“She was at that time spending her last farthing on advertising, haughtily at first, of course. "A governess prepared to travel and will send terms on application," but, later on: "willing to do anything, to teach, to be a companion, to be a housekeeper, to wait on an invalid, plain sewing, and so on, and so on", the usual thing! Of course, all this was added to the advertisement a bit at a time and finally, when she was reduced to despair, it came to: "without salary in return for board." [...] I suddenly took up the Voice of the day and showed her an advertisement. "A young person, without friends and relations, seeks a situation as a governess to young children, preferably in the family of a middle-aged widower. Might be a comfort in the home." […] That's the way to advertise.”
This is an extract from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1876 short story The Meek One and I feel it contains a very valid point for today’s marketers and advertisers: don’t try to be everything to everybody.
I, of course, understand the temptation to hedge your bets when your business is at stake. Likewise, I know you want to get your money’s worth for what you’ve just forked out to be on air or in print in the first place. However, by partaking in practices such as adding more products and more messages to your advertising, you simply dilute your ad. Suddenly your products are competing against one another and the consumer can’t remember your ‘half price offer’ because you’re already onto your ‘10% off when you visit www.WebsiteNameThatIsTooLong.com’ offer. Clarity is key here as in all forms of communication and that’s exactly what advertising is – communication. So why then, do we treat it like it’s not?
The sooner brands see advertising as a form of communicating to (not at) consumers, the sooner they’ll discover the importance of targeting a specific audience and honing in on the people that want to listen. Advertising is like real life; if people don’t want to be your friend, it’s extremely difficult to change their mind. Moreover, nobody likes that person who’s desperate to be liked so don’t be that person. ‘Person’, by the way, is the key word here. Start looking at your brand as a person with personality traits, including the flaws. The most important thing is that you embrace your brand’s personality; be real and upfront, don’t over-compensate. Authenticity is extremely important here because, get this, consumers are people too, not just data on your ROI analytics spreadsheet and the thing about people is that they’re irrational and unpredictable. Be confident about your marketing approach but don’t bet the farm on it because the market is essentially unpredictable regardless of what the latest marketing ‘guru’ says. Trends are fleeting by nature.
So we’ve established that advertising is communication and consumers are people (simple, yes, but that’s why people take it for granted), but what’s the main element in communication between people? The answer is language, be it written, spoken or visual. The language used to convey your brand’s message can mean very different things to very different people. In some extreme cases, you can endear yourself to a certain demographic while actually insulting another. In other cases, you may as well be using a foreign language. So how do you say the right thing to the right people to achieve success for your brand? Simple – identify and get to know your target market. This may involve extensive research or you may already be au fait with your market as a result of being a member of it. In any case, even with all the data in the world to back up your decision to do so, never generalise your market. Concentrate on trends and behaviours, but don’t fall into the trap of lazy marketing assumptions such as “our target market are young professionals and therefore love to go clubbing on Fridays”. It’s simply not that clear cut. With more and more choice on the market, we’ve created more niches than ever. We’ve moved from ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ to ‘everything and anything goes’, with baking bikers and sockless CEOs not even turning heads anymore.
An old copywriter trick is to write a personal letter to a friend about the product or service you’re advertising and then remove the salutations before and after the body text, leaving you with an ad. This is a good way to avoid jargon and buzz words, but the trick is to make it personal to an ever-growing group of individual consumers. Basically, your company’s future depends on truly knowing your target market, but also on communicating with consumers (people) and not viewing the entire process as sterile selling to improve spreadsheet data. It sounds extremely simple, yet how often do you see or hear ads with numerous messages and even more products?
Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this topic.