START WITH WHY
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and are really banking on the success of this product to help drive
sales in general. They know they do good work, and they want to
get the message out. They need it to be loud. And with a budget of
millions of dollars
to advertise their new product, in that respect,
BCI succeeds.
But there is a problem.
BCI and their agency did a good job of telling people about their
new product. The work was quite creative. They were able to
explain what was new and special about their latest innovation, and
focus groups agreed that the new product was much better than
that of the competition. The millions of dollars in media ensured
that lots of people would see their advertising and see it often. Their
reach
and frequency, the measurement commonly used by ad
agencies to gauge the number of people exposed to the advertising,
was very good. There is no doubt that their message was loud. The
problem was, it wasn't clear. It was all WHATs and HOW and no
WHY. Even though people learned what the product did, no one
knew what BCI believed. The good news is, it's not a complete loss;
the products will sell as long as the
ads are on the air and the
promotions remain competitive. It's an effective strategy, but an
expensive way to make money.
What if Martin Luther King had delivered a comprehensive
twelve-point plan about achieving civil rights in America,
a plan
more comprehensive than any other plan for civil rights ever of-
fered? Booming through the speakers that summer's day in 1963, his
message would have been loud. Microphones, like advertising and
PR, are fantastic for making sure a message is heard. Like BCI,
King's message would still have reached thousands of people. But
his belief would not have been clear.
Volume is reasonably easy to achieve. All it takes is money or
stunts. Money can pay to keep a message front and center. And
publicity stunts are good at getting on the news. But neither plants
STATUS BUT WHY, BUT KNOW HOW
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seeds of loyalty. Many reading this may remember that Oprah Win-
frey once gave away a free car to every member of her studio audi-
ence. It happened several years ago, in 2004, and still people refer to
the stunt. But how many can recall the model of car she gave away?
That's the problem. It was Pontiac that donated $7 million worth of
cars, 276 of their new G6 model, to be exact. And it was Pontiac that
saw the stunt as a way to market their new car. Yet although the
stunt worked well to reinforce Oprah's generous nature, something
with
which we are all familiar, few remember that Pontiac was a
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