What Is Advertising?
Posted on March 3, 2008 - Filed Under ideaDRUNK's ideas
I’m jealous. Of Mitch Joel (yes, he has two first names). He was rockin’ out at the TED conference this past weekend, absorbing knowledge from some of the smartest people on the planet. In reading this article on Twist Image, I came across an interesting quote:
“Advertising is the price companies pay for being unoriginal”
I think this quote is a crock of shit. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of companies rely on marketing to create a point of differentiation when they’re too lazy to innovate. They come out with a product that is exactly the same as their competition except for some small addition and say “sell this.” Make it the next iPhone. But without a product or service that is ACTUALLY new, there is no authenticity in what you’re telling your customers. It lacks credibility
So you need a good product that is based on a solid consumer insight. If you have a product that is so unique, so functional and so cool, then you don’t really need to advertise it. People will talk about it. People will know what it does. People will want to buy it. So you don’t need advertising, right?
Wrong. That stuff will work for the early adopters, but advertising is how you inform the masses about your product. Here’s an example that’s in market right now: MasterCard PayPass. So this is a technology that allows you to pay for coffee at Tim Hortons or groceries or movie tickets with a credit card that’s faster than cash. You just beep your card and leave. No signature. No receipt. It’s supposed to save an average of 12 seconds per transaction.
This innovation represents the ONLY point of differentiation that MasterCard has over Visa. Everything else is exactly the same. But it’s a real innovation. What MasterCard has to do in the next 6 months is to construct a real long-term advantage. They need to create a compelling story so that they can own this type of “beep and go” credit card.
Advertising is how you tell your story. It allows you to get people to love you. To trust you. So that when your competition comes out with an imitation product 6 months down the road, you already own the category. By advertising your innovative product, you are able to define the battleground. You are able to define your niche and own it. Look at the all of the iPhone “killers” that are coming out. But Apple has successfully built it’s own category. It’s not a cell phone. It’s not a smartphone. It’s an iPhone.
- Christian
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