Ads that don’t get out of the way

Today I came across another ad that simply keeps spreading the thinking of  interruption marketing on the web. Besides the fact that the website below as a lot of ads, the one in the middle is just annoying, and one of those banners that as you scroll up or down it follows, covering the text that indeed you’re looking forward to read.

So the point when mentioning again the awareness vs engagement, is that you can get a lot of awareness here – buy ads, buy more ads, buy more and more ads, and people will notice your brand! Great, but will they buy it? Will they get out of their own way to click, read, spend time learning more, send an email asking for more information, pick up the phone and call your company asking about your service, schedule a meeting and eventually convince others or themselves to close a deal with you? just because you interrupted them when they were reading something that they were interested in and the ad didn’t went out of their way so easily?

What attracts companies to keep working like this is that if you buy a lot of ads, spend a lot of money, get a lot of impressions and eventually some clicks – Yes.. Eventually someone will buy it! But the percentage of that “someone” compared with the money spent or impressions, i.e. conversions, will be probably not relevant, not worthy, insignificant within lower budget opportunities. You can build high awareness, but low CTR’s, in the same way you interrupt people to make them buy your products, but you don’t engage them to build your brand and eventually buy your products in a sustainable way.

Key thing here is to stop interrupting people and start thinking on how you could engage and spread the word about your brand, make a better product, make a better marketing campaign that doesn’t annoy a lot of people, build interaction, fun, curiosity, help people solve their problems, communicate how you can help people solve their problems, integrate different channels, innovate, create something new, something worth to talk about, talk with people, change the way you handle the service, use the web to connect people on achieving something good, it can be free, or you can use ads to reinforce your message, not to interrupt people, use them to make people participate in something, not to try to find the “close this window” link. Want an example? Find them, create them! Below you can find two already.

www.twix.com

www.willitblend.com

: : :

Why advertising fails? One of many reasons

I am reading a fine book on advertising, and what makes this book quite good is the approach on common sense key points that we usually tend to forget. Beyond several insights that caught my attention so far, there is one to highlight that is simple when building a communication strategy but ignored often, it says:

Clearly list and brainstorm the features, advantages and benefits of your offering, but start by the benefits, advantages and features when communicating with your market.

The attention your consumers dedicate to your brand is scarce within today’s landscape of ad clutter, if you don’t show fast the benefits consumers have with your offering, how do you think you’re going to get their buy-in in a tremendous competitive landscape? Below is a easy simple framework which should be always kept in mind. Consumers think on the benefits first, though several advertising messages think on the features first.

According with the authors, the thinking on true value propositions for the consumer is being easily filled by blank “buy me” propositions. As advertising seems to be dying nowadays, if you keep thinking on the traditional monologue, it will die faster. Why does this book have to highlight simple common sense and the community repeatedly be reminded of these time and time again? Here are a couple of reasons why I think it happens:

- Lack of proper research

- Research is not converted into valuable insights

- Consumers fail to provide true behavioral answers

- A few people in a focus group is not enough to get valuable conclusions

- Advertisers, marketers are busy enough they ignore insights from stakeholders

- Advertisers try to please marketers, marketers CEO’s: all fail on customers

If your advertising copy says, “we pride ourselves on the exceptional service we provide to all of our clients”, or “the best place on earth”, erase, rethink today.

: : :