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advertising PR

Sexy Girls And Hot Cars

Recently I hace stumbled on a conversation that’s about as old as the marketing itself. Someone was complaining that the autoshow in their town wasn’t executed properly. One of the main complaints, among others, was that sexy girls were unfriendly, didn’t quite let visitors take pictures with them, some were even giving cold and disgusted looks to occasional photographers. Overall girls seemed to be tired and uninterested.

Some of the comments were straight to the point, but my attention drew upon definitely off-the-way remark that “you are selling cars, why do you need girls there”. Additionally, the commenter was making a point that men are not the only ones who buy hot expensive cars, women now got the money and can afford same rank of Lexuses, BMWs and Mercedeses without being somebody’s paid “associate”. So the whole idea of girls with cars is outdated and obsolete.

Personally, I am a big proponent of change. The only reasonable excuse from changing that I accept from myself is lazyness, but that’s deeply personal. However, with “cars and chicks” I tend to be on a more conservative side – keep ’em together. There’s a simple rationale behind that (sex sells) but I want it for a bunch of different reasons.

First of all – I like pretty women. The more – the merrier, so a trip to car show is like a free venture to a strip club with camera. Curves of women as well as those of cars are aesthetically pleasing (if we won’t mention the male part of my brain), so watching the show is definitely a positive emotion. Additionally, each car (as most of us, men) believe, posess a personality. By giving a new shiny car to shine next to a good looking pretty lady it has a chance to expand that personality. And it definitely improves the overall image of the brand.

It’s not like BMW or Mercedes or Aston Martin really need to establish their identity. But just think for a moment that one of the most important event in car-making industry – the car show (in NY or LA or Miami or Detroit) is done without girls. Car can’t smile, can’t walk around flowing it’s curvaceous body, can’t flash its cleavage left and right and most importantly – can’t make friends. Now there’s one more little thing to it. Think of all the guys with cameras snapping pictures of girls with cars behind them. These pictures will then be posted on blogs, Flickr, MySpace, Facebook and whatever else you can post your pictures on. A lot more people will see them. Now take that as a FREE VIRAL ADVERTISING AND PROMOTION – imagine how much that many posts, pictures and commentaries would cost if BMW would hire an advertising agency?

Categories
PR

Clients who want to be clients

Subliminal message - iStudioWeb BlogInteresting note on generating leads from Patrick Schaber. I would just like to add that prospective clients, while registering, are – conciously or subconciously – suggesting a way you should contact them. For example, if someone wants you to e-mail him, he will almost inevitably mess up his phone number. If another one wants you to call her, she will garble the e-mail address.

Subliminal messaging is just like the body language. Once human species moved on to a new living environment (that is – internet) they immediately adopted their body language habits to new setting. Instead of real emotion we are using smiles. Now, instead of body language we alter the information about us that we transmit.

So while advertisers are trying to come up with ads with subliminal messages built in – we, regular human beings, are being subliminally back to them. Neat, isn’t it?

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Categories
PR

Offline-Online Promotion For Small Businesses – Part 3

Small businesses, especially those that are not geographically “challenged”, should not limit themselves to small-scale marketing tools. Coupons, flyers, business cards, comp cards – it all can work for geographical regions of a small scale. Sending out postcards or distribute flyers can get really expensive as your targeted location grows in size. These marketing tools can’t distinguish among prospective clients, regular clients or, so-called, premium clients. Yes, big news, you have to keep promoting yourself to your premium clients too. It’s like dating – guy is supposed to bring flowers to his girlfriend or wife even after they moved in or got married.

Really neat idea was suggested by some of our customers. They give out free magazine subscriptions to their premium clients. Obviously, it’s not just any magazine – it’s the magazine about the industry they engaged it, and the magazine where their advertising shows up quite often. It may sound like a cheap trick. In fact – it’s just indirect marketing to your existing clients. Just a little something to keep them happy.