This Year, We All Need to Find a Need
If you read any marketing textbooks, you’ll hear that the success of a product depends on finding a consumer need and filling it.
Yet, when it comes to advertising, some find it hard to find the consumer need and then fill it in the messaging. Instead, people want to feature their kids, brag about their businesses, use hyperbole and/or just talk price in their ads. It’s all done in the name of “creativity.”
Most of us view advertising as disruptive or annoying, but Journal of Advertising research states that “high quality advertising can deliver utility.” Ads that address a “pressing need of the ad viewer” are viewed positively. This seems to over simplify the process, but if you don’t want/need a new car, no ad or sales pitch is going to work.
Once you define the need, it is time to use creativity to deliver the right message. I’m not totally against using your kids in your advertising, but if it doesn’t fill your customers’ needs, just make a fun YouTube video of your kids and post it there.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
