Whorrible marketing for Ron Paul?

Perhaps you remember or read about the days when Michael Jackson was a boon to Pepsi’s marketing.  But then Jackson fell, nay, nose-dived from public favor. Pepsi couldn’t distance themselves from him fast enough. 

But at least Jackson was a paid endorser. What do you do with an unsolicited endorsement that may cast aspersions? 

The Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel not far from Carson City, Nevada, has officially endorsed alleged presidential candidate Ron Paul. They’re even raising funds for him. Individual employees are donating tips. Quoth Hustler centerfold Cami Parker: “I really appreciate the fact that Ron Paul respects states’ rights and individual rights. It seems like he really understands our rights to do what we want.”

(Ironically, a significant number of Mormons living in Nevada find Paul’s rhetoric reminiscent of their late prophet-leader Ezra Taft Benson. I was going to add some wisecrack about the mainstream Mormon Church’s doctrine of polygamy, but never mind. It’s been done.)

In 1979, French adman Jacques Séguéla published his autobiography entitled, Ne dites pas à ma mère que je suis dans la publicité… elle me croit pianiste dans un bordel. (“Don’t tell my mom that I’m in advertising… she thinks I’m a pianist in a brothel.”) Per Séguéla, if any ad agencies want to endorse Paul, right now their efforts might nicely dovetail with those of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch. 

—Steve Cuno

Anomaly Folly

A surprising number of people say they would prefer a doctor who makes an intuitive rather than a statistical diagnosis. Often they are buoyed by tales of anomalies where a doctor defied the odds and won. Trouble is, if an anomaly were a safe bet, it wouldn’t be an anomaly. As Wichita State University’s Charles Lambdin said, “It is usually in patients’ best interest to be treated like a ‘statistic.’ When doctors hear a decision aid has a 25% error rate and state ‘I can beat that,’ this should raise suspicion.” 

Likewise, when an ad agency defies proven practice — assuming they even know about it — clients should think twice about whether they have the right agency. 

There exists nearly two centuries’ worth of accumulated knowledge about what works (and what does not work) in advertising. Using anomalies to justify disregarding that knowledge is like ignoring an airplane’s instruments because of the rare case where someone relied on intuition and lived to tell about it. “Trust your feelings” worked for Luke Skywalker, but I seem to recall that Star Wars was a work of fiction.

There is, of course, another problem. I alluded to it a moment ago. Most marketers are unaware of the body of knowledge, not to mention of what constitutes a controlled marketing test. Of the few who know, many disdain it. It’d be one thing if the money they gamble were their own. But since it’s their client’s money, you would think they might feel a certain, oh, I dunno, fiduciary responsibility to stack the odds in their client’s favor.

—Steve Cuno

To press-check, or not to press-check

I received a note from a friend asking for advice after her fine art poster returned from the print shop not looking like what she’d seen on her computer monitor.

How an image looks on a monitor doesn’t ensure how it will come out on paper. There are, to begin with, the monitor’s settings. Beyond that, the grain, type, finish and color of the paper you choose will change the ink’s color. So will the light that happens to fill the room when you’re looking at the page. So will things like ink density and dots per inch, and so will whether you’re using a 2, 4, 6 or more-color press, doing digital or offset printing, applying a varnish, and so forth. 

Ordering printing online is quite a time-saver, but I tend to do so only for projects where exact color isn’t an issue, which it often isn’t. Just remember that ordering printing that way precludes doing an old-fashioned press check. The printing facility can email you a proof, but that still doesn’t eliminate the possibility that what’s on your monitor won’t match what comes out on paper. They can also send you a paper proof, but even that won’t be a true, off-the-press sample.

When getting colors just-so matters, show up for a press check. Examine samples as they come off the press, and ask the the press operator to make adjustments as needed on the fly. Once you have a sample you like, sign it and ask the press operator to be sure the rest of the batch matches.

—Steve Cuno

What little I know about crisis PR

Yesterday a good friend asked for tips on public relations in a crisis. PR is not my area, and, in a crisis, I’d recommend consulting with people who specialize in crisis PR. However, I have learned a thing or two. At the risk of being prosaic, they largely smack of common sense and common decency. Here are some thoughts:

Limit main points. No more than three, two being better, one being best. Too many talking points risks two disadvantages for you: 1) No one will quite know what to focus on, meaning that no one will quite know what you said. 2) The more you talk, the more points you give an opponent to debate.

Know when to stop. Engaging an unwinnable debate only prolongs and escalates it.  “Never miss a good opportunity to shut up.” — Will Rogers

Don’t lie. If ethical considerations leave you unmoved, consider how much uglier things will get when you’re caught. Which you will most likely be.

You never win by telling the public they’re wrong, even when they are. When research showed that the public didn’t think an alleged charitable organization deserved tax-free status, I advised responding with a campaign saying, in essence, “We hear you, and here’s what we commit to do to make things right...” After chastising me for a so-called negative attitude, the CEO tasked the PR department with telling the public they were guilty of misjudging his wonderful company. A few months later, the public replied — in voting booths. Now the organization is legally required to prove its tax-exempt worthiness, county by county, each year.

Admit found-out mistakes.  Note the given, namely, that they are already “found-out.” Which means you’ll have to admit them sooner or later anyway. The longer you wait, they more they needlessly inflate. Think Monicagate.

Make friends before you need them. Reporters are more apt to hear your side — that is, “get” what you’re saying — when they already know and trust you.

Radical PR idea: don’t screw up in the first place. Hindsight aside, I am surprised at how often this one is overlooked. A large corporation getting beat up in the media for being “too rich” decided to jerk their commercials from the TV station dealing them the worst blows. I suggested rethinking that one. Otherwise, imagine the next news story: “Evil company flexes monetary muscle to silence valiant reporter.” In a rare instance of sanity, the corporation heard me and abandoned the plan. (“You have more PR sense than my PR people,” the VP of Marketing told me. Well, yeah, at least in that instance.)

Of course, no matter how well one manages crisis PR, there’s no telling what the opposition will do. Good luck to you all.

—Steve Cuno

A 1960s magazine ad for the Avis car rental company featured this wonderfully candid opener: “I write Avis ads for a living. But that doesn’t make me a paid liar.” The author went on to tell of renting a car from Avis and finding, contrary to what he wrote in an earlier ad, a filthy ashtray. His closing lines: “So if I’m going to continue writing these ads, Avis had better live up to them. Or they can get themselves a new boy. They’ll probably never run this ad.”

Were the author of the Red Robin menu to order the Sautéed ’Shroom Burger — at least from the location I visited this afternoon — he or she might feel much the same way. Seduced by the promise of “fresh, plump, sautéed mushrooms,” I ordered my own ’Shroom Burger. Eagerly biting in, what did I find? Canned mushrooms. Canned. And as far as I could tell, no one had done any sautéing. All I could detect was the fresh taste of the inside of an aluminum can.

I defend advertisers against silly accusations — we don’t know how to make people act against their own will — but I am unabashed about decrying advertisers who lie. 

To be fair, perhaps it’s only an oversight. They happen. Either way, a menu is an in-store advertisement. Please, Red Robin, deliver what you promise. Otherwise, you are helping give my profession a bad name. Almost if not more egregious, about an hour ago you sorely disappointed my poor tastebuds.

—Steve Cuno

So much for “sex sells”

In a recent multivariate test, Cosmopolitan magazine found that increasing the focus on sex in a promotion drove sales down by 22 percent.

This bears out my own experience. I was once in charge of marketing advertising space to the trucking industry. My predecessor, convinced that all truckers were male and straight with but one thing on their mind, created a campaign showing a not particularly clad woman over the woefully classless headline, “I’m ad-vailable.”

(It was interesting to hear the company’s leaders, self-professed religious icons, rationalize having let him do it. Especially when they told me that the buxom model in the photos was 15.)

My first official act was to nix the sexually oriented ads and create new ones that talked about — how’s this for a breakthrough concept? — salient features and benefits. Arguably less sexy, both figuratively and literally, the new campaign doubled sales overnight.

Unlike my erst employer, Cosmo at least had an excuse, as they were marketing a product with sexual content. Still, as they discovered, there is such a thing as overdoing it in a promotion. 

If your product has nothing to do with sex, infusing ads with sex won’t help. In fact, it may drive sales down. As you arguably deserve.

—Steve Cuno

Color Consciousness
Originally posted November 2, 2009
 
I just received a direct mail flyer from a local dentist. It is laden with photos of smiling people with lovely teeth. 

Every person in every photo is white. 

Note to dentists: Even in Sandy, Utah, not everyone is caucasian. Not even if you weed out the toothless.

I suppose one could argue that the dentist’s objective is not to promote racial equality, but to acquire new patients. Moreover, 89% of Utah is white, so one could argue that the dentist is appealing to the greater market.

From a pure marketing view, I can't argue against those points. But I can as a marketer who also happens to be a human being. Advertising has a powerful opportunity to depict the human family as more than one ethnicity, without (except in rare cases) compromising other objectives. Given the human tendency to separate into “us” and “them,” it’s an opportunity we shouldn’t waste.

I doubt that the dentist intended any slight. This is the kind of oversight that’s easy to make. Which is exactly why we all need an occasional reminder. I hope this one serves.

—Steve Cuno

A résumé is an ad, and you’re the product
My note to a young hopeful who had no better sense 
than to ask me for feedback on a résumé

You’ve done a good job of creating a résumé in the format most schools suggest. Therein lies the problem. Employers are deluged with résumés that look like what most schools suggest. The result is that each résumé your prospective employer sees, including yours, is a clone of the one before and the one before that.

So my first suggestion is to put some thought into making your résumé stand out, that is, making YOU stand out. Make your unique abilities and personality leap from the page. The less effort it takes an employer to see what makes you great and unusual, the better off you are.

Your résumé is an advertisement, and you are the product. It is a sales pitch, your one shot at getting an employer to take a second, serious look at you. Yet the average résumé is typically laid out like a form. Think like a marketer. If taking a liberty with the form here or there helps you sell, take the liberty.

Re “Objective”: They all say pretty much the same thing, which is pretty much nothing. No rule says you need an objective. If you must have one, at least dispense with the flatulence. Spare us the tired clichés like “to utilize my skills,” “challenging position” and “personal growth.” Try something refreshingly honest. Here is the best objective that ever crossed my desk: “To be the most productive and profitable account executive in the history of the RESPONSE Agency.” I hired her and she became our highest-paid employee, counting me.

Don’t believe anyone who says to keep your résumé to one page. Take the space you need to sell yourself. No less. Just make sure that every word is needed. People will read a long résumé if it’s long for a reason, that is, packed with fascinating, relevant stuff about you. No one will read anything, long or short, that merely rambles. I last updated my résumé 18 years ago. It ran five pages.

Use white space, like double returns between paragraphs, liberally. It will increase readership. Especially if your resume runs long.

Turn features into benefits. Why do I care that you had a four-year scholarship as a Collegiate Softball Athlete? If it indicates something about your character and sense of commitment or willingness to work hard and succeed against all odds, don’t expect me to infer it. Point it out, succinctly. As for all those community events you participated in, what skills or character traits that I’ll find useful did they help you develop? 

Until more résumés say, “I prefer hanging with disease-carrying rodents,” saying “I love to work with people” will fail to impress. On the other hand, if you show me (note: not tell me) how you work with people, you might score points. Show me that you’re skilled at conflict resolution, you can adapt to a variety of working conditions, you can coach and inspire people without putting them on the defensive, you can take advice without feeling personally attacked ... or something. Again, show don’t tell, and establish benefits not just features. 

STAND OUT. In a positive way, of course. Wearing a clown suit to a fine restaurant will make you stand out, but it won’t get you a table. Build your résumé so that what makes you unique, invaluable and indispensable bonks even the drowsiest prospective employer paying only half-attention over the head.

—Steve Cuno

Advertising and Pushing Pink

It is human to question. Unfortunately, it is also human to jump to uninformed conclusions, and to pounce on those who dare bring up evidence or its lack. Not even skeptics, who pride themselves on critical thinking, are immune. It is especially tempting and easy to succumb when the field in question is fashionable to hate. 

Advertising presents just such a sitting duck. Objecting to a product often goes hand-in-hand with demonizing the advertising industry for “pushing,” “tricking,” “hypnotizing,” etc. The gist is that we manipulate the masses into buying stuff against their will, under their conscious radar. (Tellingly, the accusers often exempt themselves. They aren’t subject to our wiles. It’s everyone else — that is, all those lesser minds out there — that they’re worried about.)

The accusation du jour, catalyzed by a viral video of an irresistible, outraged little girl, is that evil advertisers trick girls into wanting pink-colored products and boys into wanting action figures.

The accusation is utter nonsense. 

There is only one reason that marketers produce pink stuff for girls. It is that people buy pink stuff for girls. If people started buying green instead, marketers would dump pink for green without hesitation. There is an admitted bit of vicious circle going on here, but the circle always begins — and ends — with what the market embraces. When buyers refuse to embrace a product, and/or demand another in its place, and/or change their mind about what they want, marketers adapt or go out of business. 

If advertisers really can control the masses against their will, surely the world’s largest and most experienced advertisers should be masters of the craft. Yet, somehow, the Coca-Cola Company was powerless to trick the market into wanting New Coke. Clever headlines, retouched photos and glib text failed to trick people into wolfing down Colgate brand frozen dinners. Women didn’t give up silk for Bic brand disposable panties. No one wanted anything to do with Gerber brand pureed food for adults, McDonald’s brand kids’ clothing, or Harley-Davidson brand cologne. For that matter, perhaps you noticed that not too many people own an Edsel, nor ever did, despite its enjoying six decades of top-of-mind name recognition. 

Pretty poor showing for an industry that allegedly controls minds.

Far from hypnotizing or tricking, what we marketers really do is try things and see what happens. When we score a hit, we repeat it. Should we notice a technique that tends to score more hits than others — like say, putting a photo at the top of an ad with the headline right under it instead of vice-versa — we use it more often. 

Intra-industry myths are partly to blame for the accusations hurled at advertisers. For instance, a common ad industry myth goes something like this: “If an ad is truly creative, it will sell.” The claim unabashedly smacks of mind control. It also happens to be demonstrably false. Trouble is, most ad people buy into and spread it. Who could blame the public for believing the alleged experts?

We do our best to entice. That’s our job. But we are powerless to make you act against your will. If we could, I would be rich. Note: I am not rich. 

In the end, Dear Reader, it is you who decides to buy or not to buy.

If you bought something you neither need nor even want at a price you cannot afford, do not blame a marketer. We cannot create desire. Peers, circumstances, genes and who-know-what else can, but we can’t. All we can do is hold up a mirror to your desires and make acting on them as easy for you as possible. Yet at some point, you and you alone make the choice as to whether or not to pull out your wallet.

Now, there is one trick that most marketers in my experience do not use, but that many unscrupulous ones do. It’s called lying. Sadly, advertising that lies is in many cases legal. For a readily-available example, scrutinize the advertising of so-called organic foods and so-called nutritional supplements, much if not most of which flagrantly misleads yet rests entirely within the law. There is no proven health benefit to organic foods (most of which are organic only in a legal, not practical, sense), and most supplements disclaim in the small type what they scream in the large.

If you want to rail against advertisers, may I suggest you quit titling at the mind-control windmill and go after the liars. I shall join with you.

—Steve Cuno

Early, Expensive Typo

Into every copywriter’s life a few typos must fall. Heaven knows I have committed my share. Typos, however, are nothing new. In 1631, British royal printers Robert Barker and Martin Lewis omitted a word from their new edition of the Bible. The omission, presumably an accident, liberalized the Seventh Commandment by rendering it thus: “Thou shalt commit adultery.” Despite the new version’s potential appeal, the printers lost their license and were slapped with a £300 fine.

—Steve Cuno