Marketing Maestro

So you think TV advertising is only for the big brands.  Think again.  A few months back I pointed out Spot Runner's entry into the TV advertising market with a focus on small businesses.  Recently I came across a new player in TV advertising named Spotzer who also targets the same group of advertisers.  Spotzer takes a more direct response model to marketing your business on TV.

Both companies use templates to create and customize a TV ad for your business but I am told Spotzer's approach is  more holistic then the Spot Runner model.  The main difference between the two companies comes down to the media buying and planning for your ads.  If you want to learn more take a look at the site or contact Allen Madoff (a long time industry friend) and tell him I sent you.  If you ever considered TV advertising this might be a way to make the numbers work.  If you can make the numbers work these efforts can be very successful.  Take  Ron Popeil and his 'Just Set It and Forget It'... as a prime example of successful direct response TV in action.

Good luck and if you call now we will include an extra set of steak knives...

Going once, going twice...

Yes.  If you have $2.7 million to spend on a 30 second ad you too can advertise on this year's Super Bowl. Well it is probably too late but you could have.

Do I recomend it for most businesses?  No.  Does it pay off?  Hard to tell.  Many of the advertisers on the big game do it to get their brand out to the millions of viewers.  It would be interesting to look at companies who advertised on the big game to see if the compaines are:

•  still in business (remember the sock puppet)
• they are still advertising year after year (do you even remember last year's ads)
• driving sales
• other then a spike in web traffic can they tie the spend to increased and sustained revenue

I doubt any of the big advertisers will share this info since the answers may not be popular but I am looking forward to some funny commercials and at $2.7MM I expect them to be entertaining.

There is no shortage of marketing comments about the super bowl.  Here are a few I came across recently:

Brand Week wrote about Moms and the Super Bowl.  Interesting perspective and a reminder that targeting is important no matter what the medium

Robert Rosenthal from Freaking Marketing discusses the Super Bowl advertisers and the lack of integrated marketing.

Rex Whisman from the Brand Champion's Blog discusses branding as it relates to this year's Super Bowl stadium.

If you come across other interesting resources send them my way. 

Yesterday I wrote about a paper that published a biased piece about our company.  They even referred to an ad we ran in their paper for the purpose of trying to appear unbiased. This paper clearly doesn't appreciate our products or services so should we continue to advertise in their publication?

We know pulling our ad budget is not going to be noticed by the paper but there is the principle of the matter to consider.

What would you do?

Is there really such a thing as unbiased reporting?  This has been on my mind for a while but recently hit a new high after a recent article in a major metro newspaper about one of our programs.  The article was clearly looking to take shots at Donald Trump, the real estate training eduction industry, and people looking to invest in the current foreclosure market.  The writer took a biased point of view against the benefits of our program.  What I found interesting was that he recognized that we basically pay his salary by advertising in their publication.  Now, I know there has to be a separation between editorial and advertising, but why point out we advertised in the paper?  Full disclosure? Doesn't make sense to me.  He could have written the article without mentioning our ad and it would not have changed his point of view on the subject mater. Mentioning the  ad could have only served to allow the reporter to flex his editorial muscles.  TU advertises but that is not going to affect my opinion...

I find this situation interesting.  Editorial writers taking shots at the very people who pay their salaries.  Don't get me wrong --I am not asking for positive reviews or editorials to be written if they are not warranted, but why bite the hand that feeds you?

What happened to the good old days of the five 'W's of reporting and sticking to the facts?

Josef Katz

Think your business is too small to advertise on TV?  Well Spot Runner doesn't.  You should do a full evaluation of the service but from what I can tell any company can now advertise on local TV and it doesn't have to cost millions of dollars.  Spot Runner has created templates that you customize for your ads, then you select the markets and schedule you want and their system does the rest.  I have definitely over simplified the process but if you have a local business and want to try TV advertising it is probably worth some time reading through their site.

If you use the service let me and the TrumpU community know about your success with a note to this blog about your experience.

Thanks

Yesterday in the WSJ I noticed an ad for a Sprint world phone PDA.  Normally I just fly past cell phone ads and Sprint's ads are usually pretty boring to boot, but not today.  The headline read:

'The First $10.5M Cell Phone'

Now that catches your attention. The body copy was equally engaging describing how if you buy the $10.5M cell phone they will throw in your own island.  I can't do the ad justice by describing it, so visit the integrated website (explore the site there is more than just the video). You will get a better picture of the campaign and why it broke the mold of most of their advertising (make that most advertising).

They accomplished an advertising home run in my book.  They pulled together eye catching copy, an integrated web site, and word of mouth marketing (I showed the ad to three people and now you all know about it) .  Is this the end of the campaign? I doubt it.  I wouldn't be surprised to see the ad on CNBC or some other business related media outlet.  They might even tie in direct mail as well. 

I applaud them for creating a fun and interesting tone throughout the campaign.  Do you have the guts to risk hundreds of thousands or probably millions of dollars on an ad campaign? 

The lesson here is that taking risks has its rewards.  The next time you are creating an ad, stop and ask yourself the following question:  Is the ad safe or is it eye catching and maybe a little risky?

I doubt the public will know if this effort increases unit sales or brings in new customers to Sprint, but I would bet they receive some form of industry recognition for the campaign.

BTW - I don't use any Sprint services but once I have $10.5M I will definitely switch to get a free island...