looking for high quality but at a lower price. Look at the

Wal-Marts."

to technology change than they used to.

loyalty,"

he says. His firm has been working with food retailers and banks,

including two commercial banks that have their headquarters in

Princeton.

"Banking is an area where personality can be more a part of the

equation — banks trying to be perceived as up-to-date and more

neighborhood-like — but where technology is a big part of the

challenge," he says.

Thomas was an Army brat, the British version, and he began to assert

his own personality when he declined to follow in the footsteps of

his father, who served as the Queen’s Chaplain. (Among his teenage

memories were sitting behind the Queen and Princess Diana in the pew

behind the Royal Pew.) Instead going to the British military academy

at Sandhurst, he went off on his own to London, and found a job at

Ketcham Advertising. He put himself through college via night school.

At a London pub he met a Princeton native who was working for Lloyds

of London, and they married and moved to Princeton five years ago.

As a vice president at QLM Marketing, he created campaigns for the

Discovery Channel, Hefty Bags, and Scott Paper.

Older and wiser and a father now himself, Thomas still takes an

off-beat

approach to marketing — brainstorming in weird locations, using

a creative ideas database that has taken two years to put together,

and drawing upon creative thinking techniques. "We push back

boundaries,"

says Thomas.

Top Of Page
Ad Personalities

It is important, indeed, to realize that all ads have

a personality, and that the buyer purchases this personality over

the actual message, says Robert Steckel of the United States

Institute of Marketing. Most everybody knows that professional and

carefully designed ads spend 20 percent of the total ad cost to

produce

80 percent of the responses. But how to be among the 20 percent? For

more than 50 years he has been compiling "Best of" books on

everything from outstanding airline advertising to successful

telemarketing

sales programs.

The Pittsburgh-based firm sells these inch-thick spiral-bound volumes

for from $235 ("Outstanding Retail Advertising") to $485

("Casino

Marketing for the 21st Century"). (Call 412-828-2720 or

800-627-5384; fax, 412-828-2734. The firm is located at 531 Fifth

Street, Oakmont PA 15139.) By paging through one of them,

such as "High Response Newspaper Advertising," you can get

all kinds of good ideas. See a great ad for your industry? Clone it,

change a little, and away you go.

But Steckel insists that though his books are full of good ideas,

unlike clip art books, they are based on valuable research. "An

awful lot of research goes in to which ads we include," says

Steckel.

Advertising professionals may take a jaundiced view of a research

claim that publishes none of the difficult-to-find hard numbers, no

statistics of how a particular ad has increased sales.

Steckel declines to delineate his research process in complete detail,

but he does say that the 25-person firm subscribes to 600 Sunday

newspapers

and investigates volume and sales records. "There are different

ways to find out which ads are producing the highest revenue. We are

not interested in what they look like, but in how they draw,"

he says. Sometimes the research can consist of querying the company

involved, "but we will have companies that want to get their ad

in the book, and so we have to cross check."

Steckel claims 40,000 customers in 134 countries. Ad agencies

themselves

are among the book’s chief markets. They want to see what’s going

in the business, and they want to use other agencies’ creative

examples

when they make client presentations.

Advertisers in other countries — for instance Malaysia, New

Guinea,

and Mauritania — also crave to know what the hotshot Americans

are up to. Steckel says he gets hundreds of letters from companies

that succeed by imitating the American ads.

Most of the book consists of examples, not long-winded explanations,

but the preface has some useful tips. "Like it or not, all

successful

ads follow a proven format with four elements — the headline,

illustration, copy, and finally all three put together, the

layout."

Readers notice the illustration first; it stops the reader long enough

for the headline to do its job. Actually, any caption under an

illustration

will get read even before the headline. "Four out of five people

glance at the illustration and the headline only, not motivated

sufficiently

to read the body copy."

The illustration, then, should tell as much of the selling idea as

possible. Use scenes of people arriving, not departing. If you are

aiming at an older woman, use pictures of a woman 10 to 15 years

younger.

A single large horizontal picture at the top of an ad has the greatest

response rating. A tight close-up of a face or any object will make

the ad look larger, increasing readership.

The most effective headlines contain these words: how, where, free,

who else, what, which, why, and when. The claim and boast variety

is old-fashioned. Use a natural conversational vocabulary and short

simple words. Thus the illustration, caption, and headline should

create a unified basic impression.

Examples carry the weight of this book. In the banking section, one

example shows that children get more attention than any other

illustration.

It shows twins with the headline "At First Republic, You Get What

you Expect, and More!" For selling the convenience of online

banking,

it uses the Dollar Bank’s headline, "And start banking online.

Not in line." For the grocery area, a Publix ad touts store brands

with the headline "Read It and Reap" and a color picture of

the label from a green bean can. "One item at a time, reporting

all the information that counts, generates trust and confidence,"

instructs Steckel.

Steckel grew up in Pittsburgh, was national sales manager for Look

magazine, started his company in Washington, D.C., and moved it back

to Pittsburgh, where his son Jim is also in the business.

He knows how to copy well. When he opened his business, he leafed

through some books, saw a picture of the Lincoln Memorial, and ever

since then has used a sketch of that facade on his letterhead. Steckel

says he has no competitors, except for a magazine in Philadelphia

that fizzled five years ago. He gives a money-back guarantee with

each shipment and refunds one out of 33 orders. But don’t try to copy

his book and send it back. "We put a dot of silver nitrite in

some places, and it turns back on the page."

Top Of Page
Personality Tips

Consider your buyer’s personality, says Robert

in a sensible manner. "The major objective of this group is to

establish believability."

most of their desires if the price is right."

primarily on physical appearance."

concerned with what they think friends and family will say. The

opinion

of others is as important as their opinion."

set in their ways with negative memories from past purchases, they

respond to the most appealing message."

a session Tuesday, September 15, at 6 p.m. at the Palmer Inn. The

subject: "Getting the Most Bang for Your Advertising Buck,"

with advertising salesperson Diana Joseph-Riley from U.S. 1

newspaper and other experts from Nassau Broadcasting and CTN Cable.

For $29 reservations call 609-799-1779.

Or on Wednesday, September 16, at 7:45 a.m. at the Holiday Inn on

Route 1 South, learn "Marketing and Promotional Techniques to

Enhance Visibility of Small Business" at a Princeton Chamber

breakfast.

Speakers are Gail D. Eagle, Gail Eagle Associates Custom

Publishing;

Ed Marder, vice president of Inkwell; and Steven Portrude,

vice president of Harwill-Express Press. For $21 reservations call

609-520-1776.

Top Of Page
Car Inspections:

New, Two-Year Deal

The automobile inspection laws are changing to

facilitate

the construction of a biennial enhanced inspection system, and

beginning

October 1, a lot of cars will be off the hook.

At least initially. From October 1 through December 31, only vehicles

made in even-number years will be required to be inspected in the

month they are due. Odd-number cars won’t need to wait in line until

that time next year. However, because the stickers themselves will

be outdated, they are advised to obtain special extension stickers

from Division of Motor Vehicles offices or from private inspection

centers to avoid being pulled over by police.

Starting January 1, 1999, all odd-number cars are required to inspect

in the month they are due. In this period, owners of even number cars

due for inspection between January and September are now off the hook

and will have extension stickers mailed to them. Cars passing the

tests will be given two-year stickers.

September is a phase-in month. All vehicles due for inspection in

September, 1998, will be required to pass through the inspection

lanes.

However, odd-number cars will be given one-year stickers, while

even-number

cars will be given two-year stickers.

The colors of the stickers will change as well. Two-year stickers

given out in 1998 are orange. The ones given in 1999 will be purple

— a first for New Jersey.

The DMV is doing this in anticipation of lane closures necessary to

build enhanced emission lanes and the fact that the new tests will

take significantly longer per car to perform. The current test takes

approximately two minutes per vehicle.

That’s roughly 26 to 28 cars an hour, says Jeff Lamm, spokesman

for the Division of Motor Vehicles. The enhanced test uses a

dynamometer,

a device that monitors emissions during simulated road acceleration,

takes five minutes per vehicle on average. However, Lamm reminds us,

the number of vehicles going any given year is being cut in half by

the two-year sticker. Also, the number of lanes in the central

stations

will be increased under the contract proposal. The firm contracted

to build the system, the Pasadena, California-based firm Parsons

Infrastructure

and Technology Group, plans to have 100 lanes finished at central

testing locations (like Bakers Basin) by December, 1999. Currently

there are 86 inspection lanes.

The option will still be given to have the test done at private

inspection

stations, but the number of those is expected to go down. The reason,

suggests Lamm, is that the equipment to perform the enhanced test

is significantly more expensive ($35,000 to $40,000). While there

were 3,700 licenses awarded to perform the existing test, he reports,

only 2,700 of those test centers had applied for a license to perform

enhanced inspections. The deadline was June 30. "It came down

to an economic decision for many of these private inspection

stations,"

says Lamm.

And finally, as the number of days until the new millennium has just

passed under the 500 mark, Lamm reports that the computers involved

in the new system are Y2K-compliant.

Corrections or additions?

— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.