of our clients and prospects.
People are too stressed and busy for dense visuals and jargon – a common sin of Finance and IT industries.
- Time Deprivation + Technology = Compression
- Digital TV 500 channels & The Web = Life now is 24 x 7x 365
- Compressed patience and attention span of customers means that unless you grab their attention instantly they will use their Remote Control or click their Mouse to never be heard from again!
A simple PICTURE is a 1,000 WORDS, but it better tell a story much faster than that or today’s consumer will be gone before you have the chance for the proverbial wink!
by admin | Feb 12, 2012 | Blog
Solutions we offer have to be immediately comprehensible otherwise they become problems and add to the sensory overload of our clients and prospects.
People are too stressed and busy for dense visuals and jargon – a common sin of Finance and IT industries.
- Time Deprivation + Technology = Compression
- Digital TV 500 channels & The Web = Life now is 24 x 7x 365
- Compressed patience and attention span of customers means that unless you grab their attention instantly they will use their Remote Control or click their Mouse to never be heard from again!
A simple PICTURE is a 1,000 WORDS, but it better tell a story much faster than that or today’s consumer will be gone before you have the chance for the proverbial wink!
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