Actionable Marketing Guide Newsletter

Published: Mon, 02/08/16

actionable marketing guide

Dear ,

Last night was Super Bowl 50, the biggest football game of the year. The game was played by 2 relatively unknown teams, the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers in San Francisco.

Due to the audience size, it’s the most expensive television advertising buy. This makes the game a marketing must-view.

For Mad Men, the Monday morning quarterbacking of Super Bowl ads starts before the game’s coin toss. The pre-game buzz focused on the number of big Hollywood stars.

My biggest take-away was the large number of ads that didn’t mention the brand name at all. Among the brands that did this were Michelob beer, PayPal, Acura, Mini and Expedia. Without any brand mention you’re not maximizing your television buy.
  • If your audience leaves the room they can hear your name even if they don’t see the ad. This is the reason that ads are louder than the show.

  • If your brand name isn’t mentioned in the audio but only appears as a visual, it doesn’t show up in the close captioning!
The challenge of creating a Super Bowl ad is that you’ve got a broad audience. It works great for mass market products associated with sports like beer, soda and cars.

If you’re trying to use a Super Bowl ad to break through and build brand recognition, your ad must grab your audience by the shoulders and pull them in. You need great story telling to achieve this.

Ask Apple. Their 1984 Super Bowl ad “Why 1984 Won’t Be Like ‘1984’” borrowed George Orwell’s storyline. At that time, Apple’s Macintosh was pitted against the IBM PC. In the ad, IBM becomes Big Brother. (BTW, here’s my full analysis of branding and ads.)
Don’t have a Super Bowl size budget?

I recommend building a blog as your online home base. Most blogging software is a simplified CMS (content management system) that enables you create an on-going stream of content that helps develop your brand.

If you need help creating blog content, please join me at my Social Media Marketing World workshop on Sunday, April 17th at 3:00pm, in San Diego. I’m teaching a 90 minute workshop entitled, “How to Create Quality Blog Posts Quickly and Consistently”.

Please join me and hundreds of other amazing influencers for 3 packed days of workshops, sessions and networking. (BTW, I think that the networking yields the highest ROI.)
​​This week we interviewed Ann Handley, whose book Everybody Writes should be required reading in high schools and colleges.

Ann describes it as "A book that functions for marketers as part writing and story guide, part instructional manual on the ground rules of ethical publishing, and part personal training on muscle-building processes and habits." 

Everybody Writes is top on my list of the books that have inspired my work.

One lucky subscriber will be getting a free copy of Everybody Writes. We'll tell you who in next week's newsletter.
​​Last week we interviewed Michael Brenner, coauthor of The Content Formula. Aimed at B2B marketers, The Content Formula answers the biggest question currently on their minds: what is the ROI of content marketing?

Our randomly selected subscriber, Dr Kavita, will be receiving a free copy of The Content Formula Congratulations, Dr Kavita!
Happy marketing,
Heidi

Heidi Cohen
Actionable Marketing Guide


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2016 CONFERENCES

Social Media Marketing World 2016 PromotionSocial Media Marketing World

Join me at Social Media Marketing World this coming Spring in sunny San Diego, California, where I'll be presenting a session on Blogging.

Conference dates are April 17-19, 2016.

Register Now And Save!


 
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