From John Wanamaker to cash4gold, Tuesday’s session on reinventing advertising focused on the many kinds of relationship customers have with advertising, especially the online variety. Like the seven dwarfs, each relationship has its own personality, and depending on the situation customers might find themselves adopting one or more of these personality types….
First, there’s indifferent dwarf. S/he surfs the net essentially oblivious to online advertising. Ubiquitous point and click banners are just fancy ways of framing relevant webpages and are tolerated only because indifferent dwarfs, like the rest of us, know that advertising helps support free content. Marketers of course, don’t like indifferent dwarfs but may underestimate their number.
Annoyed dwarf takes notice of online advertising in a way that is not good for advertiser, product or dwarf. S/he finds ads frustrating, irritating and lets anger escalate when they systematically obstruct or delay his or her access to relevant internet content. Their blood pressure raising experience leads to total avoidance of the product or the sharing of their annoyance with other members in their social network. Think Barney and his “I love you, you love me”. Or that dinner time telemarketing call for weedwackers. Hard sell, Hard sell Hard sell tactics might help us retain the message but guarantee most will remember never to buy the product. Given the ubiquity of advertizing, we’re all annoyed dwarfs at some point.
Don’t forget educated dwarf, the one who gets relevant information from advertising and uses this information to make informed decisions about the product. While at least one company has as its motto “the best customer is an educated customer”, many products might feel otherwise if education mixed with the ready availability of online information leads us consumers to a better deal on a more desirable product the company placing the ad doesn’t make.
You can be an employed drawf. As part of an affiliate program, you can get paid to promote a product through social networks. A creative new take on affiliate programs comes from Social Vibe, a service that links products with consumers and their social networks, exchanging product promotion for charity support. More information at www.socialvibe.com
Amused dwarf takes a certain amount of pleasure in ads that are funny, entertaining, interesting, cool etc. Examples provided were Simposonize me, a website that creates your Simpsons caricature (http://simpsonizeme.com/#) or subservient chicken (http://www.subservientchicken.com/), a website featuring a bird that moves on command or “as you like it” (guess the funky chicken never went out of style). But does great creative translate into product purchase? Not necessarily, with one panelist commenting that her favorite ad resulted in no action and no purchase.
What about me dwarf? They demand ads that are always personalized, self attentive and targeted. As an individualized message can often be more costly, the strategy is typically reserved for higher margin, higher cost items. Take a recent cover of the Miami Dolphins magazine for season’s ticket holders featuring a player in a jersey personalized with the name of the subscriber.
Finally there is mensch dwarf, the marketers dream. S/he is so enamored by the product that it becomes almost a part of their identity, passed on in a positive light to friends, family etc as part of everyday conversation . Seems most people agreed on at least two things – that mensch’s are the ideal customer and that despite the sophistication of contemporary advertising, the gold standard measure of effective marketing is still the oldest and most tested form : word of mouth.