Buckshot's Back: P&G Bails on Ad Targeting

The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.

Howard Luck Gossage

In his blog {grow}, marketing maestro Mark Schaefer asks, "Has there ever been a question that targeted ads are going to perform better than shooting a bunch of buckshot ads out there?"

Schaefer asks the question in light of P&G's announcement that it will abandon Facebook ad targeting, due to the strategy's failure.

“We targeted too much, and we went too narrow,” P&G's CMO told The Wall Street Journal, “and now we’re looking at: What is the best way to get the most reach but also the right precision?”

Schaefer wonders aloud whether every advertiser might close more sales with buckshot ads, for no increase in spend (targeted ads cost more than buckshot ones).

He's firmly undecided.

"On the one hand, the P&G revelation shakes long-held assumptions, but on the other hand, I don’t think we necessarily need to make wholesale changes to strategy," Schaefer says. 

"If you’re a wedding photographer, targeting couples who have changed their status to 'engaged' probably still makes sense, right?"

My direct marketing experience has taught me buckshot advertising's okay; and that frequency's the real key to closing more sales.

From what I've seen, precision-targeting works when a product-related life-event takes place in proximity to the arrival of your offer in the prospect's mailbox. Absent that life-event, your offer is simply more noise ("mailbox clutter").

Targeting based on demographics cuts waste; but it doesn't capture sales. Frequency does that.

A case in point. My client, an insurance company, noticed each time it mailed an offer for term life the bulk of policies were bought by 33-year-old men. Curious about the trend, I called a sample of the men to find out why they'd acted. The resounding answer: a newborn had recently arrived, and dad was interested in baby's wellbeing. So we took two steps: We narrowed the list from a wide range of men and women to men ages 33-35; and, with the money saved, increased the frequency of mailings. Policy purchases skyrocketed.

Frequency rules because you just never know when a prospect is interested. For all its fancy algorithms, even Facebook doesn't know that.

If you can believe sales growth strategist Chet Holmes' research, at any moment only 3% of any population represents interested buyers of your product. If your offer reaches that 3% with enough frequency, you increase your chances to close.

Wait, you shout, I'm wasting big bucks on the other 97%! Not so, Holmes claims:

• 7% of the population at any moment is at least open to your offer
• 30% at any moment isn't thinking about your offer
• 30% at any moment would say it's uninterested
• Only 30% is really, truly uninterested

The upshot of all this?

A little buckshot never hurt anyone.

Unless you hunt with Dick Cheney.

Finnegans Wake

Once Restack's founder decided his firm would provide tech support instead of software, a new company name became mandatory. He turned for help to San Francisco's maven of monikers, Nancy Freidman.

The new name, he said, should should "excite, inspire, and rally."

But what's in a name? 

Friedman describes the ingredients in her blog:

• First, she wrote the naming brief, deciding the new name had to to appeal to two similar audiences: software engineers (the talent) and IT managers (the clients).

• She identified the company's core attributes: intelligence, creativity, maturity, eagerness, and "a pinch of nerdiness and gamer enthusiasm."

• She listed naming objectives: power, grace, speed, virtuosity, skill, unobstructed flow, hitting the core of what matters, freedom/no constraints, on demand, gaming/competitive fun, and essence (software, not hardware). Excluded from the list: freelancer, inexpensive, and temporary.

• She listed naming criteria: the new name could be real or invented; English or not; work with a .com extension or not; and be available in international trademark classes 35 (business functions) and 42 (scientific and technological services).

• She brainstormed names and, after three rounds, Dorsal surfaced. "A dorsal fin provides direction, stability and purpose, but is also essential for making fast turns or changes in direction," Friedman says. "Dorsal is also associated with the backbone and ideas of strength, durability, flexibility and so on."

• She confirmed Dorsal wasn't trademarked; it wasn't.

• She confirmed Dorsal.com wasn't reserved; it was. Her client chose instead GoDorsal.com, a URL that "adds the energy of an active verb to the name."

• Last, but not least, she tapped a graphic designer to create a logo. "Early on I drew in pencil the letter A in Dorsal larger than the others and the immediate impression was that the point of the A was the dorsal fin," Friedman says. That idea survived in the final version of the mark. "The change from Restack to Dorsal represents a shift from descriptive to suggestive," Friedman says. "That shift is mirrored in the visual brand, which rejects literal representation in favor of evocative suggestion."

Brand Museums: Must See Ums

Every crowd has a silver lining.
                                                                 — P. T. Barnum

Glade, Land O'Lakes, Hulu and Dove are among the brands offering customers "immersive experiences" via brand museums, Kristina Monllos reports in Adweek.

• Glade's Museum of Feelings, which drew over 56,000 customers last fall in New York, "gave the world a whole new way to look at Glade," according to the company's CMO.

• Land O'Lakes' WinField Crop Adventure at Fair Oaks Farms in Indiana teaches customers about agriculture—brand-reinforcing because Land O'Lakes is a farmer-owned company. 

• Hulu's exhibitions of exact replicas of the Seinfeld apartment in New York and Los Angeles promoted the addition of the show to the company's streaming service.

• Dove's Museum of Ice Cream in New York offers customers not only displays of frozen treats, but hundreds of "Instagrammable moments," according the museum's social media director.

Crowds, in fact, aren't the justification for brand museums. 

Social media is.

"With the ubiquity of social, I think it makes sense to do museum pop-ups now more than ever," says Marie Chan, senior director of employee engagement at branding firm Siegel + Gale.

Companies shouldn't expect a brand museum to "draw millions or go viral by itself—because it won't," says Chan. "You have to think about the pop-up museum as a touch point, or content, and you have to use whatever means necessary to distribute that experience."

10 Sleaze-filled Moments in Presidential Politics

There must be decency and respect and veneration introduced for persons of authority of every rank or we are undone.

John Adams

Between veneration and mudslinging, I'll take mudslinging.

Just think how flavorless presidential races would be without it.

Thankfully, our nation's history runs rife with delectable cheap-shot moments:

• Thomas Jefferson called his opponent John Adams “a hideous hermaphroditical character."

• Andrew Jackson's opponent said Jackson was “a gambler, a cock fighter, a slave trader and the husband of a really fat wife.”

• Martin Van Buren was accused by his opponent of secretly dressing in women’s undergarments and strutting in front of expensive mirrors.

• Zachary Taylor called his opponent a "pot-bellied, mutton-headed cucumber."

• Abraham Lincoln's opponent called him a "horrid-looking wretch, sooty and scoundrelly in aspect," and the "leanest, lankest, most ungainly mass of legs and arms and hatchet face ever strung on a single frame."

• Rutherford B. Hayes' opponent claimed Hayes had shot his own mother in a fit of rage.

• Grover Cleveland's opponent insisted Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child while lawyering in Buffalo.

• Woodrow Wilson's opponent accused him of having an extramarital affair with an attractive widow, Edith Galt, while his wife lay on her deathbed. Wilson wasn't helped any by a typo in The Washington Post. The paper reported the couple was seen attending a play, during which "the President spent most of his time entertaining Mrs. Galt." "Entertaining" was spelled "entering."

• Herbert Hoover insisted his opponent, a Catholic from New York, had commissioned a secret, 3,500 mile-long tunnel connecting New York City and the Vatican. The tunnel would allow the Pope to control the US government's policies, were Hoover to lose the election.

• Lyndon Johnson used a TV ad, “Peace, Little Girl,” to portray his opponent as a trigger-happy, hydrogen bomb-loving lunatic.

Why Face-to-Face Events Should Matter to B2B Marketers

Chris Brogan contributed todays post. He's a renowned business advisor, New York Times Bestselling author, and keynote speaker. Visit his website to learn more.

If you’ve been to one trade show, you’ve seen them all, in a way. There are the exhibitor booths, the plush carpet, the signage, the fishbowl full of business cards in exchange for a free gadget giveaway, squeezy balls, little dishes of candy. Occasionally, there’s a “fun game” thrown in there, some “pretty girls” (sometimes called Booth Babes), and oh right, whatever products or services the industry’s events call for, as well.

Depending on the industry, there will be seminars, maybe a keynote speaker who has very little to do with the actual industry, an awards show (those are popular), and maybe a few box lunches and a forgettable chicken dinner thrown in as well. True?

These Events Hold Lots of Secrets and Opportunities

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about trade shows and B2B events from both sides of the experience. I’ve worked with the people who used to put on Comdex, one of the biggest trade shows in the world, and I’ve been involved in dozens of events covering multiple industries. I know why the carpet is thicker in the exhibit areas (it slows you down, which of course makes you look around a bit), the real purpose of squeezy balls, giveaways, and Booth Babes (they separate the REAL buyers from the tire kickers and pamphlet collectors), and how to keep down costs (put out 6 oz. coffee cups instead of 10, cut the danish into quarters, etc).

But you should know that trade shows are filled with actual purpose and value, however, and it’s important to attend and participate. Deals get done at shows. First meetings turn into negotiations and partnerships. And the Internet era doesn’t replace all that can happen at a face to face event.

The Power of Live Events for B2B Marketing and Sales

If you want to amp up your opportunities at trade events, there are a few ways to amp up your results.

Do Your Homework. Use sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to determine who will be at the event. See if you can find out more about the people who will attend, including any likes or hobbies outside of business. Imagine being able to walk into a booth knowing that the head of Business Development, Tonya, likes hockey so you bring her a customized jersey as a gift. Either side of the equation, exhibitor or buyer, can benefit from doing some homework.

Build a Gameplan. When quizzed, most people exhibiting at events answer the question “What’s your gameplan?” with “get leads.” Sure, that makes perfect sense, but if that’s the entire plan, you’re wasting the opportunity. How will you qualify a lead on site? What kinds of questions should all exhibitors be ready to answer? What first-step-into-the-funnel can you earn? Are there better follow-ups than just bland phone calls? What could you do to REALLY earn a next call?

Connect, Connect, Connect. I’m an introvert. I’m a bit shy. It’s not my favorite thing to meet strangers and poke around. But we all have to “play the part” of people hoping to connect and make business happen. I’ve seen shy buyers and I’ve seen shy exhibitors. If people have their faces glued to their phones and tablets, no business is getting done. Push yourself. Remember that you’re playing a role for the event. And if someone on your team is REALLY shy, make sure he or she isn’t the front line in the equation.

What the Internet Doesn’t Do For You

It’s hard to build rapport online. There are a lot of great reasons for the Internet. It’s “always open.” There are lots of ways to share great information like videos and downloadable white papers, and all that stuff.

But at the end of it all, we buy from people, and there are many (many!) studies that all came to the same two conclusions:

1.) We buy from people we like.

2.) We prefer to justify more than qualify.

That first one makes sense, especially when you extend it to mean that we buy from people we feel are somehow like us. That’s why doing your homework and building rapport and connecting are always going to trump a slick website and a cool demo video. We want the human connection.

On the second point, the idea of “justify” versus “qualify” is that no matter how important the purchase, we tend to buy based on emotion more than any other factor. You can disagree. You can tell me how thorough you are. There’s just too much information out there saying it’s otherwise.

That’s why we have to be there at these events. That’s why, with all the fancy phones and tablets and cloud computing and YouTube, we still need to be there to “press the flesh,” make eye contact, and get to know the person behind the email address.

Events are what we make of them, and I like it when we make our companies happier. There’s a lot of value still to be had. Go and grab it!