Using Humor In Advertising To Connect With Audience With Allen Kay

Using Humor In Advertising To Connect With Audience With Allen Kay

Advertising is the art of communicating with the users of a particular product. While you can easily reach out to your audience in this day and age, how can you actually establish a connection that will make them want your product? For famous American Advertising Executive, Allen Kay, that is through advertising humor. He tells us the keys to advertising humor and how it can change our style to make it connect with the people. In this episode, Allen tells us about his early encounters in the world of commercials and how he got into it. He then shares with us how it can be a perfect career course, along with the skills you need to go beyond advertising.
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Neuro-Insight: Making The Subconscious Conscious with Pranav Yadav

Neuro-Insight, a neuromarketing and neuro analytics company that uses unique brain-imaging technology to measure how the brain responds to communications, pioneers the link between brain activity and consumer behavior, making the subconscious conscious. They help their clients optimize a particular message to showcase and to have maximum impact in the market. Pranav Yadav, the CEO of Neuro-Insight US, takes a deep dive into what their company does in the field of advertising and marketing. Pranav shares the importance of their invented technology in the research process and how lighting up the brain reveals the emotional process of your personal interests.

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Are QR Codes Successful?

I am currently reviewing a text about marketing.  Schools hire me to do this on occasion.  One thing that disappointed me was there was nothing in it about QR codes and some of the other newest marketing techniques. QR codes have been around for a while. If you have not noticed them, they are the little barcode-looking square that appears on newspapers billboards, flyers, and even cars.

While QR codes offer some great marketing opportunities, they have not been as successful as other techniques.  In the article QR Codes are Dead! Long Live QR Codes, the author stated, “One of the most popular Tumblr blogs of 2012 is Pictures of People Scanning QR Codes. If you click through to the site you will see that it is empty. The joke here? No one scans QR codes (short for Quick Response code). It is obvious that QR codes have a bad rep and haven’t gained much traction on the consumer end of the equation.”

QR codes have been utilized well by some companies.  I am currently reading the book Neuromarketology by Brian Fabiano.  He is a marketing guru who was wise enough to put a QR code at the end of each of his chapters with the note, “scan to learn more!” Other examples of successful QR code use include:

• The Most Successful QR Codes Campaigns of 2012
• Six QR Code Campaigns that Actually Worked

For more information about how to use QR codes, check out the following articles:

•  5 Steps for a Successful QR Code Marketing Campaign
•  How to Use QR Codes on Your Resume and Business Cards
•  Using QR Codes for Business Promotion
•  QR Codes: Why You Should Be Using Them
• Marketers Target Impatient Customers through Smartphone Quick Response QR Codes

Texting Offers Latest Marketing Opportunity

As mobile phones have taken over the way people communicate, it is a natural progression for texting to become a marketing opportunity.  In the Wall Street Journal article Teen Stores Try Texts as Gr8 Nu Way to Reach Out, author Christina Binkley explained, “Like many parents who have turned to texting to reach their teens, some youth-oriented fashion brands like Charlotte Russe, Claire’s Boutique and Vans are finding that young people are most accessible by text.”

Texting now can include more rich content, pictures and video.  Marketers can send shopping passes, discounts, and offers.  Rather than merely being a vehicle for chat, texting now offers a way to get customers to opt in and avoid illegal lists or spam.  Customers can selectively pick who they would like to receive offers from, which leads to a higher chance of the sales message being received.  The article stated, “People are five times more likely to open a text than an email.  Five billion people text on mobile phones, while about two billion people use the Internet.”

This new form of communication has increased the speed of receiving offers and acting upon them.  There is immediacy due to the ability to send messages that state things like “get 10% off if purchased within the next 3 hours.”

One of the hardest parts is to get people to opt in to receive the texts.  Retails often post signs to ask customers to opt in by texting short codes.  For more information, check out Top Links Explaining SMS and Short Codes.

Related Articles:

• Can Texting Damage Writing Skills?
• Use QR Codes to Promote Your Business
• Marketers Target Impatient Customers through Smartphone Quick Response QR Codes
• QR Code: Why You Should Be Using it to Promote You, Your Business and Products
• Is Email on Its Way Out?
• How Google Voice Works

Facebook Advertising Appeal

When a company like Facebook goes IPO, there is a lot of discussion about future potential for income.  One area where Facebook may increase revenue is through advertising.  Facebook took a big hit this week when GM killed a $10 million advertising campaign deal. GM claimed that Facebook ads were ineffective.  DailyFinance.com reported, “Click-through rates are much lower on Facebook than they are on the internet generally, or on Google (Facebook: 0.051%, Google: 0.4%, Average: 0.1%)”

One way for an ad to be effective is for it to reach the target audience.  Understanding a company’s target demographic is important.

According to Statista, “This statistic shows the age distribution of Facebook users in the United States as of April 2012. During that period of time, the majority of local Facebook users were between 18 and 24 years old. Furthermore, the most popular Facebook activities of U.S. users were posting on walls and checking the internal newsfeed.”

According to Facebook’s advertising Q&A area, there are some limitations regarding how advertisers may reach a specific demographic.  Other than age and birthday-specific advertising, Facebook targets based on location, interest, education and connection advertising.  This differs from Google that allows targeting by interest, keywords, remarketing, location and demographics.

BusinessInsider explained the difference between advertising on Facebook vs. Google in terms of reach and revenue.  “Total reach for Facebook is 51% of all internet users.  Total reach for Google is 90% of all internet users.  First quarter revenue for Facebook is $1.06 billion, down 6.5 percent year on year and down 32 percent sequentially.  First quarter revenue for Google is $2.09 billion, up 1 percent year on year and up 0.7 percent sequentially.”

Facebook is hoping to use friendships to sell products and brands.  Check out the following video to find out more about this and the importance of geofencing.  According to Amos Content Group, “A geofence is a virtual perimeter around a real area as in within a block of a restaurant. Marketers can use this location-based service to target a passersby who has opted in to send deals or information to smartphones.”  Facebook’s friendship-based approach could influence geofencing.

Related Articles:

• Top Facebook-Related Articles Including IPO Information
• Value of Top Companies in 2012
•  Top 10 Companies’ Mission Statements 2012
• Top 10 Companies’ Code of Ethics and Conduct 2011