I dove into the ads from a Life Magazine from 1966 and, as you can imagine, had a good laugh. 

But I was also surprised at how similar, once you get past the hair styles, the advertising approaches of then and now are.  One of two approaches: lifestyle; or feature/function/benefit.  And what we can learn, or, what we can remind ourselves about good and not-so-good advertising.

That’s Ian Fleming, author of the Jame Bond books, on the cover.

I want to compare two cigarette ads: Winston, an established brand at that time, number one or maybe number two after Marlboro; and Lark, a less established brand fighting for market share.  It appears they both are competing on taste.  That’s right folks, in 1966 cigarettes tasted good!  And as you’ll see, added to the fun. . .if you smoked Winston, that is.

And okay, quick, complete the Winston slogan: Winston tastes good, like. . . .?

It tastes good like a cigarette should.  All Americans over 50 know that slogan cold.  It was drilled into our heads.  Spaced repetition.  That was the underlying strategy of all advertising in the 50s, 60s and into the 70s.  Beat the crap out of your target audience with your slogan and they will recall your product when they’re buying your soap/soda/fast food, etc.

Compare the Winston ad to the Lark ad (the Lark ad was back outside cover of the same magazine).  Winston’s ad was very likely what I call a defensive ad; an ad aimed at Winston smokers, reminding them how much fun it is to smoke Winston.  And hey, those people sure do look like they’re having fun, right?  Simple (Headline: Flavor that goes with fun, followed by a bit of supporting copy and the subhead: Winston tastes good. . .like a cigarette should).

The Lark ad struggles to demonstrate why they have good taste too (Subhead: Taste the good things that happen to smoke filtered through charcoal granules).  We all know ads with people in them work better than those without.  The Lark ad takes a feature/function/benefit approach, and needs to.  At least that’s my guess, as they were very likely new to the game and competing against a much more established Winston.  At a minimum, they were a tiny brand compared to Winston.

I have to say both ads are pretty good examples.  Winston: flavor, fun, happy people, stick with us, don’t switch.  Lark: you may not read the whole ad, but their FILTER and FLAVOR are very connected.

Does one cigarette taste better than another?  Can you tell Coke from Pepsi?  Bud Lite from Miller Lite?  No, no and no.  But brands had to give customers reasons to justify their lifestyle choices.  I identify with Winston, I’m a Winston smoker, so, uh, yeah, I like Winston’s taste better. 

So what about you?  If you are a market leader, do you have some defending to do?  If you are the Lark cigarette of your industry, are you giving customers enough reason to switch from the leader?

Search marketing beats traditional

advertising. . .

The reason search marketing beats traditional advertising can be summed up in one word: timing.  Search marketing puts your ad in front of someone at the time they are educating themselves (67% of people who search are educating themselves on the query they search on) or shopping (33% of people who search are shopping for the subject of their query).  It’s as simple (and profound) as that.

For decades we marketers have twisted over demographics, taking great pains to place our clients’ ads in publications or shows that best delivered the type of people who buy what we’re selling.  But if you’re selling investment services to people with $500,000 to invest, do you put your ad in MSNBC’s Mad Money, The Wall Street Journal or Scottsdale Magazine?  All reasonable, logical choices in terms of demographics.  All the media just mentioned have a portion of their audience that fits your target.

Or wouldn’t you want to put your ad in a magazine called “I have $500K that I want to invest now?”  Of course you would.  And while that magazine doesn’t exist, this is what search marketing gives you: the ability to get your ad in front of people when they are interested in what you’re selling.  As opposed to traditional advertising that gets your ad in front of people who share similar demographics with your target customer.  Are they in the market for what you sell at that moment?  Some, yes, most, no.

Timing.  It is as important a force for change in marketing and advertising as anything; television, direct mail, the credit card, the Sears catalog.  (For those of you who are “young,” trust me on the Sears catalog, it was a game changer.)

Is search marketing your number one or two lead generation medium?  It should be.