There will be days that you make a multi-million Dollar Ad campaign that is praised for years to come. There will be days you can’t sell a product that almost sells itself.
The key is learning to adapt to what kind of a day you are having, and being able to make either type of day a productive one.
Today is not one of those productive days for me. I spent all day in bed. And being sick is a horrible excuse. The world never sleeps.
Good Ads have Good Stories.
Presently I am in the middle of “Story” by Robert McKee. To be blunt, the book is brilliant. However it is thicker than almost 95% of the Amazon in most places, and thus takes quite some time to wade through. But it’s well worth the time.
The key to keeping anyone’s attention is story. Period. If I want to know more, I will pay attention. If I want to understand why Person A is standing on or around Person B’s head, I will wait and find out. That’s the skinny.
Stories are what make everything we do–well, everything we do. Right now, if you have gotten this far, you are curious about the story, and thus you are continuing in your trek to understand what I am talking about. Good ads have this sense of drive, of flow, of story if you will. Something that the Audience is looking for, whether it’s information about the product or more information about what is happening in the ad.
The brilliance behind the Geico Ad’s is the hiatus in the stories of them. They are brilliantly concocted to drive themselves nowhere. From start to finish, the story is completely ridiculous, and thus all of the attention if changed from the content of the story to the fact behind to story–Gieco 15 Minutes could save you 15 percent or more. That’s it. And you remember it because it doesn’t follow the mold of story.
Interesting way to play with story–not to have one.
*Sigh* Oh to complexities in this God-Created World–What a tangled web we need to survive.
Stephen: You said good way to get your name out there.
Anything can be used to increase our image,
you put into words what I’ve always thought of people. That all of us are products, trying to sell ourselves to the world in different forms and fashions, and its just a matter of shaping our image to suit our demographic.
Jon: Welcome to the world of business.
Stephen: What made you think of the image thing?
Jon: That’s how I think. That’s why I am who I am,
because I know that what others think of me
has a HUGE impact on whether or not I’ll be successful in life
that’s why I’m so excited about life.
Stephen: Its a really smart way to be, I think I need to be more like that also, I am a brand so i should make sure I’m a well known long lasting brand.
Jon: No. You are Stephen, and when people think of Stephen you want them to have fuzzy feelings of kindness and yearning to have more of Stephen.
Brand is just a word, and if you negate to make it personal it will never stick.
Stephen: Yeah, but if I want to have a political career I will have to brand myself in such a way that I will be memorable you know what I mean. but I do agree without being personable it’s not going to work at all.
Jon: Yea, I see where you’re going, but I think the big thing is, you need to brand yourself, but if you are doing it right you don’t even realize that you are branding yourself, because you are just being the brand you want to be
Stephen: That makes sense.
Jon: If you can be apple then people know you are apple. They don’t need you to tell them you are apple because when you are around they expect you to already be apple.
You don’t have to prove to them you are apple and if they have never experienced apple before, then they are in for a surprise because when they realize who apple is, they get excited the next time they see apple.
Stephen: I see what you mean.
Advertising is happening|Always.
It’s in the things you say, the way you say them and who you say them to. Your name is your brand. Hi I’m –. You just gave someone a brand to look for. Your name. Don’t take this lightly when you are out in the real world, especially when you are with potential clients. Even just hanging out at a coffee shop and talking with complete strangers is an opportunity for you to tarnish, or build up your brand name.
Something to keep in mind is that you don’t need millions of dollars and an Emmy-winning television spot to make your name a smash hit among your peers and prospective customers. All you need is a little bit of responsiblity. To your brand, and your customers.
Don’t let anything fall through to cracks, and brush it off as if it were nothing. ANYTHING that will fit through the head of a needle is capable of causing problems more Titanic than you could even dream. And on the reverse, anything that might seem like something minuscule to you might mean all the world to the right person and could send you catapulting in the right direction.
It’s not why you accomplish the task, it’s how, when, where, and with whom.
Image is everything. I can’t say that enough.
And right now, mine with this Blog is pretty sorry.
Time to step back up to the plate and hopefully hit some fastballs wide left-
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