Where Advertising comes Alive...

I must apologize to my followers. It has been said that the advertising hasn't com alive in a while, and that has been all too true. Still, get ready. There will be a lot of advertising coming alive very soon. I have been busy with a senior thesis, from which I would like to share some advertising related conclusions pertaining to SMBs (small to medium sized businesses). Mass market advertising gets a lot of attention, and even here, it recieves the biggest focus because of its broad appeal. Still, with the constraints imposed upon SMBs, it is often non-traditional marketing methods that can yeild the biggest return on marketing investment.

Niche marketing with its smalle scope, lower costs, and ability to win is a great strategy for marketers at SMBs. According to Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing tactics allow SMBs to capitalize on the strengths inherent with being small, and make their marketing more efficient. I would recommend Guerrilla Marketing for those in SMBs, and would encourage some of you to check it out. If you want to find out more about marketing advice for SMBs, follow the link or post a comment, and I can upload my thesis so you can see where all the advertising has been for a while.

Sprint and the Common Man

I don't know if any of you have seen Sprint's new advertising campaign. In these ads, Sprint's CEO comes on camera and just chats about phones. I have found these ads absolutely hilarius, even though they aren't really meant to be. Dan Hesse made just under 4 million dollars last year at Sprint and he wasn't even the CEO. If he earns a comparable salary to Sprint's last CEO he will stand to earn ten times that all told. Still, watch him in this commercial. Here a guy who makes close to a thousand times what I make in a year is pretending to be just one of us. "Can you even believe they still call these things phones with all that they can do," as though the CEO of Sprint doesn't know how to work his blackberry. He's sitting in a diner, no suit, no tie, his sleeves rolled up, as if to say, "look at me. I'm a common man. I'm just like you. These are tough times, but I understand, because I'm like you. Pay no attention to my salary, or to the fact that while you are concerned about losing your house, I'm concerned about losing my yacht. Remeber me Dan Hesse, a common man." I think that's pretty funny.

"Zero" Frustration

Although I enjoy advertising, and I am constantly looking for advertisements that represent what I think is a good ad, I have been bombarded by what may be the most terrible ad ever. I think many of you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Toyota's recent "Saved by Zero" ad. This advertisement is played almost continuously during certain programs, and its repetitiveness makes me want to scream. Still, is someone at Toyota some sort of secret genious for this? I mean it actually does get veiwers attention, its impossible to ignore, and though it violates most rules of advertising, and the reaction has been mostly negative, who knows. Here's a link to the horrible ad if you wanted to do that to yourself.

Another Favorite

In light of the lack of feedback for when Ads Go Bad part 1, I'll be postponing When Ads Go Bad Part 2. Instead, I'd like to share another of my favorite campaigns. I realize that it is a little old, but Coca-Cola's Vitamin Water ads have been awesome. My personal favorite is the 50 Cent ad, but I also loved the Shaq ad, and the Urlacher ad.

Companies Looking to be Infectious...

Companies have seen the success of OfficeMax in their use of viral marketing with "Elf Yourself" or CareerBuilder with their "Monk-E-Mail". In viral marketing you rely on your targets to view and pass on your content to their friends, who pass it on, until you have reached a large amount of consumers with your often interative content. Time Warner is atempting to get in the viral marketing game with their site "Fame Star". This site allows users to create themselves, and then chronicle their rise and subsequent fall from fame- True Hollywood Story style. The idea is to make Time Warner synonymous with entertainment and consumer empowerment, according to a recent AdWeek article.

Funniest Commercials

Although I can't say that I agree with all of them on the list. TBS has put together a list of what they believe are the funniest commercials of the year. If you're bored or just in need of a laugh, several of these are quite funny.

7-Election

7-Eleven is taking advantage of the election season by having their own election. They are selling their coffee in two cups, and letting their consumers choose which they will have. This 7-Election has been accurate in the last two presidential elections, with the George W. Bush coffee cup outselling the Al Gore cup by only one percentage point. As of right now Obama has a commanding lead in the 7-Election poll as McCain is only leading in New Hampshire and North Carolina. Still, as a marketing tactic, this is interesting to say the least. I'm not sure politics is necessarily a safe topic to be mixed with business, but if it generates some hype and possibly drives some sales, then it has probably served its purpose.