A is for advertising

A is for advertising

My cousin is an architect. He’s a partner in a successful practice.
We caught up over Christmas.
Naturally, in the middle of all that relaxing, we ended up talking shop. As you do.

I asked him if he had a guiding philosophy.
He said, “I try not to overthink it.”
He went on. “I don’t think the big firms quite like, or even get, what I do. I design houses. Stuff people like living in. A place they can be comfortable in. I tend to avoid flourishes and trends. I like buildings that seem part of a place. So, in five years’ time, they’ll look like they’ve always been there. It’s not capital “A”, “Architecture”. It’s architecture.”

I like that.
It’s architecture. Not Architecture.

Kind of like advertising and marketing.
I think, too often, we fall into the trap of trying to be more than we should be.
We try and show the world how clever we are. All the world wants is for us to get out of the way of them falling in love with a product.
We’ve made an industry out of “How clever is that!?”

Advertising’s job is to create awareness and interest.
Whatever channel you’re in. If you’re creating awareness, you’re making ads.
Marketing’s job is to create value. Value is simply sustainable, positive interest.

I got two insights from Bill the Builder.
Our job is not to sell.
The sell, as any good salesperson will tell you, happens inside the customer’s head.

Our job is to create awareness.
We don’t sell. We create the sell.

If you’re stuck with bad sales figures, advertising may not be the answer.
If people aren’t aware of your product, the issue is your advertising.
If people are aware of your product and are still not buying it, you either have a product problem, a sales problem or a distribution problem.

The second insight?

We need to look past the fear.
Much of what passes for advertising – in whatever channel you choose – is created from fear.
Fear Of Missing Out. Fear of being irrelevant. Fear of not being noticed.
Fear of not being seen to be clever enough.
Then, even if the customer likes the advertising, we’re afraid they won’t buy the product.
So, when we get people’s attention, we want to make the most of their attention.
And we clutter the time we have with them with logical reasons to buy.

People don’t want reasons to buy.

People love to buy stuff. Look at your latest credit card statement. We love to buy.
People just want reasons to justify their purchase.
But one step at a time. Let’s make sure they’d like to go on a date before we ask them to marry us.

Don’t be afraid.
And don’t try and do too much.

It’s advertising. But it’s not Advertising.
Our job is simply to get people interested enough in our product to be prepared to buy it.

Then let the salesperson in their head do the rest.

 

 

Here’s a simple rule of thumb.
Just ask yourself, “Will they like it?”
People buy things they like from people they like.
It’s like designing a house or building an electric car.
If they like what they see, you’ve done your job.