StratTalk eNews — Issue 8, December 2008

Welcome to the December issue of StratTalk eNews brought to you by The 60 Minute Strategic Plan. We continue to sell books and software and produce workshops. It has been a good year despite the obvious economic tumult out there. During these tough times, we need to pull together and support each other. The end of the year is a good time to create your 2009 strategic plan to perform a preemptive strike on any potential challenges that might lie ahead. The 60 Minute Strategic Plan book or workshop can help you get ahead of the game and plan for a successful future—and it only takes an hour of your day. If you would like information, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re here for you!

John E. Johnson, CEO
Anne Marie Smith, President

Advertising: It’s a Love–Hate Relationship

If you suspect 50 percent of your advertising is wasted, then I bet it’s a lot more than half. Why is it that advertising, a key ingredient in any marketing effort, is under constant suspicion as to its effectiveness?

I was employed in marketing management for 28 years by two industry leaders (Unilever, Levi Strauss & Co.) and a major advertising agency (Foote, Cone & Belding). This is what I experienced and concluded as to why advertising is so controversial. The following describes important and invaluable insight into the world of advertising. Let’s start with the obstacles to effective advertising.

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen: the WIIFM Principal

There can be as many as six different overlapping and sometimes conflicting perspectives all centered on the WIIFM principal (i.e., what’s in it for me?):

• The client, whose primary concern is to have advertising play its role in successfully delivering the marketing strategy.
• The client ad manager, whose primary concern is job fulfillment as defined by managing the advertising process such as staying on strategy and on budget, meeting deadlines, directing the agency, satisfying multiple internal decision makers and stakeholders, and avoiding advertising failure.
• The advertising agency, whose primary concern is stable or growing profitable client billing.
• The agency’s account management person, who represents the client at the agency and the agency at the client. The account person walks a perilous fence, attempting to keep both parties satisfied. This role requires the agency to produce timely, satisfactory advertising within budget while not losing internal agency credibility by being seen as a client shill (i.e., not fighting hard enough for the agency’s point of view or giving in too readily to unreasonable client requests).
• The agency’s creative team, whose primary motive involves showcasing their creative talent to the client, their peers, agency management, and their reel for prospective employers.
• The customers or consumers of the advertising, who could give a rat’s behind about the previous five groups, and in fact, whose primary inclination is to find reasons to reject the 3,000 advertising messages with which they are daily bombarded.

Strategic Advertising: One Size Does Not Fit All

Given potential conflicts of interest among the principals in the advertising process, is it any wonder that advertising often misses the mark or hits a mark that is not within defined strategy?

Different strokes for different folks

It all starts with how customers make purchasing decisions. The advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding invented the FCB Grid which defines how customers make buying decisions, and therefore, which advertising communication is appropriate given specific buying criteria.

The FCB GRID has North/South and West/East axes. The North/South axis indicates the importance, cost, and permanence of the purchase. The North end is the most important, which would be the purchase of a house, a car, a television set, or house furnishing. The South end of the axis is comparatively less important such as the purchase of repetitive consumables like household cleaners or food staples.

The West/East axis relates to the degree of thinking or feeling that goes into the purchase. On the West, a lot of rational thinking is required to purchase a house, a car, or home furnishing (i.e., you don’t want to make the wrong decision because you will have to live with the consequences of that decision for some time). On the East—while still a very important decision—is much more personal emotion and reflects on the personality of the purchaser of, for example, jewelry, cosmetics, fashion apparel, or a motorcycle. (No matter what you think, a motorcycle is not a rational purchase.) Less important purchases on the emotional side of the grid are personal ad-hoc consumables like alcohol, candy, or cigarettes, which entail low outlays and allow mistakes to be corrected with repurchase.

Advertising strategy is essentially getting the right content to the right people given their purchasing criteria.

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