A Content Marketing First

According to ADWEEK, Bank of America ran a banner ad this week on NYTimes.com that, when clicked, activated a live Webcast of The New York Times' "Schools for Tomorrow" conference.

Visitors who clicked the ad tuned into a live stream of the one-day event, Webcast inside the banner.

Bank of America was a sponsor of the conference.

An advertiser has never before hosted a live Webcast of a Times conference within an ad, says ADWEEK.

The ad "represents the demand by marketers today to align with, create and use content to get the attention of ad-weary consumers in fresh ways," ADWEEK says.

Expect to see a lot of copycats in the next 12 months.

Does Exaggeration Pay?

Do your ads embroider the truth?

If so, you may be wasting your investment.

Consumers are on to you.

Early this year, research firm Lab 42 asked consumers whether they believe advertisers.

The findings are unflattering:

• Three-fourths (76%) of consumers say advertisers always exaggerate. Fewer than one-fourth (24%) say they don't.

• Among the consumers who believe advertisers always exaggerate, a majority single out advertisers' use of Photoshopped graphics as an obvious attempt to deceive.

• Nearly one-third (32%) of consumers say they "get what advertisers are up to," and 17% would like to see the government punish advertisers for exaggerating.

The Best Ad Ever

Most people in the ad biz will tell you the best ad ever created was Volkswagen's 1962 "Think Small."

The ad was the brainchild of New York-based agency Doyle Dane Bernbach.

It's held in esteem for its faultless integrity. Speaking honestly in an ad in 1962 was nearly as against-the-grain as you could get.

In an era when motorists in the US were addicted to power and flash, the ad also tapped a shadowy part of the Zeitgeist, by asking readers to consider different values.

By chatting candidly about the simple virtues of economy, DDB persuaded 200,000 Americans to buy the stubby, 40-horsepower "Beetle" that year (the peak year for Beetle sales in the US).

How to Breed More Believers

Customers come to your marketing content as skeptics.

It's your job to turn them into believers.

A proven way to combat skepticism is to substantiate your product claims with statistics.

Far better than other details, statistics strengthen your content's persuasiveness, even when they're from a third party.

Consider the following claims (by a window manufacturer):

SageGlass is ideal for buildings where sustainability is a goal. It controls the sunlight and heat that enter a building, providing great thermal efficiency. It also means buildings can use smaller, more efficient HVAC systems, dramatically reducing energy consumption.

Consider how much more powerful the claims become when statistics are added:

Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have said that full deployment of dynamic, highly insulating glazing can save up to five percent of the US energy budget. That’s equivalent to over 160 gigawatts of electricity generated annually by fossil fuels. Such savings could reduce CO2 emissions by 300 million metric tons.

Trust Drives Customer Loyalty and Spending

Winning over the Empowered Consumer: Why Trust Matters, a recent white paper from IBM, concludes from a survey of 28,500 consumers that trust spells the difference between enjoying a loyal customer base and suffering a transient one.

Consumers come in three varieties, author Melissa Schaefer argues:

• Advocates, who like you, recommend you, buy more from you, and shun your competitors;
• Apathetics, who are largely indifferent toward you; and
• Antagonists, who dislike you.

The survey asked consumers about the degree of trust they placed in businesses and found direct correlation between trust and advocacy, and between trust and higher spending.

When you win customers' trust, you not only make them your advocates; you create a "cognitive monopoly" over them, Schaefer says. They have no thought of buying elsewhere.

Trust comes from communicating frequently and "re-humanizing" the experience of doing business with you, according to Schaefer. That's because customers crave recognition. "They want to be known, they want to be heard and they want to be valued," she says.