All sales points are not created equal — equally compelling, equally persuasive, equally powerful at turning audience members into customers. There’s a hierarchy of four basic types of sales points for any product or service, and Walmart did a great job of taking its brand from the weakest to the strongest. Let’s start by defining…
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Sophisticated neuroscience research "discovers" what good copywriters have always known
Talk about killing flies with an elephant gun. Nielsen, the audience research company, put together a consumer neuroscience group to help advertisers learn how to “break trough the clutter” of “competing messages constantly fighting for consumers’ attention.” A worthy goal when you consider that in an average day, every man, woman and child in this country is bombarded…
Widespread use of ad blockers may bring something worse to your screen
“Browsing the web without ads is actually kind of nice,” wrote Advertising Age June 19, 2014. “No popups stealing your screen. No autoplaying video ads making the page load as slowly as if it were being dialed up through America Online circa 1999.” And, notes Ad Age, people who own and use computers agree– by the…
Avoid the "And then what?" effect
Way back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, televisions were black-and-white, and telephone deregulation was a gleam in Ronald Reagan’s eye, there was this ad that Western Electric, the monopoly Bell System’s manufacturing division, ran in major magazines. It showed a photo of a small electric fan wired to a phone, over the headline, “This fan…
Research reveals why you're going to believe this post
This post may not be true. Actually, it is. But even if it weren’t, you’d be more likely to believe it. That’s because it has something some others don’t — a picture. Advertising professionals have long known that a picture makes an ad stand out and attract more readership than an all-type ad. They’ve also…
Don't spend more to make your advertising less effective
There are times when doing too much can be as harmful to your bottom line as spending, and doing, too little. Audience size isn’t everything In buying media, for example, the temptation is to go for as large an audience as you can. It’s only logical. Logical, yes, but not necessarily right. Let’s say you…
Why White Pages brand names don't work in today's Yellow Pages world
Where do you go when you know who you’re looking for but not where to find them? The (usually online) White Pages directory. Where do you go when you know what you’re looking for but not who sells it? The Yellow Pages. Or maybe you just go to Google, which works like both, but more like the Yellow Pages.…
What happens when everyone follows "best practices"
Quick, which furniture store is having a this-week-only sale with no payments for six months? Which tire store is selling four tires for the price of three? Which personal injury attorney will fight for you against insurance companies? All of them. And that’s why you can’t tell them apart. “Best Practices” = same practices That’s…
Does mobile shopping help or hurt physical store sales? Yes
Mobile shopping was supposed to be lethal to brick-and-mortar retailing. But according to two new studies, it’s helping physical stores at least as much as it’s hurting. “Out on the streets, more people [who own smartphones] are going into stores and staying there longer while those who purchase online tend to favor online-only stores, based on two…
National brands are tweeting to themselves
The purpose of advertising is to communicate with your potential or actual customers, but national brands are taking to Twitter to talk to themselves – or, as an August 30 Advertising Age report put it more grammatically, “they’re also increasingly talking to each other.” Some of this tweeting is not only incestuous, but also inane,…