retail advertising

It has been said men likely think with their head, rarely think with their hearts, and sometimes even think with their…

I wonder which brain locks in on the same-old-same-ole advertising ideas. Who’s run this? Have you seen this somewhere else? What terms make it work best? Should the warning signs be yellow, or should we use stop sign red?

These are NOT made up questions. These are asked weekly.

Below is the response to a real client situation. Hang in there. You might get a really good idea.

IQ- Impact Quotient is simply an ads power to deliver its intended results. The impact quotient of an ad is certainly affected by outside issues. Ads don’t deliver in a vacuum. (You know this.) A few things to keep in mind are product purchase cycle, media delivery vehicle, share of voice, etc…

Here is an example of each:

Restaurants verses furniture stores is the first. We humans need three squares a day at least, and we buy a new set of bedding once every 10-15 years. Regardless of the quality of message visa vies IQ the impact of the restaurant ad will happen quicker. It is not likely a person is going longer than several hours without food, but even if your mattress is bad you’ve slept there for years and another several nights won’t matter.

The store has to decide between newspaper and radio. They decide because they read the newspaper each day, “their customers do as well.” But we know the customer only reads the special food section on Thursdays and advise radio as the best option for the campaign. The radio campaign would start Monday and play 4x per day 6a-5p. (We know MMJ is a radio listener of course.) So by the weekend the NP ad has made 1 impression if the entire customer base read the paper, while the radio would have played 20 times and probably reaches a 3 or 4 (impressions) in the market.

Share of voice is the last example I’ll give you. Hometown Furniture decides they are going to run their annual ½ off the warehouse sale next week. The event if studied closely has been losing sales volume each year for the last 3 years, but the volume is better than thinking-up some new event that might be untested, so they just keep on running it. Cool! But the same week the competition decides they are going to running a store remodeling event at the same time. The store remodeling company spends 20% more than Hometown the same week and although the events both feature terms, and discounts the 20% extra promotion drowns out the ½ off warehouse promotion.

Urgent messages making “a limited time offer” raise the impact quotient for customers who are currently consciously in the market for the product, but the lower the impact quotient for customers who are not currently in the market. The brain is a very smart organ. It refuses to store information that isn’t relevant. Therefore, you cannot establish a long-term brand position with a series of short-term “limited time offers.” The only thing that will be remembered long-term is “never buy from these people unless they’re having a sale.”

Also remember the eyes and ears are not only separate organs, but also connected to entirely separate parts of the brain that gather, process, store and retrieve memories in entirely different ways. One commonly held myth is that we remember “more of what we see than what we hear.” In fact, the opposite is true. Visual memory is fragile, but auditory memory is involuntary and long-term. This is why we can sing along with more than 2,000 songs we never wanted to know.

Far more important than your choice of media is your choice of message. I realize as an old advertising guy you might believe research into the “right” media is as important as message. I simply disagree. A furniture store can only handle a maximum of 120 ups per sales person per month. So in the case of a store like Hometown that might have 15 salespeople on the floor, they only need 1800 visitors. I believe a well crafted message is far more likely to get Ms. Jones to the store. Hype terms and discounts combined with limited time offers, or mass flight TV or radio schedules, or double truck newspaper ads won’t move a person an inch who isn’t already interested in the product.

Regardless of the offer Ms. Jones isn’t going to jump up and suddenly decide she must have a sofa this weekend! The right message delivered over the right buying cycle results in long-term growth of sales.

As you can see, there is no perfect answer. The choices that yield the greatest results today will likely yield the lowest results long-term. And the most monotonous thing in the short run is the most powerful thing in the long run.

But that’s just how life is, isn’t it?

Writer’s note: The information here has been gathered over the past 11 years studying at The Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas. If you’re feeling drawn to learn more and want to get it straight from the horse’s mouth, check out the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop. For $3,000 plus travel you’ll be able to experience this study for yourself. I’ll tell you one thing; life sure begins to look different once you understand these principles.