Creating a great strategy and effective advertising

1. Creating a great strategy and effective advertising

2. Course Outline - 1 • Creating strategies that lead to good advertising • Objectives & positioning • Establishing objectives • Positioning demographics • Positioning psychology • Brand image • Nuts & bolts • Who is your target audience? • What is your promise? • What support do you have for your promise? • What distinctive tone and manner do you want to represent you? • Summary • Strategy Exercise

3. Course Outline - 2 • Creating advertising that sells: • The quarter-inch drillbit and the Two Big Questions • Basic approaches • The Big Idea • News • Story appeal • Copy approaches that work • Testimonials • Questions • Problem/solution • Editorial, advertorial • Q&A

4. Strategy: Objectives and positioning • Creating strategies that lead to good advertising • Establishing objectives • Positioning demographics • Positioning psychology • Brand image

5. Strategies: Positioning • Positioning and brand image example: Wachovia “What can ARMOR teach us about choosing a wealth manager? No matter how polished, an empty suit is still an empty suit. We’ll never ask you to connect with people who aren’t really there…”

6. Strategy: Nuts & Bolts • Creating strategies that lead to good advertising • Who is your target audience? • What is your promise? • What support do you have for your promise? • What distinctive tone and manner do you want to represent you?

7. Strategies: Target Audience • Target audience (bad) example: Blue Cross Blue Shield Exactly who is the target audience? We want them to meet this suit… “Shining Through” – but for who? Must be the insurance industry…

8. Strategies: Promise (benefit) • Promise (bad) example: NCeed “Castor oil and its derivatives have been a staple in the NCeed product mix from the beginning. We’re constantly growing our business so you can grow yours.” Hmmm. So if I buy some castor oil, there’s a wagon in one of these boxes?

9. Strategies: Support for the promise • Support example: Net2phone Loads of support! Plus a benefit in the headline.

10. Strategies: Support for the promise • Bad promise & support example: Infineum “Our comprehensive line of gear oil additives can help your products perform in-synch with today’s high-speed marketplace. “With the Infineum G Series, you get greater choice combined with Infineum’s unsurpassed reputation for value, proven technology, cost-effective solutions and worldwide customer service excellence…” (what?)

11. Strategies: Tone & manner • A very unusual voice: Despair, Inc.

12. Strategy summary • Do it! • Deal with long-term objectives • Decide what is important • Keep it simple (KISS) • Bring in the creative team – but only one team • Class exercise: Stream of consciousness: Write down objectives, positioning and possible brand images for your company.

13. Creating Advertising that Sells • The quarter-inch drillbit • The Two Big Questions: • Who cares? • Why should your client buy from you instead of someone else? • Basic approaches • The Big Idea • News • Story appeal

14. Creating advertising that sells: Big Idea • The Big Idea example: Milk Elizabeth Hurley as “Hot Mama” The Big Idea – plus some interesting ways of maintaining interest!

15. Advertising that sells: Big Idea • The Big Idea example: Claritin The film peels back to show a graphic view of the product’s benefit – a useful device for TV ads too. And… we get another testimonial

16. Advertising that sells: News • Industrial example: Vanderbilt • The Good: • “New” • Timely headline • Unexpected photo • Call to action • The Less-Than-Great: • Features but – what about benefits? • How does this photo relate to heavy-duty grease applications? Or to Vanderbilt?

17. Advertising that sells: News • Consumer example: Toyota “ALL-NEW RAV4 Handle anything” “Toyota has turned the RAV4 into a warehouse, but not at the expense of passenger comfort, with 40% more cargo space and available third-row seating…” • “New” • Illustrates Big Idea • Colorful language • Support for claim

18. Advertising that sells: Story appeal • Story appeal example: Diamonds “I do… I forever do.” “Kurt and Linda Rambis celebrated their 21st anniversary with a gift of eternity.” • Stories can be visual or verbal • Use of B&W photo punches up the image. • Big Idea

19. Creating Advertising that Sells • Copy approaches that work • Testimonials • Questions • Problem/solution • Editorial, advertorial

20. Copy approaches: Testimonials & real-life stories • EnerSperse brochure for Nalco

21. Copy approaches: Ask a question, give useful info • DemandTrac brochure for Baker Hughes “Why waste money on insurance you don’t need?” “Chances are you’re over-treating your cooling water because you can’t afford the penalties if something goes wrong. Yet if something goes wrong in a big way, your normal treatment levels may not be enough.” Questions gain readership!

22. Copy approaches: Ask a question, give useful info • Ad for Baker Petrolite: Quiz format for question “Gas turbines burn heavy fuels just like diesel engines. So why don’t turbine manufacturers have to replace their blades? What keeps turbines running smoothly for years and years? “The answer is oil-soluble magnesium fuel additives from Baker Petrolite Corporation.”

23. Copy approaches: Ask a question, give useful info • Ad for Consumer Reports Health Guide: Quiz • Junky but effective. • Interesting questions, answers that may be surprising. • Lots of support for content. • Call to action.

24. Copy approaches: Problem & solution • Cardinal Health Newsletter: Article on St. Lucie Medical Center “We had so much turnover in pharmacy–four directors in two years–that our pharmacy wasn’t efficient,” says Duana Stabile, Director of Quality & Risk Management … “We weren’t tracking adverse drug reactions and interventions, and our medication utilization reviews weren’t being done consistently. We needed a change.” The change at St. Lucie began when the 194-bed HCA hospital turned to Cardinal Health to manage its pharmacy.

25. Copy approaches: Problem & solution, editorial • Trade article for Weatherford drilling (ghostwritten) “A new look at doglegs” “A new approach to milling doglegs opens wells that might otherwise have to be plugged and abandoned.” Establish the problem, show a new way to solve it.

26. Copy approaches: Editorial • Soft-sell for Exxon “The day before yesterday it was a crumpled beer can littering the banks of Colorado’s Blue River. Today it’s part of a shiny roll of finished aluminum lid stock. And by next week, it may be a ‘silver bullet’ – Coors Light – on your grocer’s shelf.”

27. Creating Advertising That Sells • The quarter-inch drillbit: think about the benefits! • Basic approaches • The Big Idea • News • Story appeal • Copy approaches that work • Testimonials • Questions • Problem/solution • Editorial • Answers to the Two Big Questions: • Who cares? • Why should your client buy from you instead of someone else?