12 year old boys, tampon ads, and a new era of marketing
At one time in history, kids watched media on something called a television. And in that era, kids couldn’t fast forward through commercials. They couldn’t pick up an iPad and distract themselves until the show came back on.
In that era, some marketing execs decided that — if a kid is watching a program — his mom must be watching it too. (Which, she probably wasn’t.) Because of this assumption that mom was watching,
a lot of boys in the 80s and 90s watched a lot of tampon ads.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. It’s a natural process and not something to hide.
But it is a marketing problem. Why? Because it’s a waste of money to put a tampon ads in front a 12 year old boy who will never buy them.
And do you know what I see? All the time? In 2019?
Tons of companies are still throwing their money away by placing ads in front of the wrong people.
I’ve recently been getting ads on social platforms from a company, and the people featured in those ads have been
a mid-thirties mom holding a baby
and a 70-ish year old woman with copy talking about living longer.
Nothing wrong with either of those ads. Until you look at it as a marketer in 2019. Then, you begin to realize that brand is one step away from simply throwing their money into the trash can.
Today, we can maximize our ad spend by creating photos, videos, and copy that speaks directly to the recipient of the ad. That’s how we make our marketing dollars go farther.
Creating an effective marketing plan three-fold process that starts with laying a new foundation with how we market.
1. Begin with several audience segments in mind.
Creating an effective campaign begins at the beginning — before you make anything. We have to start by defining the particular audience segment or segments we want to reach.
The end of creating one ad for lots of people is over. Effective marketing means segmenting the audience from the very beginning.
So we dig deep to understand the needs of our customers, how they see those needs, and how our company can help them meet that need. Then…
2. Speak to the customer right where they are.
Today, we can make specific creative elements and copy that speaks to each customer in the context of their lives, right where they are.
In 2019, a company should never try and sell a product or service to a 19 year old man via an ad featuring a 70 year old woman.
Those two people are at very different places in life. They speak two different languages. And they most likely see the world around them in two distinct ways. The beauty of today’s media landscape is that it give us the opportunity to deliver the right content to the right people.
3. Gauge performance for increased effectiveness over time.
Once we start delivering creative content to specific audiences, we can watch the data in near real time. This gives us the ability to tweak visuals and copy for increased effectiveness over time.
We should expect to kill some of our creative content over time as we see what’s working and what’s not. And then double down on the best stuff.
And yet again, we increase the reach of our marketing dollars!
