Pester Power – Is It What You Need?

The thing to remember about marketing is that you have to make an impact on the consciousness of the people you hope to sell to. How you do that is less relevant than the matter of actually doing it. There are some who would say that placing advertising on a tank that is shown rampaging into a defenseless small nation is good publicity – because as bad as the association might be, it will be seen on television and in the newspapers.
In this light, the phrase “There is no such thing as bad publicity” has gained currency, but is it actually true? Many companies advertise products with advertisements that have little to recommend them other than the fact that they are really annoying, and therefore stick in people’s minds. People will remember the advertisements, but will they actually buy the product?
That is what a marketer has to consider when they are looking to publicize a product. If people are quoting the awful dialogue in your advertisement to one another, but failing to walk into a shop and buy your product, then you have the balance all wrong. You need to remind people that there is something to buy – and if you have to annoy them to do so, at least give them a hint as to what makes the product worth buying.
Anyone who spends much time on online forums will be familiar with trolls. They engage people in pointless arguments and then disappear from view leaving that person angry and nonplussed. Don’t let your ad be a troll – if you are going to irritate them, then make it worth their while.

Let Them Know You’re There

Advertising without the internet may not seem like the wisest strategy in an age where the world seems to happen online. However, there is no doubt that the internet is one of the most crowded forums in the world for advertising, and finding space for publicity where it will actually be seen is no easy trick. As a result, it is important to have a strategy for offline marketing. Being able to promote your product is essential, whatever the size of your business.

How you go about this is up to you, and depends what kind of budget you have. If the internet fell silent all over the world tomorrow, then many of the bigger companies would shrug their shoulders and buy more advertising space in newspapers and on TV, but not everyone can afford to do that. You could go around sticking flyers everywhere they were visible, but in many places that is against the law. So you sometimes have to be original in how you place advertising.

A flyer drop, posting advertisements through doors, may well get your brand seen, but it will not necessarily amount to much, as people have become inured to what they consider to be “junk mail”. Instead, you need to think of a way to catch people’s attention and, when they are caught, put your case to them in a convincing way. If you can do it without annoying them you may well be on to something. It’s not an easy thing to do.

Ambush Marketing – Fad Or Fabulous?

The soccer World Cup of 2010 has been famous for many controversies, but one of the most interesting had nothing to do with what was taking place on the pitch. During a game between Holland and Denmark it was noticed by officials inside the stadium that 36 female fans were standing together wearing orange miniskirts (the color worn by the Dutch team). As it turned out, these fans were wearing advertising placed by the Dutch brewery Bavaria and were ejected from the stadium. It was the latest in a growing series of “ambush marketing” campaigns by the brewery.
The reason for this title is that the World Cup has its own “beer sponsor”, which is a different company than Bavaria. By the rules laid down by the sport’s governing body, it is forbidden for other companies in specific sectors to advertise inside the stadium if that sector is already represented by another company. By advertising a competing brand, Bavaria had technically broken this law.

The end result of all of this, of course, was that although their advertising was banished from the stadium, Bavaria brewery got a major publicity boost by being mentioned in newspapers the world over, often in articles decrying the corporate stranglehold on the sporting world. Although they had not paid anything like the amount demanded by the governing body to advertise their product, they had received plenty of good publicity – which is the point of ambush marketing. Whatever you think of their tactics, they worked admirably.

Marketing Without The Internet

Since the internet arrived in our lives, the world has changed completely. It would not be exceeding the bounds of reason to say that this has been the single biggest development in the sphere of global communication since the invention of the telephone, and is in fact on a par with that invention. Just think of your daily routine now, and imagine it without the internet. That means no e-mail, greatly reduced rolling news, no internet banking, no online shopping… you get the picture. And think about how you would go about marketing without the internet.

Of course, marketing predates the internet and as it was possible in the times before we got online, it would remain possible if the world’s servers started crashing tomorrow. We can still market offline now, quite easily. However, it seems like an anachronistic thing to consider – when the internet offers you free marketing, why would you bother with another way?

Actually, there are many reasons why you should consider it. For one thing, not everyone has the internet. Some people don’t have a computer and cannot afford to get one without borrowing more than they are willing to. Others refuse to have the internet for personal reasons, and still others are likely to instinctively distrust things that are sold via the internet. For these reasons, you should have an offline marketing strategy as well as an online one.

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