Five Universal Truths in Marketing & Advertising

In my current gig, I'm doing something I've been lucky enough to do a lot in my professional life, and that's pitch to an entirely new category with entirely new rules of the road. (In this case, pharma to health care providers.) But the more things change, the more they stay the same, and the commonalities might inspire in your own day to day.

1) Relevance and timing always matters.

No matter what you are pitching, getting it to the target with optimal placement, sequence and utility is worth its weight in gold. Otherwise known as why adtech companies exist, really.

2) List trumps offer, and both trump creative.

T'was ever thus. If you aren't playing in the right arena, and bringing the right pitch, it doesn't matter how well you might execute it. I've seen some truly regrettable pieces deliver great results, and perfect shiny objects fail. In so many different categories and channels.

3) Niche players don't care that they are niche.

No matter how specialized a list is -- and in my current gig, we can cut it down more than any provider I've ever worked for -- it's not as if those people wake up in the morning and fail to breathe air, grope for the coffee and struggle with a commute. Everyone is subject to the same kind of challenges and issues that others face. If everything in your consideration set is about the niche, your work will never try enough execution options to learn optimal practices.

4) Tactical wins travel.

There are test results that I've picked up in wildly different categories, and sometimes not even in the same channels, that inform my work today. That's because most creative test wins work for reasons behind niche reasons, especially when the results are conclusive and repeatable. Besides, most of our current lists are affluent, in demographics I've pitched to before, and overlap other clients. Experience, and a good memory, helps.

5) Every audience rewards respect.

A side note. Nearly a decade ago, I was doing acquisition work for a very compromised category that offered financial services to people with poor credit. Dominant art was all about fans of money, and if you didn't read the copy, you might think that you were reading lottery ads. Faced with a sameness issue that highly compromised learning optimal practices, my team and I created pieces that spoke to specific very good reasons why the prospect might have a need for cash fast. Hospital emergencies, transportation problems, services shut offs, and so on.

The ads performed nearly as well on response as the fanned currency. But more importantly, they did dramatically better on conversion. By bringing the point of the ad to the prospect's very good and very real reasons for converting, we put them in a better frame of mind to take the action we wanted them to take. That approach quickly took hold across the industry.

Regardless of category, your prospects are likely time-stressed, easily distracted, and wanting to be efficient with their browsing decisions. Designing and executing your campaign around their needs, rather than branding points or legal dictates, is almost always a clear win.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Managing for breakthrough insights

Finding your insight

In the current day gig, I got to do something that's almost always a hallmark of a winning position. I get to call my shots.

What does this mean in a marketing and advertising context? Well, I can't get into the very proprietary details, because you have to be one of our clients to benefit from what's being learned. But I can tell you my qualifying points on what I'm looking for in an insight.

1) Does it have a story?

Think of this as the analytics equivalent of an elevator pitch. To me, this means that what you are bringing to the table comes from work that you've done before. Also, that you can summarize it quickly. It's not that you need to dumb down the business, but you do need to be able to explain the insight at a 5,000 foot level, and not get lost in the weeds. People are busy, and they shouldn't have to live in your head space for a half an hour to get the benefit.

2) Does it have measurables?

Especially in creative executions, there's nothing like putting numbers to your new way of doing things. It takes everything away from who did what and whose role is being threatened, and into the realm of an optimal learning engine, where everyone has some skin in the game from better art.

3) Does it scale?

When it comes to analytics, you don't want one-off solutions that can't be used outside of a single execution or two. What you want is that classic old-school direct marketing gold, where you can replicate the win in other places.

A final point: there really isn't anything better, in this line of work, then having your goals in your own hands. Because when you've been a consultant for as long as I have, you know the speed in which you want to work, or the tangents where you are going to explore. Explaining every step of the way probably means you are going to skip steps, or never take the long way and learn something deeper.

So if you ever find yourself managing someone in my tribe? Don't just get their buy in. Get their all in, because when you do that, you'll get so much more than what you were asking for.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

My Super Bowl Ad Dream

Buy Me By The Pound

So here's a fun moment from the feeds last week, says the consultant who was clearly responsible for the monster snow storm by having fun at the expense of people who freak out over snow storms...

 Advertisers who release their Super Bowl ad on social media before the big game get much more from their campaign than those that wait.

Which means, well, one great and very meta point: You don't really *need* to have your ad on the telecast to get a significant amount of the pop.

You just need people to *think* it will be there, and they will put it in the same list of ads.

You can also go for the super meta version of this, which is when you say your ad has been rejected due to a network's standards and practices as being Too Hot For TV. We call this the Go Daddy route, though even that business has gotten away from that, seeing how, well, no one ever remembered what Go Daddy did from their ads.

Anyway, now that we've cracked the code of the Emperor's New Ad Roll, a small but potent point that will eventually reach mainstream attention...

Why are some ads considered to be content, and only for a limited time, just because they have a large media buy?

A 30-second spot in this year's game is said to sell for $5 million, while the telecast itself will reach around 115 million viewers. So if the advertisers wanted to just reach people directly -- say, through the same YouTube channel that many people will use to view the ads before or after the game -- they could do say, and cut out the middleman with direct micro-payments. And since we all know, as advertising and marketing pros, that some of those households are far more valuable than others, particularly for the automotive buyers...

Well, let's put it this way. I'm considering a new car purchase in the next 90 to 120 days. I'm looking at a crossover SUV, as we're a family of four with a dog and significant storage needs, with the occasional vacation travel trip. I have a good credit rating, and I don't have a locked in brand type. I am willing to watch ads... but only for the right price. 

So hit me, Nation's Automotive Advertisers. Save on your TV spend and show me your 30-second spot for just, say, $5 per 30 seconds.

Heck, I'll even agree to watch 10 of them a day, or submit my information so you can check my credit ratings and my past new car purchases, so you can see my sterling reputation as the sweet spot in your demographic.

And all you have to do is get away from an antiquated and absurd media buying approach, and into a thoroughly modern absurd media buying approach. Can't wait to hear from you! And a dozen others just like you, so that we can be truly informed about our next new car. (Mostly, informed about how we can miss a few of the payments.) 

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.