You Talkin’ to Me?

Jim Schibler
Jun 3, 2016
6 min read

These days, advertisers are investing in tools for targeted marketing, which promise to produce better returns on advertising investments by improving delivery of messages. However, improving delivery makes sense only if the delivered messages actually resonate with the target audiences they reach. Many advertisers do a poor job of crafting the content of their messages; they seem to be talking to themselves rather than to their intended customers.

To illustrate my point, here are several examples of issues in ads that have entered my consciousness:

1. “With ConstantGuard, customers get security and peace of mind.”

The use of third-person language (“customers”) makes this statement abstract and distant. Who are these unspecified customers? Perhaps it’s nice that they get some benefits, but those benefits are not relevant to me, because I don’t identify myself as a customer. I suppose the advertiser might be hoping we listeners will imagine ourselves becoming customers and gaining benefits, but that’s a mental exercise that few people are likely to undertake when passively hearing a commercial. Recognizing the value of becoming a customer could be made much easier by making the message more direct: “With ConstantGuard, you’ll get security and peace of mind.”

2. “With PrintFinity, you can print a different image on every card.”

So what? Why do I need this? Perhaps I suffer from a lack of imagination, but I honestly can’t think of a reason I’d want to change my personal branding every time I hand out a business card. I worked hard to refine my design and my messaging, so why would I suddenly want to randomize them? What’s missing from this ad is a compelling example of how this capability could be used to deliver a unique benefit that would matter to me.

3. “Fewest Dropped Calls!”

This oldie but goodie, displayed on a great big billboard in San Francisco, attempted to portray a particular cellphone service provider as superior. I didn’t have a cellphone at the time, and the ad merely focused my attention on a negative aspect of cellphone service, encouraging me to delay adoption. Let’s face it: “We Suck Less” is not a very compelling message.

4. “Our cloud-based system is designed to help businesses grow faster.”

“Cloud-based” sounds cool and modern, but how many people even know what it means, or what benefits it delivers? Cloud architecture certainly offers benefits to system developers and service providers, but their customers may or may not gain benefits. Seeming cool and modern may appeal to some people, but most people need tangible benefits to motivate a purchase. As in the PrintFinity example, advertisers should not assume that tangible benefits are obvious to the audience.

The other problem in this example is its Wimpy Wording. When you say your solution “helps”, you beg the question “how much?”, and you immediately make clear that your solution isn’t sufficient by itself. “Our solution helps” is always weaker than “Our solution does”. (A trendy variant of the “helps” Wimpy Wording is “works to”, as in “Our company works to enable people to become their best.” The issues are the same.)

The other Wimpy Wording example cited here is an ad phrase I despise: “is designed to”. This hackneyed cliché only adds words and detracts value. Nobody cares what you attempted to achieve through your design; they only care what you actually accomplished. Delete this phrase any time you see it, and you’ll end up with a much stronger statement: “Our system grows your business faster”.

5. “This Doctor Admits to Curing No One!”

That’s the headline of a full-page newspaper ad taken out by a chiropractor. It seems that he’s trying to challenge people with a bold, counter-intuitive statement, in the hopes that they’ll read further. However, the ad itself is full of dense text in small fonts, along with a few family pictures that feel like the obligatory ones that politicians include in their campaign flyers. Honestly, how many people will put the effort into squinting their way through this guy’s diatribe, or will really care that he’s a family man? And why would anyone go to a doctor whose opening line suggests he’s ineffective?

Ad issues like the ones above make me feel like the advertisers are spending too much time sniffing their own fumes, instead of making the effort to really understand their audience and communicate effectively. You have to wonder what kind of returns these ads produce, and how much better those returns could be if the ads were better.

Ad Money Doesn’t Have to Be Wasted

John Wanamaker, a pioneer in advertising, was famous for the quotation “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half.”

Mr. Wanamaker probably wouldn’t have much trouble identifying waste in some of today’s advertising. Considering the high cost of placing ads, I’m often amazed at how little care is taken in crafting the messages in many of them. The process doesn’t have to be difficult; it’s mainly a matter of making the effort to think from the audience perspective, and asking questions like: • Would I pay attention to this ad? • Would I understand it? • Would I see value in it? • Would I come away with a positive impression of the advertiser? • Would I remember the offering and the advertiser? • Would I be likely to take action?

Advice for Making a Better Ad

Here are some specific recommendations you can apply to increasing the effectiveness of ad content:

1. Be attractive, or at least inoffensive

I find TV in America difficult to watch, because I feel bombarded by unpleasant ads that interrupt programs far too frequently. The audio volume increases noticeably, announcers shout trite messages, and images flash by fast enough to trigger epileptic seizures. I had a very different experience watching TV in Switzerland, where feature programs were presented without interruption, and all the commercials were presented together in a dedicated hour or two. Not surprisingly, those commercials were almost as enjoyable to watch as the feature programming, because they had to be good in order to attract and hold attention. Advertisers who understand this principle draw in their audience using attractive visuals, pleasant music, and interesting people sporting nice smiles.

2. Deliver a clear solution to a problem, need, or desire of the target audience

Your ultimate goal of placing an ad is to change behavior. People tend to act in their own self-interest, so make sure you align with that self-interest. Identify the problem, need, or desire that your offering addresses, and make sure that your ad clearly communicates how you address it.

3. Target your message by making it direct, personal, and relevant

Leave no doubt about whom the message is for. Speak directly to the target recipient using second-person language (“you”, not “people” or “customers”), and use language that aligns with the styles and tastes of the recipient. Make the message relevant by clearly addressing a specific problem, need, or desire that recipients will recognize as one that they personally experience.

4. Provide a reason to pay attention

You’re trying to get your audience to give you a moment of their time, so give them a good reason to do so! Be intriguing, novel, educational, entertaining. Even if your targeting isn’t perfect, you can leave the audience you reach with a positive impression of you by showing respect for their time, and delivering something they consider worthwhile. Give them something pleasant to watch. Use humor. Provide an interesting fact. Leave them with the feeling that spending a little time with you was worthwhile.

5. Make it memorable

Mindspace is precious these days, and competition for it is fierce. To avoid being displaced by the next message that hits your audience, you need to design some staying power into your advertising. Here’s where you need to draw on your creativity and come up with something different, something that gives your audience a reason to remember your message amid all the noise. Apple did this with its famous 1984 ad, Volkswagen did it with its Think Small campaign, Wendy’s did it with “Where’s the Beef?”, and the dairy board’s “Got Milk?” message was so effective that it spawned countless knock-offs.

One of the best ways to make a lasting impression is to make your content good enough to go viral (people like it so much that they forward it to their friends). Not only does this increase your reach dramatically at no additional cost, it also reinforces the impression you make on everyone who forwards your message.

Yes, I Am Talking to You!

Thanks to new technology, you can target the delivery of your ads more easily and accurately than ever before, but advertising money is still wasted if the content doesn’t resonate with your target audiences. Technology is no panacea; you still need to understand audiences, develop creative ideas, and craft compelling content in order for your messages to be effective.

I hope this article has convinced you that developing effective messaging is at least as important as reaching your audience, and has left you with some specific tools and ideas you can use to better achieve your advertising goals. Now go make your ads worth seeing, hearing, and sharing!

#Advertising #Marketing #MessageDevelopment