FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

Not my 14-year-old, Jenni, who (with profound apologies to GL magazine) found a way to interact with that publication in a way that is ... well, meaningful for a 14-year-old.

Magazines, and most print media, are more personal because you can hold them in your hands. From here interactivity can take on many forms: physical coupons, tear outs, inserts, pop ups, contest entry forms, and blow ins. There is a physical interactivity that comes from the act flipping pages. There is a lot of interactivity that comes from the more personal physical connection that only print can make ... even for a 14-year-old!

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You gotta love it! Here is a print ad for McDonald's Big 'n' Juicy Burger that uses almost no ad copy and a lot of paper to communicate how their bigger hamburgers need bigger napkins to handle them. The double-page spread was printed on napkin paper and ran in Sweden's Metro newspaper to promote the idea.

Is paper-based ad messaging dead? I don't think so!

Why does your site exist?

On a sales call, how do you answer this question? Many media reps jump into a canned pitch about the power of their print-originated brand franchise and how their Web site extends the franchise online.

Baloney.

Media buyers, are driven by "What's in it for me?" and the best print brand does not guarantee online results.

The online world is results and measurement driven. You have to explain the functional benefit behind your online media first. Then go on to explain how this function can generate measurable results. Start with an explanation of what your Web site or online media DOES for More...

I lost a sales media training program last week. The publisher hiring the sales trainer insisted his print centric staff was failing at online sales because they did not know the new media semantics. He told me, "They know the brand and how to sell, they just need to know the new buzz words."

I didn't agree. Assuming his sales staff had graduated high school, learning a few new word defintions should not hold anyone back.

When moving from selling print to integrated or interactive selling, the deeper issue is understanding the shift going on in marketing itself and how it impacts your advertisers. After you understand this shift the "b More...

Hillary Clinton, behind in delegates and the polls for the Democratic Presidential nomination, is taking the offensive. Shown here taking to task a Barack Obama campaign brochure she claims spreads misinformation about her health care program. How will voters react?

Voters will react as they always do; ignoring criticism about people they like and embracing it against people they don't.

It is easy to forget that few American Presidents were more widely criticized than Ronald Reagan, but it all just slid off the likable "Teflon President" without a scratch. The minimally-funded Swift Boat attacks of the 2004 Presidentia More...

Selling in a recession takes a different attitude. I always like to share this test with salespeople to see if they are up for the challenge. The trick is that this test actually comes from the December 1932 issue of Opportunity Magazine, written for salespeople during the Great Depression. If you can pass a sales test written during The Depression, I figure, you are up to sell in a mere recession anytime!

Answer Yes or No to the following:

1. Am I sociable?
2. Do I think in terms of success?
3. Do I really like selling?
4. Do I think of my customers interests?
5. Do I read sales literature?
6. Do I study my prospects?
7. Is my personal appearance a credit to myself and the company I repr More...

As we struggle to understand the differences between selling online and print media it is important to know that ad agencies are struggling to understand the differences between buying online and print.

The career advice column from Media Life, "Ask Rachel," recently laid out the differences while offering advice to a media buyer considering a move from buying traditional media to online media:

Given that digital planners generally earn more at the same ti More...

The New York Giants won the Super Bowl, but who won the ad game? After the show there will be many reviews of the ads and which ones got the viewers attention. It turns out there is a big dividend paid to those Super Bowl ads that score high, literally. University of Buffalo doctoral student Jing Jiang and Cornell professor Charles Chang studied the relationship between company stock price and Super Bowl advertising for the last 17 Super Bowls and discovered that the top 10 Super Bowl ads significantly moved the stock price right after the game for advertisers.

According to the study, "The stocks of companies running ads that ran More...

In early January, shapingyouth.org, a blog on marketing to children, complained to mass retailer Target about a new ad campaign that depicted a woman positioned on a target pattern with the bull’s-eye seemingly targeting her crotch.

What gives, Target? A subliminal sexual message? A lapse into bad taste? Publicity through controversy? Or, did their art director, so wrapped up in the "snow angel" theme, mis More...

The MPA has a terrific booklet that compares the "engagement" qualities of magazines against other media. In a variety of comparisons magazines do extremely well. For me the most sales call friendly parts came on page 14 in the section entitled, "Qualitative dimensions of engagement". Research shows the ads that run in magazines are seen by readers as offering value, not an intrusion.

Use it on a sales call: First off, download the 35 page PDF at the link below. On the call, the trick is to shift the conversation. When many advertisers/marketers talk about engagement they are referring to measurable engagements such reader click throughs, contest entries, getting readers to contribute content or become involved More...

In the a last few weeks I have heard of several ad programs being cut back or put on hold because of concerns that a recession is coming. During the 2002 ad recession, I wrote and distributed this letter with great effect. It shows how advertisers who maintain exposure during the slow times move ahead of competitors who don't and gives a great example of a product that benefited from this exposure, Kellogg's Corn flakes. Here is the introductory copy:

Should You Advertise During a Recession?

Consider More...

The buzz in marketing circles is about "customer engagement," ways of interacting with customers to advance marketing goals. cScape, a London based digital agency, has released a survey of 1000 "Customer experience professionals, showing the level of interest in programs that move customer engagement along. There is lots of it.

Here's the catch: the creators of the study are not big on "traditional advertising" and have not included even interactive advertising as part of the the study.

This is instructive for media sales people to see just how far this "engagement" concept can go without ever mentioning advertising.

From the study:

"Traditional marketing commun More...