“The true secret of advertising success is to say the right thing to as many people as you can afford to reach over and over again.”

-Roy Williams in The Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads.

Read the above sentence carefully; if you get nothing more out of this issue, know that you now hold the formula for delivering advertising success. The problem is, this one sentence secret formula is deceptively complex, and many AEs and retailers find its application intimidating, and overwhelming.
Perhaps, it is so difficult to develop effective advertising because people lose sight of the number one reason for sales success: understanding the customer. They don’t take the time to ask the right questions and to listen to the responses. They are so busy selling, they don’t think about what makes the customer tick. Ask yourself, “what problem must my customer overcome and how can my product be part of the solution?” This rule applies whether you’re selling cable advertising, hardware, groceries or fishing bait.

The company that wins the sales game is the one brave enough to throw out the slick sales tactics to take a sincere interest in the customer and offer expertise and experience that can be found nowhere else.

A favorite sales director of mine once told me, “Every medium works, if used properly.” The magic is in finding the balance between message, the audience and the number of repetitions that audience sees.

If this is true, your clients are counting on you to help them strike this balance. They’re also waiting for someone with integrity to walk through their door—a different breed of AE, one they can count on to deliver sound advice, one with a sincere desire to help them succeed.

If every medium works, the most important package you can present to the client is the one sitting on top of your shoulders. You, your mind, your ideas, your dependability and your desire to help your client succeed are what set you apart from the competition and will ultimately make you more successful than you’ve ever dreamed possible.

The product you deliver to clients is much more than spots. You are in the business of delivering ideas and solutions that will help your customers make money. That means you need to learn to listen to the customer, ask the right questions, apply what you’ve learned and seek out expert advice and outside vendors when necessary. Yes, it’s a big job … and it’s extremely rewarding when you get it right! Go forth and serve the customer!

If you’ve been in the ad biz any time at all, you’ve been involved in a conversation that goes something like this,

“Yeah, our company just hired a guy to do our branding.”

“Branding?”

“You know, someone to redo our corporate identity. Our logo, our colors.”

“Uh huh.”

“They say it’s time for a new look. Something to get customers excited about us. Something to make us get noticed again.”

Colors? Logos? Getting noticed? It’s time to set the record straight. Branding is more than just corporate identity, colors and logos. According to Rob Frankel, author of The Revenge of Brand X, branding is one of the most misapplied terms in all of marketing. It’s difficult to describe; everyone thinks they know what it is, but few can actually describe it.

For starters, branding is a means of differentiating one company from another; it’s an attitude and a way of doing business that permeates an organization. Frankel’s personal definition of branding reads as follows:

Branding tells people who you are, what you do and how you do it, with a relevance your prospects find intriguing. It’s more than positioning; it goes beyond the Unique Selling Proposition. Frankel says it’s the Unique Buying Proposition that matters in today’s environment.

Frankel warns that the people who do not understand branding are the same people who later complain that their advertising isn’t working. Why? Because they are so anxious to get their flashy television commercials on the air that they forget the basics. They forget that all good creative is based on a strong foundation.

Frankel’s Third Law of Branding states: Advertising grabs their minds. Branding gets their hearts.

He says, “First you create the brand, then you raise the awareness of the brand.” Doing it the other way around makes absolutely no sense at all.

The key to branding (and thus good creative) is to remember, as Frankel says, that “Branding is not about you. It’s about them.” Branding is not about you or your product. It’s about the consumer’s problems and establishing an emotional connection with the consumer.

The object is to get consumers to see your product or business as the only solution to their problem—and you want to turn them into evangelists for your brand. That can’t happen unless they can articulate their reasons for buying your product or shopping at your location.

Once a customer is an evangelist for your brand, you’ve gained another competitive advantage: they are no longer buying on the basis of price. This means your business becomes stronger in uncertain times. “In the worst of times, only the strongly branded survive,” says Frankel.

If this is what branding is all about, it stands to reason that the client needs to have a firm understanding of where they are going before they attempt to buy any media. Too often AEs, in their rush to sell something, allow the client to skip this important step.

For a variety of reasons (feeling he is prying, being in a rush, not feeling confident advising in this area, laziness, not wanting to push the client, taking the easy way out), AEs do not take the time to make sure there is a solid foundation for the media buy to build upon.

Encourage your clients to think about branding. Without a clearly-thought-out-brand, and strong creative, the money your clients spend on advertising is watered-down.

As an advertising partner, it is your job to help your clients think through the marketing process, to deliver advertising packed with flavor. Branding is just one element, but it’s the starting point. Without it, everything else your clients do is off track.