Less is more: “I know that half of what I spend in Advertising is just wasted money. The problem is that I don’t know which of the two halves is the right one.”
Just landed at Malpensa airport eventually I saw an advertising that got my curiosity, but a question rose to my mind suddenly: “Why? Why did you feel it was the right place to place your message?” Then another one: “What damn did you write there??”
I think sometime people forget the adv pillars:
“Less is more” – Being focused, write a minimal message that keep user’s interest!
“Unique Selling Proposition” – Only one, very good reason that creates distintive value.
“Be Remarkable” – Think “out of the box” in order to be read.
“Think like your client does” – What does really make the difference in the client’s mind?
Why did you write it there? Communicate to engage your audience is tricky: you can fail and you won’t know…
It happens to see horrifying written. We will see what doesn’t work and why in an advertising message, no matter of language or culture, mistakes in communication happen everywhere.
Milano Malpensa terminal 2.
I was waiting for my friend landing in the arrival hall where I’ve seen this Adv about Parking, having nothing to do I started to criticise it. So often companies spend money in marketing but they have no clear the quality of their output.
The story: a man, a white collar, is asking to the Parking label:
“What do you really give me more? (than others do)”
The dialogue would appear nice, the guy is lightly smiling as someone who likes his counterpart. It would seem as he is evaluating the proposal…
The Parking label reply to him with 6 “Reasons why” in a monologue that appears a desperate try to persuade the poor, overwhelmed client.
The Label says to its unlucky client:
“Your car will be immensely grateful to you”.
“You will park into the airport”
“You will keep the car key with you”
“If you buy online you save and you will have the warranty of having your own stall” “You have exclusive price also in the very very high season” “Your car is under surveillance”
It’s should be clear why companies wouldn’t communicate this way.
This list of critics highlights why each statement is wrong, to get it you should think like a client.
Probably this list of “Reasons Why” has been developed having no Know-How: probably the writers felt that “ the walking distance from the airport hall “ is a too little value, then would be better to add more Reasons Why to justify the price gap!
The result is a mess of useless reasons that distract the reader’s focus and do not create any value. More, when we spend time reading something that doesn’t catch our interest (communicating value), our brain develop a detachment from the object: a kind of annoying feeling that keeps us away for the message.
The mission was quite hard: Airport Parking is a good business, farer parkings have costs advantages But master the methodology would help anyway!
First rule is “Less is more” -Being focused, write a minimal message that keep user’s interest!
Second rule is “Unique Selling Proposition” – Only one, very good reason that creates distintive value.
Third rule is “Be Remarkable” – Think “out of the box” in order to be read.
Fourth rule is “Think like your client does” -What does really make the difference in the client’s mind?
Fifth rule is: “Engage your audience” – Talk only to your own audience, not just all the possible users.
Sixth rule is: “Put your message where your audience won’t avoid to see it” -We only read Remarkable Messages that hits our face properly!
Yes, on top of it, the message has been placed in the arrivals hall in a position where travellers could only see it if they walk face-back. And they are already going to pick-up the car, it will be anyway too late.
Communication is one of the most important task not only of the marketing policies, but of the whole organisational life. In the NLP we learnt that the way in which we talk affect the way in which we see the world then our beliefs. Our beliefs affects values and our values affect our behaviours.
So if we communicate in the wrong way, maybe we think in a wrong way, we believe something wrong and, on top of it, we could have issues with the values that drive our behaviours.
Good organisations are also good communicators as well as good people are. We feel trust them naturally, with no effort, we understand their values clearly and, more, they act accordingly to good, valuable intentions.
Organisations that communicate better achieve success.
