More for Your Money

How do you measure success when it comes to mass media? It seems much easier to track and measure the effectiveness of a direct response campaign, but what helps ensure success in traditional media? A large majority of marketing professionals would say it’s all about numbers. Reach, frequency, readership, circulation numbers, etc, etc.

However, what many fail to consider is the creative impact. No matter what your marketing budget is you should always consider the effectiveness of your and message and its delivery.

An ad can be brilliantly creative but if it takes too many impressions to register with your audience, you end up building big reach and frequency numbers to no avail. You spend the money and reach the audience but few people actually get the point. Of course, this is equally true for ads that are bland and boring. The money is spent but the message passes like a ship in the night. So what’s the answer?

To make the most of your advertising dollars your ads must get your point across immediately. They have to “telegraph” your message in ways that are —

• Simple
• Engaging
• Compelling
• Memorable
• Consistent

Your prospective customers are busy people – they won’t wait around for your message to suddenly resonate. So help them out. Make one point in your ads, but make that point very well – simple, compelling, and immediate.

Consider the case of Commodity Logistics, a third party logistics (3PL) provider in a very crowded industry. At the time, most of the advertising in the logistics segment was staid, predictable …vanilla. Show a photo of a truck, draft some straightforward benefit copy and add a logo. No brand differentiation really.

Commodity Logistics followed a different path. They asked TRIAD for advertising that would establish their brand and help the company move to the next level of growth. As we learned about the company, we saw achievements and skill sets that they took for granted. In truth, Commodity’s ability to create a transportation strategy or effectively manage a distribution center was second to none. We wanted to run with that.

We based the creative strategy on nature’s most efficient logistics system – the honey bee colony. The advertising campaign featured bold, contemporary orange & black graphics of bees and hives with strong headlines including “Creating a buzz in the logistics industry” and “Plan Bee”. Direct mail packages used the same color scheme and included antique jars of honey with a Commodity Logistics label. The bold graphics were also adopted for corporate identity and logo and were carried through all collateral materials.

Results? Huge. Commodity Logistics established a brand identity that clearly separated them from their peers. They also enjoyed significant sales growth and a tremendous increase in the company’s value.

Did they follow the right sales strategy? Yes. Did they make smart financial moves? Of course they did. But there’s no doubt that a pure, simple creative idea coupled with engaging, memorable execution played a critical role in the company’s success.

For more information on creating advertising and marketing campaigns that deliver results contact TRIAD today!