Do you like to gamble?  I’m not much of a gambler.  Occasionally I’m dumb enough to play the lottery.  I know it is hard to believe but I didn’t win the lottery….again.  I thought I’d try to win without playing my kids birthdates for once. Oh well.

I don’t  play every weekend.  I’ve gambled on the lottery maybe ten times in the last ten years. I don’t feel bad about it.  Five bucks now and then has about as much chance of paying off as money invested on Wall Street.

We all used to believe that we had to have a portfolio of investments.  Many of my friends and family saw their investments disappear. We’re in baffling times.

More baffling to me is why companies gamble on commercials they put on TV. Especially now, when every dollar really counts ! Judging from the ads, these companies skip all the vital steps  to making an effective TV commercial and then wonder why the TV ad doesn’t pull leads.

What do I mean by vital steps?  Well for one thing, know your target audience, thoroughly. Not just the demographic.  Know what imagery they’re receptive to. Know what they “think” about products or services similar to yours.  Know what about your product or service they will respond to positively. Know what emotion your target audience is sitting in. Know what words and phrases they agree with. These are just a few of the things we research.

If you don’t know these things before beginning the creative part of making a TV commercial, you’re going to miss your target audience. You’ll disconnect with your audience to a greater or lesser degree.  Like the guys who marketed the Chevy Nova in South America, where “No Va” means “won’t go”. Duh.

Here’s another example.  We’ve had a client come to us with a natural product  which alleviates discomfort during menstrual cycles.   Some “expert” agency gave them the name “Klimadynon”.  The client was from Germany.  They didn’t know that Americans would position this name with a dinosaur. They didn’t know their audience. We tested some alternate names and renamed the product so it didn’t communicate that it was for women who act sort of like a dinosaur monthly.

How does this apply to you? Well, if you don’t know your audience chances are you’re wasting your marketing budget.  You’re not just losing sales, you may be driving clients away.   If you don’t know your target audience you’ve reduced the chance of your ad being effective by 70% or more.

This is fine for some evil ad agencies who would love for you to keep trying and trying to reach your target audience.  The more you try the more they make.

It’s like playing darts blindfolded. If you can’t see the target how do expect to hit a bull’s eye?

We see advertisements on TV all the time that miss the target audience. They don’t cause the phone to ring.  The sponsor has wasted his money.

Is there a better way?  You bet ! We’ve used it for years on our corporate clients and we started using it on our TV commercials.  It’s proven and scientific.  It takes the guesswork out of marketing.

All advertising is a gamble. Our proprietary methods will put the odds in your favor.

Otherwise, you may as well play the Lottery.  Your chance of winning is lousy but at least you’re not throwing away so much money.

A better way to go is to find out how we can help you win at marketing.  It’s a sure bet.

This article is not about THAT WORD the three-letter word that starts with “S” and ends with “X”. But it is about choosing words and topics that people find interesting.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to exclude SEX from this discussion but I’m just pointing out that the key to getting people to open their awareness and listen to your message is by using words and images they are interested in.

Of course, SEX is a pretty easy way to get someone’s attention.  Even the letters in SEX get massive attention – X, or XX, or XXX.  This makes you wonder about the people who thought up the name Exxon, doesn’t it?

Anyway, many are using SEX to market lots of things.  We try to find keywords that will attract just your target audience and not everyone on the planet.

But where was I?  I was distracted.  Oh yeah, finding out what words and pictures to use to connect with your target audience.  This is key to any marketing endeavor.

For a successful marketing campaign the creative people must know the target audience thoroughly. Just a short simple list would include: 1) Who is the target audience, 2) What’s going through their head (what problems are they focused on), 3) What they view as solutions to that problem and what solutions they see as valueless to the solution of that problem, 4) What images they reach for, and 5) What images repel them.

For example, if I know you love tennis, and you worship slender blondes from the former Soviet Union and I’m trying to sell you a Canon digital camera the chances are that I’ve got a pretty good shot at selling you a camera if I hire Maria Sharapova.

I’ve used Maria to grab your attention and now I can deliver a marketing message.  On the other hand, if you hate blondes and blew your knee out playing tennis, my marketing campaign will probably miss.

OUR MESSAGE: Knowing your audience increases the likelihood of a payback on your investment.

Even though this is known we still see people skipping the research step and shooting in the dark. You know how many times you’re going to hit the target if you’re shooting in the dark?

Those who skip research have two choices: 1) just mimic what everybody else is doing or, 2) try totally new and never been seen before.

When you mimic your competitors you look just like them.  You blend into the wallpaper and waste your money.

When you try something “really out there” you end up with a real crap shoot.  Now you’re betting the farm on something totally unknown.

Why don’t we just jump out of the plane blindfolded. Somebody will yell before we hit the ground.

Let’s talk about “really out there” commercials. I bet you can name five commercials you’ve seen (that you can’t remember the product’s name) that were REALLY COOL and REALLY OUT THERE.  Problem is, you probably didn’t buy it. The client paid for your amusement but got no return.

If they’d known what you’re interested in, they may have grabbed you. Maybe they didn’t market to you an aspect of the product that would have made it appealing to you.

Marketing is funny that way.  If you do your homework, it will work much better than if you guess. The choice is do you want to guess what will interest your target audience or do you want to “understand” your audience so you’ll know how to engage them.

Geico has four or five TV ad campaigns running now.  I’m sure they’ve won many awards. Though extremely creative and memorable I question if they work well for the client.   I can repeat them verbatim but I won’t call for a quote. Why? I like geckos, cavemen, basketball players, Rod Serling, Charlie Daniels, Ed “too tall” Jones….

I’m not interested in the FUNNIEST insurance company. I want an insurance company who is there the day after the big storm knocks a tree down on our house.  If they’d surveyed me, they would know that.

And so, my friends, I come to the end of the article.  Let’s review.  I attracted you with SEX talk.  I showed you a SEXY picture (in the sense of athletic prowess = sexiness). I delivered my message: “Research makes for effective marketing”.

If I was writing a Pay Per Click ad, in which I’d have to pay for every click through,  I would had very specific words to only attract people most likely to be my leads.

So now that you know this, will you take action?

Will you call us? You might.

THE OFFER: What if I offered you a free Business Development Survey, which will clarify what can be done to get a payback on your marketing dollars? Hmmmm?

Getting interested?

BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE: Wouldn’t it be SEXY to really have a rockin’ 2010?  New clients, big jobs, nice car, new place, bills paid off?

You can find out how…for free.  Call now.

Now that’s good marketing. Of course, if I knew you better I wouldn’t have had to rely on SEX so much to keep your attention. I could have talked about what you were really interested in.

This is a series on marketing solutions. Often the simplest solution is the best. Here’s one you might find interesting.

Never driven a Ferrari?  Has the rich Corinthian leather of Lamborghini never touched your what’s-it?  Don’t be dismayed. Both cars are so loud you can barely hear yourself think.

And about the only thought you have is, “I hope the girls are watching and are really impressed because my hearings nearly gone.”

In fact, Lambo drivers usually hang out at biker bars  because they’re the only people who talk loud enough to a Lambo owner to hear.

That aside, however, brings us to our story.

For several decades Alpine and Lamborghini were positioned together.  Alpine was launching a new technology and wanted a full-blown TV commercial shot on 35mm.  The agency, Kalis and Savage, derived the creative storyboard in which a Ferrari challenges a Lamborghini to a race.  When the light turns green the Ferrari blazes off into the dark night.

The Lambo?  Well he’s more entranced by the music flowing our of the new DDDrive speakers.*

So, we set it all up.  Who won?  Ferrari? Lamborghini?  Well, I suppose you could say Alpine won…because the commercial won multiple awards.

Take a look…

*The DDDrive speaker was an experimental speaker in which magnetic flux was poured into an acrylic mold so that the magnet in the speaker would have greatly improved accuracy in the flux fields created.

Written By: Fletch Murray

Fletch Murray

This is a series on marketing solutions. Often the simplest solution is the best. Here’s one you might find interesting.

Marketing is about making something appealing. It’s kind of making the sow’s ear into a silk purse (although I’ve never seen that done successfully but it’s an attention getter.) This articles about a chopper and a hog of sorts.

McDonnell Douglas was introducing their new MD 500 Explorer helicopter, which was designed for the Medivac market. It was a complete re-design from the sleek helicopters in the 500 series. It was well…fat and slow. The bigger cabin made room enough for stretchers and medical personnel but it certainly lowered the score in the sleek and sexy department.
So the marketing problem we faced with was how do you make a boxy, sluggish helicopter appealing?

Our creative department came up with the idea of positioning it with another chopper, i.e. the Harley Davidson Electro Glide.
We got a vintage Electro Glide and fueled up the Explorer and off they went into testosterone territory.
Click here to see the award-winning video that premiered the Explorer at the Helicopter Association Internal convention:

Written by: Fletch Murray

Fletch Murray

This is a series on marketing solutions. Often the simplest solution is the best. Here’s one you might find interesting.

Problem: How can McDonnell Douglas show how quiet it’s new helicopter is?

Creative Solution: Have it land and take off without awakening a sleeping man and his dog.

The scene: Historic Old Tucson (scenes of many Western movies).

We cast an old guy to dress up like a old prospector.  He’ll be rocked back on a chair taking a nap on the front porch of the cabin.  At his feet will be his trusty watchdog, ‘Snappy’, who doesn’t miss a thing.

The helicopter will land in the background and then take off again and we’ll see if they can do it without waking up wither the prospector or the doggie.

Now why are we jumping through all these hoops to show how quiet this helicopter is?

Well, because McDonnell Douglas spent a godzillion dollars developing the No Tail Rotor helicopter.  The NOTAR.  Removing the tail rotor eliminates the danger to people walking around behind the helicopter.  Conventional helicopters have rapidly spinning blades at the end of the tail boom, which spin so fast they virtually disappear.  Hence, lots of people walk into them and get the vegomatic treatment.

So the NOTAR is the big thing we are pushing cause people are people not vegetables.

Another big plus is that people complain about police helicopters making so much noise when they are overhead.  The NOTAR system virtually eliminates that problem since the main noise from a helicopter is the tail rotor, not the big blades above the cabin.

So, here comes the shoot day.  The weather’s good. The prospector looks sleepy. The dog is ready to go, although to me he looks a little “tight”, like a swiss watch that won’t wind any more.

The dog wrangler says that the dog’s not about to freak out, he’s just shivering in the early morning cold.

So, we radio in the helicopter.  Here he comes. Roll camera.  The helicopter lands. The helicopter starts to lift off. The dog jumps.

Take Two.  We radio in the helicopter.  Here he comes.

Roll camera.

The helicopter lands. The helicopter starts to lift off. The dog jumps.

Take Three.  We radio in the helicopter.  Here he comes.

“Roll camera! Steady everybody.”

The helicopter lands. Somebody sneezes.  The dog jumps.

Take Four.  We radio in the helicopter.  Here he comes.

“Roll camera! Steady everybody.”

The helicopter lands. Nothing moves.  A lizard a half mile a way. Skitters down a rock.  The dog jumps.

Take Five.  Dog jumps.

Take Six. Dog yawns.

Take Seven. Dog wags his tail at his owner who’s madly trying to make the dog keep her head down.

We have a “conference” with everyone EXCEPT the dog owner.

“Have we got a clean landing?”

“Yes”.

“So let’s get a clean take off.”

“It won’t work.  The helicopter won’t land in the same place.  So we have to restage the landing and takeoff until we get a good one.”

We motion over the dog owner.

“What can you give the dog to calm her down?”

“No,” she responds.

“Do you have a staple gun?”

No one laughs.

“She’ll get it this time,” she promises.

Okay.

“Take godzillion and five.”

We radio in the helicopter.  Here he comes.

“Roll camera! Steady everybody.”

The helicopter lands. The dog doesn’t move.

The helicopter takes off.  We watch the dog.

The dog doesn’t move.

We notice small pools of Crazy Glue around the dog’s legs and ears.  The fur is strangely matted with clear laquer*.

We’ve got the shot!

“CUT !!!!”

The dog tries to smile but her lips won’t move.  The wrangler comes up and we turn our backs not wanting to see what she did to immobilize the dog.

We wake up the prospector, pay him fifty bucks and send him on his way.

Anyway, it is a very quiet helicopter.  Check out the finished spot.

Please be advised that no animals were harmed in the production of this commercial.

Click on the link to see our final cut of the spot:

Written by: Fletch Murray of The Association

Fletch Murray