Archive for the ‘advertising’ Category

When is free, not? When it’s the FreeCreditReport.com, baby.

Today’s NY Times story detailing the woes of the service promoted by the catchy television ads that feature the lovable slacker and his band who are seen as a pirates, driving a clunker Metro, and residents of his GF’s parent’s basement, details the difficulty that people are having with the service.

The website invites you to sign up for your Free Credit Report, but are actually signing up for a credit monitoring service (To give the company credit, they do say that you are signing up for a paid service as you can see from the image here.) Even my Ivy League college-grad son, had difficulty canceling the service. Shades of the days when AOL wanted to own all internet dial-up customers and went after everyone with massive direct mail campaigns. Do you remember that? AOL would send out their free software discs and many initiated service with these discs and as a result, receive bonus minutes. The problem came when you decided that the service was not what you wanted and decided to cancel. You couldn’t get in touch with a representative to save your life. From my son’s experience, FreeCreditReport.com is similar.

But since the subject of this blog is generally marketing, advertising, and PR, I do want to give credit to the ads. They are catchy, do work, and send folks to the service’s website. Television ads when done well, with high production values and a strong statement of benefit for the user get attention. Targeting viewers by segment on a variety of specialty niche channels works. I’ve seen client’s website traffic go up dramatically in response to good ads with clear benefits. However, good placement will fail when the creative is poor or the benefit is weak. It’s easy for the client to think they can save money using the station’s free video-taping and editing service. It’s better to get a talented group experienced in the creation of television ads to work with you, write, shoot and edit a professional spot as well as suggest a strong offer that will pull in response.

So, buyer beware. Television ads work. But, be sure that they work to the benefit of the customer and the company. In the case of FreeCreditReport.com they work but don’t serve the customer well.

As a child born smack in the middle of the Baby Boom, I have a certain fondness for men in spread collar shirts with hair dressed with Brylcreem or Wildroot, dark suits and narrow ties. I’ve been binging on Mad Men, the AMC original series. It’s a stylish look at Madison Avenue in the early ‘60s.

While I find it a walk down nostalgia lane, it reminds us how much our society has changed and how much advertising, though it may have found new mediums, is much the same. There’s the constant pressure to be original, creative and to keep clients happy, but the treatment of women and the behavior of men has certainly changed more than anything else.

Sexual harassment was an oxymoron then. Some men believed it was their right to say and do things that belittled women and sexuality. It’s hard for the brilliant career women of today to comprehend that fact. As a teen, I once quit a job rather than explain to the store owner that his general manager propositioned me.

Today, smoking is all but gone from the workplace. The fictional Sterling Cooper’s client is Lucky Strike and they do all that they can to keep that client from firing the agency when one of the partners suffers a coronary while playing “horsie” with a model for an aluminum siding campaign.

What I love are the clothes. They form the backbone of what is rooted in my 50s/60s childhood memories as the clothes worn by grown ups. It’s not hard to believe that Pete might be a good AE when you see him in his neat suit; that is until he threatens Don and reveals secrets that don’t matter to the partners but give them power over him.

Deep in the summer heat of the South Carolina Lowcountry, through a television program about my profession, I’ve found a path to the days of a 60s magical childhood as well as gratitude for the changes that have occurred in our world through the years.

I’ve had many clients who want to market their products and services on the internet. For me, the challenge has always been finding the right place for the ad. A new chart posted today by Marketing Sherpa shows that ads in the right context have greater pull than was previously thought.

Some of the ads I’ve posted for clients have received great impressions, but few click throughs, but whose websites show evidence of greater visitation during the times the ads are running. I believe that people are suspicious of clicking on ad ad, but will, if interested, take note of the company’s offer and seek more information. It’s great to know that during 2007, “Major brand studies also cite targeting as the key element of success and show that ads were more effective in 2007 than they were previously. That’s a trend that should continue.”

It’s gratifying to see that pop ups and unders continue to show their level of annoyance is proportionate to their lack of success!

Today’s news includes a story regarding the calamitous decline in print revenue for U.S. newspapers and the rise in on-line ad revenue which cushioned the fall. The story further details that classified ad print revenue also fell. This should be no surprise. As I posted yesterday, the revolution is over. The newspaper reading habit is not catching on with those younger than 45, and even those who read newspapers read less. It’s interesting to see who reads the newspapers.

Where I believe the analysts are incorrect is stating that the declines are due to the implosion of the housing industry. I was a vice president of marketing for a southeastern volume builder. Prior to that, I counseled national volume homebuilders such as D.R. Horton in South Carolina and Charlotte, North Carolina on their advertising and marketing. As such, I stayed out of newsprint, except for high end luxury properties and age targeted properties.

First time buyers and move up home buyers don’t turn to the dailies for their information. However, if I wanted to sell a new drug to some greater than 65 years of age with a greater than $75K income, I’d advertise that drug in my local daily.

Where did the classified revenue go? Why to Craig’s List? Why pay when you can post for free? Google, Trulia, Yahoo!, and Zillow all allow the user to list specific properties for sale or rent.

It’s a one-to-one world now.

Revolutions don’t come overnight. They are the climax of incremental changes in perspective that sneak up on you. Until one day you realize that there is another way of doing things.

For several years I have supplemented my daily reading of my local newspaper the Post and Courier (gotta know whose doing what and where and why and see the pics and get the newsprint on my hands) with online professional readings. They come from many sources. I particularly like Ad Age, Marketing Sherpa and a few more. I also am an avid reader of news headlines and news videos on Yahoo!. I love the ease of seeing the vid, clicking, reading the story for more information. Google News is my go to for alerts on any kind of breaking information by client name, sector or issue. Although I am addicted to printed information, I find online sources are most immediate and I expect to get the latest news NOW.

The lust for the NOW has changed the way newspapers format themselves. People want more local news on their front pages knowing that they can get national, breaking news all day either on their phone or computer. And even though I know evening news broadcasts have their audience, for most, the best channel is either one to one through social networking sites or RSS.

However, all this being true and being of a certain age, I will still be a holdout for holding the printed word. My spouse loves his e-books on his PDA. I like the heft of the book which I borrow from the library. (Sorry authors, I would rather read and return.) If it changes my perspective on the world, I will buy and keep the book. The only volumes I seem to keep are those of poetry. So, I am a hold-out for print too, being of the Baby Boom generation.

The NOW of advertising and communication is all digital as far as I can see. What about you? Do you see the same NOW? Many argue that we still need mass media. The recent campaigns I’ve organized using newsprint, commercial radio and television have generated impact for clients but how long will it be before it’s all one to one, on demand? I say it’s NOW. The revolution is done. It happened while we were changing channels.