July 25, 2005

Killer Stats

The ratio of the projected U.S. ad revenue of Google and Yahoo! this year to that of NBC, CBS, and ABC in primetime: 1:1.

Numbers like that can really rock your media boat. But they shouldn't capsize it.

Interactive media advertising is going to continue to soar, but it should almost always be used as part of a multi-media communications effort that includes mass media, such as broadcast TV.

The doomsayers who are predicting the demise of television networks or daily newspapers are dead wrong. Smart marketers will seek to find the optimum blend of advertising media and inevitably that will include mass media...print and broadcast.

But HOW those mass media are used is already changing. You can give much less information, be much more tantalizing and creative, and do something dramatic to connect with your audience...because, if they want more information - all that information that you used to have to stuff into an ad - they can and should go to your website which should serve as a seamless extension of your mass media advertising.

All that said, it sure is amazing how those portals have taken off, isn't it??

Don't stand still. You're missing something. Something important.

Emotions that Cause Action

I was looking back at Dr. Dan Hill's Body of Truth: Leveraging What Consumers Can't or Won't Say. I love the way he isolates the key emotions that cause people to take an action.

For positive emotions, he names only two: happiness and pride.

Happiness is probably the dominant emotion communicated in advertising. You know what it looks like...people having fun, smiling at one another, enjoying products or services that have made them happy. Hill uses the example of VW's campaign for the Beetle, evoking - in his words - "feelings of happy nostalgia."

Pride really is about instilling reassurance. And products or services that can do that have a very strong following. So pride is what drives people to the super-luxury products. But it's also applicable to anything that can be communicated in such a way as to promote the enhancement of one's identity. Civic pride is classic. People want so very much to feel proud of where they live. But how few cities and states market to the people who live there, instilling in them a sense of pride that they can communicate to others who live elsewhere.

It has always struck me as an enormous opportunity loss. Who better to build business in a state than the people who already live there.

The negative emotions that best cause people to take an action (according to Hill) are anger, disgust (contempt), sadness, and fear. (For the latter, he uses the example of an investment and insurance company whose ads show a man in a pool with the headline, "Don't let your resources drain away. Pool them.")

OK, that's a little lame. But, when you think about it, most campaigns are grounded in one of those six emotions. And, if they're not, they may not be making an emotional connection with their consumers. It's fun to go through a publication or watch an hour of TV and categorize every ad. Sharpens your skills.

Claire to the Rescue

Claire Gibbons joined our public relations staff today. Among her many skills is the ability to provide very effective media training and presentation training. She has even trained people to testify before Congressional committees. Hey, Judge Roberts...want some help?

Isn't it amazing how many people in positions of real importance are not very articulate in their presentations? And, all too often, the smartest people are the poorest communicators. Now, when they get Rawle Murdy, they get Claire. Help is on the way!