Step 3: Valid Offer

Step 3 is very simple and straightforward. If you don’t have a valid offer, you are simply “branding”.

I remember when I first got into the business that the word “branding” had not been conscripted into the jargon of Madison Avenue. Back then what we now refer to as branding was called “Institutional Advertising”. You know the commercials that you used to hear from banks, Proctor and Gamble products and Coca Cola. It wasn’t until the early 80’s that the Wizards of Madison Avenue perfected the concept of “Branding”. It was much sexier than “Institutional Advertising”. Don’t you think?
I actually think, not having been there to actually experience it, that P&G invented the concept of brand development. But that’s another discussion.

There was not really a name for the “other” commercials; you know the ones that had an offer of some type. But as a kid I remember watching TV during the day with my Grandmother and seeing a commercial for Breeze laundry detergent. It was odd, because it did not talk about how clean it would get your clothes, but the fact that in every box of Breeze, there was a towel. From washcloths, to hand towels to bath towels, you could get them all- depending upon the size box you bought. Now if you had one of these towels today, you’d throw them away as threadbare. They were thin and cheap, but they were free. And if you took a bath at my Mamaw’s house, this is what you used.

That is probably my earliest recollection of some kind of “offer” or what we refer to as response-based advertising.

Use your ad to create differentiation with your product– demonstrate its superior features and explain the benefits those features deliver. Branding.

Ad an offer – this week you’ll receive a free engineer’s report . . . $50 off every service call, Free Delivery, you get the idea. Response based advertising with a real time limit to stimulate your customer to action.

There are those that say all you need is branding. I think for Corporate America, they might be right – Coca Cola, Proctor and Gamble. Deep pockets. But for the rest of us, and for a large part of Corporate America, (Home Depot, Chick-fil-a, etc.) we need to sell something – TODAY! Now Home Depot can afford TV, Radio, Newspaper, Outdoor, Direct Mail, Web Marketing, Social and probably some forms of advertising that I haven’t even thought about. And their deep pockets allow them the luxury of using a combination of branding messages and response-based offers in a very effective media mix.

Would that we all had those kind of budgets.

So for the rest of us, let’s just understand that we need a “Valid Offer” in our ads. That’s it. Nothing more.

In our next blog, we’ll discuss the concept of Compelling Creative.