h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why most advertising doesn’t work
January 21st, 2009
This statement is of course totally incorrect and all advertising works.

Your car breaks down in front of a phone box, you open the door and there’s a business card “John’s breakdown service” you call John and he comes and fixes the problem…John’s advertising worked.

The problem for John is how many phone boxes does he need to advertise in, how many other breakdown services advertise in the same box and of course most people these days will have a mobile phone and not go into the phone box in the first place.
In these other scenarios Johns advertising doesn’t work!

So the task for John; and the rest of us is to target a specific clientele in specific areas with specific needs; and make sure we are the only ones advertising to these groups in these areas.

When you’re the first supermarket or petrol station to open 24 hours, you’re in front. But when everyone else does it the effect is nullified and the result is that you have the extra costs of opening at night.

Then there is the “buy 1 get 2 free” ploy which is not limited to food stores. Some car dealers are now offering “buy one car, get another free” Soon everyone will be at it.
The next thing could be “Buy one, get two free” and ”We’ll take you home for free in a red Rolls Royce” I can see it now orders for red Rolls Royce’s soar….
In all these cases retailers are attempting to steal a march on their competition, and it is of course of great benefit to the consumer. But all businesses involved in these “deals” suffer a loss of profits.

Sadly our industry also uses ploys to increase sales.
Representatives are taught to ask personal questions of potential clients in order to find their “hot button” and to keep “pressing it to secure deals.
Which mean they find out what makes the potential client happy and what their likes and dislikes are and keep working on them.
If the client’s into scuba diving; go buy a scuba diving magazine and talk to him or her about scuba diving.

While I agree it’s good to build up a friendship with clients I believe that our task is to improve the awareness of their business and increase their profits.
For that is what they are paying us for.

I absolutely cringe when I hear sales teams boast about how many deals they made and how much commission they earned by using a piece of personal knowledge about the client to close the deal.

I despair at both reps and clients that either persuade or are persuaded to advertise in an area or media simply because their competition are doing so!!
In fact I believe that no company selling the same product should be advertised in the same media publication.

The true measure of success for any and all advertising agencies and advertising media is how much have they earned for the client?
For me this is the only way success in our industry can be measured.

Regards
Keith
Beermatman
www.beermatadvertising.com