Using Something Real to Drive Marketing to the Virtual

“People don’t want a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!” Theadore Levitt

Mr. Levitt was a professor of marketing at Harvard University. His teaching has guided learned marketers for more than 60 years. Simply put, effective marketing will always be about the outcome, what is considered ‘customer focus’ not the tools used to accomplish the outcome desired. 

In an article Levitt wrote he gave several examples of businesses putting their energy in the wrong place and the near fatal results. Here is one of his examples. Note that “today” in the article was years ago.

The railroads did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight transportation declined. That grew. The railroads are in trouble today not because that need was filled by others (cars, trucks, airplanes, and even telephones) but because it was not filled by the railroads themselves. They let others take customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business. The reason they defined their industry incorrectly was that they were railroad oriented instead of transportation oriented; they were product oriented instead of customer oriented….

Television almost killed the movie industry because the focus was on making movies rather than ‘entertainment’. When finally it was realized that TV needed content and the movie studios were perfectly positioned to supply it, the relationship grew. Today “entertainment” is what studios like Disney, Paramount and others provide. 

If you sell promotional products you are selling a “quarter inch drill”, not the hole! 

The inescapable reality today is that digital marketing is commanding an exponentially growing portion of available funds. According to every listing of “trends” to watch, AI tops the lists. AI is being used to make targeted, personalized messages, write articles (not this one!), make videos and a lot more. But AI is really only a great new tool. This tool might produce appealing ads and content, but unless a potential customer sees and responds to it, the real outcome (that quarter inch hole) will never be reached.

Current research shows that all the wonderful ads and content AI (and previous techniques) produce still do not get more than 10 seconds attention from consumers. Ad agencies are developing ever shorter ads to try to deliver a complete message. 

No other media is as knowledgeable or has more experience in developing powerful ad/marketing messages than our Promotional Products Media industry. No other media has the ability to deliver a durable message capable of driving customers to the AI created “longer format” messages on a digital platform. And when the promotional product (our industry's amazing tool) drives customers to the longer message, their attention will be far more than 10 seconds. 

All this means that if you are product focused and try to  sell in competition with AI or other virtual tools and platforms, you will likely see far fewer available dollars as we move forward. The solution is to become part of the digital plan the customer is putting in place. In the real world getting someone (a consumer) to a virtual platform is actually more important than how fancy- cutting edge the website is. 

When pitching a promotional product component for a client’s marketing campaign, keep in mind the message to be imprinted and be sure the product can accommodate it. Make suggestions of products that have good perceived value and a good chance to remain in use and always stress the usefulness, sustainability and that it is highly likely to produce the outcome your client is investing in..