The Secret of Advertising Strategies Revealed!

"Today's advertising industry is the most potent and powerful mass marketing and merchandising instrument ever devised by man."-Paul Stevens, writer of television commercials

Most people think that advertising does not really affect their decisions. They think they ignore it and make up their own minds. Money-wise business executives know better. Throughout the world, these men hang their fortunes on tremendous advertising budgets. They build wants and sway our thinking in ways that we may not even realize.

Advertising messages strike our eyes and ears from all directions-from newspapers, magazines, television, radio, billboards, buses, subways, taxicabs, river barges, T-shirts, and from other sources too numerous to mention. It has been estimated that Americans encounter as many as 1,600 advertising messages a day.

"I would guess," mused Jack Smith, writer of a lighthearted column in the Los Angeles Times, "that the average American takes in more words every day from advertising than from any other source, including news, books, magazines, and his or her spouse."

World wide, manufacturers seek new ways to persuade you to buy. A single soap manufacturer, Procter & Gamble, spent $460,000,000 on advertising in the United States alone in 1977-more than $8 for every family in the nation! Such sums would not be spent if they did not produce results.

Paul Stevens, a television ad writer, said in his book I Can Sell You Anything: "Advertising tells you what to buy, how to buy, and why to buy any particular brand or product. The thing that amazes me is that it continues to work." In his best-selling book The Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard wrote: "The result is that many of us are being influenced and manipulated, far more than we realize, in the patterns of our everyday lives."

Such advertising is most effective when it deals with nonurgent needs. A man who is hungry does not need to be told that he needs food. But the man who already has a perfectly good car has to be tempted if he is to go into debt to buy a new one.

Unimportant Differences

Much advertising is truthful, direct, straightforward, honest. It can be amusing, charming, delightful. It can provide valuable information-telling you what a product will do, how much it costs, where to buy it at a lower price.

But advertisers must sell products that are little different from their competitors' products. There really is not a great deal of difference between many brands of gasoline, cake mixes, soaps, detergents or even automobiles. But manufacturers must sell their brand. Tremendous sums of money are involved. Thus, the advertising people are under great pressure to come up with successful campaigns.

How can they convince you that Brand X is better than Brand Y when the two brands are almost identical? They may say that owning Brand X is more pleasurable, that "nicer" people use it, or that it gives some vague and unspecified advantages.

Laboratory tests show that all brands of gasoline having the same octane rating perform essentially the same in an automobile engine. So one brand promises "happy motoring," while another advertises "fast starts." One major oil company bypassed the whole matter by advertising: "Put a tiger in your tank." Now, everyone knew they were not really selling tigers. But the slogan was translated into many languages, and sold a lot of gas.

Think about what the ads really say. Are they claiming that a product is "different"? Of course it is! Perhaps it has been dyed brown, while the competing product is blue. It may also have more important differences, but "different" does not necessarily mean "better."

What does "better" mean? Better than it was last year? Better than a competitor's product? Better than one that sells for only half as much? A claim that is not specific probably does not mean much.

Source: Advertising Strategy: Creative Tactics From the Outside/In by Tom Altstiel