How to Find a Marketing/Advertising Strategy - Uwe Hook - MediaBizBloggers

My daughter is five years old She39s a very agreeable person easy to get along with Unless she wants some ice cream She tells me about her friend Jenna who just had an ice cream She points out people eating ice cream She comes up with health benefits of ice cream And if I39m lucky she hugs me and exclaims quotI love you papaquot In short she knows what she has to do to make me do what she wants That39s strategyWe are strategists It39s in our blood A book is a strategy I can buy one for my wife to cheer her up To show my thoughtfulness because I didn39t forget when she mentioned the title a while ago Or to make a point There39s no deep thinking involved it comes naturalThe biggest mistake brands make is to believe information is equivalent to strategy Telling people is not enough Using the information in the most powerful way possible is the ultimate goal Car safety ratings are meaningless unless you couple them with the message that aggressive driving just became safe A hotel room sale is nice but this message is more powerful quoteven you can live like the rich and famousquotTypical marketing objectives are quotDrive incremental salesquot or quotIncrease qualified leadsquot We nod our heads when those slides come up not reflecting if these are objectives we should try to achieve I would argue your objective is NOT to increase sales Your objective is to understand why people are not buying your productservice and changing that behavior Sales and all other important metrics will take care of themselves Any advertising campaign or Social Media initiative should have the objective of influencing perceptions that will people drive to buy become loyalists and influencersImagine a campaign for couches Normally what you get is a shot of a couch warehouse and screaming announcers annoying us with a sale message Sure it works Kind of It39s boring It39s expected It comes and goes Instead if I had to sell couches I would talk about the little moments we all have on couches the moments of joy when our football team wins the little naps with the kid the book that kept us awake all night on the couch Creating emotional connections between people and my couchesThe perfect advertising strategy identifies the most compelling thing you can say owns it and at the same time undermines any effort of the competition You39re earning attention winning the battle of mindshare Great marketingadvertising strategy feels like a good meal or a good movie It just feels right it39s hard to define a gut feeling But there are some markers Explain the strategy to your nonmarketing partner If they get it the world will get it It works as a video and on a napkin Basically it has to be so simple that one sentence can explain your strategy The competition will hire a new agency because your idea was gamechanging Your coworkers will hate you quotI wish I thought of thatquotsyndrome Make sure it passes the quotAMafter2espressosquot test After a long night in the office a mediocre idea might look like a Clio to you Sleep drink 2 espressos and look at it againA few days ago my daughter crawled into my bed and told me about her nightmare quotThere were monsters and then I ate ice cream and they were gonequot She39s a naturalUwe Hook is the CEO and CoFounder of BatesHook Inc wwwbateshookcom and a veteran of the advertising and marketing industry with the goal of building connections between people and brands Uwe can be reached at uwebateshookcomRead all Uwe39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Subversions MediaBizBloggersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBlogger

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How to Find a Marketing/Advertising Strategy - Uwe Hook - MediaBizBloggers

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