NEWS & UPDATES

May 21, 2008 In By Advent

Presentation and Authenticity in Advertising

FISHING FOR SUCCESS

The shock of the water rush­ing over the peb­bly bot­tom and past my toes was awfully cold at first.  I waded in up to my knees and made my way towards the far bank where the big weep­ing wil­lows drooped lazily over a deep pool against the bank.  Imme­di­ately, I spot­ted the move­ment of a small­mouth bass cruis­ing the shad­ows.  It was my first cast of the sea­son.   I took the line between my thumb and fore­fin­ger.  It hissed excit­edly as I hur­ried it from my reel in swift quick jerks.  I drew a long breath and care­fully took aim.  I lifted the heavy yel­low fly line from the water, it arched back grace­fully, then shot for­ward.  Ker­plunk!  The line whip lashed vio­lently against the water a few feet in front of the big small­mouth.  He dis­ap­peared into the deep shadows.

The story is tragic and embar­rass­ing, I know.  But its didac­tic value is redeem­ing.  In Mark Hughes’ hit book enti­tled, BUZZMARKETING, he cites a 41 per­cent drop in con­sumer trust in adver­tis­ing in only three short years.  He points out that behind a slick glit­tery cloak of cor­po­rate legit­i­macy, com­pa­nies like Enron, Fan­nie Mae, and Adel­phia have oper­ated in a shroud of deceit, lies, and greed to the detri­ment of share­hold­ers, employ­ees, and con­sumers alike.  This mis­trust in all things cor­po­rate has led to consumer’s cur­rent mis­trust of adver­tis­ing.  The cor­po­rate image has become a sig­nal to wary con­sumers in the same way my splash­ing led the fish to mis­trust the tiny lure at the end of my line.

How can you get con­sumers to trust your mar­ket­ing efforts and the brand you are sell­ing?  In an inter­view with Event Mag­a­zine, Kim Myhre of George P John­son pro­vides an answer: “′Make sure you′re being delib­er­ate, con­sis­tent and authen­tic all the time.  Very few com­pa­nies do that today.”  She goes on to say, “It′s amaz­ing some of the venues you go to and the com­pany is meant to be so cool, and you go and it′s a really old hotel with bad sig­nage.”  So, how do you get con­sumers to trust you?  It’s a no brainer.  Be trust­wor­thy!  Find the authen­tic nature of your brand and start from there.  In short, don’t be like me, out to trick and deceive poor unsus­pect­ing fish.  Don’t promise tasty grasshop­pers only to deliver cheap plas­tic and hooks.

Once you’ve deter­mined the authen­tic nature of your brand, then you may begin inves­ti­gate ways to com­mu­ni­cate your mes­sage with poten­tial cus­tomers.  If we accept Hughes’ premise that peo­ple do not trust cor­po­ra­tions, then we must con­clude, as he does, that we should rig­or­ously strip our­selves of the wolves’ cloth­ing.  Instead, present a per­sonal image.  Many stud­ies con­ducted by inde­pen­dent com­pa­nies like Bigre­search have all iden­ti­fied word-of-mouth as the num­ber one influ­ence on con­sumers’ pur­chas­ing deci­sions (check out the study).  Why?  Word-of-mouth is per­sonal.  Our friends do not lie to us.   Fol­low the advice of Advent Pres­i­dent, John Rober­son, and “love peo­ple along the way because at the end of the day it is about the rela­tion­ships.”  That is the most impor­tant thing.  The ben­e­fi­cial byprod­uct of this atti­tude is a healthy work­ing rela­tion­ship founded on trust.

Yvon Chouinard, founder of the out­door apparel com­pany, Patag­o­nia, con­sid­ers wear­ing a suit akin to one of the seven deadly sins.  Though his approach tilts toward the dra­matic, his atti­tude is per­cieved as authen­tic and “real” in the performance-gear niche mar­ket.  He gains cur­rency through skill­ful and hon­est pre­sen­ta­tion of his brand.  Patag­o­nia does not endorse pro­fes­sional ath­letes.  But they do pro­vide dis­counted and free equip­ment to their core users.  And bingo, they have a slew of word-of-mouth, non-corporate brand ambas­sadors to present their prod­ucts.  What a great way to present his brand nat­u­rally and believably!

Chouinard hap­pens to be an avid fish­er­man.  In his book, Let My Peo­ple Go Surf­ing, he says that a good fish­er­man can catch more fish with one fly than a lesser fish­er­man with a tackle boxes over­flow­ing.  I did not catch my fish because my bait was not authen­tic and my pre­sen­ta­tion was not nat­ural.  Through authen­tic mar­ket­ing and strate­gic pre­sen­ta­tion you can catch more fish with less bait.

Authored By Advent

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