Smart People are Brand Insensitive

I was listening to an Information Security-related podcast and this came out as an off-topic anecdote, but it struck me as an important thought for marketers. An experienced ad-driven podcaster once asked his team why they were running car ads instead of ads for related (high-tech) products. The answer was that "most companies think smart people are brand insensitive" and that:

Brand is the Refuge of the Ignorant

The implication is that its not worth running brand ads in forums inhabited by smart people. I'd love to see the related research on that. I have seen examples of this in the real world, but brand advertising can be so powerful, its hard to think of it as ineffective just because an audience is smart.

How Lovely to Be a Woman?

Last night while viewing a rerun of The King of Queens, I caught a glimpse of the new Walmart cosmetics commercial.

Women in various states of beautifying themselves with cosmetic products as "How Lovely to Be a Woman" from Bye Bye Birdie chirps brightly over the action. This continues for much of the commercial until the selling message - Walmart has loads of well-known cosmetic brands at low prices! - is revealed at the conclusion.

What confused me was the ad's tone, which came off - to this viewer - as completely tongue-in-cheek. Poking fun at the level of effort women go through to 'make themselves beautiful.' I'm not sure if it was the video footage itself (a couple women looked to be preparing for clown auditions). Or the soundtrack. Or both.

I'll readily admit I'm not their target audience. My beauty regimen, if we can even call it that, normally consists of face lotion and chapstick. Maybe a tinted lip gloss if I'm feeling particularly sassy that morning. Was I being overly cynical? Too sensitive to the level of pressure already placed on women's physical appearances? Maybe.

But after the ad finished, I turned to my husband and asked what he thought - without leading the witness in any way. His reaction: it's making fun of cosmetics.

I doubt that's what Walmart is hoping for.

Google's Ultimate Power

Recently, I decided to make some adjustments to one of my Google PPC campaigns. ...normal stuff like adjusting bid prices, adding keyword phrases, and adding broad-match or exact-match phrases. Next thing I know, Google dropped my quality scores on just about every keyword in that campaign. ...from around 7-8 to 1-2. That's the difference between life and death in the PPC world. And then the ads weren't showing. Was it something I said?

A few months back, I attended a seminar on SEO that told me to use a domain name that matched my ad copy. So, I did. I bought domains that matched my keywords and ran ads back to landing pages on those domains. It seemed to work. I don't really know if worked better than if I didn't use a matching domain, but I was getting results. Then, Google decided to un-list my site. Why? Because it saw two domains with the same content and determined that to be fraud. I found this out only because I happened to be in the Google Webmaster Tools. Luckily, I removed the alternate content, applied 301 redirects, went through the objection process and they re-listed the site. What a Hassle.

Google has the power to effectively shut down a business if that business is relying on web traffic. And they don't give you a rule-book to play by. So, it's a game of hit-and-miss. And web has become the de-facto mechanism for B2B research. You don't use a phonebook or rely on the physical mailbox to find an enterprise software solution. You use Google. As a marketer, my audience is screaming at me to NOT use email and NOT use (cold) phone calls. So, we are choosing to limit our options to Google. It's dangerous.

Google is essentially limiting your choice to companies who have savvy-enough web marketing to survive. And sometimes simple mistakes or misinformation cause a de-listing. It's bad for sellers and buyers. I think it's time to start advocating a better way. I'm not saying that Google should do anything different. They're good at what they do and provide a fantastic service for navigating the billions of web pages out there. But as a B2B buyer, I can't rely on Google to help me find my best options. And I don't know where else to go.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat

When I was a programmer, everything was trial-and-error. I would come up with a set of functions and techniques to get a desired result and then it was: [try it > troubleshoot > scrap it > start-over] in cycles until the code worked.

It's similar in marketing, but on a much bigger scale. Instead of a few lines of code, it's an entire campaign. [Identify an audience > pick a medium > create a message > implement] No results? There goes a nice chunk of change. Embrace failure and try it again. ...or if you're not comfortable embracing failure, apply a different success metric.

But it's not just a problem for us small fries. Pepsi is dumping the new packaging for it's Tropicana line of Orange Juice. That's a failed campaign that must be worth millions. But, that's the nature of the game -- you have to try new things to see what works. Marketing is a Wash, Rinse, Repeat type of process.

Apps-Only Advertising

Interesting article (& brief media piece) about the explosion of applications as an advertising medium.

All of those "fun" apps on social networking sites are now sought after real estate since users are spending more and more time online than with the more traditional media outlets. Seriously, how many of us sit through the ads during a first-run television show from the major networks?

The fractioning of audiences has some brands scrambling to make their presence felt. It's likely those burgeoning 'apps only' agencies will find themselves with a wealth of out-of-work ad talent to choose from!