Ten Ways to Screw up an Ad Campaign.

Recently Radio Advertising Bureau’s acting director/Member Services James Davis talked to Barry Cohen, principal at New Jersey based advertising agency AdLab and author of Ten Ways to Screw up an Ad Campaign. Their conversation covered the true-or-false “Advertising I.Q. Test” found in Cohen’s book. You might be surprised to learn the answers to some of these questions, as Cohen explains each one with well-reasoned insight backed up with solid research. To listen to Barry’s answers, click on the link above. Before reading the answers, take the quiz and measure your “Advertising IQ.”

TRUE OR FALSE:

Curiosity-arousing ads work best?

“In reality, it’s been proven to be false. John Caples was the VP of BBD&O, one of the largest ad agencies in the world. He was the king of direct response [advertising], and in his book Tested Advertising Methods Caples tells you about the results of thousands and thousands of direct response ads. When all was said and done and he distilled the data, Caples found that the best-producing ads were those with a strong consumer benefit in the headline, followed by those with a news-worthiness. The optimum combination is to combine both of those. If you can put a strong consumer benefit and a news-worthiness into your headline, that’s going to outperform curiosity.”

A picture is worth a thousand words?

“The reality is that a word is worth a thousand pictures. Two of my favorite authors are [Jack] Trout and [Al] Ries, and they have conducted some very detailed research on the subject. In spite of the fact that people have different learning styles … they found that the mind is driven by the ear.

The most important thing in an ad is the headline, followed by the caption under the photo or illustration?

“[David] Ogilvy, in his book Ogilvy on Advertising, tells us that his tests proved that the headline was the single most important element in any particular communication, whether it was a newsletter, or a magazine ad, or a direct mail piece. And the second most-read item in printed communication is the caption appearing under a photo or illustration. People who are not reading the full text will at least read the headline and will almost always read the caption under the photo, so even if you don’t get them in the body copy, if you got them in the headline and got them in the caption, you’ve got them!”

People remember what they see better?

“The last time cigarette advertising was allowed on the air was 1970, yet anyone over 40 can remember all the cigarette jingles from back then. If you ask an astute business person what they read this morning, not including their own or their competitor’s ad, they can’t remember one print ad they saw. [Clutter] is a large part of that, but the other part is that the recall is so much stronger with Radio.”

Celebrity spokespeople create better brand identities?

“People see and hear what they think they saw [or heard] in an ad, not what the ad really said. I’ll give you a real-life example. I was working in suburban New Jersey Radio station, and it was Christmas, 1983. We innocently ran a Radio spot for a local camera shop that was promoting the Kodak Disk camera. In those days, the camera was just being released and it was about $50. The ad said, ‘Get a Kodak disk camera for nineteen-eighty-four.’ We meant the year 1984, but customers came into the store insisting that we said nineteen dollars and eighty-four cents! Your cultural frame of reference determines what that frame of reference will be … [and so does] your age, your ethnic background, a subculture you might come from … even your life stage.”

Companies that stopped advertising during recessions fared better than competitors?

“Consumers for the most part will remember the spokesperson and forget the brand being advertised. If you asked people to remember which actor represents which long-distance phone service, you would be amazed at the how confused they are. But there is an exception to that rule, and that’s when there is a really strong, natural tie-in. If, for example, Michael Jordan is advertising Nike sneakers, there’s a reason to remember it.”

Price is more important to consumers than anything else?

“It has been proven [through various studies] that companies that continued to advertise during recessions at least kept, if not gained, market share. The ones that stopped [advertising] irretrievably lost market share.”

Everyone who reads the newspaper will see your ad?

“In reality, [price] ranks [in importance] at about number five. U.S. Department of Commerce studies [conducted] in the 1970s indicated that when consumers decide where to shop, convenience rules in today’s economy. Witness the rise of an entire industry, convenience stores. People will pay more for those items just so they can get in and get out quickly and save what’s most important to them, which is time.”

Outdoor advertising has the lowest cost-reach ratio of all major media?

“It’s absolutely false. The perception that everyone who opens the paper is going to see your ad [is false], not only because they don’t read every section, but they don’t read every ad. Roper-Starch did studies that found there are so many ads that don’t even get noticed, let alone the content of the ad itself. We found over the years that when we were doing auto dealer ads, sometimes a less-than-full-page ad got better readership than a full-page ad.”

Curiosity-arousing ads work best?

“Billboards are very efficient, and the truth is that on a cost-reach basis they do reach a lot of people for the dollar bought. But keep in mind that the message is limited; you’re confined to nine words or less if you’re going to be effective. Otherwise you’re wasting space, and people won’t be able to take it in. Plus, if those boards are not on every route, then you’re simply not going to reach everybody. So the trick is to use billboards in concert with other media. Radio and billboards happen to make a great combination.”

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