Right Notes in the Wrong Places
When I first started to envision this post, I was going to title it “No Press is Bad Press”. As I began to write, though, I found myself remembering what my high school music teacher used to tell audiences before our school band performances – “There is no such thing as a wrong note, just a right note in the wrong place.” It occurs to me that there is an interesting parallel in marketing, to the extent that, there is a key difference between plain, bad marketing and marketing that simply does not fit the moment, audience or context in which it is presented.
After all, issues like timing can be critically important. Clients and prospects need time to react. For example, decisions to purchase corporate seasonal greeting cards will usually have been made by mid-November, therefore, efforts to promote them in early December will usually be in vain. On the other side of the coin, if you promote an event, sale or service too early the piece may be misplaced or forgotten long before the event occurs or the service may be required. Consider how ineffective promoting tax preparation services might be in mid-June.
So, is there any value at all in pieces that arrive a little too late or a little too early (good marketing in the wrong place)? I think so, especially in the case of those that may arrive early. Why? Well, first off, all marketing can help to build brand recognition. Secondly, if response levels are lower than anticipated on a piece that went out early, there can still be opportunity for a follow-up mailing or promotion, and, in many cases, that is what might be needed to start the orders coming in. There is value in repetition!
We’ve discussed the importance of repetition before, too, in our post Please Don’t Shoot the Designer. As we noted there, all too often people perceive that some form of marketing is not working because they only tried it once. The same is also true of timing. Just because an ad or mailing piece doesn’t work at one time doesn’t mean that the same piece won’t work wonders at a different time.
After all, a strong middle C note is a beautiful sound, unless everyone else is playing the key of D. Then it just sounds discordant. But, it’s not because there is anything wrong with the note itself. It is simply played out of place.
Of course, looking back to high school, I must say that some of the sounds that emerged from the various instruments could never be referred to as actual notes. It seems that all high school musicians have an innate ability to create absurd sounds with instruments that exceed the wildest expectations of their designers and manufacturers. Again, we can say the same in marketing, where some dreadful ads break all the rules and fail miserably. Unfortunately, we’ve seen our fair share of these over the years.
Interestingly, though, some break all the rules and are very successful.
Granted, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, but I recall a Valentines Day ad for a major furniture store with the slogan “There’s nothin’ says lovin’ like a brand new oven” that made me cringe. So, was the ad a bad ad? I don’t see how it could have been, because I have never forgotten it. That was how the company chose to advertise and it seems to have worked for them.
Part of the effectiveness is that they created something memorable – even if the memory is not necessarily one that I enjoy. In doing so, they have managed to cement a certain level of brand awareness, which in and of itself is evidence of effective marketing.
At the end of the day, though, marketing is the sum total of all that we do, not just our advertising. To wrap things up, I would like to take a minute to go back to my initial concept and consider the effect of bad press, and how it can (potentially) be overcome. I think that both President Clinton and Tiger Woods are prime examples of this. Even though he was facing possible impeachment, President Clinton’s legacy has overshadowed his “troubled” times and it seems very likely that Tiger Wood’s incredible talent and charisma will outweigh his challenges of today.
So, it appears that over time, a tarnished image can be overcome by major accomplishments and unparalleled excellence. I am sure that the executives at Toyota are banking on this and remain hopeful that today’s problems (or bad notes) will be all but forgotten a few years down the road. Additionally, their positive actions can be become a contributing factor in actually turning bad press into good press.
In this vast landscape of marketing, then, there may be some notes (more like tweets, today) in the wrong places, some great ads and some dreadful ads. There is no doubt that we all want our advertising to be well received, but should we err, let us take heart in the understanding that even the right message at the wrong time is often better than no message at all.
