Cut to the Core

Short Attention Spans Have Changed Advertising Standards

Historically, the role of advertising has been to communicate the offer of a service or product in order to inform audiences about the details of place and price. In turn, the viewers, listeners and readers who need the product or service are motivated to act on the offer. By eliciting this consumer behavior, advertising has accomplished its goal of driving selective demand for a particular brand, product or service.

Today, with the rise of competition from national and international brands causing market saturation, and with the proliferation of communication channels that compete for the attention of each audience, advertising has become more than a message about the details of the offer. The role of advertising has expanded from (just) a means to get attention to an attempt to shape and manage perceptions.

What forces have influenced this transition? What has made many advertising messages separate and distinctly independent marketing messages, messages that are not at all holistic components of the brand?

The increasing number of informational messages we are exposed to on a daily basis has been a main driver of the change.  Agencies that track exposure to advertising messages report numbers that vary from hundreds of messages a day to thousands a day, depending both on what types of advertising is counted – billboards, television, print and/or Web ads – and on who is tracked – the average adult American or the American professional. Regardless of the specific numbers, the fact remains that every consumer comes into daily contact with a plethora of competing advertising messages.

The fact that this overabundance of market information causes advertising messages to compete constantly for audience attention is a key factor that leads advertisers to change the ways they approach consumers. Another leading causal factor for change, according to advertising professionals, is the declining attention span of audiences. The length of a person’s attention span depends on what a person is focused on and on what their level of interest is in a certain topic. Therefore, the normal period of focused attention fluctuates somewhere between seconds and minutes. In fact, studies, polls and data-gathering agencies report a downward trend for all types of attention spans – whether the activity is listening to a lecture, viewing a slide presentation, reading or Web browsing.

With these declining attention spans, and in an effort to maintain the effectiveness of the advertising, many advertisers have chosen to create messages that appeal to simple human emotions such as fear and greed. They argue that, by sheer time constraint, advertising cannot develop a strong cognitive/rational argument and must, instead, present a “slice of life”; therefore, the message cannot be anything but an unbalanced representation. However, some feel that this reliance on primal emotions has made advertising, in general, unethical. They say such messages have no transparency, lack depth and clarity and are thus completely disassociated from the brand, product and service values.

Have you given in to time and emotion in your messaging?  How can you once again match your message to your brand?

 

Key Point – When emotional appeal is used in advertising, it is much too easy for audiences with different value orientations to perceive messages as more or less skewed or unethical.  When that happens, your advertising message may become subject to a higher level of controversy and may even be considered a misrepresentation of stakeholder interest.

Use Your Company’s Values as a Measuring Stick for Its Performance

When you review your company’s performance, do you benchmark it to your company’s values? That is, have you created evaluation “measuring sticks” from your mission statement and overall company philosophy that allow you and your leadership team to effectively evaluate “gaps” in your performance and to appropriately communicate your successes?

Most companies create benchmarks that facilitate the assessment of their performance in relation to their direct competitors. For example, if a company seeks to improve customer service, it may adopt the world-class standards of Southwest Airlines as a guideline to evaluate and to improve its own customer relations. A company may also set additional benchmarks if the company seeks a leadership position in a particular area of performance.

However, if you do not already use your company’s values, formally communicated in your mission statement, as an evaluation measuring stick for performance, I encourage you to explore the benefits. First of all, the development of a strategy of performance around your values is an effective way to focus on both the areas that need improvement and the areas that already represent success for your organization. As well, your efforts to focus on your company’s values will infuse all stakeholder communications with a consistency that further enhances the credibility of your brand.

Greenwashing - Summary of a Lively Online Debate

  A lively online debate, conducted by Ethical Corporation and sponsored by InterfaceFLOR on October 8^th, 2010 explored the practice of “greenwashing,” a means by which a company, especially through its advertising or public relations department, will proclaim a green image without truly dedicating its efforts to green practices. The debate was led by Ramon Arratia, director of sustainability for Europe at InterfaceFLOR, and Kristian Steele, a senior engineer at Arup.

The global participants discussed how setting standards that consumers could easily understand and that companies could correctly apply might be the best way to alleviate the problem of greenwashing. Such standards would help consumers to distinguish labeling that reflects true and appropriately earned claims about environmentally safe products from the claims that come from greenwashing efforts. 

The discussion continued on to consider the type of standards needed:  e.g., the GHC protocol and WRI/WBCSD PAS 2050 and 2060, along with 100% organic and other well-known labeling practices. Some voiced a concern that, even with good labeling, consumers would not understand what to choose. Do you buy a 100% organic shirt or a 100% carbon neutral shirt? 

The participants also discussed how a requirement of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) for every component part of each product would impact businesses, especially if those businesses had to carry the full financial burden of the LCA. In addition, they addressed the question of which agencies would bear the burden of verification.

Read a summary of the debate - click here.

As I listened to the many partisans from the various countries and from different industries, I realized just how complex the labeling issue can become, even with the best of intentions by the noblest of business people.

As a marketing professional, with many decades of practice, my deepest concern is that green communications are being spearheaded by the public relations (PR) departments of companies. “Green” should not be simply a point of view that the PR department can use to communicate the ongoing organizational activities; rather, green must be a corporate value that is in alignment with the corporate mission.

When green is a core value that transforms the corporate culture, green becomes a heuristic for decision making and a valid reporting benchmark. When this is the case, communications about green initiatives will be viewed by stakeholders, not as a public relations effort to brand a company green, but rather as an honest communication about a truly green-functioning enterprise.

Today's Trend - Marketing That Targets All Stakeholders

After the much publicized problems with the unintended acceleration of some Toyota models, Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc., has recalled more than 12 million vehicles worldwide and 10.5 million in the United States. The company also has responded by creating a safer technology, The Star Safety System™, along with a marketing campaign to tell us all about the innovation.

Toyota Motor Sales (TMS) will run its Star Safety campaign well into 2011. The Star Safety System™ combines five safety technologies as standard equipment on all new Toyota models. The Star Safety System includes Vehicle Stability Control (VSC), Traction Control (TRAC), an Anti-lock Brake System (ABS), Electronic Brake-force Distribution (EBD) and Brake Assist.

The marketing campaign centers on the message of safety and focuses on conversations about safety and quality between Toyota owners and engineers. (See the advertising online at www.toyota.com/safety.) The critics of Toyota’s safety campaign take issue with the advertising, stating that Toyota has not spent a sufficient amount of time and effort to apologize for its problems and has jumped, instead, into “selling safety” too quickly.

 

Do you agree? If your company had a major setback, how would you communicate about the incident? 

This marketer remembers the shocking Ford Pinto Memo that openly disclosed the cost/benefit analysis performed in order to justify the decision not to fix a fuel system design element, known to be faulty, when that design increased the chances of an explosion. The decision not to act was made despite the fact that an explosion upon impact greatly increases the possibility of burns or death to both driver and passengers. In contrast, the actions and messaging in response to Toyota’s design fault, although it is also potentially life-threatening, seems commensurate with the inherent danger.

Unlike the Ford scandal of the 1970’s, Toyota’s response has been one of immediate action. The company has set about to fix the problems on the existing models by issuing massive recalls and, in a very timely manner, assembled a team of engineers to design the best automobile safety system on the market. Their goal was to begin, within the quickest timeline possible, the installation of the new system, The Star Safety System™, as standard equipment on all new Toyota models.

 

In order to communicate this action plan, one of the advertising spots highlights Toyota’s fundamental pledge to invest the time and the people needed to follow through with their renewed commitment to safety. View the spot.

 

In another advertisement, Toyota acknowledges that they have not lived up to the expectations of safety they, and their customers, have for Toyota products. The ad outlines their plan to restore their customers’ faith in the company. View the spot.

 

In yet another advertisement, Toyota states that “everyone deserves to be safe no matter what you drive.” The ad highlights the Star Safety System, Toyota’s answer to automobile safety. View the spot.

 

In order to give a backbone to their claims, Toyota is also running a spot that talks about the safety awards their new innovations have won during 2010. View the spot.

 

Key Point - An interesting element of this marketing campaign is that Toyota has promoted the idea that safety is an issue that involves all of Toyota’s stakeholders. The messaging contains language meant to create a strong emotional connection to the primary value of safety, a value that is certainly a priority for all of us. After all, even if we do not drive a Toyota, the person who drives down the neighborhood street near where our children play, or the person who drives our husband to work in the carpool, may well be a Toyota owner.

 

Thus, Toyota’s advertising has placed the company in the spotlight as one of the responsible citizens of our communities. As such Toyota will have to live up to the ethical and moral stand they have just created for themselves, their employees and their products.

 

Online Interactions Add Value to Your Brand

Do you successfully reveal your authentic self  when you communicate online?   Even if you feel more effective over the phone or in person, you can master the art of online conversation. Search out ways to enhance your brand, participate in as many online activities as you can, and then reap the benefits. After all, the number of professionals who spend time online is on the increase, and you want to be right there to communicate your value to these prospects and buyers. How do you enhance the value of your brand by consciously creating memorable online experiences for your prospects and buyers?

 

Use White Papers to Create Industry Buzz

Does your product or service offer a paradigm shift? Does your process provide a unique value? Is it better, more effective or faster than the competition? If so, consider promoting your solution with a white paper. Already have a white paper? Consider adding a new section to provide more value to your prospects.

A white paper typically has the following sections:

1.    Introduction: leads in with key challenges and hints at a solution.
2.    Problem statement: defines problems and discusses risks.
3.    Solution statement: explores benefits of various potential solutions.
4.    Preferred solution outline: analyzes the advantages of the best-choice solution.
5.    Conclusion: summarizes the best-choice solution and calls for reader action.

Consider the addition of one of the sections below to differentiate your organization and to highlight your unique value:

1.    Market Industry Analysis: describes industry specific issues in broad terms and analyzes specific industry trends as they relate to the relevance of the problems and solutions previously discussed. Ties in to the specific attributes of the preferred product or solution.

2.    Market Trend Analysis: describes historical market trends, highlights key trends and forecasts future trends. Shows, based on these market trends, why the product or service specifically meets the client’s needs today and will continue to do so into the future. 

Can you add value to the services you offer your customers by aiding their buying decisions through the use of a white paper, or by updating your white paper to include additional sections? Learn more about white papers and download helpful tip sheets, click here.

*Publish or update your white paper. Work with your Kore Access colleagues in a collaborative partnership to publish or update your white paper. Utilize our expertise and resources to more effectively and efficiently meet your project goals, timeline and budget. To set up your initial, complimentary consultation and to get a customized project quote, contact us today. 

How Credible Are You and Your Organization?

Are you and your organization viewed as credible by your stakeholders? Do the people who contribute to your personal and organizational success display confidence in you and your organization? Find out by reviewing your organization’s credibility status with “The Perception, Evaluation and Development of Your Credibility Checklist,” an easy-to-use checklist from Kore Access. To get started on your review and evaluation, Download KA Checklist_credibility

*To learn more about communicating the characteristics that build, earn and maintain credibility in the marketplace, read “Establishing Credibility: The 3 C’s to Pursue,” a Kore Access marketing resources article. For the full article, Download Establishing Credibility

Will Auto Executives Catch a Ride?

After receiving criticism from lawmakers for flying private jets to plea for a $25 billion dollar bailout last month (refer to post of November 25^th ), television and print media reported that the three Detroit automaker CEO’s might be car pooling to their next Washington, DC hearings.

For security reasons Ford, General Motors and Chrysler do not comment on the travel plans of their CEO’s. However, they did confirm that jet plane travel is not an option. As it turned out, the executives traveled independently in a company made hybrid car.

Congressional lawmakers, who demanded detailed plans from the automakers by Tuesday Dec 2^nd, with hearings to follow, will find that the automakers are much better prepared to answer questions about the viability of their business and spending plans for federal funds.

For example, in response to calls to cut labor costs, Ford CEO, Alan Mulally, offered to work for $1 and has stated Ford will cancel management bonuses for 2009. Plans to make Ford competitive with foreign automakers include investing up to $14 billion to improve fuel efficiency over the next seven years and accelerating plans for hybrid gas-electric and electric vehicles. The plan Ford will present is said to be 32 pages long and includes a resolution to sell its five corporate jets.

Should the automakers receive the bailout? It is estimated 1 out of 10 jobs in the US are related to the auto industry, is this significant in your decision?

Focus on Jet Plane Ride Hurts Bailout Plea

 Executives from Ford, GM and Chrysler traveled from Detroit, Michigan to Washington, D.C. to plea their case for a $25 billion dollar loan package on Wednesday, November 19th. During the hearing, several lawmakers focused on the expensive jet transportation executives used to make their pleas as an example of the CEO’s ability to reign in the costs and manage public money.

In general, high level executives travel in privately-owned jet planes as a matter of company policy. The most reported reason for this “extravagance” is the increased safety of the executives and more efficient time management. However, in the current economic crisis, when workers are being laid off as a cost cutting measure, the jet plane ride (which can cost an estimate of $20,000 round trip versus $500 on a commercial flight) appears extravagant.

During the hearings several lawmakers took issue with the jet plane ride and used it to highlight the point that taxpayers will not tolerate “business as usual” practices on their dollar.

Do You Agree? Are assets being mismanaged? Is brand strength weakened by not immediately changing behavior when faced with impending bankruptcy?

Today, consumers are weary and watchful. What are you doing to reassure your customers and stakeholders?

Surveys Reveal the Importance of Credibility

                          

Surveys that monitor and track a brand’s attributes continue to find that measures of credibility rank high in consumers’ perceptions of brand strength. The surveys reveal that credibility is viewed by customers as a measure of both organizational stability and a commitment to providing future value.

Learn the 3 characteristics to avoid and the 3 characteristic to pursue in your campaign to earn and maintain credibility. Read the Kore Access marketing resources article, Download Establishing Credibility

*Reviewing your organization’s credibility status with the Kore Access marketing resources,Download KA Checklist_credibility