The world of advertising is changing so rapidly, the content of this writing is out of date the minute it is published. For whatever reason, this weekend I scanned the Charlotte Observer print edition and came upon the “Want Ads”. At first glance it looked like nobody had “wants”. The section was so thin, the amount of jobs so scant, it was amazing. Now, the last time I used that type of research was the New York Times in 1974, so, yes, I am out of touch. The take away is that advertising dollars have been in a mass exodus from traditional media to digital for nearly two decades now. You see it and hear it on the financial news networks hourly. Deeply embedded in traditional advertising is our medium: "other". I say “other” because we are often grouped with the undefined leftover and obscure media in advertising pie charts and graphs. We are $25 billion and growing but we still get very little respect and even less understanding of the value we bring to the table. My friends and I have been teaching, preaching and writing for years as to the innate advantages our medium brings to integrated advertising and branding programs. However, be it our messengers and/or our buyers, our message has not kept pace with digital advertising. Advertisers like to test a concept before they invest millions into it. How learned are we at presenting concepts for controlled testing? When I last did business with American Express, they charged me $25,000 to test an offer in a statement stuffer. Failure cost me $25,000, success earned them millions. (Statement stuffers are near death and I only used it to illustrate concept testing / proof of concept.)
Branded apparel needs no conversation. You can spread Mellow Mushroom’s brand name across the front of a tee shirt and create “brand awareness” for a chain of stores that does a huge amount of both digital and analog advertising. Our job is to try to fuse or integrate digital and analog. The more successful we are, the faster the growth of our industry as we ride the coattails of the internet meteor.
Needing proof of concept … we need to test a few hundred shirts. One person wearing a “free tee shirt” gets several thousands of brand exposures a day. The test needs a second imprint with a QR code and a headline that reads “Get A Free Pizza, Scan Here”. Those who spot this promotion take out their phone and it crosses the metaphysical line from analog to digital. It is trackable and offers documented proof of concept. Whether it delivers them to a coupon, an ordering site and if they get one free with a purchase is irrelevant. The need is to fuse digital and physical. A QR code can sit on the side of a cube pad for a year or more until the paper is gone. A QR code or link can be displayed on a desk calendar for 365 days a year. The old catch phrase we used is that “promotional products remain to be seen”. Now we need to say that promotional products are a portal to your digital advertising. A cost-effective portal with a negligible cost per exposure. Additionally, even if the test did not work, a promotional product still offers brand awareness so, while it can’t accurately be measured, it is still a bonus of the test.
We need to do a better job integrating our products with digital advertising, but we need to provide proof of concept. I wonder if any of our larger distributors have spent their own money on testing ideas such as the tee shirt illustration. Imagine doing so and releasing their results confidentially to their client and prospect only. Right away they differentiate themselves from everyone else and show that they are indeed a creative, unique agency in a red sea of traditional distributors. Then, again, you don’t have to be a top 10 distributor to do some testing and matriculate up the ladder from distributor to agency.
Joel D. Schaffer, MAS is CEO and Founder of Soundline, LLC, the pioneering supplier to the promotional products industry of audio products. Joel has 48 years of promotional product industry experience and proudly heralds “I was a distributor.” He has been on the advisory panel of the business and marketing department of St. John’s University in New York and is frequent speaker at Rutgers Graduate School of Business. He is an industry Advocate and has appeared before the American Bankers Association, American Marketing Association, National Premium Sales Executives, American Booksellers Association and several other major groups. He has been a management consultant to organizations such as The College Board and helped many suppliers enter this industry. He is a frequent contributor to PPB and Counselor magazines. He has facilitated over 200 classes sharing his industry knowledge nationwide. He is known for his cutting humor and enthusiasm in presenting provocative and motivating programs. He is the only person to have received both the Marvin Spike Industry Lifetime Achievement Award (2002) and PPAI’s Distinguished Service Award (2011). He is a past director of PPAI and has chaired several PPAI committees and task forces. He is a past Chair of the SAAGNY Foundation, Past President of SAAGNY and a SAAGNY Hall of Fame member. He was cited by ASI as one of the 50 most influential people in the industry.