Tag Archives: branding


Marketing’s Silver Bullet

Marketing success is still one of the great mysteries. But there are certain keys to achieving it, and even a Silver Bullet or two. LA ads president and creative director Dan Katz shares his Silver Bullet based on his many years of experience standing on the shoulders of great marketers who have built legendary brands. Click to watch or read the transcript below.

Some of you are going to disagree with what I’m about to say.  Especially if you think that the secret to successful marketing is having a great social media program … or a brilliantly designed website … or beautiful literature…  or just having been around a long time.

The real Silver Bullet to Marketing … well, actually there are two silver bullets:

1 – Defining a clear and unique point of difference from others in your category and

2 – Telling that story in a way that grabs the audience’s attention and captivates their imagination.

In short, it’s not WHERE your message is told but WHAT your message is and HOW compellingly it’s told.  It’s all about the message.  Period.  End of sentence.

We have clients that use Facebook, TV, print, online and email marketing.  But without something truly original and compelling to say, none of those mediums would work.

I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve spoken with companies who complain that “radio never works,” or nobody’s reading the newspapers anymore.  Then we ask to see what they’ve been running on radio or in the newspapers and, to us, the problem is crystal clear:  the message just doesn’t set them apart and it’s not exciting enough to get anyone to pay attention, let alone remember or act on it.

And that’s equally true with Facebook or any other digital marketing.  How many Facebook pages are just a jumble of unrelated posts that don’t point to a uniform branded message?  How many posts are just … nice … but aren’t really worth clicking the like button, let alone sharing?  And how many websites are hardly more than online catalogs without an original point of view that attracts and engages the visitor?

The legendary adman Bill Bernbach said it correctly: “The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you —  and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying — and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you —  and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting — and you won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally and freshly.”

Was he right?  Based on that philosophy, his agency, DDB, built such previously unknown names as VW, Alka Seltzer, Sony and Avis into powerhouse brands – and it even got a president elected.

Over the years, media choices have come and gone.  Today, the audience spends more time on Hulu than on NBC, and their mobile phone is their connection to the outside world.  But Bernbach’s words remain as potent now as they did when he said them.

If your marketing isn’t pulling for you the way you’d like, don’t look at the medium for the solution.  Look at the message.  That’s the only true connection between you and the people you want to buy from you.

So, for the record, our mantra is this – and it’s been this since we first opened our doors:  The Right Message, Compellingly Told, is Everything!  That’s marketing’s Silver Bullet.

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Dan Katz is president, creative director of LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Dan on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit  www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Dan on LinkedIn. See agency work via this link.

Why do we wear Red Shoes (and what does that have to do with your business)?

Red Shoes D2BD 2There’s a traditional Japanese proverb that says “The nail that stands out is quickly hammered down.” For generations, conformity has been a societal standard in Japan.

The funny thing is, it’s not that different in American business. More companies, large and small, are comfortable looking like all the others and doing things the way they’ve always been done. Breaking away from tradition is something one dare not do for risk of offending someone, or making the folks in the back offices uncomfortable.

To that, I say, Poppycock, balderdash, bull-pucky!

Every once in a great while, I’ll see some marketing effort that is truly exceptional, even edgy – and I’ll contact the marketer and ask about the results. Almost all tell me that the effort was successful and helped them stand out in their marketplace.

Do they get complaints? Yes, some…but mostly they get new business, so it’s worth the risk. And this has also been our experience. When an advertiser Dares to be Different, they get noticed, and sales commonly start to follow. Which is why our own motto, Dare to be Different, has been on our lips since we began in the 1990s.

And the funny thing is, it doesn’t take much to be different and get noticed.

Take our Red Shoes, which we always wear to conventions. You might say it’s our walking trademark, but really, it’s just our putting our own philosophy where our feet are.

People we’ve never met, never spoken with, stop us as we walk down the aisles wanting to know about our red shoes. When we walk along the booths, we’re always noticing how people’s eyes suddenly dart downward to our shoes and they smile. Friends will see us all the way across the hall because our red shoes stand out, even in a crowd. We even had one guy tell us, “I’ve now seen you walking down this aisle four times – but I never noticed anyone else!”

All this from just wearing a pair of red shoes. What does that tell you?

Different is visible. Different is memorable. Different is interesting.

So, the question is… will you Dare to be Different to capture attention and get new business? Or is your own comfort zone holding you back? As I always like to say, if you don’t know the answer to this, your audience certainly does.

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Dan Katz is president, creative director of LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Dan on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Dan on LinkedIn. See agency work via this link.

Why most billboards fail…and what to do about it.

Living in Los Angeles, you can’t avoid lengthy commutes, and with lengthy commutes comes lots of opportunities to see billboards.  Oh, we’ve got lots of ‘em…of all sizes…pitching everything from auto lube centers to Hollywood blockbusters.  Yes, even funeral homes and law firms use this tried-and-true medium, which as it turns out, is a great vehicle (no pun intended) for local advertising.  After all, done right, billboards can stand out.  If you’re stuck in traffic, you’re a captive audience.  They’re a great “reminder” medium supporting other marketing efforts.  And they can be located strategically, even across the street from a competitor!

Outdoor advertising, which includes billboards, bus benches, bus sides, bus shelters, subway panels and even entire sides of buildings, can be hugely effective if the creative is done correctly.  That’s the rub, because there’s a whole lot of outdoor that just sucks and the marketers don’t even know it.  Their messages are practically invisible, even if positioned at the best intersections of the city.

Yet doing it right isn’t all that difficult as long as one follows some basic guidelines.  Here are a few pointers that can lead to much more effective outdoor advertising.

Interestingly, the same pointers also apply to just about any medium that is either small or a quick read, such as online banners, yellow page ads or tee-shirts.

To start with, respect the medium.  It’s only big when you’re standing right next to it.  But in your car, it’s barely the size of your own thumb when you hold your hand at arm’s length.  And at 45 – 65 miles per hour, it’s only in view for about 5 seconds!

So a good way to test your billboard is to print it out on a sheet of paper and stand far enough back so your thumb can block it out.  Then look at it for 5 seconds.  If you can’t read the message for that tiny amount of time, redesign the artwork so you can.  That’s your litmus test.

Focus on one single, simple message. Don’t make the viewer have to work for it.  Have one thing you want to say, say it well, say it quickly and say it simply. And the same goes with any photo or artwork.  If someone has to figure out the picture in the few seconds they have, it will be a lost cause.

At the same time, don’t bury your product or brand. When all’s said and done, people must know who or what is being advertised. I see plenty of boards that only after I’ve driven past them a number of times do I know who’s the sponsor.  If your brand isn’t Coke or Target or MacDonald’s, make the logo or product a major element.

And finally, billboards are a great reminder medium.  They’re a great branding medium.  But unless you have a really simple vanity phone number or super-simple and memorable URL, don’t rely on your billboards to generate immediate action if someone has to write down a number or website while driving.

In the end, the old K I S S rule applies – keep it simple.  But also, don’t forget to make it powerful too.

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Dan Katz is president, creative director of LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Dan on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Dan on LinkedIn. See agency work via this link.

What Trump has taught us about the new rules of Marketing

Alternate PhotoWhether you love Donald Trump or you hate him, there’s one thing you’ll have to agree on:  He broke every rule of presidential politics…and won!  The guy has said things, the guy has done things that every pundit said would lose him the election.  And he won!!!

So what’s going on here?  What’s the message that a company like yours must take away from the last year and a half?

It’s that all the traditional rules and all the conventional thinking about marketing no longer matter – in fact they might actually work against you.  The climate in the country is CHANGE.

IN with bold.  IN with audacious.  IN with clean sweeps.  And OUT with the Status Quo!

We’ve all heard the phrase, maybe within your organization or department, “That’s not the way we do it here.”  In the case of now-President Trump, he certainly didn’t buy into that line. This phrase is used to defend against change. It’s the easy way of avoiding having to change or embrace better alternatives. But the problem with defending “the way we’ve always done it” is it keeps us from doing something new. It keeps us from having to change.

Change forces us to take a position. Taking positions expose us to potential criticism and critique and that makes us uncomfortable. So, to keep from being criticized and being uncomfortable we do the “same old stuff.”  But Trump has changed all that.  The new rules in this post-election world are: Dare to go on the offensive.  Dare to do things differently.  Dare to look forward.  Dare to be audacious.  Dare to risk failure.

In fact, Donald Trump stole a line right out of our hymn book: “Dare to be Different,” and now he’s sitting in the oval office.  The Status Quo is over, whether you like it or not.  And if you’re not ready to change, well, ask Hilary Clinton how it feels to be on the outside of the White House looking in.

The rules are being re-written even as we speak.  So I’m breaking one of my own and putting our agency pitch video right here at the end – because it’s all about change.

I’m Rolf Gutknecht and I approve this message!

Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

Discovering the disconnect between Strategy and Success

 

Tracks 2I can remember it like it was yesterday: I and some others from my agency team along with the client’s CMO were sitting in the office of the CEO for a Fortune 100 company presenting the advertising campaign for the year.  The CEO looked at us and pointedly said, “Strategy is results!”  What he meant was that the strategy doesn’t matter as long as you are producing results.  This CEO saw: strategy = analysis and execution = getting things done, and he attributed more value to doing than to analyzing. Strategy statements like “Being the brand of choice in the vertical markets we serve” and similar statements were not for him. And frankly, I’m not a fan of them either.

But, any seasoned marketer knows that a marketing strategy is about the series of choices you make on where to play and how to win to maximize long-term value. Execution is producing results in the context of those choices. Therefore, you can’t have good implementation without having good strategy. Most everyone would agree that you just can’t achieve good results without having good execution; similarly, most would agree that having a good strategy alone is no guarantee for success. But, too many jump to the wrong conclusion that this makes execution or implementation more important than strategy. OK, so let’s look at that for a moment.

It’s pretty obvious to all that creating “The Strategy” is cool…it’s sexy. And who wouldn’t want to be part of the team that developed “The Strategy,” right?  But actually creating it right requires thought, knowledge, and understanding of the audience and marketplace, and creativity.  Look at any university setting and you’ll see that MBA courses stress strategy.  We worry about social media strategies, mobile marketing strategies, strategies for enhancing customer engagement or customer experience, advertising strategies, SEO strategies, lead generation marketing strategies, sales strategies, and on and on.

You’ll get no argument for me when saying that a well-thought-out and written strategy is critically important to business success.  But here’s something that a lot of marketing people don’t always consider to the extent they should: the soft underbelly of strategy is implementation. Without implementation, even the most brilliant strategy is just words, a hope, an untested premise. We all know this intellectually, of course, but we don’t necessarily follow through on that knowledge and make it the priority it should be.  Implementation is generally left to some coordinator or least experienced member of the team.  Or even to an automated program.

Okay, we all know that the implementation and all the hard work that goes along with putting a strategy into the marketplace has to be done by someone.  Initiatives don’t get completed by stating them on paper; they require action, management and follow up. And from my experience working with organizations of various sizes, I’d say that no VP of Marketing or CMO can – or should – try to do everything.  But in the same breath, we can’t just assume that everyone who is diligently working on the tactics is actually supporting the overall marketing and business strategy that was created.  Implementing different pieces of the program is not the same as true implementation to achieve the organization’s business objectives.  Poor tactics, poor coordination, and poor implementation of even a great strategy have led to as many flops as a poorly created strategy.

Here’s a quick real life example: An athletic shoe manufacturer sent me email after email telling me to stop by their upcoming trade show booth, and by turning in a printed copy of the email, I would receive a certificate for significant savings off their athletic shoes. Guess what happened when I showed up at the booth? No one, and I mean NO ONE at the booth knew anything about the offer. “Don’t know what this is all about,” or “No one told us about this,” were all anyone there could say.

So, at the risk of being overly obvious, the heart of the implementation of a marketing plan is the execution, the actual doing of the planned marketing activities. Successful marketing implementation requires:

  • Attention to detail
  • Staying on top of “who’s doing what”
  • Accountability of those involved…no passing the buck
  • No waiting till tomorrow. No procrastination!

Mere implementation is not always that difficult. The hard part is implementing things in an organized way. And, it’s the cohesiveness of the strategy’s implementation tactics where the revenues (the results that the Fortune 100 company CEO talked about) will be generated.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

Looking Back to the Future

looking back“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”  – Soren Kierkegaard

The last quarter of 2016 is almost history and as we stand poised to welcome 2017 in less than 2 weeks, we hope for a future that is successful, rewarding and where your dreams will be realized. Having seen the start of more than a few “new business years” during my career, I’ve learned that you can do one of two things in preparation for the coming year. You can yet again try to create a brand new marketing strategy for the coming year or you can pause, look back and do some serious reflecting, resolving to change, or improve some aspect about how you will initiate your future marketing campaigns. For some people, looking back over the past year may be something better left in the rearview mirror; on the other hand, burying your head in the sand can be seen as the primary ingredient in a recipe for another disappointing year…and you know how much the CEO/President/Owner/Founder loves that kind of thinking. So, before one celebrates the dawn of a new year…take time to ask yourself what are you going to do to change? What does success in 2017 look like to you and your executive management team?

Speaking for myself and our firm, the end of each year is met with a healthy dose of optimism for the coming year. We see 2017 through a lens of hopefulness, that things will continue to get better. Is that just us or will you and your organization also view the coming year with a level of anticipation that you haven’t had for a few years? Hey, it’s been tough for most everyone out there but let’s remember that at least a few organizations — perhaps some of your own competitors — have fared better than most despite these trying times. So what have they done to plot a course for a more optimistic and profitable path for success in 2017?

Depending on marketplace factors coupled with how well you were able to strategically position and market your company, the past year was either seen as a success or another year of same-old, or even a disappointment.  The question that begs to be asked here is, how much of last year’s growth or lack thereof was because of something you had no control over, such as good or bad luck, and how much was because of something you specifically chose to do or not do?  I’ve found through personal experience this is the time to be totally honest with yourself.  As Sigmund Freud said, “Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”

Hey, I’m all for a bit of luck but you probably don’t want to continue betting future success on lucky things happening in the coming year.  With this in mind, here are a few questions to ask yourself as thought starters as you begin the process of looking in the rearview mirror at this past year and through your windshield to the next:

  • What marketing activities worked for you and which ones didn’t in 2016?
  • What 2 or 3 trends did you notice have taken place in your industry and outside of it that you need to incorporate into 2017 activities?
  • What 5 pieces of really good customer feedback did you receive this past year that you need to take deliberate action on?
  • Is there one part of your marketing activities that if it got more attention could yield better results?
  • What are the 2 mission-critical initiatives that absolutely need to be accomplished by June 30th 2017?
  • What are the top 3-5 problem areas that could impact your bottom line or stunt the growth of your brand if you don’t tackle them now?
  • What are the 3-5 opportunities that could grow your bottom line, brand visibility and preference?
  • How did your marketing (from strategy to execution) match up with your competitors? Was it “beige”- boring or was it “full of color”- impactful?
  • What do you produce, offer or do that excites your audience and makes them think “Wow!”

As marketers, one thing we know for sure is that change will not stop in 2017. The marketplace will continue to shift on us, and so will the economy. But by reflecting back on 2016, taking control of your marketing activities rather than being tossed around by the waves in the market, along with thinking optimistically about what 2017 can hold, this New Year might actually be a year worth celebrating.  It will be for us and hopefully will be for you as well.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

Six Marketing Lessons from the Election

political-adI’m so glad it’s over. Probably like you, my home phone was being called at an increasing rate the closer that we got to Election Day. Candidates’ faces and names were everywhere and on everything from direct mail to lawn signs and outdoor boards to TV and radio commercials.  As annoying as it was, there were a number of messaging strategies and tactics that caught my attention because they were executed exceedingly well, which, as marketers, we should consider adding to our communication toolkits for use tomorrow, next week or next month. For as we all know, your customer and prospects are still being bombarded with marketing messages each and every day by both you and your competitors.

So let me share with you some strategies and tactics used by politicians leading up to November 8th that are worth remembering today.

1)      Understand the takeaway

Truth is, these folks do have some things to teach us marketers, particularly regarding messaging. They see the world a bit differently than we do, and use techniques most people didn’t learn in school or on the job, such as: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear. You can have the best message in the world, but the person on the receiving end will always understand it through the prism of his or her own emotions, preconceptions, prejudices, and existing beliefs. We focus too much of our energy on finding the best way to sell our message, and too little on understanding the filters consumers have as we deliver it. Political marketers care more about takeaways than inputs.

2)     Make it look good

Did you see the biographic videos produced by the two Presidential candidates? They were extraordinarily well done. A number of other political ads were also well done from a storytelling and video perspective. They stayed on message concentrating on the one critical point (not 4 or 5 points) that they wanted to make sure was communicated. The videos were shot and narrated well. They didn’t hire amateurs to do their work but had expert writers and producers creating the content. Like with your business, there’s too much at stake to do cheap stuff because everyone knows what cheap means. People interpret what your company or brand stands for based on the quality of creative and the media channel it’s presented on. Don’t go out until you look good.

3)     Be the genuine article

Business marketing sometimes seems to stretch the truth a bit too much. When marketing messages are sufficiently visible and sufficiently wrong, the press will get wind and call you on the truth of your marketing. Transparency of your brand could never be more important. It is less about giving the appearance of perfection and more about being genuine and human as we build relationships. While it’s critically important to craft your story and advocate for the benefits of your product or service, it’s not fine to lie about them. My mom use to tell me “Lies have short legs,” meaning you can’t outrun the truth …so don’t stretch.

4)     You are who you say you are

In the world of politics, I would argue that there’s nothing as important as branding and having people recognize what the brand stands for. Brand consistency is always maintained.  Unlike politicians, too many companies struggle with this, swinging wildly from one branding concept to another. In political ads, everything from the taglines to the logos to the visuals has been choreographed beautifully. Get your branding figured out right now. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to determine if your branding is clear:

  • Could your customers tell you what your tagline is?
  • Could company employees draw your logo?
  • Can any employee explain in 10-15 seconds why your company can do it better than the competition?

5)     Be social…not antisocial

Politicians don’t just post stuff to their respective Twitter or Facebook accounts and hope people will read it. Rather, they actually engage with their social media audience. They post images and video. They have their immediate families and supporters use social media regularly. How is your company using social media to spread the good word about your company? I’ll be the first to say that spending a lot of time, money and resources on social media is not right for every company, maybe not even yours, but without some presence, you’re letting the competition become more visible and be seen as a legitimate business partner at your expense.

6)     Tell the story again and again

Why are most political ads annoying? Some of it is the content, but I think most of the annoyance is the sheer quantity of political advertising as elections draw near. But politicians know one thing: without a communications budget that allows you to be out in the market in a way that shows you’re a player, you won’t get the job done. Far too many companies who do “invisible marketing” base their companies short and long term success on thinking that customers will pick them over a brand that’s actively marketing and better known. The takeaway is that repetition is key …but too much repetition annoys.

As I said earlier, I’m glad the madness of the political advertising season is over. But I’m grateful to have observed it from a marketer’s perspective, because it’s a reminder that each and every day customers and prospects are voting who they want to do business with.  Let the winner be you.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

Settle for so-so or battle for brilliance?

business armyOh, the wonder of beautifully crafted taglines. Those few strategically selected words that sum up everything your business stands for and what you want your target audience to know about you. They’ve made companies fortunes by telling people what makes them standout in the sea of sameness. Consider FedEx’s brilliant “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” Nine simple words that tell FedEx buyers precisely what they’re going to get, while simultaneously informing all of its employees what their mission is. What if FedEx’s slogan was “We ship things!”?  Would Nike be as successful if it allowed an executive committee to red-pencil “Just do it” into “When you need great shoes”? How would BMW’s vision change if “The Ultimate Driving Machine” became “Our cars are fun to drive!” My point is that these companies didn’t settle for weak platitudes or vague, generalized statements that could have applied to their competitors.  Nope, they decided that they weren’t going to settle. Instead standing out and differentiating themselves was business-critical. Can the same be said for your company and its marketing?  Do you have a themeline or slogan that makes you stand out?  Is it unique and memorable? Or is it mediocre because somewhere down the line, people settled?

Let’s face it, we have a tendency to settle. It’s almost human nature. We settle for something that’s not just quite right, an outfit that isn’t our best look, a job that doesn’t maximize our talents or an ad or website page that’s okay or just “good enough.” While the act of compromise in life, relationships and particularly conflict is an admirable trait, compromise or “settling for” in marketing is a death knell.

You see, the whole point of your marketing activities is to get noticed; get engaged with your audience; and have your work be acted upon to bring in the business.  Alternatively, anonymity, swimming in the center of a school of other fish, may be a good survival tactic if you are an anchovy, but it is not a good survival tactic for business.  So you have to wonder why so much marketing – and so many marketers – feel the need to play “follow the leader” with respect to marketing trends.

The logic is that if others have done something successfully, you just need to do the same thing. Well, maybe. And then again, maybe not.  As we all know, breakthrough products and breakthrough marketing campaigns are not achieved through conformity. Note the word “break” in breakthrough.  These are the products and campaigns that break the rules.  These are the products and campaigns that use insight, intuition, experience, sensitivity to the marketplace – and arguably the most important thing….courage – to do things differently. To break away from the status quo.

It is certainly true that most companies don’t have that innate insight and courage to be successfully different.  We can’t all be like Steve Jobs. But for those are willing to do things differently and well, for those who want their companies to stand out, then the only rule that matters is:  You cannot achieve exceptional success through conformity.

To that end, you can have your brand and product/service stand out if you’re willing to take a risk. For starters, ask yourself these three questions:

1. What’s can you say about your company that’s seen as a unique or fresh alternative to your competitors? This can range from the product or service you offer to the way you do business to that of sharing your wisdom. Think beyond the obvious. Dig deeper. Ask yourself a bunch of “So what does that mean?” and “Why would our customer care?” with each answer that’s given.

2. What medium makes the most sense for your brand?  The goal is to create a campaign that drives conversation and ultimately revenue. So what imaginative or different ways (to what you’ve been doing) should be explored and implemented. Doing the same thing from one campaign to another, especially given all of the new technological and interesting messaging channels out there, is not only boring but could be seen by management as, well, not a great reflection on yourself.

3. How will you execute your campaign?  Don’t risk looking amateurish or wasting time by trying to save money. Engage yourself with people that can help you get to the BIG idea and then help you implement it in a way that you and your executive management team are proud of.  You’ll always remember the big successes, while you’ll forget how much money you saved or spent.

Clearly, whether it is investing in advertising, developing a little more creativity, spending the time to follow-up or making the effort to engage with your customers, you can easily elevate your marketing to where it needs to be. Anyways, what progressive marketer wants to settle for second best, or worse, be recognized as mediocre?  That doesn’t play well either at the current company or when you need to show your portfolio of work if switching jobs. Instead, risk being brilliant instead.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

Marketing Is Not “Paint by Numbers”

Paint by NumbersOh, the world of numbers. To those involved in Marketing, it goes with the territory. We look at the marketplace and how many prospective customers there might be. We slice and dice demographic information and analyze demographic trends. We do quantitative market research. We fixate on how many likes, follows, shares, retweets, etc. have occurred. And we’re not finished yet as new and more “effective” metrics are constantly being developed. While tracking marketing numbers isn’t like keeping up with the stats of, say, baseball, for many marketers, numbers are almost everything. And for some, they are everything.

Now, I’m pretty good at math. So, numbers don’t give me cold sweats, but truth be told, when it comes to marketing, I’m not a Big Data guy at all. I’m not one to get all caught up in the numbers game. The reason being that while I’m an “account guy,” I understand what really good creative, execution and integration will do toward driving sales compared to run-of-the-mill stuff. On more than one occasion, our agency has spoken with prospective clients who tell us how their marketing metrics are sucking wind. Our first response is: “Let’s look at the creative you’re running and what it’s saying.” When it’s shown to us, there’s little doubt what is creating the angst.

For my liking, there are far too many marketers that rely heavily on numbers to drive the marketing decisions. Everything has to have a value and must be measured. A former boss of mine who came from a LARGE national company once said to me after meeting with a “numbers marketer” that marketing is not a paint-by-numbers game where if you follow the color assignments and stay within the lines, the end result would be a beautiful painting. Viola! Instant success…without expending much thought, energy or creativity. And, that’s what I fear is what is happening to marketing.

From where I sit, you can see when this takes place. Look at a TV commercial, or radio spot, or tradeshow booth, or go online. There seems to be more and more marketers who are buying into templates, guides and models. It’s as if the marketplace is just a large paint canvas fractured into tiny parts, which, if you paint each activity with the right color and stay within the lines, you’ll have a winning marketing program. Not so! What I believe happens more times than not is that you don’t end up with a masterpiece but rather a painting of dogs sitting around the table playing poker…you know the one.

For a marketing program to be as clever, contemporary, and inviting enough to gain your audience’s attention, it requires meaningful thought, understanding, listening and… creativity. Uniqueness. Unfortunately, creativity and emotion are often scrubbed clean (and out of the picture) much to the happiness of many marketers who rely merely on data.

Yet some brands manage to break-away from the status quo and attain results.  These brands — and those people who oversee them — combine experience and talent with a commitment to being fearless.

And then other brands try to find equal results by copying them. Remember “Got Milk”? Soon after, we saw “Got Plumber” and “Got Rice” and “Got …whatever” In the case of our agency, we developed a marketing program for a client that used a weeping angel statue (like you find in cemeteries) to demonstrate how one would feel using the wrong type of business software. Hardly a few months after, a direct competitor used strikingly similar imagery and messaging. Really?!? I guess imitating was their template to seeing better results rather than trying to come up with something original themselves. They (the competitor) were trying to paint-by-numbers into a template not of their own making.

So what are the takeaways from all of this:
• Having metrics drive all your marketing decisions, void of smart, clever, on-point messaging that resonates with your audience, is a road with a dead-end. Which is probably not what you really want.
• Templates and “how to” guides do not lend themselves to creativity.
• If you are responsible for marketing, it is your job to think differently. Painting by the numbers and staying within the lines won’t yield profits.
• BONUS: “The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting until you say and do things imaginatively, originally, freshly.” – Bill Bernbach

In the end, while numbers and data help marketers define the market and opportunities that present themselves, as well as quantifying the buyer’s journey, remember that lasting relationships and brand loyalty are the result of original thinking.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

What’s your company’s Achilles Heel?

AchillesHere’s an interesting question that you don’t ask yourself every day: If you left your present organization and went to work for a competitor, knowing what you know about your present firm, what would you then do from a marketing standpoint to grow market share at your old company’s expense?

As marketers, the tendency is to look at what your competitors are doing and saying and, if important enough, figure out how to mitigate it so it does no harm to your firm. BUT, when you take a look at your own organization through the lens of someone who has inside knowledge about your firm’s “Achilles heel,” as well as the plans you have in place for the future, an entirely different set of issues present themselves. And, that’s a good thing if you do it as part of a healthy review of your business and its marketing activities.

I’ve had business dealings with lots of marketing folks who have left one company to join another whose insights on their past employer have played an important part in the growth of their new firm. Now I know you’re saying, “Well, that isn’t right. People should keep what they know to themselves and not share that at the expense of their past firm.” I hear you, but I have a different view on that. If my job performance and my family and career prospects depend on my being successful, then knowing what I know is going to come into play either consciously or on some other level. And that, my friends, happens all-day every-day in this “new normal” business environment. Putting a company’s marketing efforts on auto-pilot and then playing the “Woe is me” card isn’t going to cut it as an excuse.  (NOTE: I’m NOT talking about a former employee illegally or immorally appropriating a company’s passwords or passing along genuine trade secrets or violating terms of an NDA, just to be clear.)

Maybe the best example of what I’m talking about takes place in competitive team sports.  Coaches, managers and players are always looking to fine tune areas that they feel the other team could exploit for their benefit.  Teams watch films of games and their own practices to identify things that they could be doing better before the other team can identify those problem areas. They talk to players who have come from another team to get some inside intelligence on what other teams see as limitations or flaws. Only taking this knowledge into account and addressing it can the team feel confident that they’re prepared for what lies ahead. It shouldn’t be any different for your company. Taking an introspective look at how or whether your marketing initiatives and business approach is susceptible to a counter attack is something that should be done before current and future plans are placed in jeopardy.

So now the question is, “how do we as an organization start the process?” I’d suggest the first place to start is the good-old, time-tested SWOT analysis, something that can be implemented almost immediately.  To begin the process, have those associated with your firm’s marketing functions put together their own SWOT analysis on the specific marketing activities that the company is engaged with, i.e., PR, Tradeshow/Events, Advertising, Social Media, Pricing, Promotion, etc. Then, assemble the team to discuss, review and make decisions on the input with an eye towards creating a next-steps plan to shore up marketing functions and activities that are critical to the success of the company’s integrated marketing program.

Remember, the idea of performing a SWOT analysis is to accomplish two primary things:

One:  Reduce Risk.  Improve the viability of your company by pairing up external threats with internal weaknesses to highlight the most serious issues faced by your company.

Two: Improve Performance. What actions you should consider to improve the performance of your business by pairing up internal strengths with the external opportunities.

With everything on Marketing’s plate today and the urgency in which it needs to get done, there’s a real danger of losing sight of the basics. Who has the time, right? Well, if we lose sight of the need to regularly and carefully look at what we think our company is (warts and all), particularly in light of all the resources we use or spend in the ever-evolving marketplace – not just our guesses about it – we risk losing all that we work so hard to achieve: increasing revenues and market share.

The time-tested marketing adage has never been more true: If you don’t really know where you are, it is much more difficult to get where you want to be.  And knowing what your company’s particular “Achilles Heel” is and taking moves to protect it will go a long way toward your winning the race.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

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