How Are You Getting Your Message Through?

How Are You Getting Your Message Through?
Scott Dennison
1-09-07


A recent editorial in DM News (11/13) reporting on the Audit Bureau of Circulations' 92nd conference speculated that "Newspapers and Magazines face tremendous issues in a digital-enamored world".

And it doesn't stop there.

Because of the popularity of TiVo (digital video recorders) that research shows a 70-75% drop off of viewership of ads with shows recorded by TiVo.

Could this be the end of advertising as we have known it for so long?

Well perhaps...but the emphasis must be on the "as we have known it" part. Because if you look at your attitudes toward most advertising, which has little to do with your wants/needs/desires, and then factor in those same attitudes of your closest friends, I think the results would be instructive.

Do you find that you are busier than ever? How much of your time do you really want wasted by irrelevant advertising? As consumers continue to ignore the advertising, and results fall, advertisers cut back on spending.

This forces content creators to reduce their budgets, which in turn attract ever fewer advertisers and viewers...

At the same time - Andy and I noticed some interesting changes in the advertising done during the BCS National Championship Game last night (Congrats to the Florida Gators).

of course, we saw old-school advertisers continuing to shove their message down viewers throats - over and over again in some cases. Can anyone say, honestly, that Rock-em Sock-em Robots will make you want to buy a Dodge Truck?

A bit better was the major promos for NASCAR driving traffic to a website to see the final scene of their ad for the Daytona 500.

We also saw FOX Network promoting heavily a new program to be broadcast entirely on-line.

On an entirely different front, newspapers and magazines are seeing large blocks of their readers move online and many regularly interact with the stories they read, by commenting in "forum-like" environments attached to the stories themselves.

But how many of the ads can you recall from your last look at your local paper?

What does all of this mean for your marketing? It means that what worked in the past may not work now - and you need to look to the future.

Start with making your marketing direct response oriented. Your creative should force interested viewers/readers, etc to DO SOMETHING. So that you know you reached them.

Next consider making your advertising interactive. Perhaps you can even engage your audience and have them create their own advertising, like Cadillac is currently doing, and Chevy did so well recently.

Most important is to target the audience you want - those few among the masses who want what you have. This allows you to actively communicate with your audience and not waste time or resources on those who are not interested in your offerings.

All marketing from here on out is relationship marketing. Never forget that people buy from people, not from companies. Smartly finding ways to execute on that one concept will increase your profits measurably.

Failure to do so, could leave you out there with the old media, like TV Networks, magazines and newspapers who are in full scale retreat...

~Scott
KeyThing Marketing Technologies