Touch Points

CAN YOU FOG A MIRROR OR ARE YOU JUST DEAD WHEN IT COMES TO ADVERTISING?

When you came in to work today, did you die when you had to make a decision on your advertising? If you didn’t recoil into a fetal position and your brain’s neurons actually fired up, on what did you base your decision? Gut feel?

Here is the first of the twelve most common advertising mistakes made by new businesses everywhere. I hope you don’t find yourself making these when you are launching your business and I especially hope you’re not making them if you’re one of the old dogs. I don’t meant to belittle your decision-making, but I see it every day and it causes me to wither away a little bit every time.

1. Expecting to open the...

MMM for November 7 by Roy H. Williams

It's Not Good for Man to be Alone.

"The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start." – Carl Jung, Two Essays in Analytical Psychology

"What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? Woman always stands just where the man's shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in the world." – Carl Jung, Women In Europe

"I think the idealization of women is indigenous to men. There are various ways of idealizing women, especially sexually, based in almost every case on their inaccessibility. When a woman functions as an unobtainable love object, she takes on a mythical quality. You can see this principle functioning as a sales device in advertising and in places like Playboy magazine. Almost every movie you see has this quality, because you can't embrace the image on the screen. Thousands of novels use this principle, because you can't embrace a printed image on a page." – James Dickey, Self Interviews, p. 153

In New York Harbor stands a lady.

The Brain's Ear For Info

Jack Trout, 10.24.05, 9:00 AM ET

Have you ever been asked which is more powerful, the eye or the ear? Probably not, because the answer is obvious. I’ll bet that deep down inside, you believe the eye is more powerful. Call it "visual chauvinism," if you like, but it's a preconception held by many marketing people.

I’ll bet, too, that you ...

The Farmer and the Fairy Tale

In talking to my friend Bill about agriculture, I asked him about the law of seed, time and harvest. He looked at me strangely, wondering why a city boy would want to know about the most basic of agricultural laws. I told him, like I knew what I was talking about, that all things grown in agriculture are subject to the law. "Plant a seed, nurture it, water it, feed it and over time a crop will grow to maturity and be harvested.."

"Yup," he said, "that pretty much sums it up."

He went on to explain...

MMM for July 4, 2005 by Roy H. Williams

Will He Read The Art of War?

If you want to glimpse the inner forces that drive an organization, you need only observe their methods and listen to their words. Especially when they're not paying attention.

Words and methods reveal motives. Listen to a person carefully and you will hear the beating of their heart. Do what they do and you'll become who they are. So be careful whose advice you take and whose methods you adopt.

You cannot use the tools of another without placing your hands where their hands have been. Desire their outcome, adopt their methods, and you embrace the values that are hidden beneath.

Advertising in America got twisted and bent when it became fashionable to read The Art of War.

The most commonly used words in marketing today are "target" and "objective." Strange ideas for retailers, don't you think, when their goals are to attract and serve? Let's replace those two words, then, and see how it affects the heart.

Advertising consultants, instead of asking, "Who is your target?" why not ask, "Who are we hoping to attract?" Instead of asking "What is our objective? ask, "How are we hoping to serve?" Prepare yourself for strange and revealing reactions to these questions because while it's fashionable to spout about having "great service," few want to truly serve.

Business people, do you want to attract multitudes? Develop the heart of a servant – one who truly loves – and you will quickly become beloved. The world has masters aplenty; it is servants who are in short supply.

I'm not the first to note how words and actions reveal the heart. Luke tells of a dawn two thousand years ago when Jesus walked grass still wet with dew. After choosing from among a great crowd of followers the twelve who would accompany him to the end, Jesus stepped forward and spoke to the waiting throng, "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."

Now let's look at Jesus' actions - beginning with his choosing of the twelve - and see if they reveal his motives: The fact that none of them were leaders in the business community indicates that he wasn't planning to measure membership or attendance numbers, build a bank account or launch a political action committee. "Minister" was more of a verb in his day.

Flash forward to his final day in John 13: "… so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him." The twelve were aghast. Foot washing was like scrubbing a public toilet or scraping gum off the bottom of bus benches. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" Jesus asked them. "I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you."

Consciously or unconsciously, each of us follows a hero. We model our actions after their actions and measure our success according to their values. Are you consciously aware of whose example you are following? Look quietly to your daily actions and you'll find your hero vividly revealed.

Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War five hundred years before Jesus felt the morning grass beneath his feet.

Somehow I doubt he ever read it.

Roy H. Williams

PS - After proofreading this memo, my son Rex sent me an email saying that in the movie Batman Begins, a childhood friend says to Bruce Wayne in a pivotal scene, "It's not who you are inside, but what you do that defines you." Isn't it funny how we find wisdom in the strangest of places?

PPS - Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg's proven, practical advice is based on the principle of serving the online customer in the way the customer prefers to be served. Have you reserved your seat for their Sept. 8-9 one-time-only seminar at Wizard Academy? You really don't want to miss it.

Likewise, Steve Clark's New School Selling is based on serving rather than "handling." Salespeople trained in New School methods have less stress, a better self image, and higher sales than their old school counterparts. I'm not sure when the next class is scheduled, but it's definitely a life-changing experience.

MMM for June 6, 2005 by Roy H. Williams

Are You Putting Lipstick on a Pig?

When business is slow, the wise business owner wonders what might be wrong with his business. The average business owner thinks only that something is wrong with his advertising. As I said last week, I believe it was advertising salespeople who taught business owners to think this way, saying, "The secret is to reach the right people. You've obviously been reaching the wrong ones."

But who, exactly, are "the right people" to buy a product no one wants?

David Ogilvy once asked, "Can advertising foist an inferior product on the consumer? Bitter experience has taught me that it cannot. On those rare occasions when I have advertised products which consumer tests have found inferior to other products in the same field, the results have been disastrous."

William Bernbach echoed Ogilvy's statement. "Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it."

But it was Professor Charles Sandage who turned Ogilvy's complaint into a manifesto: "Advertising is criticized on the ground that it can manipulate consumers to follow the will of the advertiser. The weight of evidence denies this ability. Instead, evidence supports the position that advertising, to be successful, must understand or anticipate basic human needs and wants, and interpret available goods and services in terms of their want-satisfying abilities. This is the very opposite of manipulation."

Yet when traffic is slow, the accusing finger will usually point to advertising.

Great ads flow from great products just as poetry flows from deep feelings. Telling a writer to write a great ad for a less-than-great product is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child.

To know the power of the ads that I might write for you, only two questions need be answered:

1. How good are you at what you do?
2. How good are your competitors? (Yes, you are being compared to everyone in your category whether you accept it or not. This is why the Wizard of Ads partners never attempt to write ads for a client until they have visited that client's competitors.)

The writing of sparkling ads for a dull business is like putting lipstick on a pig. If advertising were all it took to grow businesses to their full potential, the faculty of Wizard Academy would not be so heavily invested in the development of New School sales training, Wonder Branding, internet Persuasion Architecture, Systematic Idea Generation, Online Video Introductions, Radio in the 21st Century, Blogging, and Public Relations.

Soon my partner Mike Dandridge will release his new book, The One-Year Business Turnaround: Breakthrough Marketing Without Advertising. In that book, Mike will reveal fifty-two tested techniques that helped him build his electrical supply company to more than one million dollars a month in sales, even though he was challenged by Home Depot on the left and Lowe's on the right. Sound like something you might want to read?

Yes, Wizard Academy is investigating growth techniques far beyond traditional advertising. Is it maybe time that your business did, too?

Roy H. Williams

PS – Speaking of new books, Wizard Academy (and Harvard University) graduate Greg Farrell has written a dazzler, America Robbed Blind, that's now available from Wizard Academy Press. As a deep investigative reporter for USA Today, Greg shares the untold stories behind Enron, Tyco and Worldcom, as well as the truth behind the Martha Stewart scandal. Were you aware that the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission tried desperately to warn Congress of what was coming 13 months before the Enron debacle? Greg Farell's America Robbed Blind is an eye-opener that could easily be made into a movie. Hardcover.

Monday Morning Memo for May 30, 2005 by Roy H. Williams

Targeting Through Ad Copy

For years, advertisers have attempted to target "the right customer" through carefully selected media vehicles. Mailing lists aimed at specific demographic, geographic and psychographic profiles have fallen short so often that a 3 percent conversion rate is considered a big success. Carefully selected TV shows and radio formats have failed to deliver equally as often. And now email opt-in lists are disappointing a whole new generation of advertisers.

Not surprisingly, it is media salespeople who are largely responsible for today's overemphasis on "reaching the right customer." After all, if they told you the truth – that business reputations and advertising results are built on saying the right thing rather than reaching the right person – they would have no leverage to convince you that you need to reach exactly who they're trying to sell you.

In your next ad, try targeting through the content of your message rather than through demographic profiles.

There are four simple steps in creating a sharply targeted message:

1. Choose whom to lose. You can't really know who you're targeting until you can name who you're not targeting. Inclusion is tied to exclusion. The Law of Magnetism is that attraction can be no stronger than repulsion. In the following example, I'm choosing to lose bargain-hunters and posers. (Not that there's anything wrong with bargain hunters or posers. In another campaign, I might target them with great success.) When you're saying the right thing, you'll be surprised at how many people suddenly become "the customer you needed to reach."

2. Gain their attention. If the reader/listener/viewer isn't with you, you're toast. We live in an over-communicated society whose attention has been fractured by too much media. So never assume that people will be paying attention to your ad. Assume instead that you must wrestle their thoughts away from powerful images and distractions that are tugging at their mind. "If the lowest price is all you're after, this isn't the camera for you." That headline/opening statement attracts the quality conscious consumer to the same degree that it repels the bargain hunter. The only task remaining is for us to explain precisely why our camera is worth the premium price we ask.

3. Surprise them with your candor. Traditional hype and ad-speak make today's customer deaf and blind. They can smell hype and phony promises and they're turning away from them in greater numbers every day. So bluntly tell them the truth. Confess the negative or they won't believe the positive. "Another downside of this camera is that it's not the sleekest, prettiest one in its price class. No one is going to tell you how cool your camera looks. The upside is that it takes far superior pictures."

4. Make it make sense. Believability is the key. Tell them how and why your product can deliver what it promises. "The prettiest camera in this price class has a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second. But the shutter speed of the ugly Canon PowerShot S500 is a superfast 1/60th of a second, allowing you to take fabulous photos in low-light situations. Your indoor photos will look rich and vibrant when all the others look dark and grainy. And your nighttime photos will make people's eyes bug out. Beautiful contrast and luminance, even without the flash. This camera can see in the dark. Take a picture of your lover in the moonlight. It will become your favorite photo ever. And that superfast shutter speed is also very forgiving of movement. That's why no one ever replaces their PowerShot S500. Go to your local pawnshop and see if you can find one. We're betting you can't. But you will see several of that "prettier" camera available cheaper than dirt. So if you're looking for a great price on a sleek-looking camera, that's probably where you should go."

See what I mean about choosing whom to lose? Are you beginning to understand the power of candor?

I promise that targeting through copy works. But do you have the guts to do it?

Learn to target through candid copy and then you can have fun laughing at all the media reps who try to convince you that you've got to reach precisely the audience they're selling.

Roy H. Williams

PS - You weren't targeted in any way other than through the copy of the sample ad I wrote. But I'm betting you were impressed with the Canon Powershot S500, were you not?

PPS - VERY, VERY PROUD - My partners Jeff and Bryan Eisenberg became bestselling authors last week with the appearance of Call to Action on the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and New York Times bestseller lists. This is the first bestseller ever published by Wizard Academy Press. Way to go, Eisenbrothers!

Radio nut spots help ad firm grow niche

By Christine Snyder / Special to The Detroit News

FARMINGTON HILLS -- Sometimes it takes one to know one. That's behind the success Vanguard Creative Group of Farmington Hills had with its award-winning campaign for Kar's Nuts of Madison Heights.

Kar's Nuts is a lot like Vanguard. They were both small and local and weren't household names. The ad campaign Vanguard did for Kar's Nuts not only elevated Vanguard's stature in the advertising world -- it won the 2005 International Summit Creative Awards -- it helped Kar's Nuts elevate its recognition with consumers...

MMM for May 9, 2005 by Roy H. Williams

Power of Weakness

Features and benefits, features and benefits, features and benefits. We've polished our pitches to such a degree that we've dimmed our abilities to persuade. The customer is only half listening because the inner self is asking, "What are they not telling me?"

Those who have heard my 90-minute presentation about the ongoing evolution of Western communication style are familiar with the problem:

1. The fine art of Hype has been perfected and refined.
2. Western culture has been submerged in it, held under until every last pore of our souls has been saturated.
3. Consequently, we've developed an immunity to "ad-speak," the language of hype.
4. But we don't rage against it. We see the half-truth of hype as a fact of life.
5. That's why we're ignoring it.
6. And we're ignoring it in greater numbers every day.

Do you want to surprise Broca, gain the attention of your customer and win back your credibility? Learn to name features, benefits, and downside. Trust me, the customer is already trying to figure out the downside. Why not just tell them? It's the best possible way to insulate yourself from the backlash when they finally figure it out for themselves.

This powerful "tell the truth" technique is easily perverted into just another oily sales trick when the downside you name isn't the real one. As Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld observed 350 years ago, "We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones."

I'm saying confess the big ones. Knock your customers flat with your candor. Yes, it will cost you a few sales you might otherwise have made. But it will make you far more sales than it costs you.

People aren't as stupid as you think.

Roy H. Williams

PS – That "90-minute presentation about the ongoing evolution of Western communication style" is currently rocking audiences around the world. Are you ready to be knocked out of your box? Can you put together a crowd? Each of my 41 carefully chosen Wizard of Ads partners has been trained and equipped to make this stunning multimedia presentation in my absence. (My absence is usually due to the prohibitive fees I charge for traveling. I hate traveling. Fortunately, several of my partners love to travel.) Why not invite one of them to present to your group? Contact Corrine Taylor to work out the details. But please be patient if she doesn't get back to you quickly. Corrine is truly the world's busiest person. (You just wouldn't believe the number of different things she handles each day.) Corrine can be reached at 800-425-4769 or by email at Corrine@WizardOfAds.com

MMM for April 25, 2005 by Roy H. Williams

Counter-Branding

When your business category is dominated by a single brand and all the other brands put together don't equal them, it's time to create a counter-brand.

Counter-branding – business judo – is rare and dangerous. But when you're overwhelmingly dominated, what have you got to lose?

Prior to the creation of their "Uncola" counter-brand in 1967, 7-Up had survived for 38 years as a lemon-lime soft drink with the slogan, "You Like It. It Likes You."

Yippee Skippy call the press, a soft drink likes me.

As in Judo, the secret of counter-branding is to use the weight and momentum of your opponent to your own advantage. In other words, hook your trailer to their truck and let them pull you along in their wake.

The steps in counter-branding are these:

1. List the attributes of the master brand. In the case of 7-Up, the master brand was "Cola: sweet, rich, brown." Everything else was either a fruit flavor or root beer and all of those put together were relatively insignificant. "Cola" overwhelming dominated the mental category "soft drinks."
2. Create a brand with precisely the opposite attributes. To accomplish this, 7-Up lost their lemon-lime description and became "The Uncola: tart, crisp, clear."
3. Without using the brand name of your competitor, refer to yourself as the direct opposite of the master brand. 7-Up didn't become UnCoke or UnPepsi as that would have been illegal, a violation of the Lanham Act. But when you're up against an overwhelming competitor, you don't need to name them. Everyone knows who they are.

Let's look at a current example: Starbucks. Notice how I didn't have to name the category? All I had to say was "Starbucks" and you knew we were talking about coffee. That's category dominance.

In the February 2005 issue of QSR magazine, Marilyn Odesser-Torpey writes about Coffee Wars, opening with the question, "Starbucks will certainly remain top dog among coffee purveyors, but who is next in line?" A little later we read, "Many of the competitors in the coffee segment are Starbucks look-alikes; if you take the store's signage down, it would be hard to tell the difference."

Traditional wisdom tells us to (1.) study the leader, (2.) figure out what they're doing right, (3.) try to beat them at their own game. This strategy can actually work when the leader hasn't yet progressed beyond the formative stages, but when overwhelming dominance has been achieved, as is currently the case with Starbucks, such mimicry is the recipe for disaster. Are all competitive coffee houses forever doomed to occupy the sad "me-too" position in the shadow of mighty Starbucks? Yes, until one of them launches a counter-brand.

To determine what a Starbucks counter-brand would look like, we must first break Starbucks down into its basic brand elements:

1. Atmosphere: quiet and serene, a retreat, a vacation, like visiting the library. Bring your laptop and stay awhile. They've got wi-fi.
2. Color Scheme: muted, romantic colors. Every tone has black added.
3. Auditory Signature: music of the rainforest, soft and melodious
4. Lighting: subdued and shadowy, perfect for candles or a fireplace.
5. Pace: slow and relaxed. This is going to take awhile, but that's part of why you're here.
6. Names: distinctly foreign and sophisticated. Sizes include ‘Grande' and ‘Venti.' (No matter how you pronounce these, the ‘barista' will correct you. It's part of the whole Starbucks wine-bar-without-the-alcohol experience.)

Counter-brands succeed by becoming the Yin to the master brand's Yang, the North to their South, the equal-but-opposite ‘other' that neatly occupies the empty spot that had previously been in the customer's mind.

Here's what a Starbuck's counter-brand would look like:
1. Atmosphere: energetic and enthusiastic. Running shoes instead of bedroom slippers. Leave the car running because we won't be here long.
2. Color Scheme: bright, primary colors such as are found in athletic uniforms, against a background of white or off-white.
3. Auditory Signature: anything with a driving beat, faster than a resting heart-rate. Dance music.
4. Lighting: dazzling, like in a sports arena.
5. Pace: driven by the music, on the move. Caffeine!!!
6. Names: straightforward and plain. Descriptive, rather than pretentious.

HOW IT MIGHT SOUND ON THE RADIO: Most people think to get a fast cup of coffee you have to settle for fast-food coffee …or worse…convenience store coffee. And to get a good cup of coffee you have to stand in line for 20 minutes at some snooty coffeehouse where things can't just be medium and large, but have to be ‘Grande' and ‘Venti.' At JoToGo we serve really good coffee, really fast. We're the original drive-thru espresso bar serving all your favorite premium coffee drinks at lightning

speed. So when you're on the go, get a JoToGo. No snooty attitude here, just fabulous coffee fast

.

No matter how big a brand might be in the public's mind, there's always an open spot for the exact opposite. When the circumstances call for it, be that opposite. Create a counter-brand.

Roy H. Williams

PS - JoToGo is a real company - a new franchise - and they're doing fabulous.

PPS – The cognoscenti will recognize the techniques used in counter-branding as a practical application of Thought Particle theory.