Listen Up. If you want to or NOT!

SOME STATEMENTS MAKE NO SENSE but are accepted by the norm anyway.

Take the following sayings:

“No one goes there anymore. It gets too crowded.”

“A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”

“You can observe a lot by just watching.”

“My business is doing great, but my clients complain they hear my ads too much.”

Ok that last one is not a famous saying but a true one none the less. A lot of (successful) business people say that their clients complain that they hear their ads too much. Did I say they were very successful?

It’s pretty strange that people will complain about hearing an ad too often but never about reading an ad too often? Radio and television will often be recommended, but rarely newspaper: “You can close your eyes but you can’t close your ears.”

We hear even when we’re not listening, but we can’t see unless we’re watching.

That is why we are so good at remembering songs we didn’t want to memorize, but we can’t name the colour of the car that sits in the driveway just five houses down the street from ours, even though we drive past it several times a week.

There are two kinds or ads: Echoic (sound) and iconic (sight). Echoic ads are far more intrusive than iconic ads. It is because of the intrusive nature of sound that people often complain about ads on the radio, but never about those in print.

The problem with using sound is that echoic ads require repetition to be effective. With iconic ads people can choose not to read it at all.

The listener to an echoic ad is not allowed this control. But the ad HAS to be repeated.

To gain the maximum exposure you long for you have to repeat your ads relentlessly. Yes, people might claim to be sick of hearing your ads, but underneath their so called complaints lay a seed buried in their subconscious waiting eagerly to crack the surface.

(Okay it’s not quite that dramatic, but it’s true anyway.)

-Martin

Its Good Or It’s Bad

You have two choices when you advertise.

Your ads can be intellectual (information focused) or emotional (experience focused).

Emotional ads take the reader and lead him along the path of experience. He feels and tastes and sees what the ad writer wants him to: “As the light sneaks in on a cool winter’s morning, you feel the soft air tickle your face. You know today is going to be filled with unique experiences that will leave you feeling like there is no place like this on earth.”

However, when you choose the intellectual approach to ad writing, it’s no joking matter.

Most people write intellectual ads the way they tell a joke. They open with an obscure reference to what’s coming, and then they spend the rest of the joke adding little pieces of information working their way up to the punch line.

This is the worst possible way to write an ad. An ad is NOT a joke.

Those who listen to a joke are committed to listening. Those listening to an ad are not.

A bad intellectual ad starts off with a setup, where the writer tries to set the stage for the argument that is to follow. As the ad lingers on, the customer is thinking, “Get to the point, what’s in it for me?” In less than seven seconds you’ve lost the customers attention entirely.

 A bad intellectual ad can take up to twenty seconds to get to the point. What’s worse is it’s a point to a question no-one is asking.

A good intellectual ad begins with the punch line to a felt need, and then quickly backs up any claims with relevant proof.

Intellectual or emotional, a good ad is a satisfying experience.

Are your ads satisfying?

Or are they a joke?

 -Martin