What does it mean to be a modern advertising professional?

I stumbled across an article this weekend by Michael Wolff of USA Today, titled “Whatever Happened to Advertising.” In short, he wonders what happened to the good old fashioned (m)ad men of the world. What happened to the traditional advertising agency, where an art director and a copy writer worked in tandem to build tell stories, influence people, and build brands? Where did the creative agencies go? Why everything is centered so much around the number crunching of the digital age?

The article caught my attention because I am a marketing professional. I started off as a graphic designer, went back to school to get my web development education, and then back to school to get my Masters in Marketing and Public Relations. I did these things because on the ground level, I could see how the environment and demands of being an advertising professional was changing.

Wolff’s article, in my opinion, decried the death of the advertising career; a profession destined for the makers of the buggy whip. It mirrored what I find is a common misconception held in the public about what makes for a marketing professional.

No, the creative and artistic natures that underlies the modern agency haven’t died. They’re very much alive and kicking, but as with any profession, our industry is one that is subject to change. Wolff wonders why the agency racket is so enamored with technology. “Is the business about advertising, or is it about technology? Is it a creative business, or a number cruncher business?” Wolff wonders.

It’s not that the advertising agency has closed up shop, but rather is that the abundance of new channels has afforded us new channels to tell our stories. It isn’t that technology has killed creativity, but rather allowed us to fine tune our stories; formatted for an increasingly precise and diverse audience. We’re telling more stores than ever, and in many ways, we’re freed from the limitations of the traditional media that has handcuffed our creative voice for so long. No longer are we limited to 30-second spots, or static display. We now have the opportunity to engage our customers and bring them along with us as part of the story, not just as a silent audience. We build brands through interaction, mutual dialog, and encourage our fans to take an active role in building our brands.

We still love all things print.

We still love radio and television.

But new media has forever changed our landscape, and the modern ad man has had to change with it. The days of Don Draper—as glorious as they were—are gone. Nostalgia has turned from an idyllic sense of how this were, to another tactic designed to appeal to the current generation of customers.

Wolff seems to lament that the art of advertising had been shunned in favor of “moving the client closer to the cash register.” I disagree. Advertising has always been about moving the client closer to the cash register. What has changed is that the movement is now a two-way street. It’s not just us talking to you and trying to convince you to buy our trinkets, but rather it’s us encouraging you to take charge of your experience. We’re inviting you to become part of our family; we’re aligning our story to yours so that you feel more invested in our success, and us in yours.

It’s absolutely true that the marketing gig has changed. So much so that any agency that tells you they know exactly what will happen is lying. Technology has only made our jobs more difficult, not easier. It may seem that we now know more about our customers than ever before. We know where you live, what you ate for breakfast, and that you were in such a rush to get out of the door this morning, that you did so while wearing one blue sock and one brown sock. But that as true today as it was 50 years ago. The challenge for us is to keep up with the change in technology. When is it better to advertise on Facebook than on Instagram? Is it better to run in a local paper, or a local website? Does broadcast TV make sense, or is a viral video more appropriate? Technology has made the foundation of our business so much more challenging—and that how to relate intimately to the people we seek to engage.

Our profession centers on the human condition, finding ways to communicate and relate that feel real; genuine. Technology may make it easier to pinpoint specific demographics, but the need to communicate value and benefit remains paramount. In truth, there’s far more psychology and emotion to our job than technology. Tech just help us communicate better. If we fail to reach our audience, odds are it has more to do with the message than the vehicle. The marketing pie isn’t shrinking, it’s actually larger. There are just more slices to go around.

If you want to delve into the real challenges facing the marketing profession, you don’t have to look much farther than technology itself. Every time we introduce a new piece of software that makes building websites or editing software easier, the greater number the people who feel empowered to handle it themselves. That’s the real challenge. It isn’t that empowering the average small business owner through technology is the threat, it’s that they are often ill-suited and lack the simple resources of time and experience to effectively market themselves. Do-it-yourself marketing is the real threat to our existence. Technology has made it so easy for anyone to copy/paste their way through a website or brochure template, that the value of our expertise and education is being undermined.

No, the lay person cannot market as well as an experienced marketing professional.

No, clipart and stock photography cannot replace the experienced photographer.

No, templates do not create the individuality or replace the creativity of a graphic designer.

It’s just led many people to think they can.

And that’s dangerous—both to advertising as a profession AND to the livelihood of the business owner. Cheaper is seldom ever better. Convenient almost always comes as a sacrifice to strategy. Yet we seem to go out of our way to accommodate both cost and convenience. Where did the education of our customers go?

Why aren’t we bringing clients along with us?

Why aren’t we showing clients what experience and practiced patience can do?

Why aren’t we doing a better job at showing the value of sage advice and deliberate strategy?

No, marketing isn’t going away. The need for advertising agencies hasn’t dwindled. It’s all just changing. Our roles as marketers are no longer limited to that of ‘copywriter’ or ‘art director.’ We must be versed in multiple disciplines: print, social media, web, broadcast, transit, photography, research, strategic development, and storytelling—and this means changing the way we educate college students. We cannot afford to teach a single discipline, but rather build in a big-picture understanding of what it means to market in the 21^st century.

READ: It’s time to change the way we teach graphic design.

We cannot rest on our laurels or on the idea of ‘this is how things have always been done.’ The head in the sand approach doesn’t beget progress and ultimately delivers an unsustainable business model as new technologies enable others to do what we always offered at a premium.

If anything the need for agencies is greater than ever, but we must do a better job and selling ourselves and the merits of our services. We need to draw the line between convenience and competence.

I’ve always found it ironic that agencies seldom advertised themselves; we did very little to solicit business. We seemed to think that our services were implied for any business who wished to succeed. Many of the tools that once made our skills and talents compulsory, are now freely available to all.

Other companies have found a way to make marketing seem simple.

“You too can build a website in minutes!”

“Design your own business cards using our prebuilt templates!”

“Advertise on Facebook and grow your business!”

READ: Pinching pennies: Why focusing on the upfront cost of marketing is bad business.

Technology may have inserted itself as the great equalizer but the reality is that it’s far from it. Rather, it’s the great homogenizer. It gravitates people to the middle. It devalues creativity and uniqueness—concepts that are critical to achieving an identity in a crowded marketplace. Technology cannot replace experience, instinct, and market research. What technology has done is shift the burden of marketing and promotion back onto the business owner under the guise of simplicity. It doesn’t take into account the simple truths that:

• The average business owner doesn’t have the time to pay attention to marketing trends.
• The average business owner doesn’t have the time to weigh the available channels to make sure that his efforts are well placed.
• The average business owner doesn’t have the time to design, code, build, quote, or otherwise manage marketing on top of the day-to-day operations.
• The average business owner is too close to his profession and often has difficulty focusing and honing communication efforts to simple, digestible, benefit-related points of differentiation.

As marketers, this is all we do. This is our value proposition. We build brands and market share. We free up the business owner to focus on running the company, not implementing promotion. The value we bring to a business is far greater than the upfront cost of developing the campaign and strategies. If anything, our services should make these cookie-cutter solutions less attractive. Over time, I think that will happen. We can make it happen quicker if we draw attention to this fatal flaw of ready-to-made advertising.

Wolff is right. The classic advertising agency is dead; it’s model that’s unsustainable in a technology-driven world. Like it or not, we’re all digital agencies by merit of sheer survival. Despite the influence of this new medium, the underlying skills of creativity, insight, and communication are as important as ever. We still craft stories, build our brands, and bring value to our customers that they cannot easily bring to themselves. That much of our mandate has never changed, and it never will.

Want to grab your customer’s attention? Tell them a story.

Once upon a time…

Many a story has been started with those four words. When one reads those words, it’s understood that some sort of literary tale is about to unfold; a tale with action and excitement, love and romance, mystery and romance or perhaps a morality tale with a valuable life lesson.

Most of human history has been passed down in narrative form though stories, allegories and even song. The use of the written word to chronicle our past is a relatively new phenomenon (in the grand scheme of things), but as you may know, most of what we consider to be historical fact has its roots in the tales passed down from generation to generation for millennium.

A story is a powerful way to make a point and attract attention to a concept or idea. So why not use a story to spread your advertising message?

Competition in the advertising world is fierce. A recent statistic states that the average person is exposed to over 5,000 advertising messages every day, and of those, he remembers only four (Walker-Smith, 2006). When you think about it, that’s a lot of messaging and a lot of advertising clutter to cut through in order to grab your customer’s attention and make your sales pitch.

When you consider the development of your advertising and marketing, an important principle to explore is how to grab the reader’s attention, hold on to it and persuade him that your product or service is essential to solving his problem.

A common approach is to use a catchy headline or dynamic image to grab attention. But what comes next? For many advertisements, the flashy first impression is all there is and the rest of the advertisement is little more than a jumble of words, starbursts, price points and has little to do with the initial headline or image. It’s a lot of sizzle, but no steak.

The approach I advocate in advertising creation is to tell a story with your marketing. It doesn’t matter if it’s print, web, radio or television. The point is to grab the audience’s attention and hold on to it by providing entertainment value mixed with a relevant benefit message and strong call to action.

There are two basic types of advertising:

Branding ads (also known as Image ads): These ads are the quintessential example of all sizzle, no steak. They thrive on a catchy image, headline or title, perhaps a brief mention of services and are tagged with a logo and possibly a website. Branding ads have a long shelf life and are best suited for media like television, billboards and magazines – which also share a relatively prolonged lifespan. A branding ad does nothing more than reinforce the presence of a company and maintain public awareness.  The lack of any time-sensitive information allows for the ad to remain relevant longer, yet doesn’t instill a sense of urgency to prompt the reader to take immediate action.

Call-to-action ads: The call-to-action ads (C2A) are the most common type of advertising. They are designed, either through price point or benefit statements, to spur the reader to take immediate and decisive action. Essentially, they’re designed to make the cash register ring and get people in the door. They usually come with some sort of ‘ticking clock’ (meaning an expiration date) to ensure that the customers react immediately and not a week from next Thursday. C2As are an excellent way to drum up immediate response, but unlike branding ads, do not have an extended lifespan. C2As are good for newspapers, radio, television, and direct mail, but less so with magazines and billboards.

Most ads fall into either one of the above two categories, and both can be effective if used properly. But how do you make them memorable? That’s where the story comes in to play.

The story method for advertising development doesn’t literally mean that you write or create a long story and ask that the customer read through copious amounts of copy. It’s much more simple than that.

What three things does every story have, that an advertisement should also possess?

Check this out:

Every story has a beginning (a ‘Once Upon a Time…’ moment).
How it applies to advertising: Every advertisement should have one as well. This is your hook; your catchy headline or interesting graphic. It needs to set the tone or expectations for what is to come.

Every story has a middle (a plot).
How it applies to advertising: This is where you establish a need and take the reader on a journey. It’s the meat of our story. You need to establish what it is you do and how your product or service can directly improve the life of the customer. This speaks to relevant benefit. Relevant benefit can be defined as the direct association of a product or service and the immediate improvement or impact to a person. This is a biggie. If you can’t relate your product or service to a benefit for your customer, you need to rethink your approach.

Every story has an end (a ‘Happily Ever After…’ moment).
How it applies to advertising: Just as a story eventually ends and has some sort of moral lesson or conclusion, so too must a good advertisement. Usually, this takes the form of a strong call to action. This is where you sum up everything that came in before and tie it back to a relevant benefit. A weak call to action would be something like  ‘For more information call 800-555-1234′ or ‘Visit our website to find our more.’ These are suitable for branding type ads, but not for call-to-action advertising. A strong C2A will typically tie into an emotional need or benefit of the customer ‘Stop back pain in its tracks, call 555-1234 today’ or ‘Saving for your child’s education has never been so easy, stop in today!’

In either case, the call-to-action directs the reader to exactly the type of response you wish them to undertake. Don’t direct them to call if what you really want is to have them visit your store. Don’t tell them to go online, if they can only do what you want by phone. Be specific, but make sure it’s about them.

Below are some sample of print ads that utilize the storytelling principle. A breakdown of each ad is included in the caption to help distinguish the methods use to ‘tell a story.’

This sample utilizes bright colors to attract the eye and ties in a relevant benefit statement directly into the headline. Notice how the call to action reinforces the C2A and directs the reader to call to schedule an evaluation?

This ad for Dollar Rent-A-Car uses a strong and distinctive image to grab the reader’s attention. The content is simple yet straight forward leaving no doubt as to the benefit. The call to action takes form of coupons for savings on vehicle rentals.

An example of the story principle used in a branding ad. The strong imagery combined with minimal text tells the story of the versatility and durability of the vehicle. There is no call to action, but since vehicle purchases are rarely an impulse buy the ad can be effective with simple contact information.

This ad uses humor in the form of strong headline and compelling image to tell the story. The body copy is minimalistic yet conveys the intent of the advertisement. The call to action is an offer to try the service for free for a limited time.

Incorporating the story methodology not only makes your ads more entertaining and more effective, but it also help you design the ad more effectively. Breaking the ad into the three sections and identifying a clear-cut beginning, middle and end helps to dial in on the precise message desired. It helps to eliminate extra words and irrelevant messaging and allows for a more fine-tuned and professional presentation. It affords you the luxury of being creative and informative while respecting the time of your customer. The average print advertisement has only one half of one second to attract the audience’s attention; for television and radio it’s only a couple of seconds. That’s not much. If your ad doesn’t have that clear hook; that solid ‘Once upon a time…’ moment, you’ve already lost that particular customer.Don’t assume that your audience is hanging on your every word. Give them a reason to stick around and tune in just a little bit longer. It’s a mistake many novice marketers make — assuming that everyone will read every word, or intently watch every commercial or listen to every radio spot. The story methodology helps avoid these pitfalls and craft a message that grabs the audience’s attention, is entertaining, informative and relevant.