by Linda Cox
There are two kinds of marketing: Direct Marketing DIFFERENT BY DESIGN Ads designed for branding are cool. They don't Think Absolut Vodka. Direct sale ads have a real do-or-die attitude Think infomercials. You can't track the results of a branding campaign But where does that leave the accountants who need Who cares? THE NEW CUSTOMER Say it's your friend's birthday and you buy her No. You're just some putz who bought something. Frankly, Mikey would rather have their shirt back. But say you buy ALL your friends gifts with the You pay money to be a walking billboard for Mikey. IMAGE IS But your adoption of the Mikey image runs far If someone bad-mouths Mikey, you set them If it were a cult, it would be called programming.
and Brand Marketing. Direct marketing targets
wallets. Branding is about hearts and minds.
plead and beg and cajole, they just sit there.
They may be loud, but in a very smug way because
they already got what they want. They may tell
you where to click or who to call, but they don't
really care if you do. You saw them... that's
enough. An impression was made.
that can make them a bit annoying and undignified,
especially amid their mellower counterparts. By
their directives shall ye know them: Call Now!
Order Now! Click Now!
like you can a direct sales campaign, but you
don't have to. You don't need to prove that an ad
performed its function when its function was to
just sit there and look cool.
those stats to further trim the marketing budget?
a t-shirt with the logo of the Mikey Running Shoe
Company emblazoned across the front. Does that
make you a Mikey person?
As far as the Mikey Running Shoe Company is
concerned, you're irrelevant... a statistical
aberration.
Mikey logo - plus most of your own wardrobe. You
don't even have to think about it, you just do it.
Now you're not an aberration, you're a customer,
and that's a whole different level of commitment.
You strive to represent the Mikey ideal. You craft
your self-image based on the models and sports
stars in Mikey ads (even if you're a pudgy smoker
with a lazy eyeball and a ten dollar-a-day twinkie
habit).
deeper. You're not just a Mikey customer, you're
a Mikey PERSON.
straight. If someone speaks well of a non-Mikey
product, you respond with autonomic contempt. If
someone converts to Mikey-hood, you embrace them
into the fold.
If it were an ideology, it would be called If it were a religion, it would be called a But it's a shoe. It's called branding. THE NEW WORLD ORDER In any field, there are two brands and a bunch of It's a Yin Yang interdependence thing. Note how In the new world order, stores and websites are And is there ever any real difference between the Sure. The one I prefer is like ten times better. Duh. About the Author
Linda Cox (J.A.M.G.) was born in a speeding
brainwashing.
conversion.
off-brands or wannabes. Democrat and Republican
are brands. Reform, Libertarian, Green Party and
whoever else are merely Other.
Democracy is diminished without Communism for
counterpoint?
clubs, brands are families, and The New Person is
defined simply as the combination of several dozen
brand settings, like toggle switches on a
motherboard: Coke (not Pepsi). Chevy (not Ford).
Burger King (not McDonalds). Shaken (not stirred).
Catholic (not Protestant). White Sox (not Cubs).
first and second place players in any given
category?
stagecoach amid the screams of fellow passengers
as insane, wild-eyed horses dragged them all
crashing toward the brink of destruction. That
stagecoach was the planet Earth, those passengers
were the human race, and Linda Cox is Just Another
Marketing Guru. (The horses were just regular
horses.) http://www.LindaCox.com/