I don't so much have a train of thought as a sort of demented relay race.
Here's an example.
Did you ever hear the nauseating broadcast by that world-class creep Alec Baldwin, who decided it was appropriateapologise to all America for being a thoroughly unpleasant bully to his 10-year old daughter?
Like many actors, I guess he's marooned so far up his own derriere that it would take an entire search party to find the real him, but I suppose some oily PR person suggested this nasty little stunt, which can hardly have reassured the poor girl.
Of course that is VERY bad advice, as lots of people who had never heard the phone call in question now have.
What has that to do with our business, you may reasonably ask; but a few years ago I tried to define why I thought anybody with any sense would think direct marketing a good idea.
I came up with three reasons:
1. Why speak to everybody when you only need to speak to somebody?
2. Why guess when you can know?
3. Why not spend your money where it does most good?
Baldwin's pathetic behaviour called the first reason to mind. His daughter was the one he owed the apology to - but maybe he found it easier to act the whole thing out in front of his no longer quite so adoring public.
Anyhow, that reminded me of Claude Hopkins' maxim:
"Your message should single out your prospect like a bell-boy paging a man in a crowded hotel lobby."
Which in turn came to mind when I saw a poster on a metro tram in Manchester.
It was for BUPA.
"Are you made of the right stuff" it said, showing a dummy made of newspaper in front of a lot of modern buildings. Then there was a paragraph of copy.
I thought it was rather an odd way to suggest I go and have a check up, then I actually read the copy. It was nothing to do with check-ups at all.
They were looking for staff. And boy, were they throwing money around in the attempt. In that one tram car alone there were four of those posters. Multiply that by the number of tram cars they were on - and wow!
They'd probably get better results handing out leaflets outside their health centre.
Suppose you're looking for a job. What possible chance is there that you'd think that's what BUPA was offering?
Now I'm not going to ramble on too long about my little £19 ad on Gumtree that got me 82 replies (click here to see it) and one superb PA (who also has a talent for copy, by the way) but really.
Spend 90% of the time you spend on any message considering how you single out the prospect.
Here's another prime example of how not to do it.
The campaign of which this is part is appearing all over the place. It is what they call "who gives a s**t" advertising.
If I were a client of St. James's Place I would be giving my position serious thought. If this is what they're doing with their money, what will they do with mine?
No doubt the people who sold it to the client came out with a lot of pretentious tripe about building a brand - but Raymond Rubicam put it: "The only purpose of advertising is to sell. It has no other justification worth mentioning."
By the way, the technical term for this kind of advertising may come in handy one day, so I'll give it to you. It is called creative masturbation. Less polite people use another word that rhymes with banking - highly appropriate when you look at most banks' ads.
By contrast, here's one of my favourite examples of going straight for the prospect and making a clear promise:
"If you have piles and you have a dollar
Give me your dollar and I'll get rid of your piles
Or you can keep your dollar and keep your piles".
With which tasteful work of art I will leave you for today.
Best,
Drayton
P.S. This is number 37 of Drayton Bird’s 101 free helpful marketing ideas. You can sign up on the link below for the rest.
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Website: www.draytonbirdcommonsense.com / www.eadim.com
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