Why marketing rules, like the Kalashnikov, don't change

1 March 2008

Why it’s clever to be simple -and why the marketing rules don’t change. A lesson from Mikhail Kalashnikov.

It’s clever to be simple. The cleverer a person is, the more he or she can simplify things. A genius is able to simplify many complicated things.

People who have worked with Rupert Murdoch say that’s his gift. It’s the same with Philip Green of British Home Stores, who’s not only worth billions, but made it all himself in around four years.

Within genius lies simplicity and knowledge. Thus Mikhail Timofeevitch Kalashnikov, ex 1941 tank commander, invented a submachine gun that has just seven moving parts. His genius lay in his engineering inventiveness and battle experience. Other machine guns are complicated, jam with dust and take hours to take apart and clean. The Kalashnikov doesn’t.

The fundamental design of the Kalashnikov does not change.

Clear thinking is rare. People like M.T. Kalashnikov have the ability to see a core issue. He knew that if a gun were reliable in any environment, the army would have an advantage in battle. And if women and children can disassemble and clean a gun, it would free up men to do the fighting — a more effective army.

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? But there are reasons why people attempt to complicate and change things, usually through ignorance, mischief or gain.

More than 98% of our advertising is wasted
Let’s look at that very complicated issue, advertising.

Advertising in this context includes all kinds of promotions. Advertising guru David Ogilvy said:

‘50% of advertising is wasted, but we don’t know which 50%’

I’ll bring that up to date for us direct marketers and say:

‘More than 98% of our advertising is wasted. And we don’t know which 98%.’

And that is on a good day.

So how does a ‘genius’ approach the problem of advertising?

Well, Kalashnikov’s submachine gun became famous through word of mouth. It had some great USP’s: resistance to jamming, easy to clean and repair. Those selling points meant freedom fighters and terrorists everywhere wanted one. They are now made under licence all over the world.

Rupert Murdoch owns TV stations and newspapers. That’s how he does it.

How does Philip Green advertise British Home Stores? He doesn’t. His shops have windows in high streets everywhere in the UK so he uses those instead.

There you have three simple solutions to a complicated problem, with absolutely no wastage.

Let’s simplify advertising
Today, we have an advertising revolution on our hands. The Internet and other digital channels have opened up promotional options in many new areas. Advertising agencies are worried because clients are moving money into places where profits are not as great as TV.

Media buyers can expect to make a profit of $120,000 / £60,000 on an average TV campaign.

But agencies make a $50,000 / £26,000 loss on an average digital campaign.*

These are profit estimates for media buying only. It does not include creative or production profits or lump-sum ‘kick backs’ that boost agency profits considerably.

The prime function of an agency
An advertising agency cannot operate without profit. Their position is simple: an agency’s prime function is to make a profit, not to run an effective advertising campaign for clients.

Agencies today are worried about money moving out of TV because it hits their profits. If ‘serving their clients’ were an agency’s prime function, this wouldn’t have happened because the agency would have changed to accommodate it’s clients’ needs.

Upton Sinclair said it this way:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”.

Instead of making things simple, big agencies obfuscate and confuse with less-than-direct language. Everything is changing and they will help clients change with the times.

But now, complicit with TV companies, they are caught in a trap of their own making.

Perhaps the show will go on regardless. But the business of advertising should not be a show. It has little to do with art. Advertising is a simple science:

You find the most effective way to reach your prospects – and you sell to them.

Are advertising rules changing?
Of course not – but few believe that. As I write, two statements catch my eye:

“With the traditional media models in decline, existing rules go out of the window. There are endless opportunities to reach consumers through new channels and to redefine audiences and countless new and imaginative ways”.
Roy Sutherland, Ogilvy Group UK

“You know what they say about rules? They’re meant to be broken. In today’s specialized-information publishing world, business has changed. May of the old rules no longer work and can spell disaster for a forward-thinking, growth orientated company like yours”.
Wayne Cooper, Specialized Information Publishers Association

SIPA is run for client companies and their popular conferences are about improving results. Ogilvy Group is one of the largest advertising agencies in the world, and it was the founder, David Ogilvy who told us ‘half of all advertising is wasted’. He should know.

But the rules haven’t changed. They still apply, as I will demonstrate. What is changing is that the buyers are moving to new media – and the money is chasing prospects as they move.

The client’s solution? If the buyer moves house, then follow him in your ice-cream van.

The simple science of advertising
Claude Hopkins wrote Scientific Advertising in 1923. His experience in the field gave insight into what lies behind an effective advertisement. He describes below what measures and benchmarks to use when assessing a promotion, and those measures apply to all forms of copy writing and all media.

Today, 84 years later, many practitioners just don’t grasp the basics he outlines. It is far more profitable for an agency to avoid Claude Hopkins advice and throw money into TV and cinema whether it works or not.

Scientific Advertising lays out the rules-of-thumb for us to follow. I have reproduced chapter 2 here because, as he says:

“This book will contain no more important chapter than this one on salesmanship.”

You can read the whole book by clicking on the link at the end of his piece. Believe me, all of it is essential reading, especially today.

Peter Hobday
http://www.subscriptionsstrategy.com

*Source of agency profit figures: Donovan Data Systems

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins

Chapter 2 – Just salesmanship
To properly understand advertising or to learn even its rudiments one must start with the right conception. Advertising is salesmanship. Its principles are the principles of salesmanship. Successes and failures in both lines are due to like causes. Thus every advertising question should be answered by the salesman’s standards.

Let us emphasise that point. The only purpose if advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales.

It is not for general effect. It is not to keep your name before the people. It is not primarily to aid your other salesmen.

Treat it as a salesman. Force it to justify itself. Compare it with other salesmen. Figure its cost and result. Accept no excuses which good salesmen do not make. Then you will not go far wrong.

The difference is only in degree. Advertising is multiplied salesmanship. It may appeal to thousands while the salesman talks to one, it involves a corresponding cost. Sonic people spend $10 per word on an average advertisement. Therefore every ad should be a super – salesman,

A salesman’s mistake may cost little. An advertisers mistake may cost a thousand times that much. So be more cautious, more exacting.

A mediocre salesman may affect a small part of your trade. Mediocre advertising affects all of your trade.

Many think of advertising as ad writing. Literary qualifications have no more to do with it than oratory has with salesmanship.

One must be able to express himself briefly, clearly and convincingly, just as a salesman must. But fine writing is a distinct disadvantage. So is unique literary style. They take attention from the subject. They reveal the hook. Any studied attempt to sell, if apparent, creates corresponding resistance.

That is so in personal salesmanship as in salesmanship-in-print. Fine talkers are rarely good salesmen. They inspire buyers with the fear of over-influence. They create the suspicion that an effort is made to sell them on other lines than merit.

Successful salesmen are rarely good speechmakers. They have few oratorical graces. They are plain and sincere men who know their customers and know their lines, so it is in ad writing.

Many of the ablest men in advertising are graduate salesmen. The best we know have been house-to-house canvassers. They may know little of grammar, nothing of rhetoric. But they know how to use words that convince.

There is one simple way to answer many advertising questions. Ask yourself. ‘Would it help a salesman sell the goods?” “Would it help me sell them if I met a buyer in person?

A fair answer to those questions avoids countless mistakes. But when one tries to show off, or does things merely to please oneself, one is unlikely to strike a chord. Which leads people to spend money.

Some argue for slogans. Some like clever concepts. Would you use them in personal salesmanship? Can you imagine a customer whom such things would impress? If not, don’t rely on them for selling in print.

Some say. ‘Be very brief People will read for little.” Would you say that to a salesman? With a prospect standing before him, would you confine him to any certain number of words? That would be an unthinkable handicap.

So in advertising. The only readers we get are people whom our subject interests. No one reads ads for amusement, long or short. Consider them as prospects standing before you, seeking for information. Give them enough to get action.

Some advocate large type and big head lines. Yet they do not admire salesmen who talk in loud voices. People read all they care to read in 8-point type. Our magazines and newspapers are printed in that type. Folks are accustomed to it. Anything larger is like loud conversation. It gains no worthwhile attention. It may not be offensive, but it is useless and wasteful. It multiplies the cost of your story. And to many it seems loud and blatant.

Others look for something queer and unusual. They want ads distinctive in style or illustration. Would you want that in a salesman? Do not men who act and dress in normal ways make a far better impression?

Some insist in dressy ads. That is all right to a certain degree, but is quite important. Some poorly dressed men prove to be excellent salesmen. Over dress in either is a fault.

So with countless questions. Measure them by salesmen’s standards, not by amusement standards. Ads are not written to entertain. When they do. Those entertainment seekers are little likely to be the people whom you want.

That is one of the greatest advertising faults. Ad writers abandon their parts. They forget they are salesmen and try to be performers. Instead of sales they seek applause.

When you plan or prepare an advertisement, keep before you a typical buyer. Your subject, your headline has gained his or her attention. Then in everything be guided by what you would do if you met the buyer face-to-face. If you are a normal man and a good salesman you will then do your level best.

Don’t think of people in the mass. That gives you a blurred view. Think of a typical individual, man or women, who is likely to want what you sell. Don’t try to be amusing. Money spending is a serious matter. Don’t boast, for all people resent it. Don’t try to show off. Do just what you think a good salesman should do with a half-sold person before him.

Some advertising men go out in person and sell to people before they plan to write an ad. One of the ablest of them has spent weeks on one article, selling from house to house. In this way they learn the reactions from different forms of argument and approach. They learn what possible buyers want and the factors, which don’t appeal. It is quite customary to interview hundreds of possible customers.

Others send out questionnaires to learn the attitude of the buyers. In some way all must learn how to strike responsive chords. Guesswork is very expensive.

The maker of an advertised article knows the manufacturing side and probably the dealers side. But this very knowledge often leads him astray in respect to customers. His interests are not in their interests.

The advertising man studies the consumer. He tries to place himself in the position of the buyer. His success largely depends on doing that to the exclusion of everything else,

This book will contain no more important chapter than this one on salesmanship. The reason for most of the non-successes in advertising is trying to sell people what they do not want. But next to that comes lack of true salesmanship.

Some ads are planned and written with a totally wrong conception. They are written to please the seller. The interests of the buyer are forgotten. One can never sell goods profitable, in person or in print, when that attitude exists.

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Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins

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