To be rebellious
To get consumers - be they retail or service customers or business-to-business audiences - to notice an advertising message, many companies turn to loudness and self-improvement. Neither of these tactics work in the long run.
If your competition is speaking out loud and you decide to yell louder, what do you think they will do? Yes. They will start screaming. Nobody wins a shouting match when it comes to advertising. And usually, you will find that you even lose some clients in the process because they cannot handle the noise.
The same goes for overcoming. If you have to compete with more and better coupons or with more and better discounts, gifts, or incentives not related to your main product, your sales revenue decreases, as does your number of sales.
Customers see these types of games as cheat, fake and fake; and they leave. Those who stay now see you and your competitors as commodities with no difference except their price. That is a dangerous place for a company to be.
The answer to disorder is not more disorder; is to find who wants to listen and talk to him. So how do you compete if you can't shout or discount your competition? You become rebellious and radical with your advertising.
Do those words scare you? It's okay. Remember, you are being brave now. You can handle it. Also, rebellious and radical are not bad words. They will help you divert attention from your competition without having to yell and insult your customers.
It's not about being outrageous just to get attention; it's about being extraordinary. An advertising campaign with a strong rebellious strategy is, by its very nature, different from anything your audience will encounter in your competitors' marketing efforts. It is unexpected. It's amazing. It is effective.
There are two keys to creating a successful rebellious ad campaign. The first is the big idea. This idea arises from a strategy that is derived directly from your customers and their relationship with your brand. He arrives at this idea through a discipline called account planning. We'll go into the details of both the big idea and the account planning in later articles.
The second key to a successful rebel ad campaign is attention. You can't get attention if you don't learn to identify and then move away from the norm. No matter how good your product or service is or how big your potential market is, if your target audience doesn't pay attention to your message, your advertising budget has been wasted.
Think about these two keys while flipping through the newspaper or magazine. Reflect on them while watching TV. You should notice something almost immediately. Most of the current announcements don't seem to be based on a great idea. Many are so boring that you pass by without realizing it. Others grab your attention, but the ads don't have much to do with the product, so you quickly forget about the brand it was supposed to sell you. What an opportunity for your brand!
Now, there is a warning about being a rebel. Your ads should never be different for the sake of differentiation. The difference must stem from the uniqueness of your brand. •
This article introduces the second of the twelve steps. Challenge yourself, your staff and your advertising agency to revolutionize your advertising program. If you missed the first step, contact the author for a free copy. And remember, every revolution begins with a single step.
