Lately I have found myself going back to the basics with many clients who feel like they need to either confirm that they are on the right track with their marketing and advertising or START OVER! What I find myself doing with them, especially as planning for a new year is taking place, is to go through a marketing strategy model that I’ll write more about here soon. But for now, I wanted to talk about an example of a company that was on the verge of something big, then finally nailed it!
It’s no secret that AT&T has been wildly successful in their cellular business because of their exclusive agreement to sell the iPhone. Their competitors have been struggling with a way to combat this iPhone popularity. AT&T made the gadget itself the most important selling point. Verizon has long been known for having the best network, but because the iPhone was so popular, people didn’t care so much. Then they came out with a TV and radio ad campaign that in my opinion really missed the mark. What Verizon wanted to do was show that no matter how “cool” the iPhone was, it wouldn’t have very good performance because it’s on an inferior network. Their horrible slogan…”there’s a ‘map’ for that”.
This was a blatant rip off of Apple’s very popular commercials that suggest that anything you’d ever want to do in your life has an iPhone application to go with it. The problem with Verizon’s tag line was that all it did was point out that the iPhone has a lot of really cool apps. I believe you should always point out your strengths and avoid giving your competition too much credit.
Enter the new campaign…I saw the ad below on TV the other night and found it to be a stroke of genius. Take a look for yourself:
Awwww! That sad little iPhone with all of its cool apps is on the island of misfit toys because its network sucks! That’s the point they’re trying to make anyway and I think this time it may stick. I found this to be a brilliant example of positioning a company’s strength and making the competition look darn near irrelevant.
How does this relate to your business? Every company should have a competitive advantage against their rivals. It’s something that makes you special or unique. When it comes to your advertising campaigns, this point should be burned into the mind of your core target so that your customers will know why they should be doing business with you instead of someone else. Are you taking advantage of that? If you’re not quite on the right track, maybe it’s time for a reassessment.
