If the recent Canadian election has proven anything, is that messaging is CENTRAL to the success of any marketing initiative and the lack of a cohesive one can spell doom for any campaign.
The big story behind this year’s Canadian election has to be the meteoric rise of the NDP and the historic collapse of the Liberal Party. And I am convinced that this is absolutely because of the NDP out messaged and out marketed the Liberal’s at every turn.
Entering the election, the Liberals were the hands down favorite to form the opposition or even to win the election outright. So what happened?
The Liberal Party did what many businesses do: pretend that messaging and marketing ideas don’t matter, and that simply by comparing themselves to the alternative, consumers (or voters) will choose “the better product”.
The NDP however, did a masterful job in terms of marketing. So good, in fact, that they leap frogged the Liberal Party and ended up in second place: a monumental feat for a party that only had 3 weeks to run a campaign and wasn’t expected to accomplish much.
So what did the NDP do what can you learn from it?
Firstly, the NDP realized that their greatest strength was their leader Jack Layton. In political terms, the party leader is the party brand. Mr. Layton is an affable, down to earth, friendly guy and they featured him everywhere. And, understanding that his direct competitor (Michael Ignatieff) was thought of to be a bit of a stiff, stuffy and elitist (sorry Mike), they did a great job in terms of showcasing Mr. Layton as a foil: full of energy and spunk and passion.
The Liberals, however, had Michael Ignatieff in hiding it seems. They never showed him in their ads. Not showcasing him is like having a company without a logo. How can we recognize him if we can’t see him.
How do we remember him if he’s never there?
The Lesson: Your key strengths should be front and centre, and should contrast your competitor’s key weaknesses. Your messaging should reflect this.
Secondly, the NDP a superb job of breaking down their platform into bite sized chunks for people to quickly digest. Just take a look at their ad from the Metro daily a few days before the election. It wonderfully breaks down their key election promises, and –once again- features Mr. Layton front and centre. Their television ads also did a great job of highlighting their desire to end corporate tax cuts and to contrast that with their vision for a strong middle class. The messaging was just perfect.
The Liberals, on the other hand, never broke down their platform in any way. I’ve talked to many people who voted Liberal this election season and only a handful could tell me what the party was running on as a platform. Not having a list of differentials is messaging suicide.
The Lesson: break down your message into bite-sized chunks that can easily be absorbed by people and remembered.
Thirdly, the NDP didn’t skimp where it counted: advertising spend. It’s one thing to have a great ad and message but if people don’t see it what’s the point?
Now I’m a television junkie. I always have it playing in the background as I work or when I’m home. I lost count of the number of times I saw NDP ads playing. They did a great job reaching different channels and demographics.
Contrast that to the Liberals who barely had any ads on TV at all. I counted seeing just three ads in total during the entire 4 week campaign
The Lesson: don’t nickel and dime your marketing campaign. You need to push your message out to as many people as possible within your ideal demographics.
It may seem trivial, but the Liberal Party so horribly conducted their election marketing that it was a major –and I would argue central- reason for their total collapse in the election. They failed to explain to people who they were, what they stood for, what they wanted to do, and how they could change lives.
In this sense, many businesses suffer from the same marketing failures.
Take a look at your messaging and ask yourself these key questions:
“What can we do to stand out?”
“Do we have a meaningful reason to be chosen over more popular competitors?”
“How can we incorporate our unique attributes into our messaging?”
“How can we show potential clients how we might be able to change their lives?”
Great messaging is central to great marketing. The difference can be whether you go down in history as a winner or slink off the stage as the loser.
Yusuf Gad
President a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca
August 26, 2010
New Clients: Spanish Centre and Quasar Music!
Wow! It’s been a great and busy August!
I’m really happy to announce a5MEDIA’s newest clients: the Spanish Centre of Toronto and Quasar Music Academy.
The Spanish Centre has chosen a5MEDIA to redo their website and Quasar Music Academy and selected a5MEDIA to create their new visual identity and website in time for them to open their doors for the fall.
Both these projects will see us developing content management systems as well as a back-end where these clients can manage their courses online.
We are super excited to have these two great companies as part of the a5MEDIA family.
Welcome aboard!
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc.
http://www.a5media.ca
I’m really happy to announce a5MEDIA’s newest clients: the Spanish Centre of Toronto and Quasar Music Academy.
The Spanish Centre has chosen a5MEDIA to redo their website and Quasar Music Academy and selected a5MEDIA to create their new visual identity and website in time for them to open their doors for the fall.
Both these projects will see us developing content management systems as well as a back-end where these clients can manage their courses online.
We are super excited to have these two great companies as part of the a5MEDIA family.
Welcome aboard!
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc.
http://www.a5media.ca
August 11, 2010
5 Excuses to Conquer For Better Marketing Results
There are many reasons why a marketing campaign can go bad. Timing, strategy, execution, bad luck. They can all play a part.
Many marketing initiatives, however, are sabotaged before they even start.
Many business owners and entrepreneurs are actually their own worst enemy when it comes to marketing. Many will find every excuse in the book not to deal with it, not to make hard choices or not to have to address critical issues.
Today, I want to highlight the 5 excuses that every manager, business owner, and entrepreneur has to overcome to guarantee better marketing results.
The 5 Excuses:
1. Our business is different or special. It doesn’t require marketing.
I’ve heard this one so often, the next time I hear it my ears will probably bleed. 99.999% of all businesses are all based on the Customer, Company, and Competitor triangle.
The triangle is simple: the Customer does business with the Company, while the Company tries and keep the Competitor away from the Customer. The same dynamics that a small bakery has in this triangle are the same dynamics an international conglomerate has with this triangle: the Company needs to communicate effectively its brand and value to the Client, to avoid them churning to the Competitor.
So unless you own a monopoly on a vital service where people HAVE to buy from you and unless you have ZERO competitors (now or in the future), your business needs marketing. Period.
2. It’s all too complicated. I don’t want to have to learn all this marketing mumbo jumbo.
Marketing is no more or less complicated than accounting, legal, human resources, inventory control, supply chain management, customer service, safety standards, government regulations or the 1000 other things your business deals with on a daily basis.
Like all of those things, once you put systems in place to help you manage and execute them, marketing can easily find its way into your daily routine. And once it becomes part of your routine, you pick up on it easily, because the fundamentals of marketing are dead simple to understand.
And unlike most of those tasks already mentioned, marketing will actually help you MAKE money –not simply spend money.
3. What we’ve done has always worked in the past. There is no need to change it.
In the last 10 years marketing has changed so much, that if you are still doing the “same old , same old” you are walking down the path to closing your doors to new business –permanently. I still come across businesses that insist on only advertising on the radio, or in the same magazine that they did a decade ago because it netted them past success. They tell me they do this because “that’s where their clients are”.
The problem is that that isn’t true. That’s where the clients WERE. Today, clients are online, on phones, and are younger. Not adapting your brand and marketing strategies will only mean that you are actually LOSING clients to your competitors.
If you only do what you did before, you’ll never expand to get new clients from different demographics. Diversifying your marketing is important because it helps you grow your business into different segments, protecting you from client churn and making it harder for your competitors to keep up.
4. I’ll deal with my marketing after I return from vacation.
No you won’t.
When you return back from your vacation you’ll need a vacation from your vacation. And then you’ll have to deal with your inbox. And then you’ll have to deal with office issues. And then you’ll have to catch up on paperwork. Before you know it, 6 months have passed and you haven’t touched your marketing.
Deal with marketing NOW. Deal with it BEFORE you go on vacation so when you return you know you’ll have it at the top of your “to do” list. Trust me. You’ll be amazed at how much more efficient you’ll be.
5. We can’t afford marketing because business is slow. We’ll revisit it when things get better.
If this excuse was expressed as a function of the space-time continuum, the resulting paradox would destroy all reality as we know it.
Business will never pick up without marketing. And business is slow because when business was busy, you probably didn’t market. Marketing is something you need to do ALL THE TIME! Sometimes you can only afford to do a little, sometimes you are able to invest a lot. But you should always be doing something.
Remember: anything is better than nothing when it comes to marketing.
Conquer these 5 excuses and you will see a guaranteed improvement in your marketing and sales.
Marketing isn’t one giant leap. It’s a step by step journey. So don’t let there be any excuse for you to take that first stride!
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca
Many marketing initiatives, however, are sabotaged before they even start.
Many business owners and entrepreneurs are actually their own worst enemy when it comes to marketing. Many will find every excuse in the book not to deal with it, not to make hard choices or not to have to address critical issues.
Today, I want to highlight the 5 excuses that every manager, business owner, and entrepreneur has to overcome to guarantee better marketing results.
The 5 Excuses:
1. Our business is different or special. It doesn’t require marketing.
I’ve heard this one so often, the next time I hear it my ears will probably bleed. 99.999% of all businesses are all based on the Customer, Company, and Competitor triangle.
The triangle is simple: the Customer does business with the Company, while the Company tries and keep the Competitor away from the Customer. The same dynamics that a small bakery has in this triangle are the same dynamics an international conglomerate has with this triangle: the Company needs to communicate effectively its brand and value to the Client, to avoid them churning to the Competitor.
So unless you own a monopoly on a vital service where people HAVE to buy from you and unless you have ZERO competitors (now or in the future), your business needs marketing. Period.
2. It’s all too complicated. I don’t want to have to learn all this marketing mumbo jumbo.
Marketing is no more or less complicated than accounting, legal, human resources, inventory control, supply chain management, customer service, safety standards, government regulations or the 1000 other things your business deals with on a daily basis.
Like all of those things, once you put systems in place to help you manage and execute them, marketing can easily find its way into your daily routine. And once it becomes part of your routine, you pick up on it easily, because the fundamentals of marketing are dead simple to understand.
And unlike most of those tasks already mentioned, marketing will actually help you MAKE money –not simply spend money.
3. What we’ve done has always worked in the past. There is no need to change it.
In the last 10 years marketing has changed so much, that if you are still doing the “same old , same old” you are walking down the path to closing your doors to new business –permanently. I still come across businesses that insist on only advertising on the radio, or in the same magazine that they did a decade ago because it netted them past success. They tell me they do this because “that’s where their clients are”.
The problem is that that isn’t true. That’s where the clients WERE. Today, clients are online, on phones, and are younger. Not adapting your brand and marketing strategies will only mean that you are actually LOSING clients to your competitors.
If you only do what you did before, you’ll never expand to get new clients from different demographics. Diversifying your marketing is important because it helps you grow your business into different segments, protecting you from client churn and making it harder for your competitors to keep up.
4. I’ll deal with my marketing after I return from vacation.
No you won’t.
When you return back from your vacation you’ll need a vacation from your vacation. And then you’ll have to deal with your inbox. And then you’ll have to deal with office issues. And then you’ll have to catch up on paperwork. Before you know it, 6 months have passed and you haven’t touched your marketing.
Deal with marketing NOW. Deal with it BEFORE you go on vacation so when you return you know you’ll have it at the top of your “to do” list. Trust me. You’ll be amazed at how much more efficient you’ll be.
5. We can’t afford marketing because business is slow. We’ll revisit it when things get better.
If this excuse was expressed as a function of the space-time continuum, the resulting paradox would destroy all reality as we know it.
Business will never pick up without marketing. And business is slow because when business was busy, you probably didn’t market. Marketing is something you need to do ALL THE TIME! Sometimes you can only afford to do a little, sometimes you are able to invest a lot. But you should always be doing something.
Remember: anything is better than nothing when it comes to marketing.
Conquer these 5 excuses and you will see a guaranteed improvement in your marketing and sales.
Marketing isn’t one giant leap. It’s a step by step journey. So don’t let there be any excuse for you to take that first stride!
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca
June 27, 2010
Meet the newest team member at a5MEDIA: RED!
This week I'd like to introduce you to RED. Our new company mascot (the old RED passed away a while ago).
Welcome aboard RED!
June 14, 2010
It's not you. It's me.
In this week's blog posting, I've been asked to talk about why some companies have bad relationships with their creative agencies.
In the years that I’ve done marketing I've began to notice patterns with clients. Many companies come to us –like a jilted lover- having had a very bad experience with their previous marketing firm.
Working with businesses like these is like dating someone on the rebound. They are hurt, they feel betrayed, and they are looking for someone to blame.
But just like any relationships, some businesses find themselves constantly in bad ones. They never see their own patterns. As a result, they repeat the same mistakes and end up in the same painful relationships again and again.
One of the patterns is some businesses blame their previous creative firm totally for the collapse of a project.
Now, while I know there are a lot of incompetent creative firms out there, it’s also true that it takes two to tango. Just like when dating, there are rarely any innocent victims. One of the pair is usually passive aggressive, an enabler, a bad fit, or has unrealistic expectations.
But regardless of the couple, the story I hear from these jilted businesses is almost always the same:
In all these cases, the companies professed to be the innocent victims of a shady and predatory creative agency.
But is that really a likely scenario?
For starters, marketing projects are expensive. I find it highly unlikely that a company simply handed over money to a marketing firm without seeing a portfolio first and checking out come clients.
Somewhere during these discussions a proposal was put in place that outlined the deliverables and the time lines. So there should be no surprises.
So does it seem likely that this creative agency went through the bother of forging websites and references, contracts and portfolios just so they can engage in a failed project to “rip you off”?
And, even if the business moved forward on a project based solely on the agency's portfolio, surely they must have enjoyed what they saw or else they wouldn’t have hired them in the first place.
Does it seem likely that a creative agency -whose work the company admired- suddenly started sucking and forgot how to do logos and websites? Do you think that at the moment of starting the project, the agency somehow became terrible copywriters or branders?
When we have taken on companies who have had bad experiences with their previous agencies, we do notice something that may explain why so many of their past projects have failed.
In many cases, these companies have the same personality and engage projects with the same attitude.
Tell me if you see yourself in any of this (or if you are a fellow creative agency: if you see any of your clients):
Businesses with previously bad experiences with creative agencies have usually:
Without fail, companies who have had bad experiences with past agencies have had these kinds of personalities. And you can now see why their past projects have failed.
A good creative agency only knows how to do one thing: good work. They don’t know how to do bad designs or bad marketing.
So when faced with a client that is pushing to have things “their way” it becomes understandable that any credible agency will push back and try to convince the client to go in a more successful direction. It is, after all, our responsibility to do so. This is usually the source for most of this friction and the ultimate reason why many projects fail.
So if you have had a bad experience with a marketing firm, odds are you may have played a small role in the situation. Don't feel bad. You're in good company.
But If you feel that’s the case, call up your ex and tell them: "It’s not you. It’s me."
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca
In the years that I’ve done marketing I've began to notice patterns with clients. Many companies come to us –like a jilted lover- having had a very bad experience with their previous marketing firm.
Working with businesses like these is like dating someone on the rebound. They are hurt, they feel betrayed, and they are looking for someone to blame.
But just like any relationships, some businesses find themselves constantly in bad ones. They never see their own patterns. As a result, they repeat the same mistakes and end up in the same painful relationships again and again.
One of the patterns is some businesses blame their previous creative firm totally for the collapse of a project.
Now, while I know there are a lot of incompetent creative firms out there, it’s also true that it takes two to tango. Just like when dating, there are rarely any innocent victims. One of the pair is usually passive aggressive, an enabler, a bad fit, or has unrealistic expectations.
But regardless of the couple, the story I hear from these jilted businesses is almost always the same:
- Business hired creative firm.
- Business assigned a project to the creative firm.
- Deadline were promised.
- Payments were made.
- Work was produced.
- Work was not liked by business.
- Work was redone many times.
- Work was still not liked by business.
- Deadlines were missed.
- Tempers flared.
- Projects where canceled.
- Relationships ended.
- Blame was assigned.
- Heartbreak ensued.
In all these cases, the companies professed to be the innocent victims of a shady and predatory creative agency.
But is that really a likely scenario?
For starters, marketing projects are expensive. I find it highly unlikely that a company simply handed over money to a marketing firm without seeing a portfolio first and checking out come clients.
Somewhere during these discussions a proposal was put in place that outlined the deliverables and the time lines. So there should be no surprises.
So does it seem likely that this creative agency went through the bother of forging websites and references, contracts and portfolios just so they can engage in a failed project to “rip you off”?
And, even if the business moved forward on a project based solely on the agency's portfolio, surely they must have enjoyed what they saw or else they wouldn’t have hired them in the first place.
Does it seem likely that a creative agency -whose work the company admired- suddenly started sucking and forgot how to do logos and websites? Do you think that at the moment of starting the project, the agency somehow became terrible copywriters or branders?
When we have taken on companies who have had bad experiences with their previous agencies, we do notice something that may explain why so many of their past projects have failed.
In many cases, these companies have the same personality and engage projects with the same attitude.
Tell me if you see yourself in any of this (or if you are a fellow creative agency: if you see any of your clients):
Businesses with previously bad experiences with creative agencies have usually:
- Insisted on micromanaged projects.
- Insisted that they know more about design than the graphic designers.
- Insisted that they know more about copywriting than the copywriters.
- Insisted that they know more about branding than the brand expert.
- Insisted they know more about advertising than the advertising agency.
- Insisted that they could do their marketing themselves if they “only knew how to use the software”.
Without fail, companies who have had bad experiences with past agencies have had these kinds of personalities. And you can now see why their past projects have failed.
A good creative agency only knows how to do one thing: good work. They don’t know how to do bad designs or bad marketing.
So when faced with a client that is pushing to have things “their way” it becomes understandable that any credible agency will push back and try to convince the client to go in a more successful direction. It is, after all, our responsibility to do so. This is usually the source for most of this friction and the ultimate reason why many projects fail.
So if you have had a bad experience with a marketing firm, odds are you may have played a small role in the situation. Don't feel bad. You're in good company.
But If you feel that’s the case, call up your ex and tell them: "It’s not you. It’s me."
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca
June 01, 2010
a5MEDIA YouTube Post: Copywriting: What, Why and How
Copywriting. Every business needs it. Few know how to do it well.
In this video we talk about the importance of copywriting, some tips to have better copywriting, and we even make some suggestions as to some books you can read to help you be better copywriters.
Those books are:
Words That Sell: http://www.amazon.ca/Words-that-Sell-Revised-Expanded/dp/...
The Copywriter's Handbook: http://www.amazon.com/Copywriters-Handbook-Step-Step-Writ...
The Elements of Style: http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-50th-Anniversary/dp/...
In this video we talk about the importance of copywriting, some tips to have better copywriting, and we even make some suggestions as to some books you can read to help you be better copywriters.
Those books are:
Words That Sell: http://www.amazon.ca/Words-that-Sell-Revised-Expanded/dp/...
The Copywriter's Handbook: http://www.amazon.com/Copywriters-Handbook-Step-Step-Writ...
The Elements of Style: http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-50th-Anniversary/dp/...
BP and the Epic Brand Fail of the Year
Last year I wrote about how green washing was going to be the big issue for the future. And BP is doing a great job of proving this.
As you probably already know, BP is responsible for the biggest environmental disaster in North American history. Their off shore oil rig sprung a leak and now the Gulf of Mexico is nothing more than an 1000 mile wide oil stain. The entire region will be devastated for a generation, and scientists are already saying that entire species may not survive.
But this isn't an environmental blog. If you'd like to learn more about that aspect of this story, you can find some great information here.
The survival story -or extinction story- I'm more interested in is that of BP.
When the Exxon Valdez spill happened in 1989, Exxon didn't collapse. The spill was horrific, it killed thousands of animals and ruined many lives, but the company is still here today and trading pretty well on Wall Street.
No one seriously thought that Exxon would collapse because of their oil spill, yet today, many people suspect that BP may not survive their spill.
The failure of BP has more to do with how it positioned itself in the market place then how it is handling the oil spill.
Let's get something straight: all oil companies are "big and evil". They know they make a product that is environmentally hazardous. They know that it is the source of much economic, political, and military instability across the world. And they know that they are getting countries addicted to a finite resource that will eventually dry out leaving us scrambling for options.
Exxon is a great example of a "big and evil" oil company. They make no bones about it: they are in the oil business to make money. Period.
BP, however, tried a different approach.
Until 2000, BP was known as British Petroleum, when someone decided it would be a brilliant move to rebrand themselves to look more earth friendly, and less imperial.
They undertook a revolutionary rebrand that transformed them from BP: British Petroleum to BP: Beyond Petroleum. It was genius. They had positioned themselves as the anti-oil company: an oil company that hated being an oil company, and was desperately seeking alternatives to their dirty main product. An oil company that wanted to place the planet ahead of the profits.
So when their oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico sprung a leak, it took many ordinary consumers by surprise that the anti-oil company was suddenly acting like their big, evil cousins.
From day one, BP has tried covering up the true volume of the oil being leaked into the waters, and even tried to force the oil rig workers to sign a release form absolving BP of any responsibility.
Never mind the fact that their oh so corporate penny pinching resulted in BP not investing in the very technology needed to have prevented the spill in the first place and to prevent the deaths of the 11 oil rig workers that died in the explosion that started this whole debacle.
BP may fail because -for years- it has been sending out a message and a brand promise that they are now undermining on a minute-by-minute basis. It's a hypocrisy that, in the digital age and the age of YouTube, is being pointed out and hammered home in the bluntest way possible.
BP is a classic example of an epic brand failure. If you break your promise you are doomed to collapse. As it stands, we may be witnessing something that hasn't happened in a generation: the collapse of an oil titan.
So what can you learn from BP? Simple: keep your brand promises and you will keep your business -not matter what the disaster.
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
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May 09, 2011
The Politics of Messaging. Lessons From Election Branding.
If the recent Canadian election has proven anything, is that messaging is CENTRAL to the success of any marketing initiative and the lack of a cohesive one can spell doom for any campaign.
The big story behind this year’s Canadian election has to be the meteoric rise of the NDP and the historic collapse of the Liberal Party. And I am convinced that this is absolutely because of the NDP out messaged and out marketed the Liberal’s at every turn.
Entering the election, the Liberals were the hands down favorite to form the opposition or even to win the election outright. So what happened?
The Liberal Party did what many businesses do: pretend that messaging and marketing ideas don’t matter, and that simply by comparing themselves to the alternative, consumers (or voters) will choose “the better product”.
The NDP however, did a masterful job in terms of marketing. So good, in fact, that they leap frogged the Liberal Party and ended up in second place: a monumental feat for a party that only had 3 weeks to run a campaign and wasn’t expected to accomplish much.
So what did the NDP do what can you learn from it?
Firstly, the NDP realized that their greatest strength was their leader Jack Layton. In political terms, the party leader is the party brand. Mr. Layton is an affable, down to earth, friendly guy and they featured him everywhere. And, understanding that his direct competitor (Michael Ignatieff) was thought of to be a bit of a stiff, stuffy and elitist (sorry Mike), they did a great job in terms of showcasing Mr. Layton as a foil: full of energy and spunk and passion.
The Liberals, however, had Michael Ignatieff in hiding it seems. They never showed him in their ads. Not showcasing him is like having a company without a logo. How can we recognize him if we can’t see him.
How do we remember him if he’s never there?
The Lesson: Your key strengths should be front and centre, and should contrast your competitor’s key weaknesses. Your messaging should reflect this.
Secondly, the NDP a superb job of breaking down their platform into bite sized chunks for people to quickly digest. Just take a look at their ad from the Metro daily a few days before the election. It wonderfully breaks down their key election promises, and –once again- features Mr. Layton front and centre. Their television ads also did a great job of highlighting their desire to end corporate tax cuts and to contrast that with their vision for a strong middle class. The messaging was just perfect.
The Liberals, on the other hand, never broke down their platform in any way. I’ve talked to many people who voted Liberal this election season and only a handful could tell me what the party was running on as a platform. Not having a list of differentials is messaging suicide.
The Lesson: break down your message into bite-sized chunks that can easily be absorbed by people and remembered.
Thirdly, the NDP didn’t skimp where it counted: advertising spend. It’s one thing to have a great ad and message but if people don’t see it what’s the point?
Now I’m a television junkie. I always have it playing in the background as I work or when I’m home. I lost count of the number of times I saw NDP ads playing. They did a great job reaching different channels and demographics.
Contrast that to the Liberals who barely had any ads on TV at all. I counted seeing just three ads in total during the entire 4 week campaign
The Lesson: don’t nickel and dime your marketing campaign. You need to push your message out to as many people as possible within your ideal demographics.
It may seem trivial, but the Liberal Party so horribly conducted their election marketing that it was a major –and I would argue central- reason for their total collapse in the election. They failed to explain to people who they were, what they stood for, what they wanted to do, and how they could change lives.
In this sense, many businesses suffer from the same marketing failures.
Take a look at your messaging and ask yourself these key questions:
“What can we do to stand out?”
“Do we have a meaningful reason to be chosen over more popular competitors?”
“How can we incorporate our unique attributes into our messaging?”
“How can we show potential clients how we might be able to change their lives?”
Great messaging is central to great marketing. The difference can be whether you go down in history as a winner or slink off the stage as the loser.
Yusuf Gad
President a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca
The big story behind this year’s Canadian election has to be the meteoric rise of the NDP and the historic collapse of the Liberal Party. And I am convinced that this is absolutely because of the NDP out messaged and out marketed the Liberal’s at every turn.
Entering the election, the Liberals were the hands down favorite to form the opposition or even to win the election outright. So what happened?
The Liberal Party did what many businesses do: pretend that messaging and marketing ideas don’t matter, and that simply by comparing themselves to the alternative, consumers (or voters) will choose “the better product”.
The NDP however, did a masterful job in terms of marketing. So good, in fact, that they leap frogged the Liberal Party and ended up in second place: a monumental feat for a party that only had 3 weeks to run a campaign and wasn’t expected to accomplish much.
So what did the NDP do what can you learn from it?
Firstly, the NDP realized that their greatest strength was their leader Jack Layton. In political terms, the party leader is the party brand. Mr. Layton is an affable, down to earth, friendly guy and they featured him everywhere. And, understanding that his direct competitor (Michael Ignatieff) was thought of to be a bit of a stiff, stuffy and elitist (sorry Mike), they did a great job in terms of showcasing Mr. Layton as a foil: full of energy and spunk and passion.
The Liberals, however, had Michael Ignatieff in hiding it seems. They never showed him in their ads. Not showcasing him is like having a company without a logo. How can we recognize him if we can’t see him.
How do we remember him if he’s never there?
The Lesson: Your key strengths should be front and centre, and should contrast your competitor’s key weaknesses. Your messaging should reflect this.
Secondly, the NDP a superb job of breaking down their platform into bite sized chunks for people to quickly digest. Just take a look at their ad from the Metro daily a few days before the election. It wonderfully breaks down their key election promises, and –once again- features Mr. Layton front and centre. Their television ads also did a great job of highlighting their desire to end corporate tax cuts and to contrast that with their vision for a strong middle class. The messaging was just perfect.
The Liberals, on the other hand, never broke down their platform in any way. I’ve talked to many people who voted Liberal this election season and only a handful could tell me what the party was running on as a platform. Not having a list of differentials is messaging suicide.
The Lesson: break down your message into bite-sized chunks that can easily be absorbed by people and remembered.
Thirdly, the NDP didn’t skimp where it counted: advertising spend. It’s one thing to have a great ad and message but if people don’t see it what’s the point?
Now I’m a television junkie. I always have it playing in the background as I work or when I’m home. I lost count of the number of times I saw NDP ads playing. They did a great job reaching different channels and demographics.
Contrast that to the Liberals who barely had any ads on TV at all. I counted seeing just three ads in total during the entire 4 week campaign
The Lesson: don’t nickel and dime your marketing campaign. You need to push your message out to as many people as possible within your ideal demographics.
It may seem trivial, but the Liberal Party so horribly conducted their election marketing that it was a major –and I would argue central- reason for their total collapse in the election. They failed to explain to people who they were, what they stood for, what they wanted to do, and how they could change lives.
In this sense, many businesses suffer from the same marketing failures.
Take a look at your messaging and ask yourself these key questions:
“What can we do to stand out?”
“Do we have a meaningful reason to be chosen over more popular competitors?”
“How can we incorporate our unique attributes into our messaging?”
“How can we show potential clients how we might be able to change their lives?”
Great messaging is central to great marketing. The difference can be whether you go down in history as a winner or slink off the stage as the loser.
Yusuf Gad
President a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca
August 26, 2010
New Clients: Spanish Centre and Quasar Music!
Wow! It’s been a great and busy August!
I’m really happy to announce a5MEDIA’s newest clients: the Spanish Centre of Toronto and Quasar Music Academy.
The Spanish Centre has chosen a5MEDIA to redo their website and Quasar Music Academy and selected a5MEDIA to create their new visual identity and website in time for them to open their doors for the fall.
Both these projects will see us developing content management systems as well as a back-end where these clients can manage their courses online.
We are super excited to have these two great companies as part of the a5MEDIA family.
Welcome aboard!
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc.
http://www.a5media.ca
I’m really happy to announce a5MEDIA’s newest clients: the Spanish Centre of Toronto and Quasar Music Academy.
The Spanish Centre has chosen a5MEDIA to redo their website and Quasar Music Academy and selected a5MEDIA to create their new visual identity and website in time for them to open their doors for the fall.
Both these projects will see us developing content management systems as well as a back-end where these clients can manage their courses online.
We are super excited to have these two great companies as part of the a5MEDIA family.
Welcome aboard!
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc.
http://www.a5media.ca
August 11, 2010
5 Excuses to Conquer For Better Marketing Results
There are many reasons why a marketing campaign can go bad. Timing, strategy, execution, bad luck. They can all play a part.
Many marketing initiatives, however, are sabotaged before they even start.
Many business owners and entrepreneurs are actually their own worst enemy when it comes to marketing. Many will find every excuse in the book not to deal with it, not to make hard choices or not to have to address critical issues.
Today, I want to highlight the 5 excuses that every manager, business owner, and entrepreneur has to overcome to guarantee better marketing results.
The 5 Excuses:
1. Our business is different or special. It doesn’t require marketing.
I’ve heard this one so often, the next time I hear it my ears will probably bleed. 99.999% of all businesses are all based on the Customer, Company, and Competitor triangle.
The triangle is simple: the Customer does business with the Company, while the Company tries and keep the Competitor away from the Customer. The same dynamics that a small bakery has in this triangle are the same dynamics an international conglomerate has with this triangle: the Company needs to communicate effectively its brand and value to the Client, to avoid them churning to the Competitor.
So unless you own a monopoly on a vital service where people HAVE to buy from you and unless you have ZERO competitors (now or in the future), your business needs marketing. Period.
2. It’s all too complicated. I don’t want to have to learn all this marketing mumbo jumbo.
Marketing is no more or less complicated than accounting, legal, human resources, inventory control, supply chain management, customer service, safety standards, government regulations or the 1000 other things your business deals with on a daily basis.
Like all of those things, once you put systems in place to help you manage and execute them, marketing can easily find its way into your daily routine. And once it becomes part of your routine, you pick up on it easily, because the fundamentals of marketing are dead simple to understand.
And unlike most of those tasks already mentioned, marketing will actually help you MAKE money –not simply spend money.
3. What we’ve done has always worked in the past. There is no need to change it.
In the last 10 years marketing has changed so much, that if you are still doing the “same old , same old” you are walking down the path to closing your doors to new business –permanently. I still come across businesses that insist on only advertising on the radio, or in the same magazine that they did a decade ago because it netted them past success. They tell me they do this because “that’s where their clients are”.
The problem is that that isn’t true. That’s where the clients WERE. Today, clients are online, on phones, and are younger. Not adapting your brand and marketing strategies will only mean that you are actually LOSING clients to your competitors.
If you only do what you did before, you’ll never expand to get new clients from different demographics. Diversifying your marketing is important because it helps you grow your business into different segments, protecting you from client churn and making it harder for your competitors to keep up.
4. I’ll deal with my marketing after I return from vacation.
No you won’t.
When you return back from your vacation you’ll need a vacation from your vacation. And then you’ll have to deal with your inbox. And then you’ll have to deal with office issues. And then you’ll have to catch up on paperwork. Before you know it, 6 months have passed and you haven’t touched your marketing.
Deal with marketing NOW. Deal with it BEFORE you go on vacation so when you return you know you’ll have it at the top of your “to do” list. Trust me. You’ll be amazed at how much more efficient you’ll be.
5. We can’t afford marketing because business is slow. We’ll revisit it when things get better.
If this excuse was expressed as a function of the space-time continuum, the resulting paradox would destroy all reality as we know it.
Business will never pick up without marketing. And business is slow because when business was busy, you probably didn’t market. Marketing is something you need to do ALL THE TIME! Sometimes you can only afford to do a little, sometimes you are able to invest a lot. But you should always be doing something.
Remember: anything is better than nothing when it comes to marketing.
Conquer these 5 excuses and you will see a guaranteed improvement in your marketing and sales.
Marketing isn’t one giant leap. It’s a step by step journey. So don’t let there be any excuse for you to take that first stride!
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca
Many marketing initiatives, however, are sabotaged before they even start.
Many business owners and entrepreneurs are actually their own worst enemy when it comes to marketing. Many will find every excuse in the book not to deal with it, not to make hard choices or not to have to address critical issues.
Today, I want to highlight the 5 excuses that every manager, business owner, and entrepreneur has to overcome to guarantee better marketing results.
The 5 Excuses:
1. Our business is different or special. It doesn’t require marketing.
I’ve heard this one so often, the next time I hear it my ears will probably bleed. 99.999% of all businesses are all based on the Customer, Company, and Competitor triangle.
The triangle is simple: the Customer does business with the Company, while the Company tries and keep the Competitor away from the Customer. The same dynamics that a small bakery has in this triangle are the same dynamics an international conglomerate has with this triangle: the Company needs to communicate effectively its brand and value to the Client, to avoid them churning to the Competitor.
So unless you own a monopoly on a vital service where people HAVE to buy from you and unless you have ZERO competitors (now or in the future), your business needs marketing. Period.
2. It’s all too complicated. I don’t want to have to learn all this marketing mumbo jumbo.
Marketing is no more or less complicated than accounting, legal, human resources, inventory control, supply chain management, customer service, safety standards, government regulations or the 1000 other things your business deals with on a daily basis.
Like all of those things, once you put systems in place to help you manage and execute them, marketing can easily find its way into your daily routine. And once it becomes part of your routine, you pick up on it easily, because the fundamentals of marketing are dead simple to understand.
And unlike most of those tasks already mentioned, marketing will actually help you MAKE money –not simply spend money.
3. What we’ve done has always worked in the past. There is no need to change it.
In the last 10 years marketing has changed so much, that if you are still doing the “same old , same old” you are walking down the path to closing your doors to new business –permanently. I still come across businesses that insist on only advertising on the radio, or in the same magazine that they did a decade ago because it netted them past success. They tell me they do this because “that’s where their clients are”.
The problem is that that isn’t true. That’s where the clients WERE. Today, clients are online, on phones, and are younger. Not adapting your brand and marketing strategies will only mean that you are actually LOSING clients to your competitors.
If you only do what you did before, you’ll never expand to get new clients from different demographics. Diversifying your marketing is important because it helps you grow your business into different segments, protecting you from client churn and making it harder for your competitors to keep up.
4. I’ll deal with my marketing after I return from vacation.
No you won’t.
When you return back from your vacation you’ll need a vacation from your vacation. And then you’ll have to deal with your inbox. And then you’ll have to deal with office issues. And then you’ll have to catch up on paperwork. Before you know it, 6 months have passed and you haven’t touched your marketing.
Deal with marketing NOW. Deal with it BEFORE you go on vacation so when you return you know you’ll have it at the top of your “to do” list. Trust me. You’ll be amazed at how much more efficient you’ll be.
5. We can’t afford marketing because business is slow. We’ll revisit it when things get better.
If this excuse was expressed as a function of the space-time continuum, the resulting paradox would destroy all reality as we know it.
Business will never pick up without marketing. And business is slow because when business was busy, you probably didn’t market. Marketing is something you need to do ALL THE TIME! Sometimes you can only afford to do a little, sometimes you are able to invest a lot. But you should always be doing something.
Remember: anything is better than nothing when it comes to marketing.
Conquer these 5 excuses and you will see a guaranteed improvement in your marketing and sales.
Marketing isn’t one giant leap. It’s a step by step journey. So don’t let there be any excuse for you to take that first stride!
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca
June 27, 2010
Meet the newest team member at a5MEDIA: RED!
This week I'd like to introduce you to RED. Our new company mascot (the old RED passed away a while ago).
Welcome aboard RED!
June 14, 2010
It's not you. It's me.
In this week's blog posting, I've been asked to talk about why some companies have bad relationships with their creative agencies.
In the years that I’ve done marketing I've began to notice patterns with clients. Many companies come to us –like a jilted lover- having had a very bad experience with their previous marketing firm.
Working with businesses like these is like dating someone on the rebound. They are hurt, they feel betrayed, and they are looking for someone to blame.
But just like any relationships, some businesses find themselves constantly in bad ones. They never see their own patterns. As a result, they repeat the same mistakes and end up in the same painful relationships again and again.
One of the patterns is some businesses blame their previous creative firm totally for the collapse of a project.
Now, while I know there are a lot of incompetent creative firms out there, it’s also true that it takes two to tango. Just like when dating, there are rarely any innocent victims. One of the pair is usually passive aggressive, an enabler, a bad fit, or has unrealistic expectations.
But regardless of the couple, the story I hear from these jilted businesses is almost always the same:
In all these cases, the companies professed to be the innocent victims of a shady and predatory creative agency.
But is that really a likely scenario?
For starters, marketing projects are expensive. I find it highly unlikely that a company simply handed over money to a marketing firm without seeing a portfolio first and checking out come clients.
Somewhere during these discussions a proposal was put in place that outlined the deliverables and the time lines. So there should be no surprises.
So does it seem likely that this creative agency went through the bother of forging websites and references, contracts and portfolios just so they can engage in a failed project to “rip you off”?
And, even if the business moved forward on a project based solely on the agency's portfolio, surely they must have enjoyed what they saw or else they wouldn’t have hired them in the first place.
Does it seem likely that a creative agency -whose work the company admired- suddenly started sucking and forgot how to do logos and websites? Do you think that at the moment of starting the project, the agency somehow became terrible copywriters or branders?
When we have taken on companies who have had bad experiences with their previous agencies, we do notice something that may explain why so many of their past projects have failed.
In many cases, these companies have the same personality and engage projects with the same attitude.
Tell me if you see yourself in any of this (or if you are a fellow creative agency: if you see any of your clients):
Businesses with previously bad experiences with creative agencies have usually:
Without fail, companies who have had bad experiences with past agencies have had these kinds of personalities. And you can now see why their past projects have failed.
A good creative agency only knows how to do one thing: good work. They don’t know how to do bad designs or bad marketing.
So when faced with a client that is pushing to have things “their way” it becomes understandable that any credible agency will push back and try to convince the client to go in a more successful direction. It is, after all, our responsibility to do so. This is usually the source for most of this friction and the ultimate reason why many projects fail.
So if you have had a bad experience with a marketing firm, odds are you may have played a small role in the situation. Don't feel bad. You're in good company.
But If you feel that’s the case, call up your ex and tell them: "It’s not you. It’s me."
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca
In the years that I’ve done marketing I've began to notice patterns with clients. Many companies come to us –like a jilted lover- having had a very bad experience with their previous marketing firm.
Working with businesses like these is like dating someone on the rebound. They are hurt, they feel betrayed, and they are looking for someone to blame.
But just like any relationships, some businesses find themselves constantly in bad ones. They never see their own patterns. As a result, they repeat the same mistakes and end up in the same painful relationships again and again.
One of the patterns is some businesses blame their previous creative firm totally for the collapse of a project.
Now, while I know there are a lot of incompetent creative firms out there, it’s also true that it takes two to tango. Just like when dating, there are rarely any innocent victims. One of the pair is usually passive aggressive, an enabler, a bad fit, or has unrealistic expectations.
But regardless of the couple, the story I hear from these jilted businesses is almost always the same:
- Business hired creative firm.
- Business assigned a project to the creative firm.
- Deadline were promised.
- Payments were made.
- Work was produced.
- Work was not liked by business.
- Work was redone many times.
- Work was still not liked by business.
- Deadlines were missed.
- Tempers flared.
- Projects where canceled.
- Relationships ended.
- Blame was assigned.
- Heartbreak ensued.
In all these cases, the companies professed to be the innocent victims of a shady and predatory creative agency.
But is that really a likely scenario?
For starters, marketing projects are expensive. I find it highly unlikely that a company simply handed over money to a marketing firm without seeing a portfolio first and checking out come clients.
Somewhere during these discussions a proposal was put in place that outlined the deliverables and the time lines. So there should be no surprises.
So does it seem likely that this creative agency went through the bother of forging websites and references, contracts and portfolios just so they can engage in a failed project to “rip you off”?
And, even if the business moved forward on a project based solely on the agency's portfolio, surely they must have enjoyed what they saw or else they wouldn’t have hired them in the first place.
Does it seem likely that a creative agency -whose work the company admired- suddenly started sucking and forgot how to do logos and websites? Do you think that at the moment of starting the project, the agency somehow became terrible copywriters or branders?
When we have taken on companies who have had bad experiences with their previous agencies, we do notice something that may explain why so many of their past projects have failed.
In many cases, these companies have the same personality and engage projects with the same attitude.
Tell me if you see yourself in any of this (or if you are a fellow creative agency: if you see any of your clients):
Businesses with previously bad experiences with creative agencies have usually:
- Insisted on micromanaged projects.
- Insisted that they know more about design than the graphic designers.
- Insisted that they know more about copywriting than the copywriters.
- Insisted that they know more about branding than the brand expert.
- Insisted they know more about advertising than the advertising agency.
- Insisted that they could do their marketing themselves if they “only knew how to use the software”.
Without fail, companies who have had bad experiences with past agencies have had these kinds of personalities. And you can now see why their past projects have failed.
A good creative agency only knows how to do one thing: good work. They don’t know how to do bad designs or bad marketing.
So when faced with a client that is pushing to have things “their way” it becomes understandable that any credible agency will push back and try to convince the client to go in a more successful direction. It is, after all, our responsibility to do so. This is usually the source for most of this friction and the ultimate reason why many projects fail.
So if you have had a bad experience with a marketing firm, odds are you may have played a small role in the situation. Don't feel bad. You're in good company.
But If you feel that’s the case, call up your ex and tell them: "It’s not you. It’s me."
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
http://www.a5media.ca
June 01, 2010
a5MEDIA YouTube Post: Copywriting: What, Why and How
Copywriting. Every business needs it. Few know how to do it well.
In this video we talk about the importance of copywriting, some tips to have better copywriting, and we even make some suggestions as to some books you can read to help you be better copywriters.
Those books are:
Words That Sell: http://www.amazon.ca/Words-that-Sell-Revised-Expanded/dp/...
The Copywriter's Handbook: http://www.amazon.com/Copywriters-Handbook-Step-Step-Writ...
The Elements of Style: http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-50th-Anniversary/dp/...
In this video we talk about the importance of copywriting, some tips to have better copywriting, and we even make some suggestions as to some books you can read to help you be better copywriters.
Those books are:
Words That Sell: http://www.amazon.ca/Words-that-Sell-Revised-Expanded/dp/...
The Copywriter's Handbook: http://www.amazon.com/Copywriters-Handbook-Step-Step-Writ...
The Elements of Style: http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-50th-Anniversary/dp/...
BP and the Epic Brand Fail of the Year
Last year I wrote about how green washing was going to be the big issue for the future. And BP is doing a great job of proving this.
As you probably already know, BP is responsible for the biggest environmental disaster in North American history. Their off shore oil rig sprung a leak and now the Gulf of Mexico is nothing more than an 1000 mile wide oil stain. The entire region will be devastated for a generation, and scientists are already saying that entire species may not survive.
But this isn't an environmental blog. If you'd like to learn more about that aspect of this story, you can find some great information here.
The survival story -or extinction story- I'm more interested in is that of BP.
When the Exxon Valdez spill happened in 1989, Exxon didn't collapse. The spill was horrific, it killed thousands of animals and ruined many lives, but the company is still here today and trading pretty well on Wall Street.
No one seriously thought that Exxon would collapse because of their oil spill, yet today, many people suspect that BP may not survive their spill.
The failure of BP has more to do with how it positioned itself in the market place then how it is handling the oil spill.
Let's get something straight: all oil companies are "big and evil". They know they make a product that is environmentally hazardous. They know that it is the source of much economic, political, and military instability across the world. And they know that they are getting countries addicted to a finite resource that will eventually dry out leaving us scrambling for options.
Exxon is a great example of a "big and evil" oil company. They make no bones about it: they are in the oil business to make money. Period.
BP, however, tried a different approach.
Until 2000, BP was known as British Petroleum, when someone decided it would be a brilliant move to rebrand themselves to look more earth friendly, and less imperial.
They undertook a revolutionary rebrand that transformed them from BP: British Petroleum to BP: Beyond Petroleum. It was genius. They had positioned themselves as the anti-oil company: an oil company that hated being an oil company, and was desperately seeking alternatives to their dirty main product. An oil company that wanted to place the planet ahead of the profits.
So when their oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico sprung a leak, it took many ordinary consumers by surprise that the anti-oil company was suddenly acting like their big, evil cousins.
From day one, BP has tried covering up the true volume of the oil being leaked into the waters, and even tried to force the oil rig workers to sign a release form absolving BP of any responsibility.
Never mind the fact that their oh so corporate penny pinching resulted in BP not investing in the very technology needed to have prevented the spill in the first place and to prevent the deaths of the 11 oil rig workers that died in the explosion that started this whole debacle.
BP may fail because -for years- it has been sending out a message and a brand promise that they are now undermining on a minute-by-minute basis. It's a hypocrisy that, in the digital age and the age of YouTube, is being pointed out and hammered home in the bluntest way possible.
BP is a classic example of an epic brand failure. If you break your promise you are doomed to collapse. As it stands, we may be witnessing something that hasn't happened in a generation: the collapse of an oil titan.
So what can you learn from BP? Simple: keep your brand promises and you will keep your business -not matter what the disaster.
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
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