Kick-Ass Business & Marketing Secrets: How to Blitz Your Competition

Chapter 9

Success Is About the Customer, Not the Product?

If you wanted to get my undivided attention with an advertisement, how would you do it? In today's chaotic world of endless information, commercials, infomercials, a barrage of ads every time you log onto the Internet, and cities littered with signage, it is extremely difficult. Unless, of course, your opening line or headline, if in print, was, “This ad is for Bob Pritchard”. Were that the case, you can bet that I would move heaven and Earth to get from the shower to the TV or pull up on the busy freeway to turn up the radio or stop in front of the billboard to get the message! Would I have the same reaction or even notice an ad for corn flakes? Absolutely not! Research has shown that the average person's recall of ads is less than one in a thousand.

So what causes the difference in my reaction to the two advertisements? The first advertising message is about me, my interests, my concerns, my aspirations, or my requirements of a product or service. The second is about a product.

The truth is that every ad should be about the customer.

If you sell the same product or service that others offer, what is the point of advertising it? When people want to buy this particular offering, they are more likely to recall the actual product or service, not the brand or the particular store doing the advertising. They totally forget who ran the advertisement and begin to shop around for the best price. I cited earlier the fact that ...