The Naked Truth About Advertising and Underwear

This time of year our shop Your Life Your Style is full of hearts. Glass coasters with hearts fused into them, heart shaped cushions, handmade cards with stuck on hearts… other shops have enough flowers, chocolates and romantic CDs to fill Westminster Abbey. All intended to show we love someone this coming Monday.
Underwear seems a popular choice as a Valentines Day gift but I’m not certain it’s a good idea. I’ve been wondering how men who receive Marks & Spencer’s new BodyMax underwear will feel. To remind you, this is a new range intended to make a man’s abs more flat, his bum more firm, and his maleness… just plain more. All those years your wife or girlfriend has been saying size doesn’t matter and suddenly she buys you ‘frontal enhancement’ underpants.
It's worse still if you buy them for yourself. The trouble with all these body changing clothes, for men or women, is that, once you’ve attracted your potential mate with a bulging crotch or uplifted padded boobs, there comes an inevitable moment of truth. Your pants go down and the mountain brings forth a mouse. The bra comes off and your man’s face drops along with a couple of other things. I suppose we hope that by then our partner will be so overcome by passion, they’ll forgive the deception. Or maybe we just make rely on everything looking better by candlelight.
In business we have no such luxury. The law doesn’t allow us to pretend our product or service is one thing and then hope once the customer has bought it, they’ll just accept the disappointing reality. Nor would it be good business sense. Contrary to a widespread public perception, advertising is not about lying. The industry regulator the Advertising Standards Authority even says in its core statement that advertisements in print, TV and radio must be ‘honest, decent and legal’. It’s about to get tougher for businesses because from 1st March the ASA is taking on complaints about websites.
Shops shouldn’t need legislation to make us honest because truth is our biggest marketing tool. I've always found that if you are honest about your products, describing them accurately, admitting their limitations, even sending customers elsewhere if that is their best bet, and apologising when you get something wrong, your customers will trust you and come back to you again and again.
These days, all good websites allow customers to comment on products and service from the mighty Amazon to our own little (and only slightly enhanced) Your Life Your Style. We don’t always like what is said but it shows customers we have nothing to hide and it is an additional spur to be clear and accurate about what we promise.
Of course you can’t satisfy everybody and we’re all entitled to an opinion. One customer gave a poor review to our ‘rabbit’ draught excluder. There was nothing wrong with its quality but she didn’t like his slightly mad expression! Still, at least we didn’t pretend it was a bigger size.

This article also appeared on the Your Life Your Style Wordpress blog and on the Southern Daily Echo website

Kettle Apartheid At Tescos?

This newspaper ad for Tesco shows just how careful you need to be when you write copy. Apart from the obvious things like checking spelling, always look for double or unintended meanings. It's a very good idea to get someone else to look at and read out loud your copy. Unless of course these Tesco appliances are aimed at black students.

I'm always amused by the Massive Rug Sales advertised locally. What if you want a small rug? I've missed a few when advertising products in my shop Your Life Your Style. For example, what is a 'woollen picnic' as in 'Woollen Picnic Rug'? Maybe everyone going on the picnic has wear a woolly.

Diesel Ad Campaign Far From Stupid

Congratulations to Diesel on a great advertising campaign culminating with the perfect result- a ban by the Advertising Standards Authority. Ban aside, Diesel's poster/print ad campaign is well worth a look for its humorous concept (who cares about those clever types, it's good to be stupid), perfect targeting (people who think of themselves as young and individualistic) and immaculate execution (beautifully set up and shot tableaux). And it shows off the product.

You'll Either Love Or Hate This Advertising

I myself don't love or hate Marmite- I can take it or leave it. Nevertheless I congratulate DDB, the marketing people, for their Marmite campaign. I can't remember a concept that has so entered the national consciousness. I'm not talking about memorable slogans, of which there have been quite a few. I mean the way the brand name has become shorthand for an idea. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard or read someone say, 'It's like Marmite', often without even the 'love it or hate it' explanation.
It's the Holy Grail for marketeers to create something that so gets into people' brains. 'Gifts As Unique As You' is my best effort so far for our shop Your Life Your Style. Regarding our best selling products, Steiff offer 'For children, only the best is good enough', Ashleigh & Burwood fragrance lamps go for 'Parfum. Inspiration. Emotion' and Dora Designs go for 'Uniquely Different Gifts'.

Bad People Can Write Good Copy

I always delete spam emails without a second thought but the Subjcet Line of one the other day did catch my eye. One of the abilities I most admire is being able to write good advertising copy- finding the right words presented in the best way to get a positive response from the targeted audience.  So let me deconstruct the Subject Line of this spam email: "I sexual Russian blond, want to see, come closer".

To start with, it has the authentic 'foreign' phrasing that someone not totally familiar with English might use. You can almost hear the sexy Russian accent. Then there's the choice of words. "Sexual", as opposed to the more predictable "sexy", implies the sender is actually wanting sex rather than simply offering it. "Russian" is the nationality currently most associated with women who are keen to offer sexual liaisons. And of course she couldn't be anything other than a "blond", it's a hair colour perennially associated with sexiness but it keeps the description at a fun level instead of going for more potentially offputting explicit sexual attributes. 

So, having got the target's attention, we move on to getting the interest- "Want to see". Not a question, more an assumption intended to get you nodding in agreement.

Finally the call to action- "Come closer". In practice, this means 'click on the email' (then open a virus infected attachment or go to a website where we'll extract money or identity data from you). But by using this metaphor, the writer has created something far more powerful, evoking the memory of past experiences and that frisson of excitement when an intimate friend has wanted to get to know you on a more physical level. No-one but an idiot would even consider opening the email but that clever copy might just be enough to persuade the aforesaid idiot to click.

I deleted it, being neither the target market nor an idiot. If only such copywriting skill was being used for the power of good.

My Loss Was My Copywriting Gain

I'd just written an email for Your Life Your Style customers. I went to the loo and when I got back, someone had inadvertently logged into the website administration and my email was lost. I wrote it once more and clicked to send a test email. The website software froze and again I lost it.

Strangely I was not dishearetned or frustrated by this. Because you should re-write and re-write and re-write again. And ideally you should not refer to what you already wrote.

When you've gone through the process of writing copy a few times, the ideas are firmly lodged in your brain, so you don't have to think about what you're saying. You become one with the copy, grasshopper.

What comes out of your head when you re-write on a blank screen is sharper, leaner and more natural.

Funny Marketing

I was interested to read in the ClickZ newsletter that the late US comedian Red Skelton used to collect the addresses of members of his audience, then write to them next time he was due in town. A simple but very cost effective tool for selling tickets and building a fan base that most acts fail to exploit to this day.

Marketing Sends Environment Down Toilet

The news that 98% of Americans use toilet paper made from new wood rather than the recycled kind is a perfect example of the power of marketing to cause damage, in this case to the environment.

Again and again we have seen corporations use vast advertising budgets to persuade people to buy products they know or should know are damaging - cigarettes, gas guzzling cars, sugar-rich children’s cereals and so on.

How can one of the toilet paper manufacturers to say consumers have the choice, when they spend huge money on marketing brands of soft multi-ply tissue produced from what are called 'virgin fibers'? Consumers can only really make a choice if they are properly informed. What a difference it could make if U.S. toilet paper manufacturers put equal marketing resources into persuading people to help the environment by using recycled paper.

Like consumers, we marketers have a choice. Whether we run our own company or work in a large corporation, we can use their powers of persuasion responsibly or irresponsibly.

Is Newspaper Advertising Worth The Paper It's Printed On?

The question in today’s digital world is, how much do you need print?

Is advertising in newspapers anything more than an expensive habit? With readerships are dropping faster than Russell Brand's trousers, the return on investment is increasingly poor. Concentrate instead on competitions, giveaways and PR, which are low cost and have more impact.

Then there are fliers and season brochures. No doubt some customers pick one up and buy a ticket but many are consigned unread to the recycling bin. The one kind of print worth sticking with is the targeted postal mailing. Research suggests that a brochure or letter in people’s hands at home stimulates both phone and online sales.

Print also means posters. These are another questionable use of a limited budget because only a handful of theatre posters obey the two golden rules for this form of advertising- use emotive visuals accompanied by seven words or less. The exception that proves the rule is the current campaign for David Pugh’s production of Calendar Girls- a row of apparently naked women with their naughty bits covered and the tag line ‘All will be revealed on…’

Marketing In A Recession

How are we going to cope with the economic downturn, apart from shopping at Aldi? Whatever you do, don’t cut your marketing budget. My experience of previous recessions is that people stop buying big ticket items like new cars or foreign holidays but continue to cheer themselves up with small luxuries like entertainment. Reducing your marketing will damage sales.

If your boss or funder says you must cut the budget, then you have no choice. In any case, it’s never a bad idea to review your marketing plan to see which tools are working. (If you’re spending money without measuring the results, you must work for a local council or a bank.)

The Old Ways Are Sometimes The Best When It Comes To Marketing

A story in the Southampton Daily Echo shows the importance of choosing the right medium for your target audience-even if that medium isn't the latest trend and doesn't come recommended by advertising agencies.
A company planned to spend £10,000 on advertising their marine storage, using an email campaign and all the usual paraphenalia of modern marketing. They also decided to put a postcard in the local post office next to the marina. The result was all £250,000 of space was let for a cost of a mere 50p.

Untangling The Web Part Two

Speed is of the essence. Web users are an impatient lot. To them, ten seconds is like watching Gone With The Wind. Unless the user has high speed broadband, a site containing clever graphics and big photos will be s-l-o-w to download. Forget art for art’s sake, if there’s not a good reason for an image, leave it out. A web page should be no more than 60 KB. If necessary, start with small-ish photos to prevent delays in downloading and then make sure they can be enlarged.

Users don’t like having to click more than three times to get to what they want. Don’t make them click to ‘enter’ the site and don’t have too many stages in the buying process. The ‘buy’ button must be prominent on every page including the home page- and the phone number as well.

I was amazed to come across a South coast theatre website that didn’t have its box office number on any of the events pages. 30-40% of people may book by phone, so your number as well as the online buying facility must be prominent on every page. Your physical address must also be easy to find. This is important. It gives your website credibility and, another thing, it’s the law.

When it comes to the buying process, try to keep down the number of choices people have to make. Think of buying a theatre ticket- What date? What time? Stalls or Circle? Front, Middle or Back? What price? Any Discounts? Is it any wonder people give up and go to the cinema instead?

Your site must be easy to read. Not everyone has perfect vision (especially our ageing population) or the latest 20 inch widescreen monitor. Make sure type can be re-sized and that the blocks of type are ‘liquid’ so they will adjust on an old style 4:3 ratio screen, rather than the right-hand side being cut off.

Make sure the text contrasts with the background. Your older ( and usually richer) visitors will really appreciate this. Google, Yahoo, BBC all opt for a white background- and they should know. Highlight important information with strong simple colours. Black, white, red, blue- keep away from subtle shades.

Keep each page simple. Most people give the page a quick scan. One clear topic per page means the visitor doesn’t have to make choices about what to read. Even the Home Page should only give prominence to the four things that visitors are most likely to want to do. Use hypertext links (links within the page content) to enable people to find out more information, rather than trying to cram it all on one page.

Make your site interactive. If you want your visitors to become your customers and ultimately your advocates, give them the chance to comment on your products and your website or to ask questions, or even to talk to each other. A site which welcomes comments adds credibility to what it is marketing.

Whatever the website looks and acts like, the most important thing remains content. Remember the slogan- Great sizzle but where’s the sausage?

Don’t sell, inform… the sales will follow. People have already made a choice when they visit your website- they want information or they want to buy something or maybe they want to tell you something. Whatever the reason, they didn’t come to be sold to.

Websites win or lose on the quality of the words. Don’t think anyone can write the text. The great Jakob Nielsen’s research on Useit.com shows that changing ordinary text to web-orientated text can double website usability. Unless you’re one yourself, pay an expert to go over all your text and rewrite it to work on the web (e.g. use information-carrying words and actionable phrases, cut verbiage, make it search engine friendly). For example,‘The Hills Are Alive’ is a clever headline for a brochure but ‘The Sound Of Music’ is what works on a web page, because it carries the clear information needed both by search engines and by users scanning the screen. This is something I’m good at, by the way.

A few other points. Increasingly people are using their mobiles to visit websites. If yours doesn’t work, tell your designer to change the codes to conform with standards for handheld devices.

It’s tempting to convert print documents into PDFs for your website. Don’t, unless it’s something people are going to print themselves. People expect to be able to interact with a website, so a fixed document is frustrating.

It’s a good idea to get visitors to fill in a form, say to join your email list. Much as you need to know lots about them for marketing purposes, on this occasion keep the questions to a minimum or they won’t bother. You can ask them more later.

Finally Test. Observe even half a dozen people using your site- where they get stuck, where they go wrong. And employ the analysis tools that are often available from website software or servers or from Google Analytics to find out the pattern of visitors’ usage. Use this information to improve your website and put the customer in charge.

I’m hesitant after all of the above to suggest you look at my shop’s website. There are a number of ways it falls short of ideal. This is mainly because we used a template e-shop called Cubecart which is very but not entirely adaptable. Still, I’m on a continuous mission to refine and improve it, so any comments will be much appreciated.

Untangling The Web Part One

This is a longer version of a feature that appeared in Encore magazine.

I have three seconds to convince you to read this article. That’s the… Oh, you’ve gone. I was going to say, that’s the average time someone spends on a website before deciding whether to stay or leave.

Your website is probably the most important marketing tool you have, so it’s too important to be left to a web designer or consultant. It’s up to you to make sure people can get around your site easily and find all the information they need and you want them to know. There’s no excuse. So much research is available about what works and more importantly what doesn’t.

As with all good marketing, the key is to look at it from the customer’s point of view. ‘To see ourselves as others see us’ as Robbie Burns said. The problem is, we’re so involved in our business, it’s difficult to step back. Yet it’s crucially important because, unlike other media, the customer is in charge of the web.

I’ve recently been involved in constructing a website for our shop. There is a lot of research available from sites like Useit.com and thesitewizard.com about how people use websites. Of course, some people are more internet savvy than others but many of us are still trying to work out why we have to click ‘Start’ to turn off their PC. Some have quicker brains for working out how to navigate a site but you can’t expect most of your users to be like that any more than you can expect them all to be able to solve the Rubik’s Cube.

The playwright Bertolt Brecht kept a toy donkey on his desk and when he wrote something he would turn to it and say, ‘Would you understand this?’ (in Gerrman of course.) This is not to do with how intelligent we are but how knowledgeable. Let’s face it, when it comes to websites, a large number of us and our customers are donkeys.

I’ve found there are a number of ‘rules’ your website must obey if you want your visitors to stay and use it.

First, research why people are visiting your website then make sure the content of your website answers their needs. They may want to know you sell, prices, how to find you, what your business is about, how to buy an item or simply who you are. The Home Page should let people know they’ve come to the right place (‘Welcome to Anytown’s largest theatre where you can find out information about forthcoming shows, about the venue and buy tickets online’) and offer a few samples of the site’s content. The links that provide answers to key questions must be prominent and easy to find.

Appearance matters. People judge your professionalism and reliability by the quality of the design.

Appearance doesn’t matter. Don’t let design, however good, get in the way of ease-of-use. Google is hardly the prettiest website but it makes it easy for people to find what they’re looking for.

The key to usability is Don’t Be Different. I know we all love originality but we’ve all visited thousands of sites, so if your site doesn’t have the same layout as the vast majority of other sites, we get confused. For example, if we find the Contents list isn’t in a line along the top or down the left side, we may miss what they’re looking for. We also expect to click back to the home page with a link on the logo and they’ll be looking for a ‘previous page’ or ‘back’ button. Link titles that pop up when the mouse goes over a link help people understand where they’re likely to be heading. People expect Search. Make sure it’s there in a recognisable box at the top of the page and make sure it works.

The same basic format for each page helps users know where they are. All of this makes your site easy to navigate.

And no pop ups. We all hate pop ups because they - Visit my website thelewisexperience.co.uk -make us lose track. Many of us block them.

Part Two tomorrow.

Faking It

Does authenticity matter, asks Seth Godin. If the fake Rembrandt has fooled the experts, if Shakespeare didn’t write parts of his plays, if Churchill put his historic speeches on record after the event, if some of The Beatles’ songs weren’t recorded by all four of the Fabs, does it matter?

If the effect of the fake on you is the same as the ‘authentic’ version, it probably doesn’t. It is, if you like, all in the mind, and we should all trust our own feelings not what we’re told to feel. In business, it does matter though, because, if someone deliberately sells a fake Rolex, no matter how authentic looking, as the real thing, and they therefore charge a much higher price than justified- that’s fraud. And if you tell a customer something that isn’t true, you’ll be found out eventually, seriously damage your reputation- and may even be prosecuted.

Page Turner or Turn Off? Part Two

I was surprised to go into a Bose shop recently and be told that they don't publish a cataloguie because people can go to the website. This is very shortsighted. Brochures drive large numbers of people to websites as well as generating sales in their own right.

Now where was I? Oh yes. Let’s turn to the inside pages. Most people automatically look at a point slightly above the centre and to the right, so if you want them to look at the rest of the page, you must lead them round it. A good layout uses a face looking inward or a curving body to move the eye in a circular motion around the whole page and to focus it on the key information. Painters have been using this and other rules of composition to control eye movement for hundreds of years - check out Botticelli’s The Birth Of Venus.

As for the words, the best brochures sell benefits not features. Since this is a basic rule of marketing, I’m surprised how often it’s broken. For example, just because the show won Best Musical Award, it doesn’t follow that your customer will enjoy it; there’s a world of difference between Les Mis and Hairspray. The best copy talks to the reader about what they want: “When you leave the theatre dancing down the street, you’ll know why this show won Best Musical Award.”

When it comes to design, the marketer stays in control of the best brochures. Designers may love pink type coming out of a red background but we know our customers won’t be able to read it. They may use 8 point type to make more room for images but we know it must be at least 12 point. A good designer will make the brochure look lovely but the good marketer keeps the artist’s feet on the ground and insists that important messages are communicated clearly.

Finally, the best brochure will have been checked by independent readers, who will have included older customers if they make up a significant proportion of the audience.

There are many more techniques that a brochure specialist can suggest to boost sales but simply incorporate the above and you’ll ensure that your brochure is a page turner instead of a turn-off.

Is Your Brochure a Page-Turner or a Turn-Off?

What makes the perfect season brochure? A winning formula involves more than making it look pretty. If the brochure you’re involved with isn’t using the following techniques and quite a few others, then you’re losing sales.

Let’s begin at the end. If the brochure has been displayed back to front or thrown casually on a table, its back cover may be the first sight the customer has of a brochure, so a good one will have the venue’s name clearly displayed for people who know your business and will actually pick up a brochure for it.

When you put something on the back cover, it’s like shining a Super Trouper on it. Along with the inside covers and the centre spread, it’s one of the ‘hot spots’ that get noticed. A well planned brochure won’t waste these positions with boring information like How To Find Us or Terms & Conditions, because these are the best pages to sell the most valuable products.

Flipping the brochure over, the front cover will be shouting ‘PICK ME UP!’ It will use more tricks than Paris Hilton to grab attention, apart from forgetting to put knickers on. Look at magazine covers- you’ll nearly always see one big image (probably an attractive face (probably an attractive famous face)). An unusual picture can also make an impression. What they won’t have is a lot of tiny images, because trying to please everybody pleases nobody.

The brochure cover will use strong colours, especially red since that’s a colour more likely to appeal to women who form the majority of shoppers.

Notice how the most important reasons for picking it up are at the top. A designer sees the whole cover on a screen but we know that our piece of print may be stuck behind something on a tiered rack, so we need the venue name and the key products to be featured on the visible area.

Next time, we'll look at the inside pages.

Joss Stone Makes The Flake Ad

I love the new Cadbury's Flake TV ad featuring Joss Stone. It perfectly recreates the style of a fly-on-the-wall documentary about making a record. As the recording progresses, there's a slight problem necessitating a pause. During the break, Ms Stone idly picks up a Flake and casually sings, as any of us might, the well-known jingle in her inimitable voice. Instead of putting the bar straight into her mouth as you would expect from the previous ads, thus rather obviously suggesting fellatio, she breaks off a small piece and eats it. The coup de grace is when she looks down and casually flicks off some crumbs from her front, which anyone who's eaten a Flake can relate to.
Perfect in every way- beautifully structured; referring to the universally known Flake ads tradition while at the same time undermining it for a modern audience; and the self deprecating humour at the end that makes a real connection. See it and lots more TV ads at Guardian Media's Creative Lounge

What's your real voice?

I was watching a documentary on Al Bowlly, a great crooner from the 1930s, who briefly rivalled Bing Crosby in popularity. I think it was Carrie Grant who commented that at a certain stage he found his own voice- that unique personal quality, she said, that makes a singer seem 'real' to his or her audience. The same is true of writers, painters and any other kind artist. It struck me that this is very like finding the Unique Selling Proposition for your business product. Of course, in the case of business, it's easily squandered if you disrespect it by, for example, using the name to sell other inferior or barely related products.

Wish You Were Here

Just back from Ireland and once again had a great time with the friendly laid-back locals. This time we were in the Galway area and a lovely village called Ballyvaughan. One of the charms of the Irish is their way of talking, such as this response to being asked the quickest way to a particular place: "Are you driving or walking?" "Driving" "That'll be the quickest way then."

On this visit, we enjoyed some wonderfully 'Irish' conversations. Like the newsagent who explained the morning papers "could be here in 2 minutes, they could be here in 2o minutes, all I can tell you is- they will be here." One wonderful example of the Irish thought process was in an advertising slogan outside a newly built estate on the outskirts of Dublin: "If you lived here, you'd be home by now." So true. Like any great slogan, I can't get it out of my head. Brilliant.

Sex Sells Theatre Tickets

An article in the Daily Telegraph explains in fascinating detail how David Pugh and his partner Daffyd Rogers financed Equus and their many other theatrical successes and occasional failures. However it says little about the part David’s marketing skill has played in his achievements. I have met no other producer who combines theatrical knowledge with marketing flair in quite the way David does.


David’s decision to change the cast of Art every twelve weeks was a clever way of keeping the show in the news, as was the special celebrity guest each night in The Play What I Wrote. When he brought Rebecca starring Nigel Havers to my then theatre, he marketed it with a brilliant black and white photo (by Lord Lichfield) of Havers looking wistful on a beach. David gave me a framed version of the poster when we broke the British box office record for a play. It’s the only theatre poster I have in my office.



The image used for Equus was just as striking, featuring a bare chested Daniel Radcliffe whose lower body morphed into a horse’s head. The announcement of the West End run was accompanied by studio photos of a nearly naked Daniel. They were entirely in keeping with the sexual themes in the play but the image of a sexy Harry Potter gained coverage in virtually every national paper.