What I’ve learned in 35 years about Advertising..
You want to sell cars to people who live where I live where a winter morning is often 20 below with wind and snow screaming sideways.
Choose A or B
A… The 1987 S-10 at Jones Motors is on sale now for $4995 and it comes with heated seats. Come see our friendly knowledgeable sales staff. At Jones Motors, we treat you like family and always have the lowest prices, best selection and service. Quality and value abound at Jones Motors. Hurry, at $4995 they won’t last long! Jones Motors, Marquette’s Biggest and best dealership since 1922. Always the Best Deals on Wheels!
Located at 3249 Main street downtown Marquette.
B…. (Sound of alarm going off)
It’s 6:22, again, time to roll out of the rack, slug down a cup of mud, hop in a hot shower to clear out the cobwebs then jump in that frozen hunk of metal. You pray it’ll start knowing that your wool underwear won’t be able to deflect the angry sting of a Fred Flintstone icebox of a seat. Frozen buttocks syndrome doesn’t have to ruin your life. Imagine waking up knowing that after a delicious mug of Sumatran French press, maybe a little Aerosmith singing in the shower that when you plant your backside in your new 4-wheel drive S-10 pickup truck that warm waves of heat will instantly rise up through artisan crafted Corinthian leather resulting in a clear case of Permagrin, for once you’ll have a warm butt winter! Turn up the Bose speakers! Let’s rock this work thing! The 1987 4-wheel drive Chevy S-10 with warm butt technology is on sale at Jones Motors for just $4995, treat yourself, you deserve it: Jingle sing out- Warm Your Bones at JonesMotors.com
Back to what I’ve learned. People want warm butts not heated seats.
1)To start a sale you need to seriously ‘STOP THE EYES AND EARS. Your ads can’t sound like ads, especially in the first 10 seconds.
2) Good campaigns are talked about at water coolers, when you hear your kids or your mom singing a jingle that they heard on radio, TV or internet streaming you know it is working.
3) Advertising is a marathon, not a sprint. You can’t come and go. Jump in and STAY in!
4) Campaigns are more often killed by what you say than by who you reach.
5) Radio and TV still work. When Newspapers figure out how to excite us with their internet product, they may make a comeback. Billboards work when your burger joint is 3 miles ahead or your media market stinks or you can’t figure out how to reach people on their laptops mobile or social media. It’s changing daily, keep up on it or pay someone who does.
6) Good advertising won’t help a poor product, facility or uninspired employees or business owners.
7)You can’t be the best place to shop until you are the BEST PLACE TO WORK!! Please trust me on this one.
8) DISRUPT – Google what Nike did with Colin Kaepernick. NITROGLYCERIN! Check their stock price before and after. We don’t have to like it, many boomers cringed when they saw it, but we should note it. Also note that it could have gone the other way.
9) NOTHING happens until people are talking about you.
10) That being said, never offend your audience, that has me thinking about Nike again. Maybe the 47 percent of people who objected to that campaign weren’t actually their audience. What a world eh?
11) Amazon has 49 % of retail sales in this country, Walmart 9 percent. They want it all, are we going to let them have it? HELL NO. Spread the word.
12) Digital – Don’t wait it’s working really well NOW, but it’s a minefield, find or hire help!
Oh, and the GOATCHILD HEADING, stop the eye start the sale! From the cover of National Enquirer around 1993, I saw that cover and laughed. I showed it to my daughters who were 7 and 9. They laughed. I’ve been known to call them “Goatchildren” in retaliation for the constant barrage of old man jokes!