The choice in advertising seems to be features and benefits or creativity. Maybe that's why there's so much bad advertising. I don't think either choice is right. So I asked a trick question this morning on Twitter, which is better; features or benefits? I like this response from Brad Dresbach:
Brad's right. So much of advertising is either a boring factual recitation of features & benefits, with a focus on price, or it's a piece of entertainment. And we marketers don't like to be perceived as boring, we prefer to be entertaining, as Justin Popovich pointed out:
But if it's neither, what is it then? I'm on record as saying you should do no advertising that doesn't advance your brand. In other words, you are constantly educating people about who you are, by revealing your true identity. That's done by making a promise, what is often referred to as the brand promise: what you promise to deliver beyond the product or service you happen to sell. Let's look at how this is done wrong, and right, and let's start with Lincoln automobiles.
Lack of Identity
What is a Lincoln? Maybe the best answer you could come up with is a "car". You may even say a car made by Ford. The thought may even enter your mind: "Are they still making Lincolns?" Let's take a look at a couple of television commercials for the new Lincoln MKS.
*Side note to Lincoln: MKS? That's the best name you could come up with? But that's just the beginning of the advertising problems.
This commercial is about benefits: Cleaner. Faster. Smarter, mixed in with some flashy creativity. Compare that commercial to the MKS commercial of one year ago for the 2009 model.
Very creative, and a little confusing. A year ago the MKS was a starship, this year it's cleaner, faster, smarter. So what is a Lincoln? It's a confused brand and it is advertising that confuses consumers...over time.
That's the big mistake businesses and marketers make. They think advertising is about the moment. That the decision to buy is made at the time the commercial is watched. That consumers are waiting for a commercial to decide what to buy, at the instant they watch the commercial. It just doesn't work that way. Lincoln has no identity, because they have no promise. They're just selling cars.
Making a Promise
It may be unfair to Lincoln, but let's compare their commercials to those of the U.S. Marine Corps.
That commercial is a few years old. Did it give you some goosbumps? Here's a more recent commercial for the Marines:
How many times have you heard that familiar tagline over the years? "The Few. The Proud. The Marines." The Marines don't give you features and benefits. They don't try to entertain you with their commercials. The Marines simply make a promise: That promise is "Join use and you will be part of something exclusive, something you can be proud of."
Do you want your advertising to work...over time? Make a promise. What's your promise to customers?
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6 comments:
Great points about the value of branding, but what strategies apply to a 30-second spot don't necessarily apply to other media. A full-page print ad in a newspaper, for example, should discuss at least key features and benefits. A brochure or website, absolutely.
Indeed, a talented marketer can do both with the same medium -- including a TV commercial. GEICO, Southwest Airlines and Prius excel at branding and hyping benefits in the same spot. Apple's PC-Mac spots usually highlight one feature in an entertaining way.
It all depends on the execution skill of the marketer or ad agency.
Thanks for your comments, Freddy.
I guess that I should clarify that I don't mean never use features and benefits and never be creative. It's just that you don't need them just to fill up space. And I would disagree that you need to put features in a full-page ad (of course, I would disagree that you even need a full-page ad). If creativity and features and benefits are used, it should be with the purpose of advancing the brand promise so that it sticks out and cannot be ignored. That is not the norm with most advertising, in my opinion.
Earlier this year, I showcased a print ad from a successful, local local Home Care and Hospice company. If you click on the link, you can see some features squeezed in at the bottom of the ad. This is a excellent example. It's used as a final reassurance to the customer that, "if you like our promise, don't worry, we have the basics covered too."
The problem is focus. A company that has no clear way of expressing their message (or don't understand it) will not make it easier for the consumer either. I agree with you Jay that it shouldn't be used to fill up space, and that's what most marketing plans do: "We know we need to get our name out there" but that's their last stop on their thinking tunnel. Since they don't have a clear message it's easier to just pile up "flashy with the wow" than "simple with a purpose".
But Freddy is missing a big factor here: dollars. It's not only about the execution, it's about the greens that we marketers produce (from the client and FOR the client). --Paul
I'm a professional brand strategist; I help companies develop and shape their brands, and I teach branding at the university level. However, I know there are products where mentioning the features and benefits is absolutely critical. Business software, garden tools or medicine come to mind, to name a few. You can't sell a new accounting application, geranium fertilizer or anti-bacterial ointment by focusing on some fuzzy "brand promise," particularly if you're a new company without much brand awareness and you need short-term sales.
Brand-promise-only ads work for categories where people care about the image of the product. Cars and Marines? Yes. Cat litter? No.
You also need to be able to afford a significant branding campaign, and you have to be able to pull it off. (I've detailed all this in a post I wrote a few months ago in defense of image-only advertising: http://atomictango.com/2009/07/31/results/ )
My point is that you simply can't generalize about advertising; each case merits its own consideration. Best practices work for one particular company at one particular time, and might not even work for the same company at another time.
Full-age print ads, by the way, still work extremely well. You just need the right message in the right publication targeting the right audience.
@Freddy
But we're marketers, we should be allowed to make broad, sweeping, all-encompassing generalizations. :)
Liked your post on image-only advertising. Good stuff. Unfortunately, on a national level, what passes for image advertising is mainly an exercise in creativity and changes from year-to-year (as in the Lincoln commercials)
@Paul
I wish we could change the "get our name out there" thinking to "get our brand out there" thinking.
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