Advertising

The Single Most Rudimentary Lesson About Advertising That People Don’t Realize

Garth Beyer

It’s been a great holiday with a lot of traveling and for once, watching some television. Making it an understatement, I saw a myriad advertisements. After seeing each one, I thought to myself, “absolutely no one will buy that because they saw this sign,” “no one will call the number because of the poster,” “no one will request the free information because the commercial tells them to.”

I had my advertising epiphany.

Advertising isn’t about creating action, getting someone to call, to buy, to request free information, even though it appears that way. No. Advertising is about creating a sense of familiarity because one day the world will work it’s weirdness and someone will need to call a lawyer because they know someone who suffered a heart attack from taking a specific type of doctor prescribed drug.

When that time does come, they will search for lawyers and notice one specific law firm. It will stick out for some reason, possibly stir some memory. It’s unlikely they will remember they saw an advertisement on a billboard for it, but that doesn’t matter, the sense of familiarity is there.

That familiarity, that’s what advertising is all about. That’s what creates profits. That’s why it’s okay for advertisers to blow money like crazy on what appears to be a pointless billboard advertisement.

Familiarity.

Communication Mediums

Garth Beyer

There is a general concept when devising a communications strategy to list all the different mediums that you wish to communicate through. Before and after doing so, you want to rate each medium on how effective you believe it will be pertaining to the goal you wish to reach through that medium.

Here is a long list of various mediums that you may be using or may think of using next.

Print it out, highlight the ones you use/want to use, and rate each one.

  • Email
  • Newsletter
  • Text messages
  • Facebook
  • Teleconference
  • Notice boards
  • Direct mailing
  • Mobile app
  • CEO briefing
  • Posters
  • Logo’d pens/pads/etc.,
  • Lunchtime meeting
  • Intranet article
  • Launch event
  • Videos
  • Blog
  • Press release
  • Team meeting
  • Podcast on intranet

Doing so allows you to monitor the effectiveness of your methods of communication. By evaluating your expectations and results, you will learn where to cut expenses and where to redirect them.

Note: Many mediums may feel broad. If that is the case, make note next to it what how you will actually use the medium. For example, will you use Facebook for advertising? For starting debates with followers? For sweepstakes? Identify exactly what you will do through each medium.

Advertising: Who Is The Real Persuader?

Garth Beyer

If you think that advertisers are there to persuade you, you may want to think again. In another excellent documentary by Douglas Rushkoff titled The Persuaders, published in 2004 by FRONTILINE, Rushkoff dives into the advertising world to explore “how the cultures of marketing and advertising have come to influence not only what Americans buy, but also how they view themselves and the world around them.”

The more messages advertisers create, the more resistant we, as consumers, become. It’s a paradox that at some point must crumble. There is only so much room on the planet to place an advertisement and I would say that advertisers will be maxed out on space within five years if they don’t change their ways or we don’t change our minds. Out of the hundreds of years of advertising, it’s unlikely they will change their minds. In The Persuaders, we learn that advertisers aren’t necessarily trying to get us to consume their product, they are trying to get us to change our minds; about life, about conformity, about individuality, about power, and anything meaningful.

Advertisers realize that once they are in the game, they can’t stop; they must continue to bombard possible consumers with reminders, not to buy their product, but to buy their brand. Take Tide for example, it’s not about getting clothes clean anymore. You can buy any laundry detergent and it will do the job. What they advertise for is that you buy your way into their brand, into the tribe of Tide users, into the idea that “Tide Knows Fabric Best,” so you know best.

By now you may be thinking that none of what has been said offers support to the assumption that advertisers aren’t here to persuade you. That is exactly what advertisers want; they want you to know less about yourself and more about what you can be, feel, and think by buying what they offer. What it comes down to is that we see the advertisements that we want to associate ourselves with. We don’t want to have just a Mac computer; we want to have the feeling of luxury and the title of “early innovator” as all Mac users have. Advertisements aren’t here to persuade us, they are there for us to persuade ourselves. We convince ourselves that this is the image we want of ourselves – Mac user – or maybe you want to feel like an upper-class badass, so you buy a BMW. We see the advertisements we want, we persuade ourselves.

Advertising Complications (Why We’re Pissed Off)

Garth Beyer

The more messages advertisers create, the more they have to create. Once you’re in the game, you can’t stop. Advertising is an addiction.

This is old school, traditional, and clearly pissing everyone off.

The real, new-age advertisers are the ones making an impact in a way that their advertisements become our atmosphere without even trying. They reinvent their marketing culture to incorporate the air their target audiences breathes.

Not an addiction. A necessity.

How To Persuade

Garth Beyer

I’m dipping in advertising here, which I rarely do, but it’s worth telling. Here are the three themes of an effective advertisement.

1. Repeat

2. Emotion

3. Simple message

Notice how it is this collection of methods that are also effective in PR, journalism, marketing, and persuading.

It’s very effective. At least, it was for Hitler who focused on these three principles.

Maybe it’s time to reconsider how we use advertising isn’t it? Better late than never.

Hitting The Media Over And Over And Over And Over

Hitting The Media Over And Over And Over And Over

Garth Beyer

I have briefly stated before how PR is not advertising, but those in PR strategically use different forms of advertising to leverage the success of their goal. Cutting the crust off the whole debate of how influential media is to producing sales, you can check the case studies of Dr. Max McCombs and Dr. Donald Shaw who developed the theory of Agenda-Setting in their Chapel Hill Study (1968).

In essence, they discovered that media influence was a temporary result which would die down in the minds of the viewers within hours after being exposed to the particular piece of media persuasion, depending on the medium used. (How often do you get told during an advertisement to “Act Now!“)

When you find yourself complaining about a particular ad that is put on repeat (remember the tv commercial that played itself again right after the first one, or the radio ad which plays right after one song and before the next?) you are seeing the abused type of agenda setting.

Before McCombs and Shaw, a particular Bernard Cohen had begun building the theory by observing and stating that the press “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.”*

Next up were Rogers and Dearing (1996), who had tried to better explain the Agenda-Setting Theory by providing more key concepts and definitions in Agenda Setting: Communication Concepts.

For an understanding of the gist of Agenda Setting, here is a positive example of how you could use Agenda Setting for the grand opening of a Coffee Shop.

You are the Public Relations Specialist for the largest Coffee House in Seattle (largest, meaning square feet, not number of Coffee Houses) which will be having its grand opening in two months. Honestly speaking, you better have your news release and press kit developed already.

Now, the announcement has gone out and not only is the media interested, but so are a few local Coffee Shops. You then begin to accept and arrange media requests for interviews, pre-opening tours, and exclusive photo shoots.

Now that you have set the agenda for the media, you direct more of your efforts toward the public by sending personal invitations to all the Coffee Shops in the surrounding area. In addition, you apply direct messaging to the demographic of people who purchase coffee on a daily basis. By notifying these people of your event, you have set the agenda for the public.

The media and the public are all over the day of your grand opening and you obtain extraordinary coverage. Now you want to remain in the spotlight of the media and public by setting even more agendas for testimonials, follow-up features, and stories from those who converted to buying your business’s coffee.

Agenda-Setting: If you noticed, no where did you hit the media over and over and over and over with the same material. You set the agenda for coverage on all levels, devoting your focus to specific types of coverage which hit a target audience.

Remember, your agenda is to make theirs.

 

*Cohen, B (1963). The press and foreign policy. New York: Harcourt.