One and One Equals Three - This Old Math is still New

Years ago I had my sales manager at a radio station point out to me that often times when a radio schedule runs for a client, the response rate to yellow pages increases. It was so true. So I made sure that what we reflected in our radio ad copy also was reflected in the yellow page ads, because they worked together. I started noticing this about other medium as well. Newspaper and Cable TV works well together. Broadcast TV and radio is another solid combination, as is internet advertising and offline advertising. Yes, one and one equals three.

It goes way beyond where the message is placed. It is also vitally important to have consistency in the ad design and development. True, the target market of one medium may be different than another used in the campaign. There still needs to be a thread tying one to the next. Despite different target customers, we want to make sure that should there be cross over in any way from one medium to the next by the customer, and it does happen, that the messages add up, again one and one equals three.

I remember like it was yesterday, attending a dinner meeting where the marketing director of a major computer manufacturer was speaking. He was new to the company and so he was doing an internal audit of the brand and how it was represented around the world. To our amazement, he found fifteen logos were being used at the same time. In some cases the logos were huge, bigger than the name of the store advertising the products, and in other cases the logos were small-too small to read. No consistency in ad design and development, and no threaded connection from one part of the world to the next, never mind from medium to medium.

He went on to show how he developed one logo image, making global changes immediately in all medium. And his ROI was proven through research that the brand identity had grown significantly after the changes were made. Often companies will isolate certain campaigns by making them different or even hiding the product from the customer. The idea behind this method is to see if the medium is working by forcing recall by the customer. In my humble opinion, I feel this is causing more damage than it’s worth. If you are spending money, make sure it is easy to find, easy to connect and easy to associate the products through a consistent message across the board.

I believe my radio station sales manager had something to his concept. All the parts add up to more than the sum. Yes, one and one equals three.

What are your challenges when it comes to the ad design and development for your company? I look forward to hearing your comments.

Until next time …