The beer commercials must be working on me.

I've never seen an ad on tv/radio/or those internet pop-ups where i said to myself: "you know, i need that, i'm gonna go out and buy it"

If correctly targeted and monitored, yes.

Unfortunately a lot of advertising is neither.

If advertising didn't work a lot of companies are wasting billions of dollars a year on it.

Well, after 30+ years in advertising & marketing, I can tell you that it does work, but almost nobody will admit that it worked on *them.*

Re: Does Advertising Work?
 

Yep. it works. Friday morn, the monitor on this machine died. The same morn, Cindy read a print ad selling a Sharp brand 17" LCD flat screen monitor for $349. So what if it was a 150 mile freeway round trip on today's gas prices? I'm reading these words, as I type them, on a 17" Sharp brand LCD monitor. Gotta admit, it looks a lot better than the old monitor. In one respect, you're right. The only time Cindy & I really pay attention to ads is when we think we "need" something. Ads in their own right don't make us feel we have the "need". But hey, I'm old...most of my buying these days is in replacement mode...no real desire to add more "stuff" to my personal inventory. Tho when we replace, we often look to upgrade. Hope this makes sense to you...

Interesting question, coming from someone that I think has done quite a good job at advertising. The way I see it, the bbs is nothing more than a form of advertisment for Pelican, and a brilliant one at that. Every thread started is a potental sale for Pelican. From "what do I do, my clutch cable broke?" to "what kind of polish should I use on my bare aluminium rims?" Both posts would be potential sales, and the first place they should look for the product would likely be the host. The second place they would look (if at all) would likely be for price comparison purposes. If your prices are right, then the consumer will likely go back to Pelican.

I completely disagree with your assessment that advertising does not work. Your website is a proven example that advertisement is an extremely powerful tool.

Absolutely, when targeted correctly and done as part of a well-rounded and consistent campaign.

A single ad thrown out to the wind is virtually worthless (unless it is a truly notable event like a 75% off blowout sale or something.)

Branding takes months and years to accomplish, but is one of the keys to sustainable growth. By repeatedly keeping your message in front of the appropriate target audience, you are both trying to capture those very few buyers who are "ready" to make a purchase at that moment and just needed a reminder, or phone number, or perhaps were not aware of the latest product or version, and more importantly, you are also planting seeds in the back of peoples' minds for the future when they -become- legitimate consumers for your particular product.

In my business, the sales cycle can literally be 18-36 months and it is crucial to make an impression on a prospective buyer very early in the planning and budgeting cycle, ideally before they even get "serious" about the project. You want your name, not a competitor's, to be on their mind when the time to buy finally arrives. If you do it perfectly, you will have already differentiated yourself to the point where the buyer will not even acknowledge that there -are- other alternative suppliers, and you will get the order.

The only time I pay attention to any kind of advertising is when I need something, and I pretty much have on blinders to anything else. Otherwise, I just close any pop ups or banners on my computers withoug looking at them. If I'm watching the TV, I always mute the advertisements. When listening to the radio, I think about other things during comercials. If I need something, I start researching it to make a decision about what/which to buy. I think the information accompanying a product (like the items in the catalog on this website) goes a long way toward helping make a decision to buy or not.

It can actually hurt business too IMO, depending on the format/venue/delivery. For instance, I will make a mental note of a company that uses annoying and/or intrusive advertising methods, and avoid buying their product/service if I can.

Subliminal Seduction. I believe it works. Or perhaps I just saw a hidden image of a scantilly clad women telling me it works...I can't remember....

Advertising definetly works - It's the direction in which "DIRECT MARKETTING" that needs to be questioned.

For example, I would suggest a little (not flame me folks, Im trying to EARN some points) popup window for people on your forum when they first log on every day targetted at wich ever model car they have.

It is possble, you have th edata avialable, you just have to make it work for you.

I know if I saw some (wish) new momo shift knobs on sale when I log on for a week streight, by (payday) friday, I would think "You know, I better ge tthat shift knob I been wanting befor eit go's off sale"

But without the add, I would have never known and it would have never been in the back of my mind - Instead I might have baught it the following saturday as a compulsion buy for full retail at some "other" RETAIL store. Or even worst - Not buy anything because an add wasnt thrown in my face when I was titer toting the idea!

The horror Wayne!

I totally ignore conventional Internet advertising (banners, skyscrapers, clickable pics, links, popups, etc). At best, it irritates me. At worst, it doesn't even register.

I totally ignore unsolicited email advertising. Most of it gets caught by my spam filter and what doesn't gets added to the spam blacklist.

I do my best to ignore TV advertising. 100% of our TV viewing is via TiVo and we fast-forward through all the ads. TV ads are irritating and tedious - as if the people making them think of the audience as captive, tied to a chair with eyes propped open, so that the ads are designed to make the maximum impact on the unwilling brain. When they do stumble out an interesting or funny ad, they run it every 1/2 hour so it quickly becomes irritating.

I ignore newspaper ads. I'm just skimming the paper anyway, so its easy to skim over the ads. I used to pay attention to the Sunday inserts (for computers and electronics and hardware) until they reached 1/3rd of the weight of the entire Sunday paper, then I started just throwing them out en masse, without a glance.

I ignore ads in general interest magazines (Newsweek, etc). Kind of like newspapers.

I screen all phone calls, so you can imagine my response to telemarketers.

I pay attention to ads in enthusiast magazine ads. Normally I'm very interested in the topic of the magazine, the topic of the ad is the same topic, and I'm reading those magazines cover to cover, not skimming.

I pay attention to most catalogs. They get saved for reference, idly picked up and read, dog-eared for X-mas, etc.

I pay attention to emails that I have subscribed to. For example, I get one from AJ USA that I read quite carefully each month.

I pay a lot of amount of attention to word of mouth advertising. I consider internet discussion forums like this to be among the best word of mouth advertising.

Re: Re: Does Advertising Work?
 

Paul,

I think you just described the effectiveness of an advertising campaign.

You didn't need a monitor until the one you had failed, but Cindy (bless her heart) knew where to find the ad that had the product you wanted and at a ok price.

You and her probabbly saw the same ad in the same place every time you looked a the newpaper (I assume it is that place in Wilsonville). They run an ad on the same days in the same places. The format is always the same. The way the items are arranged on the page are always the same. Have done so for years. As a result, they know when we are looking for something, we know where to find their ad and where in the ad to look.

So, even though you never "read" the ad, you knew where to find it and how to find what you needed.

Pretty slick, eh?

Not really. Wayne needs to feed his family too.

If he wants to "help" me buy, he might want to include a special of the "day/week/etc" on the top of the page. Not a popup that I will close without reading, just a spot on the page that I know will always have the promo for something I might like to buy. Because he has a varitery of audiences, the content of the spot may change depending on which forum I am at but the same one would appear for the total time period and then be changed for another one.

The hard part is monitoring how sucessful the ad is and whether it is adding business.

In my opinion, advertising has its goods and bads. Superbowl ads obviously bring a great deal of attention. But in reality, it is truly on per consumer basis. I think the best form of advertising is word of mouth.

If I purchase something from a particular place and I am happy with the service provided no matter what the cost I will refer somebody to the same place and most likely be a repeat shopper. On the otherhand, one bad experience even if the deal is right, I will go somewhere else.

I get the paper every Sunday and the first place I go is the ads because I may be thinking about buying something and all I truly need is the right incentive.

Personally, I prefer "Media Sexploitation ".

Clams anyone?

Having spent my entire career in the creation and production of promotional advertising for the television and movie industries, I can tell you that good advertising really works. And bad advertising does not.
It seems pretty simple, but a lot of huge companies still don't get it.
You can thank the "focus group era" and the dawn of the mega-sized advertising agencies for 99% of the crappy ads you see.
The really creative, effective stuff is usually the product of one or two people with an understanding of both the product and the consumer who have the power to create a spot without corporate interference.

Wayne, famous quote "the good news is that we have done some research and have just concluded that half of our advertising budget is wasted. the bad news is that we don't know which half."

advertising definitely does work, however it serves mostly not as a stimulus to get someone to buy something, but rather as a way of pointing a potential customer that is already in need of your service in your direction. to use your example of the Jack-In-The-Box ads; these ads are not designed to convince you that you are hungry and need to "eat at Jack's" but rather to leave that little meme in your head when you are hungry (while tooling down the road) that you remember their tasty products first and are swayed to eat there instead. IOW. it's easier for them to get you into their store if you already know what's on the menu

of course there are those ads that cause customers to say "hey, that's cool. I need one of those!" and create a sale. but those are usually the exception

Beer commercials make me want to buy porn.

<grin>

Sure, millions of kids bought Nikes because Jordan wore them, I'm no golfer but I think millions of not-kids-anymore have bought Nikes because Tiger wears them.

If you're wondering the power of well placed advertising - go see the movie "Super Size me."

It's amazing how hard McD's is trying to get life long customers.

I spend thousands of dollars a yr. advertising with NASCAR and never watch a race but my customers must. You have to get your name out to as many of YOUR customers as you can and just do a great job when they come in.

Many of the ads you see on TV today for Coke and Nike have nothing to do with new products or gaining new customers. They are created to remind us of an emotional or personal relationship we have with the product. Nike ads enspire you to run and workout, while Coke ads show people having a good time drinking Coke. Neither ad talks about price, comfort, performance, taste, etc. These ads are made to keep their loyal customers and stop others from eating in to there marketshare.

As far as this forum it is part of the promotion for Pelican Parts. This free board encourages vistors to the Pelican site and also keeps exsisting customers comming back. Becuase of the board and tech articles users become loyal to Pelican Parts.

I agree that a website is not a traditional form of adverstment, but up until 10 or so years ago, there was no web as we know it today. The web is a NEW form of advertisemet. Therefore, I DO consider the main website a form of advertisment. The entire web is nothing but an index of websites, analogous to the yellow pages. One searches for the subject matter (i.e., porsche parts) and the webside link pops up. The website is analogous to a yellow page ad.

Another analogy is to compare the website to the old Sears catalog that used to be delivered to your door. You look through the catalog, maybe not even knowing what you want to buy, yet you see something on page 93 that would be great to own, so you buy it. That whole catalog as well as the picture on page 93 is a form of advertisement. This is no different than your website.

I am not trying to be argumentative, but I believe your point about the website and forum not being a form of adverstisment to be incorrect. And please don't get me wrong, I believe you have done an excellent job at advertising. :)

What REALLY makes me wonder, is how the heck do these billions of "garbage" spam messages pay off?

Clearly, they must, because they keep coming and in fact are accelerating.

But I get literally hundreds of emails that are gibberish and cannot even be replied to. Some may contain valid web links, I don't know as I would never click one even if they did.

I even get 10-15 per day on my cell phone (which AT&T claims they can't stop, but that's another story.)

Everyone complains about spam, yet the easiest way to get rid of it would be to simply stop buying their crap!

I also agree that most print, TV and radio ads are "noise". But keep in mind the B2C world is completely different from B2B. For some products, the shotgun approach works fine. For others, it is a quick road to bankrupcy.

I attended a urologist's convention in San Francisco a couple of weekends ago and noticed that the biggest, flashiest booths belonged to the makers of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. Renting a booth at the Moscone Center was not cheap and these guys had at least 5 spaces worth each. With all the ads you see on TV, print media and radio about these products and the business those ads bring, they can afford to put on a great show.

Advertising works. I used to work for a company that quantified how well it works. Place a newspaper ad and sales increase. Place a newspaper ad and buy an end cap in the store (you don't think products end up on end caps randomly, do you?) and sales increase more. Place an ad, buy and end cap, offer a dicount, and sales will increase even more.

The grocery store club cards are tied to your demographics and to your purchases. The data all gets analyzed and sold back to retailers and consumer packaged goods companies.

"IRI leverages proprietary household-level panel purchase data and unique testing capabilities to provide the most in-depth, comprehensive view of consumer behavior."

Go here to read more:
http://www.infores.com/

You are kidding right, Wayne?

In the past I have spent 1000s of $ in print advertising a year. 9 years ago I got involved on the Internet, first in email lists and a web site and later on the BBS side. My business has more than doubled every year since, all directly attributed to the web and 99% of that to my own BBS. I am about to pay off last year's printed ad budget. I'll never buy another inch. And it doesn't takes many inches to pay for a BBS this size.

Enjoy the ride.