It's The Value, Stupid!

It was during the 1992 election, when Bill Clinton's campaign staff coined the phrase, "It's the economy stupid!" While this refrain has earned its place in our pop culture, it is more than just catchy slogan. It contains a valuable lesson, to not forget what the populace really wants.

This lesson transcends politics and could easily be applied to small business management and, more specifically, it relates to the core to developing a successful marketing strategy. Marketing is a complex subject and a single blog post could not come near to covering all the intricacies in developing a successful marketing plan.

As I work with my clients on their marketing, I often listen to them tell me about their ad campaigns and how they are going to market their businesses via brochures, newspapers, radio, television, social media and various other channels. Often they will talk more about their media rather than focusing on their message. When it comes to developing an effective marketing campaign, to paraphrase the political quote, "It's the value, stupid."

If a company hopes to be successful, it simply must provide some value to the marketplace. It doesn't matter how creative you may be or how much you spend, if the customers don't find value in your products or services, you won't have success with marketing.

I recently read an interesting article about the Old Spice Ad with the actor saying, "I'm on a horse." Despite the exposure this ad has had on national television, and the fact that this ad has resurfaced on YouTube and received an additional 2.9 million views, sales of the actual product being promoted have dropped by 7%.

Why hasn't the success in the number of views and popularity of the ad not been reflected in the sales of the product being promoted? While I certainly don't speak for every male who purchases body wash, I just don't find anything in that commercial that shows me the value of Old Spice body wash.

I find the commercial to be silly and perhaps there is some entertainment value in the ad. Yet after watching the commercial a couple of times, I noticed that the actual "Old Spice" product or logo is only visually displayed for 13 seconds of the 30 second commercial. The name "Old Spice" is only mentioned twice. While I didn't do scientific research on this, my guess is that more people refer to this commercial as the "I'm On a Horse" ad rather than the "Old Spice" ad.

Perhaps the ad is clever and memorable enough to get past the lack of product placement, but it still does not give me the desire to go out and buy this body wash. Maybe it is because he is addressing the ad to women and I happen to be a man. Let's assume for a moment that it was my wife who made the body wash purchases in our household (which is not the case) and she was swayed by the line, "sadly, he's isn't me...but he could smell like me." How do you think her insecure husband would feel about this? Even if I was secure, do you think I would appreciate getting this body wash from her? Does the advertising agency not get this?

We live in a world with a fickle marketplace, where emotion often trumps logic when it comes to studying the results of past marketing successes. While some marketing success stories may seem baffling, one can usually find a value proposition behind every successful campaign. Here is a link to an article on the top 100 advertising campaigns - Top 100 Ads. While I'm not familiar with all the ads, in most cases these ads clearly define some form of value proposition to go along with the creativity of the campaign.

When marketing a product, the heart of your endeavor is to convince the consumers that your product or service has some benefit to them that is better than what the competition has to offer. Looking at the successful campaigns, you can usually define what is special about the product. Sometimes, it is blatantly obvious such as Campbell Soup's, "Mmmm, Mmmm Good," which is clearly promoting that their soup tastes good. Other times, the value proposition may be a bit more abstract, such as Nike's "Just Do It" campaign. While this ad campaign did not spend much time highlighting anything special about a specific Nike product, their is no denying that clear intent to associate the brand with athletics, fun, style and achievement.

As you search for a value proposition for your products or services, it is best to keep in mind the 4 P's of marketing. They are:

* Product (product/service quality)
* Price (fiscal value)
* Place (ease of possession/convenience)
* Promotion (branding and consumer recognition)

In one or more of the areas above, you should be able to differentiate what makes your product better than the competition. So before putting together an ad campaign that may achieve the viral success, make sure you have a message that will convert the views into sales. The market planning may not be easy, but the goal is simple - it's the value!

Going back to the Old Spice commercial, my guess from viewing that commercial is that they were trying to differentiate Old Spice as the brand for a "man's scent." Click on this link to an older Old Spice Ad. It says the same message, with a similar sense of humor. Yet at the same time, it would be inoffensive for either a man or woman to buy an Old Spice product after viewing this ad. Unfortunately, the "I'm on the horse" commercial sends mixed messages and both men or women could find reason to feel uncomfortable about buying that product after viewing that ad.

As I noted earlier, marketing is a complex topic and there is quite a bit involved in developing a successful marketing campaign. Winston Churchill once said, "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." If your marketing is not producing the desired results, revise your strategy. But start with the basics - define the value!