Your Ad Campaign: Don’t Blow It
Corrections or additions?
These articles by Catherine Moscarello were published in U.S. 1
Newspaper on July 26, 2000. All rights reserved.
Guerrilla Marketing On a Shoestring Budget
Even if they prefer sandals to platform heels or
Velcro-closed
running shoes to wingtips, marketing managers can always relate to
dealing with budgets on a shoestring. Whether a company’s budget is
small or ample, says Susan Caputo
Horizons, the question remains "what can they use to get the most
mileage out of the marketing budget?"
That is the central question of the New Jersey Technology Council
program "Guerrilla Marketing on a Shoestring Budget" at
Middlesex
Community College, 2600 Woodbridge Avenue, Edison, on Tuesday, August
1, from 4 to 9 p.m. Cost: $40. Go to www.njtc.org or call
856-787-9700.
Caputo, the program moderator and a 1986 graduate of Rider University
with a major in communication, serves on a board at NJTC. Her company
provides marketing consulting services to growing businesses (E-mail:
"Even the biggest companies have tight budgets," says Caputo.
Her panel will examine public relations components, the strategy and
tactics behind general marketing plans, and some creative aspects
of direct marketing.
Today’s marketing manager is in a constant struggle to stay ahead
of new technological developments while simultaneously being squeezed
by the mandate to do more with less. A guerrilla mindset will foster
"out-of-the-box thinking," says Caputo, "which is critical
to call upon when an organization’s strained budget challenges even
the most creative individual. A survival-trained marketing manager
learns to search for that "one unique idea: that wasn’t thought
about before," she says.
Panelists are Katherine Kish
Road in Cranbury (medirect@aol.com), Dom Cilea
Communications in Marlboro, and Dan Regan
on Research Way (www.princetonpartners.com).
Kish’s topic "Contradiction and Change: What a Marketer Needs
to Know" will deal with the "ambiguity and contradictions"
marketing managers are forced to confront daily. There’s an
ever-present
conflict as marketing professionals make decisions based somewhere
between the information covered in Marketing 101 and "how things
really are." Confronting the "paradox between the demands
of high tech and high touch or the more human side of the marketing
piece" is an issue that needs to be examined, Kish says, and is
vital for effectiveness in making those decisions.
Regan focuses on the creative aspects of direct marketing plans using
list management and database development. Isn’t it an oxymoron to
mention lists, databases and creativity in the same breath? Not so,
Regan says. "It all boils down to concentrating efforts so that
we think about the kind of client we want and spend good energy
to make our business healthier and our clients happier." Despite
over 17 years in sales and marketing, Regan says he is constantly
learning about the need to pare down huge contact lists so that the
list "fits the needs of the agency and the agency fits the needs
of the client."
Cilea notes common mistakes that plague almost every public relations
campaign.
your audience, which publication best represents that audience, and
who from the publication best represents the information being
presented."
It’s critical to build good rapport and a working relationship with
the writers in targeted publications as well as to provide the writer
with good information.
publish just to publish." Cilea recommends creating a calendar
to launch the continuing thread of news items about products, research
and development, changes in company directions in a timely and orderly
fashion. "Every press release should be THIN," says Cilea,
"…timely, honest, informative and newsworthy."
says there is a definite need for technology marketers to focus on
decoding the "techno-babble" for the average reader so that
"young, growing, dot.com companies can get the press they
need."
— Catherine Moscarello
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Your Ad Campaign: Don’t Blow It
At the time, Nova seemed to be such a great name for
a great little car. Images of bright shooting stars, speeding
fireballs,
bursting with energy in the great reaches of the universe captured
the imagination. Except in Spain. The car’s name translated roughly
as "doesn’t go," not the best imagery for an automobile. A
more literal translation, however, alluded not to the performance
of the car but rather to the lack of performance of any male owner
of the car. Chevrolet had to shut down this car’s overseas advertising
quicker than Bob Dole can say "E.D."
There’s more than one way to unwittingly reverse soaring sales of
a product and Barry Cohen
seminar entitled "10 Ways to Screw Up an Ad Campaign" on
Thursday,
August 3, at 8 a.m. at the Clarion Hotel, Route 27, Edison. Cost:
$30. Call 732-821-1700.
Cohen is co-founder and a managing member of a three-year-old company,
Ad Lab Media Communication LLC, in Clifton. A 1975 Kean University
graduate who majored in English with a speech and theater minor, Cohen
started by selling ads for New Jersey and New York stations and even
managed a small station in Virginia. Ad Lab was created when his
partner
and co-founder wanted to start up an audio-video production company.
It now focuses on the technology of advertising and how to help small
businesses plan and create successful ad campaigns.
Besides avoiding the pitfalls of the infamous Nova story, Cohen says
there is much to consider in planning an effective campaign, but the
basic idea is "to `out-advertise’ the competition, not outspend
them. It’s important to kick up the dust and get noticed," Cohen
says. There’s really no hocus-pocus to good advertising. Instead
there’s
a tangible formula that drives the results.
In assessing good marketing practices, Cohen says, find out not just
whether the advertising measures up, but also whether the measurement
you use measures up: "You have to throw out the rules. Get down
and dirty. Stop using cookie cutter formulas. You really can’t do
what was done 40 years ago, especially since habits have changed so
much in society. Probably the last dad who came home from work, sat
down in the living room and read the evening paper was Ward
Cleaver."
Does that mean newspaper advertising is out? No, it just has to be
up-to-date and used more effectively.
People’s lives are compartmentalized with soccer practices, volunteer
commitments, family, work, and so much more. "You’ve got to come
up with ways to keep up with the changes, exploit the strengths of
the media you use, and create promotions that are larger than life
in order to spark your audience’s interest and make your campaign
come alive."
Cohen insists on saving 9 of his 10 actual tips for the seminar, but
he does offer mistake number one: Hiring your brother-in-law to do
your marketing.
— Catherine Moscarello
Top Of Page
Women Scientists
The Central Jersey chapter of the Association for Women
in Science, will meet on Thursday, August 3, at 6 p.m., at the West
Windsor Library, 333 North Post Road, for its annual mentoring
session,
entitled "Guides and Guideposts." The meeting is free; for
information call Julia Heinrich
Seamon at 732-235-5048 or E-mail: lczakja@umdnj.edu.
Dues to this chapter are $10 for professionals and $5 for students,
and members are not required to belong to the national organization
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