Tuesday 9 January 2007

My, My…we are regressing…image advertising is a total waste of time, nobody, but nobody, buys image anymore…if they ever did!

1. The belief of advertising’s enormous power and the almost inevitable effectiveness of image advertising grew as mass advertising followed mass manufacturing in the 50s’ and ‘60s. Mass manufacturing led to one-size-fits-all products.

2. Now, advertising’s declining effectiveness is due, in part, to an earlier perception that over-estimated advertising’s power.

3. In earlier days there was a faith than when there was little objective difference among products, an emotion-laden image is always used as a motivator.

4. The technological revolution in manufacturing has made every vendor customise his product line.

5. Taking the place of undifferentiated brand products are various related lines of different choices for a consumer to select among. In this situation, our ability to sell everything under the umbrella of a single brand image has become limited and suspect.

6. How much can an ad lacking information really accomplish? Brand image is no longer the be-all and end-all of marketing.

7. With this vast differentiation, especially with high-ticket items and durable goods, buyers are looking for more than brand rhetoric. Whilst consumers still buy candy bars or sweat socks casually, as we should, without great forethought or analysis. Consumers buy important expensive durables only after they have properly processed the information they need.

8. One of the major sources of that information is – or should be – advertising. Here’s the problem: Image advertising doesn’t give us the information needed to buy knowledge-driven products. Since it doesn’t help us, we have long since acquired the habit of tuning it out.

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