What is Marketing?
Advertising is planting seeds.
Selling is irrigating the plants, pulling weeds and hoping for the harvest.
Marketing is finding and plowing the field. It precedes everything else.
Advertising is planting seeds.
Selling is irrigating the plants, pulling weeds and hoping for the harvest.
Marketing is finding and plowing the field. It precedes everything else.
Making political hay from the difficulties caused by Vioxx and other drugs, Congresswomen Rosa L. DeLauro of Connecticut, chairwoman of the Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee, and Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri introduced the Responsibility in Drug and Device Advertising Act of 2008 (H.R. 6151), to the House of Representatives in May, 2008.
Their own press release, dated May 22, 2008, explains what they want the act to do:
1.Establish a three year moratorium on direct-to-consumer ads for new medicines with a possible waiver if the product is proven to to be of affirmative value to public health;
2.Provide authority to require corrective materials to be distributed if drug companies violate the advertising moratorium;
3.Include strong civil penalties that apply to all violations of the ad provisions or other requirements of the Act;
4.Require the advertising to prominently display information about the potential drug and device side effects;
5.Call for a public education campaign on the risks of certain drugs.
This ill-conceived plan deprives pharmaceutical companies of the chance for a reasonable return on their research and development investments.
Such moratoria, while cynically claimed to protect the public, shorten the period of time that innovative medical products can be marketed before manufacturers lose patent protection.
They allow competitors three years to create products to compete with the innovators.
They keep the innovator from establishing market dominance with a product even if the innovation itself creates the category.
How will American manufacturers be able to continue to lead the world in innovation and development if politicians are allowed to interfere in the marketplace?
Let’s suggest a moratorium on all advertising by incumbent politicians until they prove themselves not to be dangerous to the body politic.
J.David Knepper Audio Version
The principles of advertising have never changed.
New media explode onto the scene with amazing regularity. New schemes promise new ways of manipulating the behavior of groups. New ideas demand their places in media budgets.
But there are certain constants that must be considered. Groups are made up of individuals. Individuals are not defined by the groups they populate. Individuals act as individuals for individual reasons. They need to be convinced, not manipulated.
Proper advertising convinces individuals reached through a mass medium. The message should outlast the medium.
Why? Because…
…the principles of advertising have never changed.
J.David Knepper
Media offerings currently available to advertisers include:
movie and television show placements,
mobile signs, text messages,
calls to your cell phone at all hours,
outdoor with changing electronic displays,
changing electronic displays on taxis that change messages for different parts of town by GPS,
local magazines of all sorts,
email solicitations,
bathroom advertising,
bar room hustling to create buzz,
gas pump advertising,
buses, blimps, balloons!
Are these media legitimate?
Yes. If advertising is simply putting product names in front of eyeballs, all of these work to one degree or another.
Effective? Maybe. Tell me your message and I’ll tell you whether your advertising will be effective at selling your product or service.
If your message is bland, you can tell it to everyone in the world and no-one will pay any attention.
If your message is compelling, you won’t have trouble finding customers with it.
Don’t believe me?
Buy an ad in the smallest publication you know. Put your ad under a headline legitimately promising “Free Beer” and see what happens. You’ll need a cop to control the traffic. People respond to ads that interest them. And they call to tell their friends about such ads.
You need to develop the proper message to share. Then and only then should you talk about what medium to use to convey it to the public.
It’s not that the medium isn’t important.
It’s just that the message is vastly more important.
J.David Knepper
Small business owners need to determine how they want their their advertising handled; like a casual Lotto ticket purchase or a crucial business investment.
Consider this. So many times, small businessmen and women decide to ‘try’ advertising in the newspaper. They want to see if it works. They want to put a little bit into the effort to see if they get enough bang for the buck. They don’t have money to waste like big companies.
Here is the truth backed up by hundreds of years of experience by a mature industry.
If done properly, advertising in the newspaper will bring a business the customers it needs. If done properly, advertising in the newspaper will show a large return on investment. If done properly, advertising in the newspaper will make all other advertising efforts more successful.
Much advertising by small business follows a pattern of buying an ad in the paper and trying to determine whether there are enough customers coming through the door to pay for it. If there is an immediate response to the ad, everything is fine. The effort continues until the first downturn in sales.
At that point, the advertiser becomes vulnerable to the first media person to step through the door with an offer of something else.
That medium is tried. Again, if it is perceived as immediately successful, it replaces the former effort. And again, the effort is continued until the next downturn in sales when it is replaced by yet another, according to its sales rep, sure fire advertising medium.
This cycle is repeated endlessly in many small businesses. But when the business finally closes, the owner returns to the newspaper to advertise his going out of business sale.
His approach is much like buying a Lotto ticket. He gets immediate feedback as to whether the investment produced a return. As long as he’s winning, everything is fine with buying Lotto tickets.
But if he loses money at Lotto for a while, what do he do? He switches. He tries scratch-offs or on-line betting or visits the casinos. He tries different things to find out what works.
Here’s a secret. The big companies didn’t get that way by wasting advertising dollars on every exciting new concept that is presented to them. They stick with mainline media for one reason only. They sell product. They know that the message is more important than the medium that delivers it.
Pick an established medium. Craft an excellent message or pay someone to craft an excellent message. Run it as much as you can afford to run it.
That way, you’re treating your advertising like an investment and can expect a return on your investment that will last for years.
J.David Knepper
Audio version
1. When a local governmental agency has an opportunity to contract for a significant Branding and Marketing Campaign for a local project, and
2. Highly talented and resourceful advertising agents and marketing experts live and work in the area being promoted or within a few miles of it, and
3. The cost of bringing people into the area is more expensive every day…
…why would the leaders of the local governmental agency hire people from halfway across the continent for the project?
Hmm.