Andrea L. Crabtree, MS
It is difficult to miss the recent wave of advertisements promoting products alongside messages centered around how consumers are saving money.
A woman in a recent television ad is shown walking into a train car while explaining to a friend that she helps herself to all of the available hotel bathroom toiletries. The ad then goes on to show a number of people discussing various ways to save money. Sadly, I remember the commercial but could not tell you what company sponsored it.
Speaking broadly, companies have reshaped their advertisements to reflect the new economic reality while still driving home branding messages.
It is in vogue to have a savings account again.
Flashy spending seems vulgar.
Given the speed of the economic recovery, it appears this new advertising direction is here to stay.
Andrea L. Crabtree, MS
Admitting you offered a poor-quality product to your customers in a national advertising campaign requires tremendous belief in your new brand message.
Domino’s Pizza recently took that leap of faith in their reality television-like commercials using quotes from focus groups. The ads hold nothing back and clearly indicate how low Domino’s pizza scores on taste. Finally, the commercials end with the Domino’s chefs singing the praises of the new pizza recipes they developed and offering discounted prices for the new pizzas.
Whether you like the new ads or not, no one can deny that the ads have a number of people talking, tweeting, and blogging. I typed “dominos pizza ad cardboard” into a Google search and several online articles discussing the advertising campaign showed up on the first page of results.
I’ll leave the pros and cons of the campaign to those articles.
Instead, I feel the Domino’s television ads essentially pay homage to the fast-paced world of the Internet. In the commercials, a company receives feedback directly from customers and responds (what seems like) immediately with a vastly improved product.
I realize it probably took Domino’s several months to develop their new products. However, consumers today want lightning-fast responses and the Domino’s ad reinforces this new expectation.
Will any other companies follow Domino’s lead into this edgy, new form of advertising?
By Bridget Weizer Granger
Whether you’re managing the production of videos, events or interactive media, your mission should be the same: to meet communication objectives in inspiring ways, on time and on budget.
According to Mike Yearling, owner of the Yearling Media Group, great creative and outstanding talent are critical, but behind every success there’s typically something deeper at play: the production process itself. Yearling notes, “Show me a project that aligns the warring siblings of quality, cost and speed, and I’ll bet there is a production process behind it loaded with wisdom.”
Through the years, Yearling has come to define ”wisdom” as the ability to avoid the following seven deadly sins of producing:
- Not asking the right questions up front. “I’m always struck by how many downstream production issues can be avoided by just asking the right questions before the spending begins,” Yearling noted.
- Not squashing creative ambiguities early one. In discussing creative, words are never enough. He advises using images or reviewing past projects as frames of reference.
- Basing your budget or timeline on a Utopian dream. “If you know executives will make a lot of changes, plan for it,” said Yearling. “Nice surprise, if it doesn’t happen!”
- Not getting work in front of key decision makes early. Better to avoid a complete project reversal days before the project is due.
- Spending 80 percent of your budget on the first draft or cut. Rather than build the whole house at once, show rooms along the way.
- Not seeing the forest while gazing at the trees. “Approach your communication initiatives as a comprehensive annual program, and not a bunch of separate projects,” noted Yearling.
- Not learning from your mistakes. Before rushing off to the next project, take a moment to reflect frankly on this one first. “Your next project will love you for it,” he added.
With a fear of spending firmly instilled, advertising pocket books have gone from being lined to being stitched closed. Hear how one media company is answering their clients’ demands — without breaking the bank.
AMA International Leadership Summit is this Weekend
This weekend, many of the Columbus AMA officers will be attending the AMA International Leadership Summit in Chicago, Illinois. The Summit, which is totally paid for by the chapter if you are an officer, will be held at the Westin O’Hare. AMA International expects 75 chapters across North America to be represented and 300 marketing professionals to attend. Check back here over the weekend to see their thoughts.
