Throughout my marketing career, I’ve kept a SWIPE FILE (inspiration file) of my favorite MARKETING IDEAS: tweets, thoughts, articles, podcasts, ads, TikToks and our favorite, MEMES.
Every week I’ll be sharing 3 of my favorites from my archives + what I’m adding to my swipe this week.
1. NAIL THE HEADLINE
All I can say is Patagonia NAILED THE HEADLINE.
It grabs your attention. It makes you wonder why you shouldn’t buy this jacket. Why is a brand spending $ to tell me NOT TO BUY? This makes me trust Patagonia ALREADY (before I hit the smaller text).
Oglivy famously said, “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
Yet, people rarely spend time nailing the headline. Your headline grabs the attention of the reader. It’s not something you throw together AFTER you’ve written your content. It’s going to make or break your campaign – so we have to come correct.
Our first goal in marketing is to CAPTURE attention.
Here, Patagonia captures the reader’s attention. Immediately.
Then, in the meat of the content, they begin by explaining WHY consumerism has a NEGATIVE EFFECT on the environment.
Not only did they educate the consumer, BUT they also showed what matters MOST to Patagonia:
Not selling you this sweatshirt or those pants.
Our planet > Their Profits
^ This is a core, everpresent pillar of Patagonia’s brand, mission, and strategy.
In the end, they don’t actually go in for the kill (the sale).
Instead, Patagonia powerfully requests that we (The reader) join their pledge for the Common Threads Initiative.
Following the deployment of this campaign, sales rose 30%.
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Which is great! However, I’d say Patagonia’s brand equity rose by much, much more.
Well done, Patagonia. You’ve got a customer in me.
2. Don’t waste free real estate
Your brand real estate INCLUDES everything your brand touches, from email confirmations to website (and yes I said it – even app store updates).
Instead of wasting real estate (why be boring?), Slack decided to use the space to build brand love. They decided to take the opportunity to genuinely check in with their users.
Instead of just sticking with the status quo, and doing something pointless that nobody would read, Slack made a routine app update A MOMENT.
Slack = stole the show.
This move turned into a VIRAL social moment for Slack (and was shared and beloved across the world wide web).
Marketing should be involved in all parts of the company (even down to the dev release).
You can FIND opportunities to build deeper relationships with your customers, or you can let these types of opportunities pass you by.
I’d choose to stand out, à la Slack.
Every touchpoint matters in marketing.
Brand consistency matters at every touchpoint. Pay attention to the details (details maketh the brand).
At every turn, there’s always an opportunity to do something great, or something lame, or something terrible. Choose the great.
At every opportunity, dictate HOW YOU MAKE YOUR AUDIENCE FEEL.
Slack = Power Moves Only
3. Humor
The power of great copy and HUMOR.
I want to chat about humor in marketing.
Humor is a great tool.
People REMEMBER what makes them laugh.
We all love to giggle. To LOL. A little ha here, a little ha there. Haha.
And, the goal of marketing is to win in the mind of your audience – WE NEED TO become memorable.
Humor doesn’t ALWAYS work as an advertising technique, but when it does, it creates memorable, IMPACTFUL, and effective advertising.
Porsche makes a funny joke here. That “nobody’s perfect” because they only got 9 out of the 10 top spots in the LeMans race.
Great ads do 3 things:
- They catch our attention – the headline hooks you & brings you in.
- They are memorable – if attention is fleeting and if you forget what you just saw, then you’ve lost your impact.
They keep your brand top of mind – so that when a buyer is ready to buy, they will think of you FIRST.
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