I was watching TV last night, a rare occurrence that I’m sure reflects the media diversification trends and the decreasing importance of the traditional TV spot, but I digress from the 2 ads that struck me, one positively stimulating my senses and the other making me mumble “what happened to their marketing strategy”?
Good, Better, Bosch…those were the days…
I used to love BOSCH, the German multinational that stood for quality across a range of product categories from brown goods, to car parts and even business services! I was disappointed when they dumped the brilliant positioning statement “Good. Better. Bosch” And yesterday when I saw their ad for the dish washing machine I was simply dumbfounded! Then again I was even more surprised to find that in Europe they were starting fires.
Even if I wasn’t a marketing consultant or an ad agency professional who is preoccupied with marketing strategy, I think I’d be even more offended as a consumer.
Here’s the offending commercial, albeit the version I saw was sans the Finish promotion!
Water conservation is an important concern for all of us, but an ad aimed at convincing you to use a dishwasher instead of washing by hand? Really? Seriously? How many people do you know who still wash dishes by hand? I could understand Bosh running this ad in Brazil, India, Russia, but in Australia?
Maybe I’ve got it all wrong; maybe Bosch decided that Australians were more like their English forebears where only 1 in 3 households own one and decided to take a leadership position but a quick check of the ABS Statistics going back to 1999 showed total Dishwasher penetration being around 95% of the population in Australia!
If you still don’t have a washing machine, and you are thinking of buying one wouldn’t you be comparing different types of washing machines?
So shouldn’t Bosch be signing the praises of its marvelous machine and highlighting their point of difference rather than comparing it to washing dishes by hand? I simply don’t see the logic and I have tried! Then again emotions are so much more effective, even in B2B markets!
So maybe that’s what the folks at Bosch were trying to achieve? Get to me emotionally?
However forming an emotional connection at its most basic, is all about helping others see you as the same as them, as someone who gets them…not someone that insults their intelligence! And let’s get real; the Bosch machine is priced at the premium end of the market, ranking at 7th and 10th spot for 2013, hence one would guess they are targeting a fairly intelligent demographic?
In contrast this ad, through it’s sheer cinematic brilliance and use of a haunting Nick Cave soundtrack made me want to visit the Barossa Valley and discover the mysteries it has to offer!
Most interestingly have a look at the number of people who viewed both ads and the number who actually engaged with it, in this case “liked it”. That’s a story in itself!
The Interest and Desire parts of AIDA model go hand-in-hand: As you’re building the audience interest, you also need to guide them to understand how what you’re offering can help them and the best way of doing this is by appealing to their personal needs and wants.
“Fundamental techniques in handling people”, part one of “How to Win Friends and Influence People”provides a great recipe for generating desire:
1.Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
2.Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3.Arouse in other person an eager want.
Here in the immortal words of Dale Carnegie, is the main reason you will rarely see advertisers go into direct “comparative advertising” and tackle their competition head on.
“Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.”
Carnegie goes onto quote B. F. Skinner,”… the world-famous psychologist, proved through his experiments that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that the same applies to humans. By criticizing, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment. The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize employees, family members and friends, and still not correct the situation that has been condemned.”
And this is the basis of all loyalty and reward programs that have been implemented for the last 100 or so years primarily by retailers ranging from coupons to points! Simple – reward good behaviour!
Some brands don’t even realise that they inhibit their brand development by criticizing their audience behaviour without even knowing it! Can they still be incredibly successful – sure, after all the brand slogan or it’s positioning statement is not the sole success factor of a business! And I for one believe that the extremely successful Specsavers optical chain could be even more successful with a slogan that does not implicitly berate it’s target audience – “You should have gone to Specsavers”.
Being myopic and hence the ideal prospect for Specsavers, I’m ready to dispense some long-sighted brand building advice!
Here is a checklist for all your marketing communications. Ask yourself the following questions and see whether your marketing communication achieves the following objectives:
Does your marketing communication grab Attention?
Does your marketing communication clearly identify your brand? Does it do so immediately and throughout the advertisement?
Does your marketing communication reinforce your brand identity?
Does the your marketing communication clearly communicate your brand’s unique promise?
Isyour marketing communication tone and style true to your brands Essence and Personality?
Does your marketing communication have a Positioning Statement that reinforces the brand’s Promise?
Does your marketing communication connect with the reader / viewer on an emotional level? Fear?Hope? imagination?
Is your marketing communication significantly different from that of your competitors? Could another competitor make the same claim? If you inserted a competitor’s logo would it make no sense or be unbelievable?
Does your marketing communication have a good Offer?
Does your marketing communication make the reader/viewer believe they will be better off by purchasing your brand?
Does your marketing communication have a strong Call To Action?
Do you have the process in place to capture (and measure) responses? E.g..: Keyed Ads?
To develop an effective creative theme you need to be different from what is prevalent in your industry segment. One way of doing this is staying away from standard photography stock photos. Not only will this not provide your business with the necessary point of difference but will play into the hands of the category leader, who is most likely already using the “typical” stock shots.
Here are some examples of effectively used creative themes:
A Gambling theme was used for a management consulting member organisation to communicate with both prospective members and encourage membership and potential clients, with the main messages being:
don’t gamble with your career / business
get the unfair advantage
A Cartoon theme for an accounting practice and a different cartoon theme for a management consulting firm were used to differentiate these companies from their competition by poking fun at the whole industry rather use traditional and boring “corporate” photos of “smiling people in the office”.
A visual Illusion theme for a marketing consultancy was used to deliver the message that things aren’t always what they seem and that Perception is Reality!
A theme of the world’s most famous Man-Made Landmarks was developed for a translation company to differentiate them and make their offer more memorable than their competitors.
A Car theme was designed for a web marketing company that was at the time an early developer of an easy to use web Content Management System:
the brochure looked like a car brochure with all of the “driving analogies” being used to appeal to the mainly middle aged male business audience
direct mail campaign using a “test drive” invitation, with keys and one pair of a glove, etc
a user manual that resembled closely a car manual
a license for clients completing the training course
A Medical theme was developed for an I.T. company. Most I.T. companies can’t get beyond the now “typical” I.T. Health Check. This I.T. company was able to develop a campaignable and timeless theme which was intrinsically linked to its Positioning Statement / slogan which was “taking care of I.T.”
Mints in a medicine bottle could be used as promotional items for “pain relief”
Different levels of I.T. Support were marketed like health insurance
Invoices could be made to look like medical scripts
Client files and proposals could be made to look like medical patient histories.
Staff could dress up as doctors
Wild West theme was used by a design firm, with all the shoot outs, outlaws, sheriff and wanted posters to create a fun approach to selling this firm’s point of difference.
As you can see the creative theme for your business is only limited by your imagination. From police or detectives, to aliens and UFO’s, from tailoring to sailing, from army to mythology, the critical things to remember are:
Making sure that your creative theme is clearly communicating and reinforcing either your brand name or your positioning statement
That your creative theme is immediately comprehensible and doesn’t take too long for the prospective target audience to “get it”, otherwise you are just confusing them rather than helping them remember you and what makes you special
Your creative theme is different to the themes being used in your industry segment
Your creative theme provides you with a never ending well of ideas.
Here is a mix of examples of logos, brand names and positioning statements that we have had the pleasure of working with and/or developing for our clients.
Most importantly, note how easy it is to develop creative, campaignable marketing communication for these brands.
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