IBM's ad doesn't build brand or make use of often-neglected DM advertising skills
SIXTEEN YEARS AGO, Stan Rapp and I had lunch with the newly appointed director of worldwide advertising for Colgate-Palmolive Co., then the world's 24th-largest advertiser with sales close to $5 billion.
"Do you remember," he asked us, "in the movie 'The Graduate,' when the family friend takes young Dustin Hoffman aside and murmurs that famous one word of advice--'Plastics" And do you know what they're whispering in the halls at Colgate these days? It's 'direct marketing.'"
In those days, big agencies still treated direct marketing activity, if they had any, as something "below the line," down there with sales circulars and printed balloons.
Today, direct marketing is no longer news. Most of the Fortune 500 corporations selling consumer products or services have "been there, done that"-whether selling directly to the public or cultivating direct communications with prospects and customers. Now the magic phrase is "customer relationship marketing."
But too often it appears that many of these companies have pushed onward into the next new thing without having mastered the last.
A number of them have, overcome the fear of competing with their own retailers and started selling directly to the public. But perhaps because of the earlier con tempt for direct marketing, one gets the impression they've never bothered to adopt traditional DM's incomparable accountability research tool coded split-run testing.
Because it's always been so difficult to measure the number of retail sales achieved by any single brand advertising effort, agency research departments instead would devote themselves to measuring the impact of brand advertising with such things as refreshed recall, changed favorable impressions and eyeball movements. The argument for scientific response testing and measurement that Stan and I set forth in our first book, "MaxiMarketing" fell on' deaf ears.
I don't have the firsthand knowledge to prove it, but I presume the same is true today.
A really professional direct marketing ad has the look of either being the product of coded testing and retesting or of having been done by a pro who has learned the lessons of testing and retesting. Without the benefit of measuring and comparing responses--and then building lessons the lessons learned--image advertising creatives are free to do what they've always done take a shot in the dark.
"Ah," you may say, "but direct marketing advertising by brand advertisers is different." Exactly. The challenge today is to combine the positioning effect of brand advertising with the maximized response of DM.
The problem I had with the subject of this issue's makeover, an IBM newspaper ad selling computers directly, is that it does neither: It doesn't strengthen IBM's image in the marketplace and doesn't tell you everything it can to make the sale.
It commits what I call today's "billion-dollar mistake"--holding back some of the advertiser's best sales points for the Web site, where readers of the print advertising may never arrive. It smothers the news that mighty IBM, long the world leader in computing, is selling personal computers directly at terrific prices. And it comes across as cold, casual and impersonal.
In my makeover, I sought to accomplish several things:
1. Make the ad more personal by introducing a young spokesperson I found on IBM's Web site. So much good advertising feels like a conversation between the advertiser and the reader.
2. Turn IBM's brand-image minus into a plus. The minus is that IBM might appear to be stooping to sell bargain computers. The plus is, well, we're still the leader, but we can give you a great deal by selling to you direct.
3. Heighten the value by listing as many features as possible. This is not some cheap, stripped-down off-brand computer. People love getting the latest thing with all the bells and whistles even when they don't know what the bells and whistles are.
4. Make more use of that expensive space. And use READABLE TYPE!
IBM appears to use a variable pricing system, so I featured its lowest Web site price. That package appeared to include Microsoft Office 200 Small Business Edition (list price $499), so I gave that a prominent display.
IBM's ad had a deadline and lots of breathless hurry-up exhortation. With no reason given, it seemed like nor very credible hype. I kept the deadline but omitted the hype.
I didn't feature a second computer, as the original ad did, because the main purpose is to get readers to call or visit the Web site, where they will encounter any number of attractive options.
Come on, IBM--how about split-testing my way against yours? I double-dare you.
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