Extending the Life of Your Station Marketing Print E-mail
Extending the Life of Your Station Marketing
by Graeme Newell
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http://www.602communications.com
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"Strategy and timing are the Himalayas of marketing. Everything else is the Catskills."
-Al Reis

If you hope to sway a viewer to watch your news, your timing must be perfect. You must catch her with a breakthrough message, when she has a need for the information. For example, I may see the ad for your whopper doppler, but if I want to buy your product, I must: -be near a TV or computer -have the free time to watch -have a need for weather information at that moment -not have a better weather alternative (the Weather Channel, Weather.com, other news stations).

News is a phenomenally perishable product. The odds really stink that you can pull off this kind of perfect timing on a consistent basis. The same is true of most products. If you hope to sell someone insurance, you must catch them in the narrow window when they are unhappy with their current policy, and have the time and inclination to pick up the phone and call your company.

Timing Insurance

This is why most of the big players on Madison Avenue build timing insurance into their ads. They build a product message that is a little time bomb. The words and images are delivered today, but inside the ad are clever tools that give that message staying power. The message won't detonate until the customer is ready to buy.

How do you do this? You make full use of the best memory grabbing tool that is hard-wired into our brain - emotion. At some point a month ago, you were probably quite hungry. Yet you probably can't remember exactly what you actually ate. You probably weren't that hungry at your wedding reception, yet most of us could describe every morsel of food on our plate, despite the fact that it was years ago. By attaching a strong emotion to a message, you give it staying power. That means if you mess up on the ad placement timing, your message still has a good shot at being top of mind when the customer is finally ready to buy.

State Farm Insurance knows that when a prospect is ready to buy, he will get rates, coverage info, and other specifics from a State Farm agent or their web site. The company is smart enough to realize that a laundry list of policy specifics would be quickly forgotten by a prospect who is not ready to buy right now. So the purpose of their ad is not to sell insurance, it's to get that prospect to make that call. And 99% of the people seeing that ad are not ready to make that call.

Extending Ad Effectiveness

State Farm dramatically extends the shelf life of its advertising by attaching strong emotions to all its ad messages. Take a look at this ad and notice how they use love of family to deliver a powerful attachment to their product.



He is the dad all of us hope to be. They masterfully craft a message that taps into the amazing feelings that all first-time fathers experience. That message will be remembered longer, because it taps into our brain's innate characteristic to remember things that happen when we are emotional.

So does it always need to be about melodrama, love and squishy feelings? Not at all. Anger, hate, shame, greed or any other emotion will work fine too. Watch this ad from Allstate. It uses peer pressure and shame, two powerful motivators for the male 20 somethings it targets with this ad. "Get some grown man insurance" sends a powerful message to this status-obsessed demo that low-cost companies like Geico are not cool.



This message will be remembered longer because it delivers a core connection to the person's self-esteem. It doesn't digress to the minutia of insurance policy features. Watch this insurance ad that taps into every man's lost dream of being the football hero.



Notice the mastery of this Allstate ad that leaves you with a haunting sense of loss.



Look at this ad, a frightening scenario for any parent who sees it.



All of these ads will be more effective and remembered longer because they are completely based on the customer's own priorities and perception of themselves. These companies were smart enough to take the focus off the bewildering and dull topic of insurance, and put it firmly where it belongs - a reflection of the customer's values.

These insurance companies are proud of their policies and each feels it has the best product features. But there is an effective time and place to sell those product attributes, and it's not in 30 second national ads.

Building the Customer's Ego, Not the Station's Ego

99% of the people who see your doppler promo are not ready to watch your weathercast. If you want viewers to remember your ad, then you must take the focus off your own internal message and put it firmly on the customer. That means no spots that are laundry lists of your exemplary features. Those features are most often about your own ego, not your customer's self-image.

Most of us are very proud that we have the most powerful doppler, the spiffiest weather person, or the most experience. Selling these product attributes should be a part of your marketing plan, but it should not be the only thing your marketing contains. The goal of a product feature is to demonstrate the brand, not the other way around. You don't brand product features. You use product features to demonstrate your brand.

That brand must foster the priorities of your audience, not extol your greatness. So take the branding test. Put a bunch of your promos on a reel, then turn down the sound on the TV and play them back. Do you see a continual stream of self-congratulatory video that showcases your staff, your equipment and your excellence? Or do you see video of your customers, their desires, their fears, and their needs? If you're like most stations, you won't see a single image of a customer, and the sole emotion will be arrogance.

Do this same experiment with insurance ads and you'll rarely see any internally motivated images of things such as agents, claims adjustors, or accidents. These smart advertisers realize, it ain't just about the insurance.

The insurance industry sells safety, reassurance, community connection, and family - just like TV does. It has created consistently powerful and memorable ads about something as dull as insurance. By definition, broadcasting's product is news, and it features some of the most dramatic moments in the life of a community. Self-aggrandizing marketing campaigns that simply parrot back a slogan ignore the amazing power that TV stations can engender in a community.

Weather is about more than safety. Breaking news is about more than information. Coverage is about more than thoroughness. What are the emotional drivers that connect these product attributes to your audience? Find that out and you'll connect with your viewers on a whole new level.

Graeme Newell is a broadcast and web marketing specialist. He guarantees that his teasing seminar will immediately increase your news ratings or his workshop is free. Find out more here.