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April 2003
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It's OKAY to have fun!
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By Barry Urquhart
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Managing Director - Marketing Focus
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Try not to take yourself too seriously...your customers don't! If they can be believed, 87 percent of consumers contend that they neither believe nor directly respond to current advertising. Cynicism, it seems, is alive and well in Australasia.
Promises of the highest quality, the cheapest prices, the biggest range and best value appear to be dismissed as incredulous, if not incredible.
Moreover, among consumers the claims are difficult, if not impossible, to confirm or to differentiate among the plethora of similarly stated temptations.
The consequences include isolated responses, delayed reactions, shorter peak selling periods and increased leakages to competitive and substitute businesses, products and services.
Perhaps too much is expected by managers of their advertising and communication strategies. Clearly, it is overly ambitious to expect a radio, newspaper and / or television placement to be effective in the promotion, merchandising, positioning, selling and servicing of a specific offering.
Without question, the most widespread issue confronting businesses at present is to be included on the shopping list of consumers. Confidence and competence are instrumental in having sales and marketing people state emphatically that they can generally "sell" or "close" a customer when they get an opportunity to front them. Pre-qualified and self-generated enquiries by consumers are usually rich pickings for the professional marketers and salespersons. That is the missing element in many advertising and communication strategies.
IT'S TIME FOR A NEW TACT
In an over-communicated world, consumers respond best to that which is non-typical, different and challenging. Most people understand advertising. Few pizza marketers it seems know how to use it. Even fewer can quantify and monitor the effectiveness of an advertisement or a campaign.
Sadly, there is only occasional transfer of the excellent skills of face-to-face dealings with customers to the advertising. The success formula is easy. Understand and apply intelligently what works in the selling situation. Excite and entertain the customer.
However, care must be taken to recognise significant differences exist between the settings for selling and advertising. Inside a pizza outlet the existing or prospective customer represents a captive audience. There are no distractions and no immediate presence of competitors. That is not so in a newspaper, on radio or with television.
Therefore, the elements of an advertisement must be dissected, analysed and possibly, for re-construction to take place. The message is simple: "Differentiate the irrelevant from the irreverent"
SET THE SCENE AND MOOD
Self-effacing humour strikes a positive chord with many Australians and New Zealand consumers. They will recognise, contemplate and evaluate the products and services featured in many such advertising campaigns, when in the past most would never have been on their "radar screen", which is invoked during the purchase search routine. Take for example, the International Netherlands Group. Few people would have given preference to a funds management entity with such a trading name. Enter Mr Irreverence himself, Scottish comedian Billy Connolly. Today ING is numbered among the three most recognisable corporate identities in the broader finance sector of Australia and New Zealand.
Parochial Aussie Dick Smith has, for a time, expressed concern about the loss of local ownership of icon brand names and products. He did something about it. He has selectively focussed on everyday products.
With safety matches, he identified the market leader to be the foreign owned Redhead matches brand. Dick Smith introduced his own brand and has stimulated hundreds of thousands of Australian consumers to ask for and demand a "Dickhead". Gratifyingly, he can't keep up with the demand.
Concern about the image and integrity of a product and company should be reviewed with the fact that Toyota enjoys increased sales because of its creative, innovative and irreverent "Bugger" campaign. Similarly, Yellow Pages has profited from its "Not Happy, Jan" campaign and derives additional recall when political street demonstrators shout "Not Happy John (Helen)" to the respective Prime Ministers.
Who said fun doesn't pay? Levity works and is appreciated by everyone. Polar bears and Wallabies may seem to be strange team to advertise, market and sell Bundaberg Rum. However, an increasing number of consumers are getting a taste for Rugby Union and Rum.
A FINAL WORD
Advertising alone will not ensure success. Creative, innovative and irreverent advertisements need to be a captivating and arresting tacit to introduce current, prospective and past customers to a value package, centred on quality based, competitive products, services, business and people! After all, fun and satisfaction achieve the same commendable goal… to put a smile on the face of customers.
PMQ
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