The 7 Keys to Successful Advertising

“Everybody in the business is convinced that advertising must command the attention of those it seeks to influence by being innovative, relevant and memorable.” reveals even the book cover of agency documentation ?Inside Collet Dickenson Pearce?. But what are the prerequisites that are necessary to bring such advertising to life? — Here’s my suggestion of seven “key factors”…

#Ideas #Marketing #Advertising #Success

Much can be read about the qualities of successful advertising. But what seems to lie in the dark are the preconditions that are necessary to enable someone to come up with great ideas, and make it all happen. In my experience, it is equally (or even more) important to know these “hidden” and therefore often overlooked factors. Why? — Because, if they aren’t in place, you won’t get good, successful advertising, even you have a great agency. If they are, chances are you will.

Many an agency has therefore pointed out that great advertising can only exist if a great client lets them create it. But with or without an agency, I think the following are seven keys to successful advertising. They are drawn from the experience of my 20-somewhat years in the trenches of marketing and advertising:

Key #1 — Be a coach of ideas

Demand ideas, from yourself and from others. Encourage and foster ideas. And most important, stand up for good ideas, whether they be your own, those of your team or the ones of your agency (or any other supplier or service provider). If you let good ideas die in the meeting room, they’ll never see the light of day. It’s that simple.

A great source for inspiration on “how to get ideas flowing in your workspace” is “Ideaship”, an inspring read written by Jack Foster.

Key #2 — Be different

Don’t just do what your competition is doing. That will only lead to copycat advertising which can never be effective. How are you going to be different? Simple — by being authentic. Find the uniqueness of YOUR product, YOUR company, YOUR markets, then build YOUR message around that. Why follow when you can lead?

Key #3 — Let one person decide on your advertising

Leave the decision about your advertising to as few people as possible. Ideally, this should be only ONE person — the one most experienced with advertising. That doesn’t mean ideas shouldn’t be discussed. Quite the contrary. But ideas rarely survive commitees unscathed, especially those ideas who are a little bit controversial, which are often the most impactful ones.

“Why keep a dog and bark yourself?” — David Ogilvy

Do you have a most experienced advertising pro in your company? Then, as the late adman David Ogilvy said, “why keep a dog and bark yourself?”…

Key #4 — Decide fast

Deferments always paralyse the flow of ideas and their implementation, which is something you should avoid at all cost. Remember, the earlier a good idea is put to action, the sooner it can generate a positive return for you and your company. By all means, take the time to think over your idea, but don’t let somebody analyze it to death!

Also, procrastinating decisions or re-prioritizing projects over and over again are surefire ways to kill the enthusiasm of those in charge of your ideas. Don’t let that happen. You need them (the people as well as their ideas).

Key #5 — Concentrate your advertising

• Follow a clearly defined idea (message) and stick to it. Executions may vary, strategy should not. Strong campaign themes don’t wear out as fast as you may think.
• Concentrate a tight budget on very few selected media instead of spreading it (the ones that prove most effective for you*). If you do the latter, you won’t have success in any medium because your advertising will be virtually invisible due to too low spending levels. — *) How do you find out which media are the most effective? See No. 6…

“Executions may vary, strategy should not.”

Key #6 — Learn to test

Tests minimize the risk of your marketing activities and help you to use your budget more effectively. This advice is nearly as old as advertising itself. Testing was a pioneered by advertising genius Claude C. Hopkins as early as about 1900.

Today, online marketers have the most sophisticated testing tools ever at their fingertips. Campaings can be tracked, websites analyzed. If you don’t test, you are flying blind.

“If you don’t test, you are flying blind.”

Key #7 — Stay open to unexpected solutions

If a good idea does not solve your current problem: Maybe it’s the perfect solution for another one? Good ideas are too precious to drop them, so if something excites you, makes sense and doesn’t interfere with your strategy, try to find a way to exploit its potential.

 Summary: The 7 keys in one sentence

Develop your own, unique ideas and have the guts to fight for them; have one person decide on your advertising, and decide fast; focus your advertising on one message and on very few media; test to improve — and always stay open for new ideas, whereever they may come from — and whatever they may be good for.

One last key, although the heading said it would only be seven: To enable the creating of great ideas and successful advertising, someone will need to know the difference between a BIG IDEA and a merely clever-sounding, but trivial “thought”. You have to be a “judge of ideas”. In my humble opinion, it takes passion, talent and experience to develop this ability.

Bottom line: Cherish the value of ideas, know how to get them flowing — and how to make them work.

About the author

Thomas M. Braun is in charge of marketing at rose plastic, the global leader in protective plastic packaging for the tooling industry. He’s responsible for the global marketing of the rose plastic group, including rose plastic medical packaging, specialized on high-quality medical device packaging.

Before joining rose plastic, he was responsible for marketing and product management at a consumer brand and, prior to that, headed his own advertising agency with focus on strategy and creative.

Among his all-time marketing heroes are Rosser Reeves, Jon Spoelstra, Hans-Dieter Maier and Al Ries, co-author of “Positioning”.

?2018, Thomas Braun

If you liked this, you might also be interested in my related article “Is the USP dead? — No, but it’s surely an endangered animal…” In it, I explain the importance of a strong USP for your marketing and advertising.