16
Feb
Branding Through Reverse Camouflage
by Jeff
Do you have the courage to say what you’re not?
Most business owners don’t want to draw that sharp line of distinction, and it’s why their marketing efforts blend into the clutter.
Discernible edges and silhouettes allow us to visually identify an object, separating its figure from the background “noise.” Eliminate those discernible edges and break up the silhouette, and you’ll effectively camouflage yourself.
In the top-left picture, you’ll notice how the person’s legs, backpack, and hat all present a solid silhouette, with clearly defined edges. They’re stand out from the background and are easily identified. But the man’s upper body, clothed by the camouflage pattern jacket, blends smoothly into the landscape. The pattern breaks up his silhouette and blurs his edges into the background of mountainside, snow, and brush. As a result, your eyes end up visually identifying the man by his packback and hat first, and then squint in to find where his shoulder, body, and arms “should” be.
This works the same way for advertising. Like our eyes, our minds also depend on edges and silhouettes. We define by giving parameters, mentally grasping a concept by its boundaries. Without the “edges” of contrasting reference points, a concept or term remains ambiguous at best. To know what a donut is, you have to know the difference between a donut and a danish — to know what isn’t a donut.
This is why grabbing after an “infinite” market and seeking to be all things to all people ends up camouflaging one’s brand and messaging; without contrast it all just blurs into the background.
And that’s a good thing because it makes it easy to stand out — if you’ve got the guts. Want to stand out? Sharply define the edges between you and your competitors. It’s that simple.
The better you do this, the more strongly you’ll turn-off some customers. But wouldn’t you rather powerfully persuade some of your market than be overlooked by all of it?
A Bold Example of Reverse Camouflage In Action
I found this ad in my local newspaper and was immediately struck by the bold headline:
“You don’t want me to be your family doctor.”
Pretty ballsy headline for a doctor, huh? Wouldn’t you feel compelled to read more about this doctor with the courage to so brazenly declare what he wasn’t?
Having gained the reader’s attention, the body copy further explains: “Neurosurgery is one of the few medical specialties for which I am well-suited. I am not warm and fuzzy. I could never be successful as a pediatrician or in a family practice – no one would come back a second time. But I am very good at what I do.”
Dr. Goodman then substantiates his claimed expertise with a list of very impressive professional qualifications and accomplishments, rounded off with some examples of his extreme commitment to surgical excellence and his patients’ well-being.
While his professional qualifications are truly outstanding, most readers would never have read them without Dr. Goodman’s use of reverse camouflage in his headline. Saying what he wasn’t allowed Dr. Goodman to stand out amidst the clutter.
3 sure-fire ways to reverse-camouflage your messaging:
1. Get yourself an enemy and/or reject a reasonable alternative position
Nothing fires the blood quite so much as declaring what — or better yet who — you stand against. But you get no points for tearing down straw men; rejecting a reasonable alternative position puts teeth into your message.
2. Present a tightly focused perspective
Once you’ve narrowed the group of customers that you’re most interested in attracting, focus your messaging to speak most directly to their deeply felt needs, desires, and frustrations. People who don’t share those experiences will feel excluded, but your core audience will feel an instant connection. Both will instantly recognize you. Tim Miles offers a brilliant example of this on his “About Us” page.
3. Explain what costs you’re willing to bare and admit the downside to your offer/product.
What you’re willing to put up with in order to satisfy a passion can be as much of a marker of identity as the passion itself. Stick shifts aren’t as pleasant to drive in thick traffic, but a lot of driving purists wouldn’t have it any other way. Top end kitchen knives require extra care in terms of cutting surfaces and using the right knife for the job, but those are points of pride for Foodies and Chefs. So admitting these downsides is not only the right and honest thing to do, it’s also the persuasive thing to do. And for two reasons: 1) as just discussed, it helps enthusiasts further identify with your brand; 2) admitting the downside boosts credibility — and credibility acts as its own form of reverse camouflage amidst a background of hype and BS.
P.S. If you’d like to learn more about Camouflage, I highly recommend this brilliant piece in the New York Times.
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Filed Under Advertising, Psychology & Copywriting, Strategy, Theory Thursday |
14
Feb
Iron Chef Branding — 2 Practical Steps that Work in the Real World
by Jeff
Most small & medium-sized businesses DON’T get to create branding from scratch. That’s the ignored reality and dirty truth most advertising and marketing advice ignores.
A successful small business that’s survived and even thrived for 5 or 15 years already HAS an identity, history, reputation, etc. So while that business probably won’t have a ready-at-hand Unique Selling Proposition or Purple Cow to provide to the ad writer, it also won’t represent a blank slate either.
So copywriters either have to FIND something remarkable and relevant to write about, or they have to consign themselves to gawd-awful horror of ad-speak: “in business since… with fast friendly service… for all your ____ needs.”
Bottom Line: ad consultants (and owners without advertising help) have to play Iron Chef — they have to whip up that gourmet dish, not from scratch, and not by following a predetermined recipe, but by making use of whatever ingredients are already on hand.
So let me share two practical techniques you can use to make that happen. They might not sound practical, because I’ve given them weird sounding tags like “Philosophize the Action” and “Do the Philosophy,” but they do work, and to quote Murphy’s Laws of Combat: “If it’s stupid but it works, it ain’t stupid.” At any rate, here are the promised steps:
1) Philosophize the Action
Frist, ignore whatever the business owner tells you about what she or the business stands for. Ignore the mission statement. Instead, ask the owner what tangible, viewable, verifiable thing or action she insists on regardless of whether they can charge extra for it, or can promote it as value-added to the client. Something they do just because they simply refuse not to do it, or to do it any other way.
Put another way, actions speak louder than words, so focus on the actions. But make sure it’s actions motivated by some inner value rather than profit, convenience, etc.
You’d think this sort of thing would be rare — business men being in business to make money and all, you’d think they’d be loath to put effort into a non-profit making effort or add on — but rather than rare, it’s almost universal; I’ve never not seen it in a privately owned business.
Why is this and why does it matter?
Businesses are owned by people, and people can’t help but express their values. I’ve seen this done by various owners insisting on:
- Providing extra training for their techs,
- Answering phones within 7 rings,
- Paying well above market pricing for higher quality materials or parts
- Putting in extra bracing, padding, key ingredients, etc
- Using only this mechanism and not the more popular, economical one
- And so on.
The thing is to dig until you FIND that sort of thing. THEN figure out what values that commitment communicates, which brings us to…
2) Act on the Philosophy
Now that you have seen an action that’s insisted on even when it costs the business owner to insist, you can take that the value that the action expresses and use it to flavor other aspects of his business.
So if answering the phone within 7 rings is the action you dug up, then perhaps the values at play are responsiveness and human warmth. So see if you can’t bake in better responsiveness and warmth — or expressions of the same — into other interactions and touchpoints with the company. For example, a contractor might make a commitment to get quotes out in 24-hours and to provide customers with the names and e-mail addresses of the techs handling their accounts. That sort of thing.
This is different than a from-scratch ingredient because it was already on-hand, even if it was hidden at first — and also because the values are already deeply held by the owner, meaning that the suggestions are more likely to be implemented with vigor than suggestions dreamt up “from scratch.” Meaning that the ads can promise these points of difference with confidence.
Once you’ve gone through step 2, you can now attempt to build some sort of messaging, USP, or campaign around the uncovered value and new points of differentiation.
And since this is Practical Tactical Tuesday, you know I’ll make sure to give you an example. So here’s a case study from the Great Tim Miles that perfectly illustrates this technique. Go read it — you’ll be glad you did.
P.S. If you’ve never seen Iron Chef, you should check out this short clip of the opening credits. It’ll explain a lot : )
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Filed Under Advertising, Psychology & Copywriting, Strategy |
13
Feb
Short-Form Drama
by Jeff
“The longer it takes to explain an idea, the smaller it seems” — Lee Clow
Great ads can deliver an idea like “Winning the Battle of the Short List” in less than 30 seconds. Or in the example below, in 9 short lines and less than 64 words. Better yet, great ads make you feel the truth of the idea in your gut.
How do they do that?
Usually with drama. Take this magazine ad I ran into over at the Sell! Sell! Blog:
Totally different experience than reading my blog post on the same subject, right?
And they created that experience through short-form drama. They sucked you into a story — smack in the middle of a mini drama — before you even realized it. And while you were mentally playing out that drama, they sucker punched you with the emotional truth of the idea. Here’s how:
1) The image of the ad has a high degree of story appeal. The guy is looking at you and he doesn’t look happy. So what’s that all about, right? Apparently there’s trouble in River City, and where there’s trouble, there’s a story. So curiosity obliges you to read the copy to figure it out and get the scoop.
2) The copy speaks directly to you, the reader. You are indeed being addressed by this man, and — boom! — at that instant you’re now inside the drama.
3) The copy makes it immediately and painfully obvious that you’re walking into a tough sell. A very tough sell that get’s tougher with each line of copy from the prospects mouth.
So once you finish reading and finally pop out of the mini-drama, the emotional truth of the message hits home. There’s just no denying the truth of that final “Moral.”
The Beauty of Short-Form Drama
So what’s the moral of THIS story?
Moral: Great ad writers do use short form storytelling and short form drama to cause people to realize the truth of your message on an emotional, gut-feel level. Most advertising fails because most ads aren’t written by ad writers capable of persuading through short-form drama.
What kind of persuasion is your ad writer baking into your ads?
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