Every superhero franchise begins with a Genesis story.
Action Comics #1 starts with a baby superman-to-be sent forth from the doomed planet Kryptonite. Sent forth with his father’s desire that he become a force for good on Earth. The Amazing Spider-Man #1 tells how Peter Parker gained super-powers after he was bitten by the radio-active spider and how he became Spider-man in reaction to his uncle Ben’s murder.
In the same way, if you take any superhero movie that’s the first in its franchise, you’ll find a genesis story of that superhero — a tale that tells the audience:
- How the hero came to posses his powers,
- Who the hero is as a person, and
- What his mission is and Why he’s dedicated to it
If you don’t do that, you’re hero won’t be believable. Nor will he be sympathetic. You’ll end up with a character whose super powers will seem too fantastic and “made up,” and who will fail to inspire anyone to care about or root for him.
It’s that simple: no genesis story, no superhero.
Superheros and Advertising
Interestingly, the three tasks of a Genesis story overlay perfectly with Aristotle’s three elements of Ethos — the three things you must establish in order to persuade through an appeal to character. Here’s how they match-up, using Jay Henrich’s modern updates for the Ethos elements of phronesis, eunoia, and arete:
- Craft = Phronesis / Practical Wisdom = Powers
- Caring = Eunoia / Goodwill = Who the hero is as a person
- Cause = Areté / Virtue = Mission
Want to present a business owner as someone prospective customers should like and trust?
Then you need to cover these character elements. You have to convince the audience that the owner is great at what he does, that he cares about his customers, and that, at the end of the day, he’s on a bigger mission than just making money.
And once you understand the superhero angle, it becomes pretty obvious that the most powerful way to communicate these elements is through a Genesis story.
Put more directly, if you’re presenting the business owner as someone with superpowers — whether that’s the power to heroically save the customer from a tough situation, or simply the power to do X better than any other business on the planet — than you’re presenting them as a de facto superhero, and you need to tell the darn genesis story to make that message at all believable.
A Jewelry Superhero Genesis Story
Want an example of an Advertising Genesis story?
Here’s one from my business partner, Roy Williams [paragraphing mine]:
“When I was seven years old, I held my father’s head in my hands as he took his last breath and died. A thing like that stays with you. It helps you understand that relationships – people – are what life’s all about.You gotta tell’em you love’em.
This is J.R. Dunn. So now you know why I became a jeweler. Fine jewelry is one of the ways we tell people we love ’em. When I got older and fell head-over-heals for Ann Marie, the love of my life, I didn’t have enough money to buy her an engagement ring. She married me anyway. Go figure.
But I can promise you this: If you’re thinking of getting engaged to the love of your life, come to J.R. Dunn Jewelers in Lighthouse Point. No one in Florida, no one in America, is going to give you a better engagement ring for your money than me. One of the great joys of my life is to make it possible for guys to give the woman they love the diamond she deserves.
There was nobody there for me when I needed an engagement ring. But I promise I’ll be there for you.”
After hearing this ad, you now know, with absolute clarity:
- What kind of person J.R. Dunn is
- How he got his superpowers (along with how those superpowers can help you)
- What mission he’s on and why he’s dedicated to it
Better yet, you not only know these things about him, but you believe them. You believe these things about J.R. Dunn because he told you his genesis story. See how that works?
So what’s YOUR genesis story, and are you bothering to tell it the way it ought to be told?
What tells you it’s time to stop digging?
That repentance is necessary for salvation is hardly a principle confined to Christianity. It’s really as simple as saying that if you’ve dug yourself into a hole, you need to:
- realize you’re in a hole, and
- stop digging,
- become open to solutions (aka, a way out)
Until you do these three things, you won’t have much hope of getting out of that hole. Obviously, the sooner you recognize the hole, the easier the process is. Just as obviously, this applies to businesses as well as individuals.
In fact, a lot of hole-digging in business involves maximizing short term profit at the expense of long-term reputation, customer satisfaction, product improvement, etc. Mostly because profitability is fervently measured while the long term things often don’t even have indicators, let alone measurements. This means many companies don’t realize they’ve dug themselves into a hole until a crisis hits.
So what are your early indicators for these “soft” or long-term factors? Have you bothered to set any up, or are crises going to be the only indicator that the hole you’ve dug yourself into is deeper than you can climb out of?
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Are you demanding a state of grace, or are you willing to take people as they are?
One of the few things I don’t like about Getting Things Done is the “state of grace” factor. Meaning you have to start your system from a point at which everything is accounted for on a slip of paper in your in-box, which means you have to take 1–2 days out of your life to get yourself to the starting point.
I think that’s one reason there are far more variants of GTD and people using modified GTD systems than there are actual GTD practitioners. People like the system, but most can’t start from that all-too-hard-to-achieve state of grace.
Similarly, businesses that are willing to take people as they are generally do a whole lot better than businesses that force customers to have gotten their ducks in a row beforehand.
People want solutions, not an “I told you so.”
Think of the difference between a normal university and most online universities. They’ll always be a Harvard, but I think a lot of 3rd Tier Colleges and Universities are about to get crunched as more and more people opt for educational alternatives that will take them where they are — literally and figuratively.
What about your business? Are you willing to meet people where they are - to save them from their past stupidity if needed — or are you demanding customers enter your doors in a state of grace?
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The object of giving something up is to gain something else
Christians fast and make sacrifices during Lent – i.e., they give up temporal, worldly pleasures and activities — so as to better concentrate their minds on the eternal and the spiritual. It’s not just about giving something up, it’s about eliminating some things to focus more on others.
This is a recognition that you can’t just add and add and add without having things get crowded out of the picture — usually the wrong things, the most important things.
While we all tend to endlessly add To-Dos to our list, there’s only so much time in the day. How many of us actively focus on a Stop Doing list? The idea is to replace less effective and efficient strategies and practices with more effective ones. So shouldn’t we have as many “Stop Doing” items as “Start Doings”?
What’s on your “Stop Doing” list?
Back in 1973, Master Lock ran one of the most effective Super Bowl ads of all time. If you haven’t seen it before, here it is:
Now, I’m not sure how many criminals would shoot a lock — seems to me they’d be more likely to just use a pair of bolt cutters — but that doesn’t matter, because watching a lock literally take a bullet and still continue to do its job impresses us at a fundamental, symbolic, and subconscious level.
And it’s this subconscious, largely symbolic level where real buying decisions are made, which is one reason why Master Lock, bolstered by the success of this ad, went on to dominate the industry in 70s and continues to be dominant today.
In fact, people still talk about this “tough under fire” demonstration to this day. Heck it featured in an episode of MythBusters.
Of course, the difference between today and the 70’s is that now customers expect to be able to find more information on the internet. So if Master Lock were to run an ad like that today, we’d expect to go to the website, see the ad, and then get more information, presumably including an added demonstration of how the haft of the lock is hardened against regular bolt cutters and such.
In other words, the Web is where we expect businesses to add more info, close more loopholes, and really convince us — all after they’ve impressed us with their mass media ads.
And that brings me to the ad Master Lock really should have aired last Sunday. Because you don’t know it, but the front door lock on your house is ridiculously, stupidly easy to overcome. It doesn’t even require regular lock-picking skills or really anything close to what one might call special tools or skills.
Nope. Picking the lock on your house simply requires a bumpkey and a few minute demo on how to use it. See for yourself within the first 90 seconds of this news special:
Think you could make a pretty dramatic ad out of that bit of info?
Yeah. Me too.
Now, here’s the thing — Master Lock has come up with a lock cylinder that’s pretty much bump-proof. Unfortunately their promotional video for the technology is slow, boring, and long. It is, however, convincing:
So why not have a super dramatic, riveting Super Bowl ad that demonstrates lock bumping and how exposed 99% of all homes are to the technique, then showcasing how bump-proof Master Lock’s new lock cylinders are?
If you really want to get serious, throw out a challenge:
- Viewers pick out a replacement Master Lock for their door and order it along with home installation to be done by a a local Master Lock dealer,
- All of which is FREE if the installation crew can’t bump lock the front door lock they’ll be replacing on your home.
- “If we can’t open your door lock as easy as this [image of bump lock opening] your new Master Lock is on us!
- See complete details at masterlock.com
What do you want to bet that that ad would sell a boat load of new door locks?
And that’s the ad we should have seen this Super Bowl.
Holy mega-bucks, Batman! On Saturday, the original Batmobile (from the old Adam West TV Show) sold for a whopping 4.2 Million Dollars.
You can watch the entire bidding process in the embedded YouTube video, if you want, but I’d advise skipping to the 8:14 mark, where they interview the winning bidder:
In response to the question, “what made you want that car?” Rick Champagne gave the following list:
- I grew up in that era, so it meant a lot to me.
- I’ve been watching that car for 20 years and waiting for this day [when it would finally be sold]
- I’ve been a Barret Jackson customer for well over 15 years
- The car is going to go in my living room
- I KNEW I was going to get it
So, just a few reflections from me on the event and Mr. Champagne’s list:
Sentiment & Emotional Connection MATTERS
Yes, there is also exclusivity driving up the price of this car, but by far the biggest factor, and the one mentioned first by the winning bidder, is the emotional connection to the old TV show, and in turn, to the famous Batmobile.
If you’re not taking this into account — if you’re not baking a little Magical Thinking into your marketing and advertising — you probably ought to be.
Baby Boomers Control 70% of the Disposable Income in the US
Of course, given the era of the Batman TV show, it’s not surprising that the winning bidder was a Baby Boomer. But don’t overlook the fact that the majority of the buyers sloshing obscene amounts of disposable income around that auction house were also Boomers. That’s because Baby Boomer’s hold the majority of wealth and disposable income in America.
If you’re selling luxury or high-end products or services and your marketing speaks primarily to or from a youth mindset, you might want to rethink that.
Anticipation Combined with Confidence Is An Unbeatable Combo
Rick Champagne has been waiting to buy this car for 20 years. That’s a lot of anticipation, a lot of time Rick spent imagining himself buying that car.
Rick’s also done business with the auction house, Barret Jackson, for “well over 15 years.” That’s a lot of repeat business and confidence.
It also helped, of course, that Barret Jackson had the car’s original builder/designer and single-person owner on hand to further verify the authenticity of the vehicle. Personally, I think it would have been even better to have had Adam West there, too, but you can’t have everything, I guess.
At any rate, the end result is that Rick Champagne was absolutely 100% certain that he was getting exactly what he wanted — the 100% genuine real deal — from a company that he had full faith and confidence in to deliver.
This is why he walked into the auction KNOWING that he was going to walk out as the new owner of that car.
What does your company do to help people IMAGINE buying from you and IMAGINE getting the benfit from your product or service?
When people walk into your business do they KNOW that they are going to buy from you? Or do they think they might possibly buy from you, if the pricing is competitive and you seem to have what they want?
So what are YOU doing to:
- Take advantage of, or establish, emotional connections?
- Give people full faith and confidence in your product or service?
- Allow people to develop confidence in you through previous business dealings?
- Provide something worth waiting for?
Here’s a small business example: for most HVAC companies, the pay-off is when someone buys a new Heating and Air Conditioning System from them. That’s payday.
But the smart companies don’t wait for payday to try to get your business. They’d rather you develop confidence in them BEFOREHAND.
This process is started with great ads that establish an emotional connection to the listening audience. And if that emotional connection seems based on old-timey values and slightly older cultural references, well, that’s probably NOT an accident.
This emotional connection is further strengthened by the offer of value-priced, high-quality tune-ups and fast, effective repairs. A strategy that ensures prospects call YOU when they need a tune-up.
And after 5 or more years of having their system tuned by you, YOU become the first person they call when there is a breakdown — and the only people they trust when it’s time to buy that new system. Payday!
The icing on the cake? Well, with any luck, that new system will come with:
- advanced filtration,
- added humidity control,
- room temperature equalizing functionality, and
- energy saving features.
The kind of system that makes a home noticeably more comfortable and pleasant; a luxury system that the home owner desired for some time and planned on buying “someday,” when it was time for a new one.
And that’s how you can put some super-hero-powered CRACK-POW! — BAM! into your marketing and advertising.
16
Jan
“Winning ad awards is a silly way to measure success.” – A paraphrase of thoughts expressed by my colleagues, Tim Miles and Charlie Moger.
And while I heartily second that emotion, I usually let Tim or Charlie express it, since it’s less sour-grapey to say it after you’ve won those kinds of awards, which they have.
But the interesting thing is that not all ad awards are based merely on creativity.
You can enter and win awards based upon marketing effectiveness! That award is called an “Effie,” and you can review the 2012 Effie winners here.
But if you’d also like to see a meta-analysis of winning campaigns, showing what winning and finalist entrants had in common, then you’re also in luck.
Effie Worldwide has compliled just such an analysis in their 2012 Effie Report, and have also been kind enough to summarize their key findings as follows:
- “Effie Finalists tend to spend more on paid media, but not necessarily the most. More finalists spent in the $20 million to $40 million range than in the $40 million+ category, and nearly half spent less than $20 million.
- Effie medalists have slightly fewer goals to achieve, and campaigns with a business objective, rather than one to reach a target audience, collect more medals.
- Never underestimate David taking on Goliath – he’s 47 percent more likely to win an Effie medal.
- In the Shopper Marketing Effie categories, about two-thirds of finalists’ programs demonstrated some aspect of disruption – either by novel product placement in the store, changing the way shoppers perceived the retailer or changing perceptions of the brand.”
So what I’d like to do today is take each of Effie Worldwide’s bullet points and discuss it in terms of local advertising/branding:
Spend More on Paid Media
It’s tempting to go after “free advertising” such as Word of Mouth, Social Media, and various PR and Guerilla Marketing tactics, but while those are effective, experience shows that there’s just no replacing old-school mass media muscle when it comes to grabbing increased share of mind, and in turrn, share of market.
But if that’s the case, then why didn’t finalist spend the most on media? Frankly, I’m guessing here, but I think this indicates intelligent media buys along with the desire to effectively concentrate on one (or a few) media source(s) rather than a spending spree spread out over too many media types.
It might also indicate the investment in long-term, day-in and day-out media spends for branding rather than massive, flash-in-the-pan spending for one-time marketing blitzes.
In any case, according to Effie Worldwide, effective marketing strategies are more likely to have intelligently invested in paid media.
Focus on Fewer Goals & Tie Them to Business Objectives
There’s an apocryphal story about a copywriter who was late to a client meeting, wherein the board was going to discuss with him the 13 Points they wanted to their ad to cover.
So the copywriter walks in late carrying a hockey bag over his shoulder. Without saying a word, he places the bag on the conference table, pulls out a board that’s basically been turned into a bed of nails — a rather eye catching prop that grabs every eye in the room as it’s placed on the table.
The copywriter then takes a fry pan out of the bag and slams it down onto the bed of nails. Lifting the fry pan up, he shows the executive team the dimples. Then writer-boy swaps out the bed of nails with a board featuring a single, imposing spike potruding from it. He slams the fry pan down, forcing the spike clean through it, creating a half-inch hole big enough to stare through when mr. copywriter holds the pan up to show the board.
At this point, our intrepid copywriter says, “Now how many points do you want the ad messaging to convey?”
As it is with ads, so it is with campaigns: one point, goal, or objective per campaign is always best.
And if you want to narrow it down to one objective, you’ll want to choose a business objective. So, figure out how you want to measure success in term of your (or your client’s) business, along with what the required timeline is, THEN create a campaign clearly aimed at achieving that singular, business goal.
And by the way, “driving traffic” isn’t a business goal. Increasing gross sales might be, but merely getting traffic through the door isn’t. So conversion ain’t just a metric for online businesses…
Act Like David Rather Than Goliath
Increasing market share when you have very little of it to begin with is relatively easy, as there are plenty of competitors to steal customers from, and plenty of prospective customers to steal. On the other hand, once you’ve cornered 30–35% of the market, grabbing more of that same market is darned difficult.
This is why, again according to the Effie Report, smaller businesses taking on larger competition are more likely to find their advertising effective — because gaining marketshare always involves stealing it from someone else. So when you’re already holding almost all the marbles, there are fewer and fewer left to acquire.
For local businesses that means that once you become the Goliath of your category, you either have to open up a new store in another market, or open up another business, or business-line, in the same market. Either way, your future growth will be powered by your Davids rather than your Goliaths.
Of course, this assumes that the smaller business has something new or interesting to offer the customer… which leads us to
Practice Disruption
If you look at how that last bullet point is worded, it’s basically saying you need to do two things:
- Grab people’s attention through some form of novelty
- Provide people with some sort of Unique Selling Propositon, OR change the way they FEEL about the brand
In other words, if you’re offerng the exact same thing as everyone else, in the exact same manner, and if your ads are predictable, boring and dull, then it won’t matter that you’re investing in paid media in order to air ads aimed at achieving measurable business goals for a business that has plenty of market share left to steal — you’ll still lose.
But if you’re ads capture the interest and imagination of the buying public, while offering them a strong reason to do business with you, you’ll soon disrupt the power structure of your industry as you dominate every market you care to enter.
My only note of caution is to add in a third point: credibility. You can grab their attention and promise them a tempting and relevant benefit, but if your audience doesn’t believe you, your ads won’t achieve much.
Relevance and Credibility are the meat of the message. The novelty part simply ensures that your message is heard long enough to be deemed relevant and credible.
Ah… Validation
Interestingly enough, these are the same principles espoused by all Wizard of Ads Partners, including Tim and Charlie, so it’s gratifying to see them espoused by a institution dedicated to promoting effective advertising, such as Effie Worldwide.
If you’re interested in exploring these principles to grow your business, why not contact one of us?
2013 is just getting started, why not make it your year to thrive?
It’s a slight change, but it makes a world of difference, doesn’t it?
The photo comes courtesy of a rather clever ad campaign for The Cape Times – something I was turned onto by the always-wonderful No Caption Needed blog. The intent was to make us see these iconic photos with new eyes, allowing the idea of a self-taken-phone-camera-pic to shake up a classic. And it worked.
But it also transforrmed the photos into something creepy, especially this one.
It’s one thing to look on as the ecstasy of victory so overcomes a sailor’s sensibilities that he kisses a stranger in the street; it’s entirely another when the sailor still has the self-awareness to phone-pic himself during his supposed blissed-out moment.
Sometimes, it’s just a whole lot better when someone else is controlling the camera and the spotlight. In fact, not just sometimes, but often.
Translating this to advertising and marketing:
- When others sing your praises, it comes off as credible and genuine; when you sing your praises, you come off as a wanna be Donald Trump
- When reviews praise an item to the sky, we believe it; when product copy does so, we read it with a large grain of salt
- When you tell me how great someone else is, you come off as passionate; when you tell me how great you are, you come off as arrogant
Well.. you get the picture. Why not let someone else hold the camera. Or, if you’ve got the camera, why not point it at something other than yourself?