Advertising Pitfalls

There are four main pitfalls in advertising. The first is strategic: a lack of strategic foundation and focus; a mismatch of target and product; a bland, vanilla positioning platform; a lack of differentiation and a lack of relevance. It’s just like life: It’s good to know what you want to say before you open your mouth.

There are creative pitfalls. These include trying to communicate too many attributes that mean little to the consumer, which, in a sense, is a strategic shortcoming. There’s playing it safe. Safe is not what makes great brands. Safe is not what inspires consumers to buy great brands. Safe is not where we as advertising agencies want to be. Safe won’t change anything. There’s lack of style, interest, and the hard to define ability to cut through clutter. If you don’t have style in your advertising, it isn’t interesting, it can’t cut through clutter, and you are wasting your client’s dollar. Your client, by the way, should look for a new agency.

Third, there are media pitfalls—especially spending too thinly. We talk a lot about frequency. We are hit with thousands of different messages every day. How can we respond? Frequency is the future of advertising and marketing. Spreading yourself too thinly prevents you from having the kind of frequency you need to drive sales. It’s inefficient spending. Media that whispers isn’t heard. If you don’t have many dollars to spend, don’t spread them too thinly. Instead, spend in appropriate channels. If we’re not effective in our targeting, we’re won’t be effective in delivering the results for the client. The most creative, compelling message is useless if nobody is hearing or seeing it.

Finally, there are measurement pitfalls: Measurement tools are not in place, realistic yet achievable goals are not set, an audit is not completed. You have to know what’s working and what’s not working. At Zimmerman & Partners, we have designed proprietary programs such as Ztrac, a real time Internet-based platform that tracks traditional medias and enables us to monitor our client’s progress. Ultimately, successful advertising is like a journey: You need a map to arrive at a destination; you need markers, warning of detours and impassable roads. Without measurement, there are no markers, nothing to direct you to your destination or warn you of the cliff up ahead. Stay aggressive. There should always be a set goal—but never a finish line.