Marketing Advertising – The "No, Nos" of Marketing Advertising
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The terms “marketing” and “advertising” seem to overlap in the minds of most Americans. However, marketing and advertising are actually two distinct processes, where marketing is the process with a broader scope. However, the two processes do correspond in many ways and do overlap in actual practice. The process of advertising for instance can benefit from typical marketing processes especially during pre-phase advertisement stages. The marriage of marketing and advertisement could perhaps result in the newly coined phrase: marketing advertising.
Four Reasons Advertising Can Fail and Why “Marketing Advertising” is More Effective
According to an online article, 10 Rules for More Effective Advertising2, there are numerous ways that even ad professionals can knowingly or unknowingly make a flop of an advertisement campaign.
Some of the unfortunate techniques include the following:
- Using information presented in an A-Z format, without interlacing the information in a story that people can relate to.
- Not being explicit about the purpose of the advertisement. Subtle advertisements aren’t necessarily a good thing. Advertisers should make the call to action apparent.
- Failing to “speak” to the emotions of viewers. According to the article, “There are eight basic, universal emotions – joy, surprise, anticipation, acceptance, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust.” The article also states that, “An added bonus is that successful emotional appeals limit the number of exposures required for audiences to understand, learn, and respond to the calls to action – people may only need to see emotionally compelling scenes once and they will remember those scenes for a lifetime.”
- Using inferences and conclusions that are too complex. Advertisements are not meant to be complex. Otherwise the convenience of advertisement wouldn’t be convenient any longer, would it?
I would also add that a big marketing advertising “no, no” is avoiding the foundational element of market research. Without market research, an advertising agency may even bypass the advertising mistakes mentioned above and still fail to stimulate action among a specific audience.
Market Research: Start a Marketing Advertising Campaign the Right Way
An advertiser doesn’t have to be a marketer to realize that knowing his or her audience (i.e. his or her market) is effective for better advertisements. Besides avoiding the mistakes mentioned above, advertisers or marketing advertising experts need to know their market as thoroughly as their budget and energies will allow, as some commercials (even with all the recommended elements) may fail to stimulate an audience to action. Take the Burger King “Herb the Nerd” commercial (see MSNBC’s 10 Worst Super Bowl Ads of All Time3) as an example of what doesn’t work. The commercial, (though it may have contained most of the requirements inversely inferred in the list above), was a calamitous flog since many of those who viewed the commercial were annoyed by the actor who played Herb the Nerd and were perhaps also uncomfortable with the emotions that the commercial tried to evoke in the first place. With a bit more market research-or more marketing advertising–, perhaps Burger King’s agency could have avoided a million dollar fiasco.4
Even amateur marketers and advertisers are aware that market research can be extremely valuable but many are not willing to expend the time and effort it takes to find a successful direction for a marketing advertising commercial. Especially since marketers may have a sneaking suspicion that even when viewers say they like one commercial, they might actually respond more readily (or emotionally) to another commercial.5 Market research, according to allbusiness.com can be conducted with any or all of the following techniques:
- Surveys
- Focus Groups
- Personal Interviews
- Observation
- Field Trials
Market research can also include a history of the company’s own advertising projects. Campaigns that were responded to well in the past may simply need a remake.
A Final Check on the list for Marketing Advertising Techniques
After all is said and done it seems that the humor and the simplicity of an advertisement can contribute to a major commercial success. 8 The Windex Birds Commercial9 may be a good example of humor and simplicity for the Windex buying audience.
References
1 marketing.about.com/cs/advertising/a/marketvsad.htm
2 americanresearchgroup.com/adrules/
3 msnbc.msn.com/id/16790823/page/2/
4 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where%27s_Herb%3F
5 seedmagazine.com/news/2006/02/instant_study_hints_advertiser.php
6 allbusiness.com/marketing/market-research/1287-2.html
7 feedroom.businessweek.com/index.jsp?fr_story=66a1534d180cba6de0d27d48ceb0c20fa72611bd
8 usatoday.com/money/advertising/adtrack/2006-12-17-year-end-ad-track_x.htm
9 guzer.com/videos/windex_birds.php