The Media Is Not the Message

More from The Wizard...

"I'm in the furniture business. Which media should I use?"

"I'd like to target people who are afraid of the dentist. Can you recommend a good mailing list company?"

"My uncle uses television ads to attract new customers and they work really well for him. Television ads have made him rich. What's your opinion of TV?"

"No one in my town listens to the radio anymore. Everyone has satellite or an iPod."

"I tried advertising. It doesn't work for my kind of business."

People say things like this and expect me to have an intelligent response. What usually happens is that I stand there, dull-eyed, with my mouth hanging open. These are not my favorite moments.

When my brain finally recovers and I tell them the truth they need to hear, they act as though I've sidestepped their question.

Here's the truth they needed to hear. Maybe you need to hear it, too:

Relevance is what determines whether an ad works or not.
Every media fails when it delivers a message no one cares about.

Have you ever run an ad that failed?
Let's pull aside the curtain and look backstage to see what really happened:

1. The ad was so predictable that few people even noticed it.
SOLUTION: Get a new ad writer or remove the handcuffs from the one you've got.

2. Prospective customers noticed the ad, received the message and understood it perfectly. They just didn't care.
SOLUTION: Dump the irrelevant subject matter. Discover what people actually care about and talk about that instead.

3. The ad's message would have been relevant, but it was unclear.
SOLUTION: Remind your writer that creativity often gets in the way of clarity. Remind your layout artist that the prettiest ad is rarely the most effective. You're running a business, not a magazine. Make sure the dynamic duo understands that their continued employment depends on creating ads that sell the product.

4. You committed to an ad campaign that was shorter than your product selling cycle. If people buy your product once a week, don't expect your ads to return a profit during the first week. If people buy once a month, don't expect to break even on your advertising during the first 30 days. If your product selling cycle is longer than 2 years, you can expect to lose money on your ads – even if they're good – the first 4 to 6 months. You'll start pulling ahead during the second six months. Your real growth won't happen until you begin reaching that same group of people for a second year.
SOLUTION: Commit to an ad campaign commensurate with your product selling cycle.

5. The listener failed to be engaged because the ad was written from a cultural perspective other than the customer's own. (This is why Anglo-conceived Hispanic campaigns usually fail. Translating language is easy. Transferring cultural perspective is nearly impossible.)
SOLUTION: Hire a different ad writer to create the second campaign. Make sure the writer is from the cultural background he or she is trying to reach.

Bottom Lines:
Ads that fail in one media would usually have failed in any other.
The media is not the message.
The message is the message.
And the message is what matters most.

To deliver a pointless message powerfully is the definition of hype.

To deliver a powerful message pointlessly is the result of weak creative.

To deliver a powerful message powerfully is the first step in making a fortune.

Now go do it. And good luck.

New Report Turns Traditional Auto Advertising Assumptions Upside Down

A new report by the Polk Center for Automotive Studies shows that over 35% of first time vehicle buyers consider the Internet their most valuable information tool. In fact the Internet was relied on more than television, radio, magazines, and newspapers combined. How is your website looking?

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (Jan. 31, 2006) – Traditional mass media has been rendered nearly obsolete among first-time vehicle buyers, according to a study released today by the Polk Center for Automotive Studies. Out of considered mass media outlets, thirty-five percent of first-time vehicle buyers consider the Internet to be their most important informational tool, compared to 8.2 percent for television, 4.4 percent for magazines, 3.6 percent for newspapers and 1.1 percent for radio.

The study also found first-time buyers are independent in their decision-making and rarely are compelled to visit the dealership where their parents last purchased a vehicle. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they made the purchase without any influence from family and friends and just seven percent felt buying from the same dealership as their parents was of high importance to them.

View the report here: http://usa.polk.com/News/LatestNews/2006_0131_pcas_3rdstudy.htm

A Hurt Unhealed

Rick Green, Hartford Courant

September 12 2006

I began with Richard M. Keane and finished with Paul Curioli, following 152 names carved in stone atop a grassy altar overlooking Long Island Sound.

Nearby, a man sat quietly sobbing on a granite bench. A sister placed a framed picture of her brother between two small American flags. A brother-in-law gazed off to the south, toward Manhattan, and smoked a cigar in honor of a lost loved one.

Five years to the moment after the first plane hit, there are just a handful of us out this Monday morning at Connecticut's 9/11 memorial at Sherwood Island state park in Westport.

Visitors sit or stand silently, as if to respect a sign that reminds them that this is "an intimate place in a public setting."

The names of the dead - those who lived in Connecticut and others with family ties here - are engraved on rows of small stone tiles that line the memorial. There were no ceremonies Monday, only the music of the wind and waves from the Sound.

"I'll never work on Sept. 11," said the man on the bench, a Manhattan lawyer who was in the city that morning in 2001. "I didn't know anyone that died. Still, it hits home with me."

A small votive candle burned by the name of Joseph A. Lenihan, who grew up in West Hartford and worked in the south tower.

"I decided to come here today because it is more private," Lenihan's brother-in-law, David Smith, of West Hartford, said. He wore a red "United We Stand" cap and told me about the sad years since Sept. 11.

This place, he said, "is a very peaceful retreat."

I walked on. There was a bouquet with a pink ribbon by the name of Margaret Connor and a more formal flower arrangement by Jeffrey D. Bittner's stone. Around Stephen P. Cherry's name, pebbles made the shape of a heart.

Someone placed a Curious George trading card next to James Matthew Patrick. Alongside Eamon McEneaney, a small button asked all to "Celebrate Eamon." A colorful collection of sea glass decorated Scott O'Brien's name.

A woman with a stroller gently left a single red rose. All around there were fading yellow roses - left at an official ceremony last week - and growing piles of fresh flowers, sometimes from people who stayed only briefly.

I came to a framed picture of a smiling Michael John Simon, flanked by two small flags.

"It's my brother," said Christine Coats, of Greenwich. She comes with her two children each anniversary, and starting at 8:46, they just sit.

"We did the big things [at ground zero] but this is private and it's quiet," Coats told me. "You don't have to say anything. People are feeling the same thing."

Bob Abbate sat silently for an hour before he got up to leave.

"For weeks I'm wondering what I'd do today," said Abbate, of Trumbull. "I just couldn't see marking the anniversary sitting at my desk."

Dwight Nelson told me he comes with his wife and two young daughters to "set up a routine" that honors 9/11.

There was one more, an older woman I can't get out of my mind because I couldn't bring myself to approach her. Her grief and pain seemed too urgent to interrupt in this private, public place.

She straightened a tiny Israeli flag flying over Joel Miller's stone. She kissed her fingers, rubbed the engraved words and placed a small rock beside Miller's name.

Like images of jet planes crashing into the towers, it is painful to watch. She soon walked away, her arms clutching her sides, as if it all still hurt too much to do anything more.

Rick Green's column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. He can be reached at rgreen@courant.com
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant

http://www.courant.com/news/local/columnists/hc-rgreen0912.art.artsep12,0,81937.column?coll=hc-utility-home

Connecticut's September 11th Memorial

I spent part of the morning of September 11, 2006 at Connecticut's beautiful September 11th memorial. The memorial is on the shore of Long Island Sound at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport. I just couldn't think of observing the 5th anniversary of that horrible day while sitting behind my desk.

Avoid Ad-Speak at All Costs!

Thanks to Roy Williams for this one...

Avoiding Ad-Speak

Contrary to popular belief, Americans don't hate advertising.

We just hate ads that sound like ads.

Do your ads sound like ads? Are you guilty of Ad-speak?

Ad-speak is filled with polished words and filtered phrases that deliver no information and have no relevance. Ambiguous claims give Ad-speak a hollow sound.

Do your ads mention your superior service, your friendly staff, or name the number of years you've been in business?

Let me know how that works out for you.

A meaningless statement remains meaningless no matter how often it's heard. Repetition has become a blunt instrument. Top of Mind Awareness isn't enough anymore. Today's customer expects meaningful information and lots of details.

Have you heard of this new thing called the internet? It's giving people new expectations. It's allowing them to become their own expert. Knowledge lies anxious at their fingertips. Gloss over the truth in your advertising and you'll quickly be dismissed as a poser.

I apologize if that last paragraph seemed hateful or rude, but the truth is I'm exhausted, bone-weary from wrestling with advertisers who have no real message and want to compensate for it by "targeting the right customer."

Writing good ads is easy when you have something to say. Do you have something to say? Something we don't already know? Something that matters?

We're only 8 months into it, but 2006 has already marked itself as a pivotal year, a year we'll never forget. With ever-increasing frequency, we're seeing ad campaigns stumble and fail because they carry no real news to the customer.

But advertisers whose ads brim with things that matter are enjoying record growth.

Time is currency. Information is power.

Don't ask the public to give you their time and and then give them nothing in return. Pay them for their time by giving them relevant information in your ads.

The future of your business depends on it.

As we approach the 5th anniversary...

Bob and Bob Sr. Featured in Article in Connecticut Post

Father knows best
Readers share their dad's word of wisdom
AMANDA CUDA acuda@ctpost.com
June 18, 2006 (Father's Day)

Do good. It's a simple phrase, consisting of only two words. On the surface, it may seem like nothing more than just a gentle admonishment to approach life with the best you have to offer.

But to Bob Abbate, 51, of Trumbull, these words were heard so often on the lips of his dad that they became a kind of family motto. His father, also named Bob Abbate is 79 and lives in Baiting Hollow, N.Y.

Throughout the years, dad was constantly advising Abbate and his sister to "do good," whether talking about work, school, social situations or anything else. The younger Bob Abbate said the words of wisdom originate from his dad's own desire to excel at everything he did.

His dad worked making furniture and "when he would build something, he'd take three times as long as anybody else, because he's such a perfectionist," Abbate said. "His philosophy is 'If you're going to do something in life, be the best you can be.' "

Dad still offers this bit of wisdom, said his son, and the family still listens.

"It's taken on a life of its own, he's been saying it for so long," Abbate said.

The Coast Hits The Coast

Bye, bye oldies. at 10pm last night, less than a year after the demise of legendary New York oldies outlet WCBS-FM, Connecticut's Fairfield County lost one radio station and gained another. Cox pulled the plug on oldies Kool 96.7 and launched 96.7 The Coast.

With the slogan "Fairfield County's Greatest Hits", The Coast claims to be born of "micro-targeted research" that showed a programming hole in the Fairfield County marketplace. Cox claims that this research was conducted in the gold coast towns of Greenwich, Stamford, New Canaan, Darien, Norwalk, Westport, Weston and Wilton.

On my drive back to the office today, I heard Earth, Wind and Fire, The Bee Gees, Todd Rundgren, Otis Redding, Eric Clapton, Tommy James and the Shondells, and The Four Seasons. Clearly, The Coast didn't toss their oldies library into the dumpster, and is trying hard not to alienate their remaining Kool listeners while adding enough classic hits to win over listeners from WEBE-108, Lite-FM, Jack, and even some from Cox-cousin Star 99.9.

The Coast is starting off with lots of music, a minimun number of commercials, and no air personalities. We're told that an air staff will be added, but talk will be kept to a minimum.

By superserving Fairfield County's gold coast with "micro-targeted" music, and local news, weather, and traffic, 96.7 The Coast should garner a larger audience than it's predecessor did, and will offer the listening public with another easy to listen to choice.

Check out the live stream at http://www.967thecoast.com

Daily Newspapers Will Survive - Commentary

My daughter rushes home from school each day and races to the mailbox, hoping to find that the mailman (er, postal carrier) has delivered yet another acceptance letter from one of the 4 universities she is still waiting to be accepted to. She is a budding journalist, with dreams of some day assuming the role of Editor of a major magazine or newspaper. This commentary from UCONN's Daily Campus made me think about the student who penned it, wondering in the back of his/her mind if there will be any newspapers left to employ him upon graduation.

Daily Newspapers Will Survive - Commentary

Hartford: It really doesn't suck all that much

from AdWeek's Adfreak blog...

Since we’re on the topic of tourism slogans, let’s ponder this rallying cry for Hartford, Connecticut: “Come to Hartford. I swear, it’s fun.” A ringing endorsement bordering on the pathetic, the words were first uttered by one Lyndsay Stephenson in an article on Hartford’s supposed resurgence in a January New York Times piece. Now they grace a billboard along the southbound side of Rte. 91. While not the official city slogan (that would be the nowhere-to-go-but-up themed “Hartford. New England’s Rising Star”), “I swear, it’s fun” still has a peculiar appeal as one of the few statements made in tourism marketing that’s actually honest.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

This has absolutely nothing to do with advertising or branding or business at all. I'm a huge Beatles fan, as well as an old hippie who still thinks Clapton is God. I just came across this old video, and just had to include it on my blog. George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Phil Collins, Jeff Lynne, all on one stage. Talk about marketing synergy! Enjoy.

BAM Clients Rally to Help Victims of Hurricane Katrina

The coming weeks and months will show that Katrina's devastation is far greater than anyone can imagine. The financial, physical, and psychological damage that the Gulf area has and will continue to receive is far beyond the scope of anything this country has ever experienced. This is truly our country's greatest natural disaster, and it calls for our greatest individual response.

I don't want to single anyone out, that's not what this is about. This past week I've received calls from many BAM clients. The question is always the same. "What can we do to help?" One retailer is donating 10% of gross profits and matching donations. Another is holding a benefit with all admission fees collected going to hurricane relief.

I've always said that BAM clients are an incredible bunch. Thanks for confirming that.

If you're a BAM client and have not yet come up with a plan to help out the relief effort, please give me a call. If you're one of BAM's media partners, our clients are receptive to your ideas and are anxious to participate in your hurricane relief efforts. No matter who you are, please participate by donating whatever you can to The Red Cross or the relief agency of your choice.

The Day The Music Died

Anyone who grew up in New York will be saddened by this news. CBS-FM is no more. Cousin Brucie has been silenced. Here's more from The NY Daily News:

Oldies suddenly a thing of past in WCBS shift
BY RICHARD HUFF
DAILY NEWS TV EDITOR
Saturday, June 4th, 2005

Oldies radio is dead in New York City.

After more than three decades as the top oldies station in the country, WCBS-FM (101.1 FM) abruptly scrapped its format yesterday for a concept called Jack.

As Frank Sinatra's "Summer Wind" trailed off at 5 p.m., a voice intoned: "Why don't we play what we want? There's a whole world of songs out there."

The first song under the new format was the Beastie Boys' "Fight for Your Right." Soon after, CBS played Bruce Springsteen's "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" and James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)."

The station had been home to some of the most famous names of New York radio, including Cousin Bruce Morrow, Harry Harrison, Dan Ingram and Ron Lundy, many of whom shifted from WABC-AM when it went from music to talk.

"I've expected something like this," Morrow said yesterday. "They have every right to try what they want to try. My audience won't be without me for long."

The move stunned longtime listeners.

"I came home and I turned the radio on and it was not there," said Pamela Hall, who lives in the Bronx. "I thought I was going to faint . . . I really am sick. Part of my family is gone."

"This is the largest, the biggest abandonment of a loyal market segment in the history of New York radio," said listener Howard Bailen, of Manhasset, L.I. "I tuned in and heard a song you'd never hear on CBS. It's the last thing New York needs."

But officials at Infinity Broadcasting, which owns the station, said the new format was right for New York. "We did a lot of market research and found a hole in the market that wasn't being served by any other station," said Chad Brown, CBS' vice president and general manager.

No personalities will be heard on the station at the start. Oldies fans will be left to satellite or Internet radio; www.wcbsfm.com still will offer oldies programming.

The Jack format blends hits from the past four decades, creating what the company claims is the "most expansive" playlist heard on radio.

UPDATE - July 12, 2007: see my blog entry above. Jack is off, CBS-FM is back!

BAM Creates Billboard to Promote Valley Lighting's House of Lights Contest

BAM Creates Billboard to Promote Valley Lighting's House of Lights Contest,
originally uploaded by bobabbate.

As the most visible media used to promote Valley Lighting & Home Décor's "Win A House Of Lights" contest, this billboard on Bridgeport's 25/8 Connector helped generate a significant increase in store traffic for the Ansonia Connecticut-based retailer. Thousands of entries have been received for the June 4th drawing. The lucky winner gets their choice of $5000 in lighting, furniture, and home décor for thier home.

Bob meets Jack Welch

Bob meets Jack Welch,
originally uploaded by bobabbate.

I was fortunate enough to be in the audience this afternoon to learn from the master, Jack Welch. Jack spoke about his best selling book "Winning" at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. After his talk I had the opportunity to chat with him, and get my copy of his book signed.

Don't Miss Sarah's Gallery Opening

schurchill2,
originally uploaded by bobabbate.

All friends of BAM are invited to attend the opening of Sarah Churchill's studio and gallery. Please join Sarah for the unveiling of her latest works on Friday, May 13th at 6:30pm at the Star Pin Gallery, 273 Canal Street in Shelton, CT. You may also view the exhibit and visit the artists at the Star Pin Complex Open Studio Event on Saturday, May 14th and Sunday, May 15th from 12-5pm. See you there.

Farewell, Lori

Farewell, Lori,
originally uploaded by bobabbate.

It is with both joy and sadness that we bid farewell to our intern, Loretana Mallone. Lori is a student at Farifield University, and as this semester ends, so does Lori's internship at BAM. All of us at BAM will miss her smile. We appreciate all that Lori has done for us, and we wish her well.

A Timely Quote

I came across this quote this morning...

"The Internet radically redefines a person's psychological relationship to time and space. Attention is riveted on what is tangible, useful, instantly available; the stimulus for deeper thought and reflection may be lacking. Yet human beings have a vital need for time and inner quiet to ponder and examine life and its mysteries... Understanding and wisdom are the fruit of a contemplative eye upon the world, and do not come from a mere accumulation of facts, no matter how interesting." - Pope John Paul II, Sunday, May 12, 2002

Sarah Churchill New Account Coordinator at BAM

I’m please to announce that Sarah Churchill has been promoted to the position of Account Coordinator here at BAM. In this newly created position, Sarah will act as a conduit between our clients and the agency as well as between our suppliers (media, vendors, strategic partners) and the agency. Sarah’s main goal is to help assure a smooth and timely flow of projects.

Sarah joined BAM about a year ago as an art assistant. She is a creative and valuable part of the BAM team. I hope you will join me in congratulating Sarah in her new role. You can reach her at Sarah@BobAbbateMarketing.com.

Welcome to Bob's BAM Blog

Bam color burst FH1,
originally uploaded by bobabbate.

Welcome to my blog. I hope to use this blog to post news about BAM happenings, BAM people, BAM clients, and news from the media and advertising universe. Got some news that should be included? Just drop me a note at Bob@BobAbbateMarketing.com and I'll try to include in in my next posting. See you soon!