Street-wise marketing

Is your cardboard Receptionist a mongrel?

2009-09-14T14:27:00.008+10:00

My view has always been that your business card is no less important than your Receptionist at the office. In fact, thinking about it again ... it's actually MORE important!

I'll explain: in 90% of cases, your business card is the first impression a client will get of you and your company. The first company 'person' they meet directly after meeting you.

It's exactly the same as if they were walking into your reception area and meeting your Receptionist for the first time. If your Receptionist looks angry, quiet, meek, too trashy or just plain ugly and boring, like it or not that's the brand image they immediately have of your company.

And if your business card looks angry, quiet, meek, trashy or just plain ugly and boring, guess what ... that's the brand image they immediately have of your company too.

And guess what? First impressions are the hardest impressions to change.

So is your cardboard Receptionist a mongrel or megastar? If upon handing your business card to someone you don't get an immediate positive reaction or comment, chances are it's a mongrel, so here are some of the big do's and don'ts to unleash the megastar:

Don't cut corners with your business card any more than you would your Receptionist. Make it solid - no whimpy paper stock, make it solid card.
Don't be so ridiculously vain as to put a photo of yourself on it - do you really think you'd make a great/good-looking receptionist?!
Use colour sparingly and well - 4 colour cards often look cheaper and more 'cut price' than brilliantly designed one and two colour cards. Every business I own/have owned has NEVER used any more than three colours. Adding matt & gloss varnishes, emboss or vercotype is far better than adding even more colour.
Less is more - don't cram you card with so much information that it looks like a brochure for Pygmies. LESS IS MORE! The less you say the less you leave open to interpretation.

Six media planning mistakes

2009-06-27T21:35:00.002+10:00

A very insightful article!

Emotional media: building a brand on radio

2009-06-25T14:24:00.002+10:00

It's actually very easy to build a brand using radio in Australia. NRMA in particular did it extremely well in the 80's, with a long-running radio campaign that - gasp - won awards for the agency/Writers AND a lot of business for NRMA.

Radio is the theatre of the mind. The reason we develop a liking for so many radio personalities is that listeners are free to add their own visuals: face, hair length, style of dress, nervous tics ... the lot. The same applies to radio campaigns. On the surface there is little difference between stations until you take this into account and realise that the very difference is all in listeners' heads ... and ears.

Used creatively radio can drive sales and build brands as well as any other mainstream media. Used strategically it can deliver access to finite target audiences. Yes, Mums with kids are a crossover. And yes, Mummy's little angel may well know all the lyrics to the AMI's latest radio campaign, but like TV and print it's her role as a parent to avoid the situation.

Jingles thankfully made a graceful exit at the same time great radio campaigns did - the early 90's. It wasn't because the Writers who wrote great radio also wrote great jingles (radio jingles then were predominantly just soundtracks from TV commercials thrown on to radio, masquerading as a radio commercial). It was purely that after the 'recession we had to have' many agency clients began looking for far greater transparency and adland became rightfully nervous.

With that came an agency reaction of 'Shit! We have to trim our internal costs now if we're ever going to be able to afford 3 weeks in Cannes this year! Unload a few of the biggest salaries!!'

The greatest salaries were of course the greatest Creatives and thus, thanks to limited creative mentoring in the industry for the last couple of decades, the dearth of great radio today.

As for outdoor and ambient media, well, that's another topic ...

Developing a social media strategy for your brand

2009-06-12T18:11:00.002+10:00

This is one of the most insightful, logical pieces I've read on social marketing strategy!

Marketing in tough economic times: why the worst thing you can do is slash your marketing budget.

2009-02-06T16:45:00.019+11:00

It's pretzel logic: just how many companies slash their marketing budget as soon as they hear the "R" word.

The theory seems to be that if they cut their marketing budget, they'll be better placed to weather the tough economic times by conserving cashflow, enabling them (so they think) to come out the other end unscathed.

The fact is, if your slashing your marketing you're slashing your wrists! You're opening the way for more marketing-savvy competitors to take advantage of your weakened state by pouring hot marketing water on your wounds.

So what does a recession-savvy marketer do?

First and foremost, they acknowledge the fact that there's still disposable income out there being spent and the more they do to increase their share of that income in tough times, the better placed they'll be to keep revenue loss to a minimum during a recession ... and come out of it with markedly increased revenue, marketshare and customer loyalty.

Aside from having to have nerves of steel to keep marketing spend up rather than slashing, marketing in a recession requires a different brand strategy and marketing communications mix. It also requires seamless integration between all marketing components and a firm grip on measurability, but then, any marketer worth his/her salt is already doing that. Aren't you!

In tough economic times consumers still spend, but they generally fly south to the safety of known, trusted brands, not necessarily cheaper brands. Not a known, trusted brand? All you need to do is change their perception of you. For instance, if you're sitting there thinking "Yeah, but we've only been around for 12 years" think laterally for a moment. That means you've been around since 1997. To put it another way, you've been around since last century. It's all perception and how you choose to express it.

And your marketing communications mix? It's all about accountability, measurability and sustainability. Forget about the "massive noise, followed by a long period of silence" approach. It doesn't work in normal economic times, and in a recession it's an instant invitation for financial disaster. Ensure your marketing budget is focused on media that allows you to get your brand noticed in the marketplace in new and different ways such as ambient and street media, as well as a strategic selection of traditional mainstream media such as radio, print and TV.

As for your media strategy, being seen regularly is vital. A 'drip-feed' strategy (consistent weight across the entire media plan, using a variety of integrated media communications) is of far more benefit than a bell curve strategy (one that has a big bang for a short period, followed by low or no activity for a long period, then big bang again ... etc).

It pays to be well red

2009-01-16T08:44:00.010+11:00

Red is one of the three primary colours. It also happens to be the colour that generates the greatest reponse in people worldwide. Red is known to set our emotions running wild - from passion to poison.

Research studies have proved that offices with a strong red theme results in employees working faster. But of course, faster work results in errors of judgement and mistakes, so before you go ordering 50 gallon drums of red paint, remember, slow and steady wins the race - red sports cars always end up wrapped around power poles. Yet red walls have also been shown to increase in appetite (ever wondered why just when you think you're full in a Chinese restaurant, you order yet another dish?).

Red is often used as the primary colour for warning signs. Why? Because red stands out against white, grey and black backgrounds. Traffic signs use red because it's the most visible color in daylight.

Red - and a multitude of shades of red - are also used as the symbol of love. Red is often used to draw attention and make items appear stronger, brighter and heavier. Red has been found to have such an impact on our emotions that it can cause the heart to beat faster. In fact, one study proved that when two sports teams are equally matched, the team dressed in red is more likely to win! But as red also seems to incite confrontation, perhaps it's best not to wear red driving a red conervertible through the back blocks of Redfern.

On a webpage it's best to use red as an accent color to call attention to certain links or words on the page. If you want to use red as a background colour, a deeper, darker red works best. Bright red is too bright and hard on the eyes, making it difficult to read contrasting words. Red will stand out making visitors take notice of key words. For those who like red, a good choice is a monocromatic color scheme - using several shades of red with a contrasting color for links or main words can create a powerful webpage.

Want more?

• Color increases brand recognition by up to 80 percent
• Color improves readership as much as 40 percent
• Color accelerates learning from 55 to 78 percent
• Color increases comprehension by 73 percent
• Color ads are read up to 42 percent more than similar ads in black and white
• Color can be up to 85 percent of the reason people decide to buy

And what vehicle colour guarantees the highest noticeability, recognition and rentention? That's right - red!

NEWS JUST IN ... a new 2009 research study of 600 people conducted by British Columbia University has proved that a red computer screen background increases accuracy, and that red aids recall and detail!