5 Points To Think About Before You Try To Sell Something

Kharkiv, Ukraine, April 21st – Remarketing. This is the transcript of my contribution to this really well organized and very interesting event.

I remember when I started into advertising back in 1993 at Ogilvy – there was a really big sign at the reception. It said “We sell – or else…”. A David Ogilvy quote, of course, and obviously a very important one, decorating the entrance to the agency. I was thinking: “Or else – what?” Like in “What if we don’t sell?” or “What if our campaign isn’t effective?”

The answer was – at least that was how I understood it – if we didn’t sell, we didn’t do our job well, and the client might as well choose another agency. Which clearly told everyone, clients as much as employees – that there was just one thing that was important, one measure for success, and that was sales. Clear commitment, clear focus.

More than 20 years later, the focus hasn’t really shifted. Clients still want to sell their product or service, and agencies still have the job to help them do that with communication.

But everything else has changed. Media for example. From a few manageable offline formats to endless channels of communication. From mass media to one to one communication, even to digital advertising that is able to follow you.

Our jobs have changed. Much more complex, much more complicated. Products have changed. From a world where products were things, produced, manufactured, packaged, sold, to a world where the biggest brands offer services, and don’t produce or manufacture anything.

And, of course, the consumer has changed. Back in the nineties, the only place where the customer was king was at the point of sale. And even then, the sales person knew more about the product than the consumer. That’s history.

No matter what you sell, no matter where you sell, and no matter to whom you’re selling – the customer rules the process. They have access to any information they like. About the product, the services, the prices, which they are able to compare at any time. They have access to ratings, comments, and tests. They know your reputation, that of your CEO, his salary, your stock market performance – anything. They know. And they talk about it too. They exchange information, they research, and they comment.

Which obviously leads to the question of how you sell in 2016. Here are five things to keep in mind:

1          Have a great product

This may seem like the most obvious suggestion, and a no-brainer, but it isn’t. It’s surprising how often ad agencies are confronted with briefs for products that just aren’t really competitive. And how clients think that a really good campaign is supposed to make up for that. So this is a message to advertisers and agencies alike – have a great product, and be really honest about that.

An agency can’t really perform at either end of the spectrum. If the product sucks, no campaign will be able to turn it into a success – at least not for more than just a short time. And if the product is the best product ever, it will sell itself, and an agency can’t be responsible for much more than just a little awareness push. Many of the most successful campaigns owe their success to the fact that they sold a fantastic product.

But everything between these two extremes is where an ad agency can make all the difference. So be honest about your product. Don’t try to advertise something that will have a really hard time selling. Listen to your agency when they say that they have problems finding something that differentiates. Go back to product development, and invite your agency to help improve your product.

2          Selling isn’t what it used to be.

Referring back to my initial anecdote about Ogilvy’s “We sell – or else” – it seems that this has slowly changed to “We tell – or else”. For years now, we have been talking about storytelling, and how we tell stories over a smart selection of media, like a great puzzle that lets us experience advertising like never before.

And we keep talking about content. About content marketing, actually. And about programmatic advertising, where software is selecting which content will be shown where, at what time, and to which target group.

The funny thing is – more and more, storytelling seems to be understood as a synonym for a media strategy, and less about an actual story worth experiencing. And more and more, our understanding of content is moving away from creativity and originality, from a qualitative discussion to a quantitative one, in which media channels are booked, and content is the stuff that fills the slots.

Sometimes it feels like all you need to do is come up with a concept that produces tons of content. It’s free of charge! Great! People will provide us with all the content that we need! Yay! As if anyone was really waiting for another fifty pages of diaper stories, holiday bloopers or cat content.

Like so often, we are so fascinated by technical possibilities that we completely forget what it is that really really sells. And that’s relevance. Something that truly connects to the customers’ values, interest, passions. Something they feel strongly about. Not something they CAN be part of but something they WANT to be part of.

It’s not that the product itself isn’t important anymore. But if one bank shows students a funny commercial about their product, and another bank provides a platform for them that lets them find internships anywhere in the world – they will like the TVC on social media, and choose the bank that offers them a tangible benefit.

That’s what selling is about. Being useful. Which automatically leads to the third point on my list:

3          You don’t sell. You try to make people buy.

It may sound like it is more or less one and the same thing – but it isn’t. You don’t really sell if you talk to people that already have most of the information that you can provide. The sales process has become much less direct than it was in the old days. When the customer rules, you’re not selling – you are pitching.

And we advertising agencies know what that means. It’s not necessarily the agency with the best campaign that wins the pitch. It’s the one that has a great campaign, great people, a great attitude, that is smart and entertaining, and gives great value for money.

So whatever we do in marketing and advertising these days – we need to cover a lot more bases than we used to. Because if we don’t, it doesn’t matter if we have the best product – some other brand will win the pitch. One consequence of all this:

4          Don’t be fake.

You’ve got to be real. Remember when the number one rule at Google was “Don’t be evil”? Well, in my humble estimate, we are getting closer to a time when you don’t just say that, you actually have to live by it. No way around it. There will just be no benefit in being fake or even dishonest.

We have already reached the point where there is no point in covering stuff up that went wrong. A long time ago, Bob Marley said: You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” Well – all of these people are connected now, they communicate, and whenever you mess something up, they will know.

People smell dishonesty collectively. They are better at that than we think. So if you put up a show for them, make it a good one, and most of all, be yourself and be honest. Don’t try to fool anyone. Brands need to be like good people – more than people need to be good people. Keep that in mind. Because – and that’s where we get to the fifth point –

5          People don’t love brands. It’s a myth.

They just don’t. That’s something that people try to sell clients to get the advertising money for their brands. Oh great, an agency that makes people not just like our brand, but actually LOVE it. Wonderful! Problem is – it just doesn’t relate to how people behave.

Yes, people favor brands over others, they are often very loyal to brands. But my estimate would be that the amount of loyalty people have towards their smartphone brand isn’t very much higher than their loyalty to their preferred dishwasher or toilet paper brand.

No, it’s not love. And thank God it isn’t. They choose a brand not because of the brand but because they want to say something about themselves. That’s something we can actually work with – love is just far too irrational anyway.

So don’t make the mistake of thinking that people just ache to hear a story from you. Don’t think that you can turn a critical customer into someone that is madly in love with your brand. If people respect your brand, if they respect what your brand stands for, if they spend money on your products as a consequence of this (and because you have a great product), then you have achieved everything you can achieve. People love people, not brands.

And here’s a bonus suggestion for you. Whatever you sell – don’t sell your soul. I have seen so many people working in advertising and marketing turn into assholes, into bloated egos, arrogant and condescending. I have seen so many people trade virtue for money and lose their good judgement for a fancy career move that in the end didn’t get them anywhere.

Stay true to yourself. You’ll be glad you did when you look back in a decade or two.