Hot Shots - Firey Little Rants On Marketing

There is a right way to get people interested and intrigued and motivated. And there's a way to not do it. And having just heard a way to not do it--creating a waste of the advertiser's money--it seemed like a good idea to look at a fundamental way to make a good advertising message happen. 

How does a small business brand represent itself as a good community member in its advertising without coming across as opportunistic or disingenuous? Even in the mighty and (mighty expensive) Super Bowl, there are commercials designed not to sell, but to make the brand look like a winner for the community, and Budweiser has offered a sterling example of how to make it happen using a simple story told well--and the example is scalable to any advertiser in any media. 

Is there anything quite as ridiculous as the Bud light "Dilly, Dilly" campaign? Methinks not. However, it's also a juggernaut, having entered into the zeitgeist--with its apex so far being the epic, production-intensive Super Bowl commercial. But the silliness belies some incredibly smart thinking from the top--and some useful takeaways for anyone who's in the position of making marketing decisions. 

Now that the dust has settled, we finally get around to talking about Super Bowl commercials--beginning with what may be the single quietest, most potent and sexy sales message in a typically unsexy style of advertising. It also comes with a takeaway that is utterly relevant to the no-budget, small-business advertiser. 

Would you be willing to put it all on the line and work without a net? Because that's what couple entrepreneurs do. They risk their careers and their marriages by going into business together. And at Slow Burn, we've decided to develop a podcast specifically about these people, telling their stories as inspiring tales of success (or caution, depending on who you are) in CoupleCo: Working With Your Spouse For Fun & Profit. Here, we talk about the first three couples profiled in interviews that are full of laughs and wisdom.   

In the wake of the Super Bowl, we here at the screed ignore the commercials for at least a week and allow the dust to settle. Instead, this week, we are telling the story of a friend who may or may not have had his work plagiarized by a state department of tourism, and how his story underscores the challenges faced by writer and non-writers alike when it comes to creating good advertising. 

During the last two weeks, in an effort to identify for a radio creative director how to find more affordable training for his creative staff, new info has been thrown into the mix that may have painted me into a corner--but also may have provided some unexpected benefits in the effort to explain how to create better radio copywriting. And again, this is important info not just for those in radio, but for anyone interested in creating better advertising. 

Last time, the podcast was titled, "They All Laughed When I Tried To Write Better Advertising..." It was the first part of an effort to address a professional creative director's query about how to create better, more effective advertising with his team. In pondering this follow up, we realize, we may have missed something: the beginning. What is it that is required of any good copywriter who wants to create better advertising--and we hate to say this, but it's not found at a seminar. 

In the first installment of answering listeners' big, burning questions about branding and marketing, we address a professional creative director's query about how to create better, more effective advertising with his team. Training has become expensive and hard to find. Well, we give him an answer--and suspect it's not exactly the one he was looking for...

On Christmas Eve, we lost a legend. And in his wake, we leaves a legacy of smart, funny advertising underpinned by an extraordinary degree of thought, intellect and a willingness to share. 

REPRISE FROM JANUARY 2017: A fan from Romania asks how to brand a business--and says that many people say small businesses should not brand at all, but do only direct marketing--which makes us CRAZY. We review what brand really is and give a case study of a solopreneur whose business exploded by branding. 

Ready to learn something interesting about small business in the middle of somewhere? On this Boxing Day, it seemed like a good idea to wish a Happy Boxing Day to any folks who celebrate it. But we have scant few readers and listeners who do celebrate it. However, in figuring out all this info, we learned something really interesting, small-business-wise, about a spot that might be considered the middle of nowhere...

Once again, a brilliant example of big-business brand advertising demonstrates the power of artful storytelling in a way that's useful and informative for the owner of a small-business brand. 

It's that time of the year when Best Of lists are being compiled, and advertising is no exception. And one of the year's "best" advertisements is a striking example for the small business owner. But...of what?

Yes, we're talking about beer branding this week, and a likely publicity stunt by a craft brewer that ostensibly drew the ire of a big mega brewery--and provides a few laughs and a couple of good lessons for the small business owner...

As we continued our Napa tour as part of the CoupleCo interviews, The Fabulous Honey Parker and I came across an interesting and dynamic couple who operate a brewery. And they produce extraordinary brews that you may never get to taste. And that's OK. It's your loss, yes. But their scarcity is one of the keys to their success as a brand...

Visiting the largely unscathed Napa Valley in the wake of the fires (and finding that it really is open for business), we had a chance to sit down with a couple who makes fabulous wine, whose business is a product of love and balance, and who demonstrates how the love for a business and the power of a cult brand can really make big things happen. 

Napa after the fires has provided none of the apocalyptic strife predicted by so many in the wake of the Bad News about big fires. But what it did offer us was an interesting and cautionary tale of two brands and now you can get everything else right--but if you get Thing One wrong, you're basically circling the drain.

The news media may not have as its goal the undermining of an entire region's brand and livelihood--but the 24-hour all-devastation news cycle can do it--and has done it again. We almost became victims of it ourselves until someone told us we needed to get there ASAP and bring our tourist dollars. 

Yes, it might sound crazy. but it's worth considering: What is your personal brand as a customer. And there may be no better place to examine the benefits of that than in the milieu of contemporary air travel. 

"Social media advertising doesn't work!" That's a ridiculous statement when you consider how many people DO make it work. What doesn't work is the same thing that doesn't work across all media platforms--including traditional advertising platforms. And the fixing it is very, very simple. Want to know how? 

Velcro has created a hilarious and valuable lesson not only in trademark law, but in the value of creating a movement--even a fake one--to build a brand and the tribe. 

We here at Slow Burn Marketing love a breakthrough brand. We didn't expect to find one providing relief for victims of hurricane Irma. But it's there, and it's doing "super good..."

Brand focus is a brilliant thing. We argue that it is essential. And, we are huge fans on intense, laser focus--especially when it comes to the restaurant business. Single-item restaurants are fascinating. But there's a Chinese fast-casual chain with 6,000 stores that has just opened their first store in the United States. It sounds like they're having a challenge. What can the small-business brand learn from seemingly simple mistakes being made by an enormous Chinese brand opening up the Southern California market?

The alleged creator of a hugely successful national promotional campaign died this week--or did he? He died--but was he the creator? Maybe he was ultimately in charge of it. But it doesn't really matter--because his tenure at a top broadcasting network is reflective of successes and failures at every level--and provides a cautionary tale you can take with you into profitable small-business branding.

The Jewish bacon cure, insecurity, fear, megalomania--it's amazing what you can find behind a personal brand when you dig deep enough. The problem is, plenty of other potentially capable brands are derailed by fear and insecurity--when this brand proves that fear and insecurity can be worth millions. 

Yes, everyone loves to say that "Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." But that is flat-out wrong. First of all, the quote is "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." And a purposeful, focused consistency is how runners win marathons, and how a brand can be profitable. BUT--what happens when your purposeful and focused consistency becomes split? What happens when you do two things really well?

When bean counters run the show, they often believe they know everything because they know all about the beans. The problem lies in the fact that a business is more than mere beans. And one bean counter know-it-all we recently encountered was a perfect example--but despite his flaws, he still has something going for him that many small-business entrepreneurs lack. 

Without an open and coherent line of communication between the people running a business, and between them and the employees, much is lost--and it can end up making people look silly. It can also cost money. 

When your brand is authentic and you're committed, you will win--despite occasionally being confronted by other, disagreeable, personal brands. Stick to your guns--and to your beverages--and you will win. 

All across the heartland of this great nation are hilarious examples of bad advertising--and one in particular has not only hit us on the funny bone, but serves as an object lesson in how to write better, more profitable (one hopes) ad copy. 

There are plenty of folks who will argue that to be competitive requires having merely a better product and an intellectual justification for the benefits. They are wrong, and this particular business category illustrates the power of emotional branding run amok--and making money. 

A recent solicitation by an internet radio provider was supposed to tell me four essential truths about advertising with internet audio. What it actually revealed was partial truth combined with possible ignorance. Technology changes. People remain the same. And to ignore the truths of history that continue to rule, you are making it harder to reach your customer and easier to waste money.

Can you really become big enough as a small brand to inspire an attack from the big brands in your category? This object lesson in how a small brand looks and feels answers the question definitively: yes you can. 

Rebellion, dissension and non-conformity. Is it hard to imagine these qualities coming to the US from a British invader in a three-piece suit? On this Independence Day, we celebrate an independent-thinking British iconoclast who changed American advertising for the better--and influenced the way we all do business and make money. 

The advertising awards handed out at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity do not represent what small businesses can do with their miniscule advertising budgets--or do they? Can you really learn something from a big advertising case study for a small country that generated millions of dollars in free advertising with zero media budget?

The Most Interesting Man In The World is an example of an advertising campaign that has been made more successful without being made as interesting--and also serves as a decent study for the small business owner who needs to understand: profit isn't about pleasing a mass of people, but a single-well-defined core customer. 

Whether you're writing your own copy or someone's writing it for you, it's possible the copy is costing you money--by being incomplete. What are the words? What are they saying? What do they mean? And can you make them better--and more profitable? 

What works better and is more profitable for your business? No brand, or the wrong brand? Interestingly, there's an example of the different ways this can go out on the interstate highways of the Western United States...

A brand always has internal problems. It's how they deal with those problems in relation to the customer that determines success. And if that problem is made the customer's problem, there's a good chance that it will lose a potentially longterm customer. 

Advertising existentialism? Really? Isn't that equal parts highbrow and stupid? No. Because if you understand the need for meaning, it prevents you from creating meaningless advertising. Understanding the need for a message helps your advertising matter--and helps you bring customers to your business. 

What will happen when Slow Burn marketing appears live and presents a new brand to 45 employees--changing the business's name and giving it a newly defined mission after 38 years? The results might surprise you. 

There may be no better category whose branding and advertising better shows us how to NOT brand and advertise than this one. Blather and ad-speak abound. But it's really not that hard for a small business to do it well--and we see an easy-to-understand example of how it can be done easily and simply with little effort. 

The Pepsi Cola and Kendall Jenner fiasco has been dramatically upstaged by Heineken's "Worlds Apart" video, where strangers with opposing world views are forced to cooperate and have a conversation. So, what does this big-brand throw-down have to offer the small-business marketer? Quite a lot actually--especially when it comes to cashing in on emotional content. 

Huge amounts of time, money and hot air are wasted on the notion of being a disruptive brand. Here now, we explain  how that makes no sense. Disruption is really just a repackaging of an old-fashioned, easy-to-understand quality that can make a smart business owner enormously wealthy. 

What is the deal with a brand that is unapproachable, that subjects the customer to mockery, that causes pain both physical and psychic, bleeding and blisters, and is intensely sought after and highly selective? Here you are: this is the Barkley...

We continue with the idea of overnight success as a sexy, internationally known cult brand. Is that even possible? Yes it is--if you're prepared to spend several years working your butt off. But this couple is following a dream, making stuff happen--and has climbed to #1 in their niche out of more than 200 similar businesses rated on a major social media site. Big-brand thinking for small-business marketing, indeed. 

Overnight success as a sexy, internationally known cult brand? is that even possible? Yes it is--if you're prepared to spend several years working your butt off. But this couple is following a dream, making stuff happen--and has climbed to #1 in their niche out of more than 200 similar businesses rated on a major social media site. Big-brand thinking for small-business marketing, indeed. 

Ask the internet. They'll tell ya, right? Crowd sourcing, focus grouping, asking ANYONE'S opinion without judiciously picking your subjects, and you will find a special kind of hellacious mayhem penetrates your branding and marketing. 

Accidentally tuning into a Hot AC station left me listening to some whole new advertising--and providing a profitable lesson in branding and advertising for the small-business owner, especially if you're a dentist or oral surgeon. It also provides a valuable lesson in how your branding and subsequent Google ads might not be stacking up against the competition. 

Is it really possible for a multi-billion-dollar business's multi-million-dollar TV sponsorship to serve as an object lesson for the small-business marketer? Why, yes. Yes it is. And here's how Hollywood helps us see the limelight.