All of last year I ran a 1/4 page advert in the Swedish spaniel and retriever club magazine with ca. 30,000 members. It showed my boxes, but also the training stuff I sell - dummies, leads, whistles, rabbit skins, etc.
I picked up a job lot of the stuff up from England and priced it the lowest in Sweden, mainly to pad the website out a bit, and get people interested in the website and hopefully the boxes. Nearly all the competitors sell the same stuff from the same suppliers, so it's all comparable.
But I've sold very little of it that I can attribute to the advert, and no boxes. Obviously people buy the stuff, as my competitors always run bigger, more expensive adverts in the same magazine, so they must be making a profit in order to justify the advertising costs. Certainly, there's no way my sales can justify the cost. I know this is Sweden, and it's a cultural trait to not take risks and stick with the known, hence the best selling car is the V70. But it's not much of a risk to buy a branded dummy or whistle from a different supplier.
Many people have told me that advertising in the various magazines is a waste of money, and I'm starting to believe them. But if so, why do so many companies run large expensive adverts every month?
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A light hearted comment! Years ago the head of some giant advertising agency, remarked that only 50% of all advertising worked, the problem was that nobody could work out which half wasn't working!
An current example of what doesn't work for me is Lloyds TSB, stupid oddly syncopated oboe music and animated puppets with long noses. Hasn't anybody told these people that puppets with long noses are called Pinnochio and are chronic liars?
Last edited by: Perky Penguin on Sun 20 Mar 11 at 13:21
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Got a good web page Dave?
Doggie people are web aware (in the uk anyway, being very competitive, nosy, gossipy and subsequently bitchy - the web is great for that)
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 22 Mar 11 at 12:51
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I liked the line I heard recently:
Advertising doesn't work. Do you know anyone who's bought a sofa from DFS?
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If I wanted a sofa I might go to DFS but I'd want a discount for cash rather than the one year no payments and 2 year's interest free deal.
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In very simple terms. Yes it does. If attention and awareness can be brought to a product or service then it does generate demand. Advertising is and has to be very much more sophisticated now though. Clever tricks such as product placement and "celebrity" accreditation are far more effective than simple "buy me" adverts. Another well used technique is expert accreditation where journalists are paid a ( perhaps surprisingly legitimate ) fee to extol the virtues of one product over another.
Not really an option for one man band type businesses of course.
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>> Another well used technique is expert
>> accreditation where journalists are paid a ( perhaps surprisingly legitimate ) fee to extol the
>> virtues of one product over another.
Doesn't that have to be flagged as an 'advertising feature'?
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In theory yes, but surprisingly often it isn't. ( Allegedly )
:-)
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But if so, why do so many companies run large expensive adverts every month?
>
>..>> my slogan is advertise or die
so link this to larger companies and its the same thing plus bigger companies will have a set amount to spend
equate it to a sweet shop,you stock 100 brands of sweets but constantly only sell 20 out of these,your full shop attracts the customers though because all though they know what they want they feel they still have choice
without reminding them via advertising though they may not feel the need to purchase the things they didnt know they wanted
therefore keep advertising these other products to show you are not a little fish,you could always buy these things in a just in time situation off a competitor if you run out and make a little loss rather than overstocking
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Yeah, I have a website. It's a bit basic as I did it myself.
I'm actually approaching one of the most successful spaniel women in the country, with the offer of a dog box and other bits and pieces. She's a good saleswomen and meets lots of other doggy people when she runs her training classes, competes, and sell pups etc. The actual cost to me is less than one single advert in one of the large magazines, so it may be worth a punt.
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The A-level economics answer to the question is advertising does not create demand, but it can divert it.
I was involved in a small travel business in London many years ago.
The most effective form of advertising, and the among the cheapest, was a small display ad in a free magazine called Ms London.
It was a weekly aimed at young women and given away at tube stations.
We always knew if it was late coming out because the phones didn't ring.
The response slaughtered the likes of Time Out, which was much more expensive.
Many of the readers of Ms London were secretaries or personal assistants.
We reckoned it did so well because it brought in bookings from the readers themselves, and trips they were booking on behalf of their bosses.
Last edited by: Iffy on Mon 21 Mar 11 at 06:55
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Of course good advertising works though poorly done it can actually be counter productive.
It's a matter of portraying quality, service and price though leaving just a little in reserve so you can over deliver and exceed expectations, that's what gets customers coming back.
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What about the 'GoCompare' campaign? If there was an advert designed to put me off anything then this is the one. I would NEVER consider using the relevant website. There was an interesting article on the head honcho of 'GoCompare' in yesterday's Sunday Times Business section. She seems to be doing OK based on the cars she owns but I wonder.
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...What about the 'GoCompare' campaign?...
Only really, really bad publicity is bad publicity, all the rest is good.
I've heard the GoCompare singer interviewed on the radio.
One way or another, the company has really got the campaign 'out there'.
I bet they are delighted with it.
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Advertising is nothing to do with whether you like the ads or not.
I detest the Go Compare and if the remote is handy I'll mute it.
When it came to renewal time I used Go Compare and Compare the Meerkat, because they're the two that fell off the top of my brain. Go Compare was easier to type in too.
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>> When it came to renewal time I used Go Compare and Compare the Meerkat, because
>> they're the two that fell off the top of my brain. Go Compare was easier
>> to type in too.
And meerkat.comparethemarket.com/home does not get you insurance quotes.
The Morethan Freeman campaign has delighted the directors at More than, it has worked beyond their wildest dreams.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 21 Mar 11 at 12:14
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Going back a few years we ran a small business from home that offered a service combined with a product for a fixed price and multiples thereof.
We needed 15 minimum orders to break even on the ads. The RNLI magazine always came good... as did club type magazines associated with the product.
Larger and more general magazines were hopeless due to their very high cost to response ratio.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Mon 21 Mar 11 at 12:29
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I can't be alone in saying that I almost never come across overt adverts at all. I don't read any kind of paper based newspaper or magazine, nor watch any commercial live TV, or listen to any commercial radio. And I run various blockers when webbing.
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You are alone. Must be because of your sleeping habits.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 21 Mar 11 at 12:59
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As someone who has written copy, booked space and handled response for ads extolling the virtues of several different types of business to consumer and business to business products I would wonder whether you're not trying to pack too much into your quarter page. Assuming an A4 page, you're going to do well to do your boxes justice while also flogging the other stuff, putting in a clear call to action, maybe an introductory offer etc.
The ad's effectiveness or otherwise could be being masked by other parts of the process that aren't working as well as they could, like your website if that's where you're sending people from the ad to buy.
Other companies are running large ads every month for any number of reasons - it might work for them and they could well have spent a long time refining their ads to the point where they do work well. If you've booked an ad in more than one issue, use the next one to test a different approach.
In your specific market, running some ads in the club magazine can be a good way of buying some goodwill from those running the club, which could lead (no pun intended) to referrals and word of mouth.
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Webuyanycar.com - dreadful...awful. Not mine you won't.
The GoCompare singer, Wynne Evans is quite well known in Wales - being associated with the advert doesn't do him any harm. He has a rather impressive CV and comes from a family of achievers.
Sadly most people will only know him from the advert.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynne_Evans
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Of course it works .... and the more irritating it is the better it seems to work
Calm down dear.....
Go compare....
Seemples....
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There was a pollyfiller article on the BBC Wales news programme a few nights ago - of the top five companies in this sort of field four are based in Wales - all of them have irritating adverts, but we all know the names !
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>>of the top five companies in this sort of field four are based in>> Wales - all of them have irritating adverts, but we all know the names !
>>
Do you think the Welsh have a gift for being irritating?
I mean, look at Saturday - right?
I wanted them to beat France - right?
But would they?
Would they heck as like!
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Haha ! They didn't deserve to win. Franc played well ! (as did Ireland)
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I don't dispute that I am well aware of GoCompare (who couldn't be?) but my point is that I will definitely never use them BECAUSE of the annoyance that their advert has caused me.
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"I will definitely never use them BECAUSE of the annoyance that their advert has caused me"
Fair enough. But my priority to save money, so I'm happy to use their product, annoying advert or not.
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"I said buy one and get one free I said buy one and get one free." No chance.
And I wish that woman would fall off that bike and smash her Kindle!
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 22 Mar 11 at 12:51
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There are some aspects of advertising that I don't get.
Take for example, Ford sponsoring the Champions League. That costs them millions but
a. it is alreasdy one of the world's best known brands
b. it wouldn't make me think that I either need to go and buy a new car, or I now need to consider a Ford when I wouldn't have before.
Internet advertising also doesn't work with me as, like many, I have all sorts of pop up blockers. I believe Facebook has adverts on it but I can't recollect ever seeing any!
However, I have seen how internet advertising can be clever - when I sign onto my webmail service there is an advert block that usually is either made up of Halfords or Amazon deals based on what I last searched.
Recently had a presentation from Yellow Pages rep and some of the stuff on the net is extremely clever although no doubt bordering on the intrusiveness.
I think Facebook is very scary about its information gathering and for that reason I limit it to the basic of basics. However, when you see some of the details friends put on, I shudder top think where it will be in five years or so.
In fact I have a few friends who may be tipped over the edge if Facebook decided to pull the plug some day!
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Does advertising work? - Perky Penguin
