Reiterate Marketing & Digital Media

Back when I was working for the worlds third-largest advertising agency, Publicis Groupe, I struck a conversation with the 2nd in charge of the Brisbane Agency, the Creative Director. I was working on my application for AWARD School, a highly sort after advertising school which is the primary way advertising creatives get a job as an Art Director. It’s hyper-competitive (hundreds apply, only a dozen or two get in), so I knew to have any chance, I needed all the help I could get. 

I asked him,“what do you think the best book ever written on advertising is?”. His response was simple, “this one”. He handed me a little blue book aptly named “The Little Blue Book Of Advertising – By Steve Lance & Jeff Woll.” 

It’s a book that breaks down all the principles of effective advertising into 52 small ideas. It’s a book to this day, I read regularly to continually sharpen my advertising skills. To save you reading the whole thing, below are my favourite-5 takeouts:

Read what your customer reads – watch what they watch.

You need to tap into your ideal customer’s media habits. What are they watching? What are they reading? What are they doing on the internet? When you take this approach you can objectively see yours and your competitors ads in-situation. You can begin to understand if your advert stands out,  whether it’s clearly delivering your desired message or how it fairs in comparison to your competitors. It’s pivotal to put yourself in the mind of the consumer. Don’t just look at the pictures. Engage with the content the same way your customer would. Get in your customer’s mind so you can create and deliver adverts that truly connect with your target audience.

Quality is the absence of non-quality signals.

This is a saying that has really stuck with me over the years. I’m a perfectionist by nature and as a marketer, this can lead me down a path of spending hours going over every single minute detail…

“Should that heading perhaps be +1pt larger?”

“Should we reduce the line gap between the sections by 5%?”

“Rounded corners or square corners on the buttons?”

Over time, I’ve learnt that this level of detail can be wasteful. The better approach is to simply put yourself in the consumer’s shoes… Ask yourself:

“If I were a customer, is there anything here that would strike me as wrong or poor quality?”  

“Is the copy easy to understand?”

“Am I compelled to take action?”

If the answer to all these questions is yes, well then adjusting the heading font size by +1pt font size does not really matter that much. Quality is the absence of non-quality signals – not perfection.

People don’t care about your company or brand.

“What! How could you say that? Our customers love us!” I hear you declare… This is true, your current customers probably do love you… But your prospects don’t… yet.

The average person viewing your advert for the first time doesn’t know you from a bar of soap. “Buyers are selfish. They are selfish with their time, attention and power of memory. You need to satisfy them. You need to appeal to them and the beliefs they are interested in” (Woll & Lance, 2006).

Take a look at your ads and see whether they are all about you, or about a benefit to the reader. Chances are the former rings true.

Sell the benefit, the advantage and then the features – in that order.

It’s all too common for business owners and marketers to get excited about the features of their product/service. They can’t help but go on and on about all the wonderful things it can do. This leads them to neglect to focus on the most important thing – the benefit. And it is the benefit that leads people to buy.

Take for example my MacBook Pro computer… A feature is its 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 processor.  An advantage is that it is 20% faster than the previous model processors. The benefit (and subsequently the headline Apple use) – “Speed of the art”.

Apple has brilliantly incorporated all these things into one concise 4-word sentence. We know it’s fast and we know it’s state of the art, but cleverly the benefit is also there, “creating ‘art’ faster”. Knowing that one of Apple’s main target markets are designers/filmmakers/photographers ‘art’ here, refers to their work. Work faster, easier and create more art (and potentially money) – with an Apple MacBook Pro. Apple’s marketing never fails. Hopefully one day they’ll be a Reiterate client?

Be An Expert In The Consumers Eyes. 

We know at Reiterate we are experts in marketing… But, we understand you may not yet believe us, and that’s OK. In such a crowded marketplace we don’t blame you for doing your due diligence. How do you know which marketing agencies are truly experts and which are just a fly by the night operators? That’s in part why we write content like this… It’s a great way for us to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard in this case) and compile our research, study and craft into a beneficial format for our clients and subscribers. Customers always want to shop from the vendor that’s the expert in fulfilling their need – be that expert!

Thanks for reading. If you liked this content don’t forget to subscribe to our e-Newsletter below.  If you have any questions at all related to this article please comment or email hello@reiterate.com.au

Written by Reiterate Agency Director – Justin Hannan.