You wanna do something about it?

Okay, so today I wanted to review some of the basics again for myself.
This is what I found from the AMA (American Marketing Association): Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
You can find out more about the AMA here.


My main focus is the exchanging part. I personally believe the biggest measure of success for any marketing campaign is whether or not it can move people to take action. It doesn't matter if you're selling a tangible product or communicating an idea; it's successful by my books if it gets you to do something about it.


For example:
A little while back I saw a TV commercial for Kids Health (check them out here), their commercials were intriguing, and subtly shocking enough for me (who is a single, male, without children) to want to check out their website.
Definitely go search up some of their ads, pretty clever, quirky things, them ads.


Now why in the world am I writing about this?
This is all about efficiency of marketing dollars.


I've seen some really stupid ads and marketing campaigns. Makes me wonder why aren't their dollars being used more effectively. Then I realized, it's probably because there's a stupid, moron-of-a-marketer doing the creative.
OR
The idea was egotistically pushed down by some big-shot executive that "knows" what he or she is doing.


Whatever the case, it was an inefficient use of their budget and a total waste of the consumer's time as well.
(Depending on the complexity of the product/message) Companies should invest in marketing opportunities that will allow their audience to at least take in the ad and process it cognitively.
That's why I'm not a proponent of bench ads.
Dumbest idea ever.
You make large amounts of impressions and the reach is fairly wide. But there's no quality there.
It's only effective if you need people to remember a name or something (simple messages)


On a similar boat but a stark difference in effectiveness are bus shelter ads. The reason being that these ads allow the audience to process the ads in further detail but also have similar reach and impressions as bench ads.
I have to praise these shelter ads. Some of them are really effective in that it piques the interest of commuters and passer-by's. At the same time, it allows for processing of the information that can lend itself to the consumer taking action.


Other ad media I find really effective is transit ads. The ones inside the buses and trains. Imagine the long commute on the TTC to school or to work: instead of awkwardly staring at that stranger with the weird-looking shirt, you can stare at the ads!
Although the medium has such a great potential at being effective, but the ads themselves are often lackluster at best.
The ads don't provoke action from the audience.
No, not the sudden urge run out and buy the next pack of sour patch kids, or suddenly want to become a mentor for at-risk children (not to say these ads aren't effective, in fact I think both are/were great!).
No, even if they made you stop and say, "huh, that's clever" and make a mental note of the ad/brand, then they are successful!


Magazines are an amazing medium for ads. Due to the plethora of publications out there, often you'll be able to have a very well-target audience. Not to mention the amazing amount of creativity that's available when doing magazine ads.


One last effective medium: facebook.
Really, I wouldn't believe I'm saying this, but some facebook ads really does the trick.
Small companies could definitely benefit from placing ads with facebook.
People are on facebook a large majority of the time (especially that tween to 20-something age range).
Though, frankly, they're often farming or running their restaurant instead of paying attention to the ads.
But in the end, the ads do get attention and can get people to take action. And it's simply just a click for them.
The key to making facebook ads effective, I think, is to design in that square ad something funny and grab attention with the blurb.


There you have it: go with transit ads, magazines or facebook. Probably the most effective ways to advertise/market things if you want people to be taking action and creating that exchange!


I feel like I'm gonna have to post an update to this fairly soon because I feel I've cocked up somewhere.


Until then, stay busy my friends (or haters).