Marketing Trend Brief: The Lowest Common Denominator Has the Broadest Promotional Appeal.

Marketing Brief: The Lowest Common Denominator Has The Broadest Promotional Appeal.

Note: This article was written by Douglas Castle, Vice-Chairman and Featured Columnist for The National Networker Companies, and an advisor, strategic planner and financier of emerging enterprises and businesses in the process of re-engineering themselves. The article was written for simultaneous publication to The National Networker RSS and Daily Email Newsfeed, The Global Futurist and the author's personal blog. It may be reproduced, re-published ot transmitted without permission provided that the article is published in its entirety, without editorial deletions or editions, and with all hyperlinks remaining intact and live. You may join The National Networker Companies' GICBC and receive its free publications by clicking on http://bit.ly/JoinTNNW.

Dear Friends:

Out in the sensorially overloaded and increasingly noisy worlds of marketing and advertising, it is becoming an ever-tougher challenge to make your message heard. There are numerous ways of doing this, several of which I have profiled below:

1. Repetition;

2. Uniquely memorable catchphrase or slogan;

3. Sponsorship or re-branding of other interesting news or messages, varied from day to day;

4. Being brief;

5. Being very clear as to your offering; and,

6. Being shocking or controversial.

In mass email campaigns, social media campaigns and in virtually all forms of advertising, marketing and promotion, the above six components are essential. When combined, the effect is synergistic The greatest challenges facing any advertising, marketing or promotional professional in dealing with the public-at-large are threefold:

1. Getting their attention;

2. Programming them to need (or desire), recognize and believe in your brand;

3. Creating a sense of excitement and urgency in a call to action.

These are not simple jobs.

In these times of decreasing patience,  declining literacy and  waning intellectual curiosity, the trend is to make the message as simple as possible, using fewer words, fewer steps and larger type. Expect to see more and more of this in the most successful brands. I recently received an advertisement (which I retrieved from the depths of my mile-high spam box) from MySpace which is a superb example of this type of literary economy and anti-intellectualism (which latter term is not meant in a disparaging way).

Before you view it, bear in mind the new marketing creed: When promoting to the sensorially fatigued, impatient and indolent majority, you must fashion your message (and its presentation) to the Lowest Common Denominator.

You'll notice that intelligent individuals are not offended by your brand's lowball pitch -- they are growing more acclimated to "mandated simplicity." You'll also find that the less sophisticated prospects will be drawn to action.

In a 2010 competition between the words of Emily Dickenson and the courtroom wisdom of the late attorney Johnny Cochran (O.J. Simpson's legal counsel at his trial for the murder of his ex-wife and her boyfriend, who said, in reference to a bloody glove offered into evidence, "If it do not fit, then you must acquit."), Cochran will emerge as the clear winner. Other examples abound..."Just do it."... "Obey your thirst."..."talk to your kid about drugs."... "Be all that you can be." ... "The Few. The Proud. The Marines."... "You're Fired!"..."If you see something, say something." --  examples are becoming  easier to find.

Yes, indeed. The lowest common denominator, as low as that may ultimately go, will increasingly set the tone for the nature of all advertising and marketing. As a friend said to me just this past week, "Douglas, sometimes it's smart to be dumb." 

I've been trying to appeal to people's intellect for a long time, but...hey....My Bad...

The ad follows.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle

 

Hello Douglas, Share your adventures with your friends on MySpace. It's easy, fast, and fun! Create a photo album, then select and upload your photos Tag your friends in the photos Don't forget to add your profile picture to help your friends find you Share with friends

#### Well, folks...that about wraps it up.  It is very dumb to be too smart.

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Quantity Is Not A Substitute For Quality - Douglas Castle's Commentary on Seth Godin's Blog.

Quantity Is Not A Substitute For Quality - Douglas Castle's Commentary on Seth Godin's Blog.

Dear Friends:

Many proponents of using social media (as well as those clever folks who develop endless applications and innovations to enhance social media cross-posting capabilities and expand the "reach" of your message) would have us believe that using the internet as a marketing resource is all about quantity and loudness, and not really about quality content and tone. They are giving us endless means of "get more followers," get more "friends," get more network "connections," and the like.

Yes, broadcasting will get you noticed. Yes, boasting a large group of subscribers, members or followers is perceived by many as evidence doing something right. But when you look at what actual dollar or transactional volume of business this large group provides for you, and at how many of those people out of your massive following you can actually interact constructively and collaboratively with, your percentages will invariably be shockingly small. No matter what the mainstream of e-media pundits may be ranting about, quality content (i.e., something of real value or interest to offer) on a consistent basis is required to create a faithful "core group" of persons who will help you in advancing your objectives and your quantifiable success; further getting them to interact and engage with you requires old-school follow-through and personal attention to each relationship.

Distilled to its essence, the question is "Would you rather have a million followers or a hundred clients?"

My friend and colleague at The National Networker Companies, author and Connectrix Ann Barczay Sloan, introduced me to Seth Godin's Blog, which I truly enjoy reading [you can subscribe by going to Seth's home page at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/].

In his posting of today, Seth has the following to say about the quantity versus quality issue:

Viral growth trumps lots of faux followers

Many brands and idea promoters are in a hurry to rack up as many Facebook fans and Twitter followers as they possibly can. Hundreds of thousands if possible.

A lot of these fans and followers are faux. Sunny day friends. In one experiment I did, 200,000 followers led to 25 clickthroughs. Ouch.

Check out the graph on the left. The curves represent different ideas and different starting points. If you start with 10,000 fans and have an idea that on average nets .8 new people per generation, that means that 10,000 people will pass it on to 8000 people, and then 6400 people, etc. That's yellow on the graph. Pretty soon, it dies out.

On the other hand, if you start with 100 people (99% less!) and the idea is twice as good (1.5 net passalong) it doesn't take long before you overtake the other plan.  (the green). That's not even including the compounding of new people getting you people.

But wait! If your idea is just a little more viral, a 1.7 passalong, wow, huge results. Infinity, here we come. That's the purple (of course.)

A slightly better idea defeats a much bigger but disconnected user base every time.

The lesson: spend your time coming up with better ideas, not with more (faux) followers.

#### 

To Seth Godin I say, "Amen, brother."

To my friends, readers and colleagues I say:

1). Create meaningful useful, interesting content, then;

2). Use your social media broadcast system to get the word out, then;

3). Follow up with those persons who express an interest in your proposition - get back to them to build an engaging relationship. Interpersonal dialogue is the magic catalyst which converts inquiries and comments into clients and partnerships.

Forget the scattergun approach - go for the surgical strike.

If your ideas or propositions are inherently good and well-expressed, your core of loyal clients and partners will disseminate the information onward, to their respective "A-list" of contacts. Truly viral marketing doesn't mean creating chain letters; it refers to stating an idea or making an offer that others will voluntarily pass along to their individual networks of contacts. If you truly have something interesting to offer and it well expressed, the recipients of your message become transmitters themselves. That is true exponentiality. That is genuine operating leverage. Think about it......you've converted every receiver into a transmitter if you've done it properly.

The better the quality of your message, the more likely it is that it will be passed on from one "layer" of contacts to other "layers," not unlike the ripples that radiate outward from the initial contact point where your pebble plunked into the pond.

In closing, the added bonus is that when a third party passes your idea along, it is instantly perceived as more credible than if you were presenting the idea yourself. When others promote your idea along with a tacit endorsement, additional value is actually added to the transmission. A third-party endorsement beats a self-serving proclamation any day.

Thought-provoking content presented in a unique way can truly catch fire, while unremarkable content tends to fizzle in the hands of the first group receiving it.

Your message: Will it wind up in the Trashcan or the Mailbox? It's up to you.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle
http://aboutDouglasCastle.blogspot.com

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