CHAPTER

5

Advertising Clutter:
You Are the Solution

Lots of business owners have their heads in the sand. Many are in a state of denial about how grave their situation has become, as they find themselves increasingly boxed in by big out-of-town box-stores. The idea in this chapter is to get your client paranoid enough that he begins to listen to you when you tell him that nowadays, he must advertise, or he’ll be squashed like a house roach with a steel-toed boot.

There is no question that advertising clutter is getting worse, not better, for your client. It is essential that the client absolutely understands this. When she does, she’ll be more open to ways you could help her survive, even against big national competitors.

HOMOGENIZATION DOESN’T JUST HAPPEN TO MILK

The world is becoming a much more homogenized place. We live in a changing and much more competitive business world, where a street in Austin, Texas, looks just like a street in Sacramento, California, which looks just like a street in Wichita, Kansas, that looks just like a street in Orlando, Florida, with box-stores and chains like Wal-Mart and Home Depot and T.J. Maxx and McDonald’s and Office Max and Lowe’s and Applebee’s and Wendy’s and National Tire and Battery all lined up right next to each other.

These national chains are fiercely competing with each other and in the process they are eating smaller, family-owned businesses for lunch. Big businesses and smaller ones are competing for the same consumer dollars. It’s literally a game of survival of the fittest. Both small town local businesses and major corporations are going out of business due to this new invasion of national, big box-stores. And it’s not just retailers who are affected. Service-oriented businesses such as heating and a/c repair are also threatened by new national chains. Murders and executions—uh, sorry, I mean, mergers and acquisitions—continue their relentless homogenization of the world. The stakes are getting much higher. The game of doing business is getting tougher and tougher, whether you’re a giant conglomeration or just a small family business.

Look around at many of our small-town, or even larger city business districts. Some look like ghost towns. Many old family stores are now closed. The doors and windows are being boarded up. And just a few miles away, the new homogenized box-store businesses appear to be doing quite well, all lined up with their bright, shiny signs, brand-new facades, and full parking lots.

LIVING IN THE SHADOW OF DARTH VADER

Nowadays, if your client isn’t out there waving his arms and screaming, “Hey, don’t forget about us! We’re right here! HEY! WE’RE OVER HERE!” your client’s huge competitors will finish him. He must promote his business in order to compete. If he doesn’t devote more time and resources to expand the bottom line of his marketing triangle’s bottom line, he’ll get eaten alive. Scary, huh? Also true.

One could certainly argue that competing for consumer mindshare in this overcluttered, homogenized new century is a real dilemma. But is your client’s situation hopeless? Or could it still be possible for her business to successfully compete for a greater share of consumer dollars? And, if she doesn’t, what’s the alternative? Should she just give up? Shut down? Crawl into a cave, curl up, and die? No, but she does have to advertise, and she needs to do it with frequency.

FREQUENCY OF THREE? BAH, HUMBUG

Back in the 1960s, a psychologist said that in order to break through advertising clutter, you would need to achieve a frequency of three with consumers. In other words, a consumer would have to see or hear an ad at least three times before making a decision on whether to buy. That was back in the 1960s.

Now here we are forty-some-odd years later. Should we still be recommending a frequency of three? I don’t think so. Nowadays advertising is everywhere. Just open your eyes and ears and you’ll realize that with increased advertising, sponsorships, and marketing clutter, perhaps more logically we should be recommending a frequency of at least six, maybe even eight.

Tell your clients that it is now believed that the average person, including your client, is exposed to a minimum of 5,000 commercial impressions every day. That estimate is up substantially from the early 1990s when researchers had estimated the number at a mere 2,500 per day. This jump is significant, and as you can imagine, global access to the Internet, high-speed connections, text messaging, spam, smart phones, more cable and satellite channels, increased media sponsorships, and the proliferation of magazines and websites have all played a role in this huge increase of media clutter. You might best explain this phenomenon by simply going through some of the commercial impressions made on you in the course of one day.

IN THE COURSE OF ONE DAY . . .

Just for one day, try to keep up with the companies that are trying to get your attention. I did it this morning and here are just some of the things I found.

I wake up in the morning and look at the word TIMEX on my alarm clock and then I hear commercials on my favorite radio station. I get out of bed and put on a bathrobe that says FLAMINGO HOTEL LAS VEGAS. I go downstairs and put RUTA MAYA coffee beans into a blender that says BRAUN. I then put the ground coffee in to a KRUPS coffee machine. I use BORDEN’S milk and IMPERIAL sugar. I pour SPECIAL K cereal into a bowl and chop up a CHIQUITA (not a media salesperson but a banana). I check my watch that says TAG-HEUER and go upstairs to turn on my favorite morning program on my PANASONIC television set. I take a shower and use NEUTROGENA shampoo and DOVE soap. I shave with a MACH-3 razor. I use an ORAL-B toothbrush and CREST toothpaste. Then I apply OLD SPICE antiperspirant and RALPH LAUREN cologne. Even my underwear is labeled with CALVIN KLEIN. Gosh, for what it costs it should say PAUL WEYLAND. My shirt says RALPH LAUREN. Shouldn’t Ralph be paying US to wear those shirts? I take another sip of coffee from a mug with a TV CHANNEL 24 logo on it, and I just sit and wonder how many other commercial impressions I was actually exposed to but might have missed. I haven’t even left the house yet. I haven’t even checked my email. Unbelievable! For fun, just try for a day to keep up with the products and services that you are exposed to. It will amaze you. Write them down. Memorize them. Discuss them with your client. You’ll find the client often jumps into the discussion, remembering products and services that he’s exposed to in the course of a normal day. For many clients, this may be the first time they’ve ever actually looked at the big picture, at how much clutter there really is out there and what they’re really up against. Why not point out what your local direct client is facing? A discussion like this really helps your client put things in perspective.

Once the client sees how vulnerable his “invisibility” makes him in this overcluttered world, he becomes more open to owning a day, a day-part, or a program on your station. A long-term contract on your station might start making absolute sense to the client.

SOMETHING ELSE TO MAKE YOU CRAZY

Here’s another little thing to think about, just for you. Your proposal and presentation to a client is just one of 5,000 commercial impressions that your client is exposed to in the course of a normal day. Will your presentation to your client stand out, or just get lost in the clutter?

If your presentation identifies and solves a significant client problem, I guarantee you will stand out in that client’s mind. Just imagine for a moment. If someone came along and identified and solved your biggest problem for you, how would you feel about that person? You’d feel gratitude. That person would be special, even indispensable to you. You might feel as though you owe that person something.

If you could learn to focus on identifying and solving problems for local direct broadcast clients, many of them would respect and admire you as well. If you, out of all of the client’s vendors, media and otherwise, owned a position in the client’s mind for solving her problems, you would stand out from the herd. You and your ideas might become topics of conversation that the client has outside of the workplace. Someone as valuable as you could benefit in many ways. Your phone calls would likely be taken immediately. You might always be a welcome visitor. Yes, you would certainly stand out from the thousands of others vying for your client’s attention and budget.

W o r k s h e e t: Advertising Clutter: You Are the Solution

The purpose of this exercise is twofold: to help make you aware that the average person is exposed to a minimum of 5,000 commercial impressions per day, and your sales call is just one of 5,000 commercial impressions that your client is being exposed to in a single day.

1. Advertising clutter is getting worse, not better. Think about your normal daily routine and write a list of the products and services that you are exposed to in the course of a normal day. Make a copy of your list and start memorizing it so you can give your clients personal examples of how much advertising clutter each of us is inundated with in a single day.

2. Your client is being exposed to 5,000 commercial impressions a day, including your sales call. As a salesperson, describe two specific actions you will take in the next seven days to make your “1 in 5,000” impression stand out with your client.

a. _________________________________________

b. _________________________________________