Political Advertising: Run the Other Way

RWA staffers spend a fair amount of time reading (especially the copywriters who aspire to writing their own great American novel some day). While perusing the Barnes and Noble bookshelves looking for inspiration, one of our staffers ran across an unlikely choice for a little light, spring break reading. Nonetheless, Bill Hillsman's book "Run the Other Way" in hand, she proudly marched to the checkout counter and then home to pack her selection in her carry-on bag.

Hillsman, an advertising veteran, is the creative force behind many memorable and winning political campaigns including Jesse Ventura's successful run for Governor of Minnesota in the late '80's. Hillsman takes a different approach to political advertising, one that is proven successful, but one that most politicians will never use.

An hour into flight and completely caught up on People and In Style, she delved into the pages of "Run the Other Way" and, surprise, surprise, was enthralled. She will never look at political advertising the same.

In a posting on one of our favorite blogs - HeyWhipple - advertising legend Luke Sullivan agrees. "Can you imagine what would happen to cola sales if Pepsi and Coke engaged in these horrible, groin-kicking antics?" he writes. “Pepsi says it doesn’t have venereal dog turds floating in its carbonation tanks, … but what do the facts say?”

As for RWA, we vote for better ads this election year.

Brand you

If you’re a small business entrepreneur, you virtually are your business. So what happens when you and your business part ways? Maybe you sell it for boatloads of money or maybe things just don’t work out. Where does that leave you? The simple answer is that unless you’ve taken steps to brand yourself as an individual, if your business goes away, so might you. But a strong personal brand can be leveraged by an entrepreneur to capture attention and bounce back.

Take Donald Trump, the consummate example of branding oneself separately from a business and rebuilding after a fall. His personal branding is so strong that most folks don’t even know the name of any of his companies, and talk about getting back up on the horse—the man has filed for bankruptcy on behalf of his companies four times.

Now, granted, Trump is the uber showboat and he’s now as much a celebrity as he is a businessman. However, as an entrepreneur there are two major steps you can take to build your personal brand and help ensure a long-term career as a business owner.

1. Actively sell yourself and your skills to the media.

No matter what kind of widgets you sell or services you provide, the fact that you're in business for yourself makes you an expert on a number of subjects. Identify your areas of expertise and spread the news. Blog about your skills. Send press releases to the media. Start a Facebook page and offer "friends" advice. Tweet. Join LinkedIn. Create YouTube videos. And, of course work in information about your business as well as yourself, which gives you credibility, offers a little extra-added exposure to your company, and gives the news media a wider selection of story angles. 

2. Create a personal website. 

When people search for you online, what results come up? If you build a website—which is becoming simpler via blogging sites like WordPress and Blogger—and change it up often to maintain its search engine optimization, you can help keep the search results that you want people to see near the top of the page.

Direct people via your tweets, Facebook page and other social networks back to your website. Link your corporate website to your personal website. And keep your material informative, entertaining and fresh, generating new entries to all your social networks at least weekly and at best daily or more.  

Sound like a lot of work? It is at the outset, but soon a rhythm sets in. Whether you undertake the project yourself, however, or contract with an agency (we know a good one), in today’s economic climate, personal branding is becoming a powerful tool in the entrepreneur’s arsenal.  

Rebranding: A pain, an unnecessary expense, or your next step?

Businesses of all sizes bring to the table now and again the question of rebranding, and the reasons are many. Some businesses simply want to keep up with the times and so freshen their image. Others merge with or acquire another company that requires a new face to reflect a new direction or product. Still others need a rebirth to distance themselves from a PR gaffe or even to gain distinction from competition.

For smaller businesses, like many of those we at the Ryan William’s Agency represent, rebranding involves advancing the marketing and advertising components that a business initially developed on its own rather than outsourcing to professionals because of the myriad of factors that constrain new companies. Startups face issues of cost, inexperience, time, a firm understanding of their own advertising needs, and more. 

However, a few years down the road, a business owner may realize that his logo, for example, needs updating and a professional quality added to it. Maybe the same goes for his signage, print ads, brochures, media kits and the like. They may well convey the right information, but in a somewhat unsophisticated package. After some time, an astute business owner using homegrown ad materials may begin to realize that, to continue to grow, the company’s ad campaign needs to advance. Designs may need to evolve. Photography, graphics and copywriting may need to improve. Even additional mediums—radio, online components, direct mail, social media—may need to be considered.

A good advertising agency doesn’t come in and completely toss out your previous campaign. At Ryan William’s, we cherry pick what has worked for you in the past and look for ways to improve upon those already strong concepts, as well as analyze where your poorer performing dollars are being spent and reallocate that spending to better-performing products. Contracting with an ad agency to rebrand your business might seem like an unnecessary additional expense at first. But, the additional sales reaped down the line from allowing a professional to recreate and place your advertising can actually far outweigh the initial expense of rebranding now, and leave you to do what you do best—run your business.

Rebranding isn’t as much a growing pain as it is a right of passage and a sign that your business has evolved to the next level.  

Avoid helping your competitors

The concept is this and it’s a simple one: In your advertising, sell YOUR particular brand of product or service and not just the idea of buying the type of product or service that you sell. If you manufacture fans, for example, and your advertising convinces a potential customer to buy one—it’s summer, it’s hot, fans cost less to operate than air conditioning—but falls short of why the buyer should purchase YOUR fan, you very well might create a sale for your competitor. 

 

Seems like a no-brainer, but helping competitors with poor advertising happens all the time and not just by unsophisticated mom-and-pop businesses. Cruise lines sell the idea of getting away from it all. Automakers ask if, by golly, you don’t deserve a new convertible. Internet service providers push how much faster DSL is than dial-up service. But which cruise line, which make of car, which ISP? Ads that fail to position the advertiser properly can sizzle with a call to action—successfully driving consumers to a travel agent to book a cruise, to a car lot to purchase a car and to the Web to research Internet access—but who gets the sale is a crapshoot.

 

Of course, convincing your market that it needs whatever it is you sell is right up there on the priority list too, but directly opposite your brand, not below. Don’t just sell “a” vacation, “a” convertible or DSL service. Sell that your cruise line travels to where others don’t; that your make of automobile gets 45 miles to the gallon; that your ISP offers same-day installation.

 

Simple? Quite, but sometimes it’s the small stuff that’s overlooked. At Ryan William’s Agency, while we’ve got some big, creative widget-selling ideas, we also won’t let you forget the basics. 

Sometimes it’s what you don’t say

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, and although this installment of our RWA blog might be stepping on our copywriter’s toes, in the following three examples, they’d be right. We really like these print ads. They get the message across instantly and use virtually no words, other than a logo, doing it. Concepts like these don’t come along often, so when they do, agencies like to jump on them. Enjoy.

Bose Noise Reduction Headphones. Wonder how much they paid the model.

Lazer Bike Helmets. You should see the car.

8 in 1 Dental Snacks. No animals were harmed in the production of this ad.

At Ryan William’s Agency, we know that sometimes serious advertising makes you laugh and, if presented correctly, can sell a lot of widgets. Maybe we can work a little humor into your campaign.