When do terms and conditions matter?

Pams has recently started an advertising and branding campaign claiming that it is “the most popular grocery brand in the land”. Their substantiation? “New Zealanders buy more Pams groceries than groceries from any other single brand. Based on Homescan data NielsonIQ, 2023. T&Cs apply.”

That’s directly from their website, and it’s a weasel claim. The “T&Cs apply” are proof of that.

Considering that Pams is the (often) cheapest white-label brand of choice for New World, Pak’nSave, and Four Square, their claim seems legitimate—or does it?

Pams is part of New Zealand’s grocery cartel, so it’s obvious that they’ll sell more since they have more shelf space, lower prices, and the widest range of products. This doesn’t make them the most popular brand.

The claim Pams puts out there is the same as the New Zealand Transport Agency claiming that the SH1 motorway is New Zealand’s most popular road because it sees the most traffic.

Bunnings and Mitre10 have their own nebulous claim, which also comes with T&Cs: if you find a lower-priced item at a competitor, they’ll beat that price by 15%.

But since they’re another cartel, they can control their stock, which means you’ll never find the exact same big-ticket products like a Masport lawnmower at Bunnings or find a Bosch lawnmower at Mitre 10.

Even if you drill down to products like turpentine or nails, the brands are never the same at the two stores, so how much worth is there in a perceived 15% discount?

It was David Ogilvy who stated that “the consumer is not a moron.” But every day, more and more advertisers and big businesses push us into that category. That’s not where I want anyone to be.

Shouldn’t we all be loath to be taken advantage of in this way? I know I am.

PS. I called Pams to find out what the T&Cs are, and they didn’t know themselves.

Road to Zero will never work. Here’s why.

Perfection is unattainable. We cannot eliminate human error, complacency, mechanical failure, and outside influences.

I recently lost a good friend in a car accident. I don’t know exactly what happened, except there was a collision involving a truck. My friend, Marianne Mckenzie, owned a media company and was actively involved in the advertising industry. We’d spoken about Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Association’s (NZTA) advertising on many occasions. But she’s gone now to join the other 379 who died on New Zealand’s roads in 2022.

Is the NZTA’s advertising working?

No. With an advertising budget of fourteen million dollars, you have to ask why. The messaging is fractured and confusing, and worst of all, it’s now focusing more on using scare tactics to get its message across. Have a look at the NZTA’s current campaigns running on their marketing campaign page and you can see what they’re doing. My opinion is that of the 14 campaigns displayed, only three do not use scare tactics.

And now other companies are taking matters into their own hands. The HW Richardson Group has just launched a driver safety campaign called Almost Dead. Their Almost Dead campaign uses real-life dashcam footage, collected from its fleet of over 1,300 trucks to show how reckless drivers are on the roads. It’s a fascinating view of how bad drivers can be. Kudos to HWR for taking the wheel here.

Is the NZTA’s advertising agency, BBDO Clemenger, responsible for the higher death tolls?

Yes – 2022 was the worst year for road deaths since 2017, and the worst for deaths over the Festive Season since 2018. The road death toll is up 18% since 2017. Proof of BBDO’s failure to convert. Advertising is all about results but Clemenger BBDO likely has other goals: advertising awards.

In 2014, Clemenger BBDO won 38 global and local advertising awards for their road safety campaign. In 2014, 293 people died on our roads. Effectively, Clemenger BBDO won just over one advertising award for every seven people who died.

Was Clemenger BBDO’s 2014 advertising campaign for the NZTA effective? Based on the death toll in 2014, no, it wasn’t. And they haven’t created an effective, results-driven campaign since then and the numbers in 2022 prove it.

Lowering our death toll isn’t all about creativity, nor does it necessarily require it. Clemenger BBDO is in a very privileged position to work with the NZTA. I know lowering the death toll is a difficult task, but Clemenger BBDO has immense resources, global partners, and colossal manpower. We must demand more from them.

Going back to my friend Marianne’s death, anything could have happened. I believe she was a good driver – I drove with her on many occasions from Auckland to Hamilton, and she showed no signs of bad driving habits. So, was she distracted when she died? Was the other party driving sensibly? Who knows.

What can we, as road users, do?

Driving better is the obvious, clichéd answer. But that’s far too simple to work. We should already be driving better, and the NZTA should be making progress in dropping the death toll, but neither of us is succeeding.

Should we be asking the NZTA to produce advertising about car maintenance? Should they lower the WOF requirements back to six months? Can they get off their butts and do something about the state of the roads? Should we ask that the NZTA move all advertising in-house and remove the advertising awards influence, or even go as far as saying that all advertising done for the NZTA can’t be entered in awards? There are many possibilities, but it’s unlikely we’ll get a solution acceptable to every road user.

It’s Thursday night as I type this, and I can hear two cars racing on Te Irirangi Drive, about one kilometre away, where the speed limit is 60km/h. I’m sure one of them has a V-Tech engine. I don’t think any of the drivers care.

My next-door neighbour owns a car tuning company called Eastern Automotive. One of the engine upgrades they can do to a Holden is the Walkinshaw Package, where they can take the car’s power output up to 547KW. And just down the road, another neighbour earns extra income by tuning BMWs to increase their power output. Speed kills, but it makes lots of money too. And as long as there are people actively chasing speed, the roads will not get any safer.

Writing this blog has just made me even more sceptical about Road to Zero, and I’d like to think there’s more optimist in me than cynic but there isn’t about this topic.

Road to Zero will never work.

AI Ad Revolution: How AI is Redefining Advertising

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionising the way brands, agencies, and advertisers approach advertising.

From automated campaigns to improved audience targeting, AI is fundamentally reshaping how we connect with our audiences through digital media. Find out how AI is redefining advertising here!

What is AI in Advertising?

AI in advertising is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically generate and target digital ads. AI-driven technologies are used to identify the right audiences, deliver the right ad formats, place ads in the right channels, optimise campaigns for performance, anticipate customer behaviour, and more.

With these technologies, brands can drastically increase their efficiency with digital advertising while reducing costs and driving better results.

How AI Can Improve Targeting and Performance.

AI has enabled advertisers to use sophisticated machine learning and deep neural networks to accurately target the right audience at the right time.

AI-powered algorithms can detect trends, patterns, and correlations within customer data in order to uncover deeper insights about user behaviour.

With this data, brands can personalise ads for each user and increase their chances of making a sale or conversion. Additionally, these technologies enable marketers to optimise campaigns in real-time, detect anomalies early on, boost ROI, measure performance accurately, and more

Adaptive Learning And Automated Campaigns With AI.

AI allows for a huge level of automation when it comes to campaign analysis and ad optimisation. With machine learning, insights about user behaviour can be obtained quickly and reliably to help create more tailored ads that better meet customer needs.

Furthermore, AI-driven technologies enable the automatic creation of campaigns based on an understanding of customer interests and behaviours while automating optimisation processes.

This means more accurate decisions are made in real time with no human input necessary.

Improved Analytics for a Data-Driven Marketing Strategy.

With advanced analytics, AI-driven marketing strategies can boost customer engagement while identifying customer needs and preferences.

By leveraging advanced analytics, marketers can obtain actionable insights on users with automated analysis of customer data such as demographic information, user preferences, and web browsing behaviour. These help to provide more useful insights regarding target persona in order to develop an improved strategy with tailored messages and maximum outreach.

Furthermore, the automation of data analysis ensures that even the most complex customer insights can be accessed quickly and efficiently, allowing for increased campaign optimisation in real time.

Maximising Your Return on Investment with AI Advertising Solutions.

With AI-powered advertising solutions, advertisers can maximise their Return on Investment (ROI) through increased personalisation.

By leveraging data analysis to gain a complete understanding of customers’ needs and preferences, advertisers can easily devise strategies to attract and retain them.

Moreover, AI helps buyers to customise campaigns more accurately, enabling marketers to ensure they receive the highest ROI possible on each ad. AI-driven predictive analytics also enables them to make informed decisions based on updated and accurate customer data, providing potential for increased ROI from each campaign.

A Guide to Choosing an Advertising Agency in 2023.

Here are five questions to ask yourself when looking to choose an advertising agency.

1. Does the advertising agency advertise its own services?

Most Auckland advertising agencies will advertise their successes in an “aren’t we cool” fashion, in publications aimed at their peers and the industry as a whole. Still, almost all do not advertise in mainstream media.

If you asked around, you’d get told that advertising agencies work in a business-to-business environment and that their product is best suited to the business-to-consumer space. So there’s theoretically no real “fit”.

Many agencies have major clients that operate in a business-to-business environment, and these agencies happily manage to accept money for services rendered, so let’s scratch that excuse.

2. Does the size of the agency matter?

Working with a big advertising agency can be quite prestigious, but there are drawbacks:

• Where will your business fit in its hierarchy?

• Who will handle your account?

• Are you more than a number?

In equal measure, you’ll find other questions when working with a smaller advertising agency:

• Does the agency have the capacity, expertise, and vision to advance your brand?

• Will they have the buying power and connections you need to deliver cost-effective advertising and marketing solutions?

Whether the agency is big or small, they are all capable of doing amazing work, especially with your guidance. Working with an advertising agency isn’t a one-way street. Your input is vital in creating work that builds connections, creates trust, and most importantly, delivers results.

3. How will the advertising results be measured?

Advertising isn’t an exact science and there’s no easy way to measure its overall effectiveness. While few adverts have absolutely zero effect, there’s no precise way to measure the success of an advertising campaign. In fact, it’s almost impossible to measure how many dollars of sales were generated by each advertising dollar that you spent.

A good advertising agency will have a number of methods that can give some kind of an idea as to whether its ads are hitting the mark or not. This needs to be in place over all the media platforms they use.

If you’re in any doubt about measurement, ask for tangible case studies that show this agency knows what it’s talking about.

4. What about the agency’s work?

An advertising agency’s portfolio of work needs to stand on its own merits, and you have to critically look at that work to make sure that the agency’s overall creative vision is what your business needs. Here are three tips:

1. Forget about how much they talk up past successes, including awards. You need to know if their work will drive sales for you.

2. Look at the agency’s creative track record and ask yourself how much of it is focused on winning awards, and how much is aimed at getting real results – the two are often very different things.

3. Ask the hard questions, pick one of their accounts and ask to see all the work done on that account in a year.

And most importantly, don’t forget the Jackson Pollock Rule. It’s a simple rule and it goes like this: some people will love what you created and others will totally loathe it.

5. What about the people that work there?

When you ask an advertising agency to pitch for your business, you’re likely to get a great response, and a team of smart-suited go-getters will arrive at your door, ready to promise the Earth and more. But what happens after they get your business? Be on the lookout for:

1. Changes in the people who are working on your account

2. Lack of time with upper management, such as creative directors

3. Slow progress on delivering your work

If points like these rear their head then it’s time to take things to the highest authority. You’ll soon be able to judge how important your business is to the advertising agency by the response you get. You might get told that it’s none of your business how the agency manages its people or its job flow, but they’re actually your people, and in all seriousness, that’s your job flow.

Take a look at some of these Advertising Agency Websites.

Using analogies in advertising

At Partisan Advertising, we believe there are five tenets upon which effective and memorable advertising campaigns can be built and how they can be used for the betterment of your advertising. They are:

Humour, testimonial, metaphor, analogy, and demonstration.

In this blog, we’ll be looking at analogies used in advertising. An analogy can be a powerful and effective tool in advertising campaigns. By using analogies we create associations with your target audience, making your products more attractive and interesting, which helps to build an emotional connection with potential customers.

An analogy is a figure of speech that compares two objects, often for the purpose of clarification or emphasis. It takes something abstract or difficult to understand and makes it easier to comprehend by connecting it to something more easily understood.

Analogies can be used effectively in advertising campaigns to help customers connect with your brand and product in a meaningful way.

Why use analogies?

Humans compare what is happening to them in the present with what happened to them in the past. Based on previous experiences and memories stored, our brain makes connections and comparisons.

For example, when you see a car, your brain automatically tells you ‘this is a car’ and based on previous experiences, you know how a car works. You don’t have to ‘re-learn’ a car. Your brain makes a connection between all the cars you’ve ever seen or driven before and connects this information with any new car you will see. This ‘connection’ is an analogy that your brain does subconsciously.

In advertising, analogies and metaphors are everywhere. The motivational power of an advertisement often depends on the analogies used. A well-chosen analogy will vastly improve the memorability and impact of your advertising.

How We Use Analogies in Advertising.

The key to using analogies successfully in advertising is to come up with a comparison that is both meaningful and relevant. We start by thinking of some tangible objects that can be connected to your product or brand. Then, we consider how these objects are similar in terms of qualities or characteristics. Finally, we create an analogy that ties back to the message you are trying to communicate with your audience - such as “Your product is like a sunny day - it brings warmth and light into people’s lives!”

We look for analogies that are meaningful and emotionally impactful. We try to pick objects that have personal relevance to our customer base. Additionally, we make sure the analogy is relevant to the message we are attempting to send with our advertising.

We avoid generic comparisons and instead focus on creating something original and interesting that will stand out in the minds of viewers.

Finally, we’re always direct and don’t leave too much room for interpretation, making sure our audience can follow the connection between the analogy and the product or brand.

Tap Into Trending Topics with Analogies.

Everyone talks about current events, pop culture and trending topics. We look to make meaningful connections between those trends and your brand message so that your customers are more likely to remember it.

Analogies serve as strong bridges - they help paint a vivid picture while emphasising deeper meaning to the subject. Finding a clever analogy that reflects an aspect of your brand’s ethos can make your next advertising campaign memorable!

Using metaphors in advertising.

In this blog, we’ll be looking at using metaphors in advertising.

At Partisan Advertising, we believe there are five tenets upon which effective and memorable advertising campaigns can be built and how they can be used for the betterment of your advertising. They are:

Humour, testimonial, metaphor, analogy, and demonstration.

Metaphors are the kings of advertising and can be a compelling option to explore when creating effective advertising campaigns.

What you’re doing is taking two dissimilar things and putting them together based on something they have in common. For example, drawing a comparison between a condom and a motorcycle helmet. They're very different in terms of size, how they’re made, and what they’re made from, but they both offer protection where and when it matters most.

Some messages can be clear and simple (like the condom example), but sometimes, a better and more unique impression can be made using very different elements, like an eel and a car (figure it out).

We often test products and brands based on what we can see, feel, hear, touch, and taste but there’s something more at play that creates a strong association with the brand and I call that the “smile factor”. This is the reality that there are a lot of other benefits that brands can offer that our five senses can’t describe – subconscious messages with deeper meanings and emotions which influence our decisions to make a purchase.

And this is where the metaphor comes into play.

Metaphors come in two varieties: pure metaphor and fused metaphor.

What is a pure metaphor?

This metaphor represents a completely different thing from your product; it is used to stand in for the product or the feelings we get from it. Here is one example:

Sofia is a newly established bank. Banks are boring and often their advertising is even worse. This ad seems to have no connection to banking, but it’s packed with associations: the visual tells the story that the bank is new but it is smart and knowledgeable in all things banking despite its age.

What is a fused metaphor?

This is when you take the product and something unique about it and combine it with something else. Here’s a great example that needs no explanation:

How we use metaphors:

• We look for pairs to parallel.

• We mix the product’s symbols with imagery that is somehow related to the product.

• We work in terms of addition or substitution.

• We start putting the product into formats to help make connections and create images:

  • “It’s like a ____.”

  • “It’s like a ____ for your ____.”

  • “Think of it as a _______.”

  • “If it were a ____, it would be a _____.”

If our first ideas are too clichéd, we don’t lose hope. We’re prepared to hold out for the second, third, or 20th comparison. Metaphors will start pouring out and the originality will come.

The brilliance in using metaphors lies within how we spark a connection between the product or service to the audience. Ultimately, metaphors are tools for communication whereby using one means your audience will better understand the purpose of why they can make use of your product/business.

Using testimonials in advertising.

In this blog, we’ll be looking at using testimonials in advertising.

At Partisan Advertising, we believe there are five tenets upon which effective and memorable advertising campaigns can be built and how they can be used for the betterment of your advertising. They are:

Humour, testimonial, metaphor, analogy, and demonstration.

We need to start at the very beginning. Way back before social media and the Internet, when we had to actively look for advice from friends, family, and industry experts – word-of-mouth was the most powerful marketing tool around (and it still is).

In the previous century, being a film or food critic (or any critic for that matter) was being someone with a make-or-break influence to those being reviewed. These days, everyone’s a critic. Is that a problem? It doesn’t appear that way except (once again) for those being reviewed.

Using testimonials in advertising is so powerful because we trust people more than we trust brands. According to research by UK think tank WyzOwl, 42% of people say testimonial videos are compelling because they showcase an actual person and help the viewer understand their story.

WyzOwl also said that 95% of people they interviewed say that reviews, whether positive or negative, influence their purchasing decisions.

This points toward the importance of video testimonials as a marketing and advertising tool. Video takes word-of-mouth marketing to the next level. A video is harder to fake. This is a real customer willing to associate their face and name with your brand. It creates trust and helps create a strong, authentic relationship between the viewer, the person in the video, and the brand. This strengthens the relationship between the brand and the consumer.

Testimonial commercials are a highly specialised form of advertising, and they can be tremendously effective.

• Testimonials make the invisible visible.

• Testimonials can demonstrate conversation benefits.

• A testimonial can add legitimacy and increase engagement.

• Testimonials can provide direct targeting through strong resonation with the audience.

In the past eight years, Partisan Advertising has successfully used testimonial-based commercials for our client, TR Group. Our approach to generating testimonials is simple:

• The customer does not have a script to follow. This results in a short, to-the-point, natural, and believable delivery.

• We position TR Group’s clients in their environment, at work, and doing business.

• We ignore marketing “buzzwords”.

So how has testimonial-based advertising helped TR Group?

• It has built stronger trust from the customers doing the commercials.

• The customers’ brand is showcased free of charge on a large media spend.

A testimonial is so powerful. To put it simply: even a short, 30-second TV commercial can show that there are clear benefits to using your product or service.

In our next blog, we’ll take a look at using metaphors to create better advertising.

Using humour in advertising.

In this blog, we’ll be looking at using humour in advertising.

At Partisan Advertising, we believe there are five tenets upon which effective and memorable advertising campaigns are built. They are:

Humour, testimonial, metaphor, analogy, and demonstration.

I’ll start by saying what we all know: humour isn’t universal but it’s super powerful and very popular. However, one man’s sense of humour can often be another man seconds away from being offended, or worse, not laughing. Humour can bring people closer together or push them further apart.

Human beings like to recall how humour made them feel, and because humour releases endorphins, jokes get remembered, retold and heard more frequently. A sense of humour can make us feel liked and connected, and humour can help develop our relationships. Humour is a fantastic method to appeal to customers’ emotions and gain their trust.

In the world of advertising, humour works and can easily cut through the noise and help brands stand out when it comes to communicating key messages. However, it’s not easy to find the perfect line to make your advertising humorous.

Years back, the word “viral” was the talk of the town. Every advertising agency was on the road to creating viral work, most often trying to go viral by using humour. But things have changed dramatically and the concept of viral has been turned on its head by current social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and just about anything can go viral with (or without) the use of humour.

When the Superbowl rolls into town on the first Sunday of February, advertisers pay extravagant fees to get their products and brands in front of millions of eyeballs on the biggest day in TV for advertising, and the vast majority use humour to break through and appeal to audiences. Superbowl advertising has become so popular that many people watch the Superbowl just for the ad breaks.

However, what is humorous can often quickly become imitated and boring, leading to a loss of memorability and, in worse cases, leading to a lack of likeability, as these three ads produced for Superbowl viewers show.

So here are ten easy tips to remember to crack the “humour effect” for your brand:

1. Show your personality.

2. Be authentic and believable.

3. Be relatable to your audience.

4. Don’t be offensive (unless it fits in with your brand positioning).

5. Don’t force your humour.

6. Don’t insult your audience.

7. Remember that humour is subjective.

8. Don’t use sarcasm, as it can’t always be communicated through text - as seen in the “Pepsi, Where’s my Jet?” advertising campaign.

9. Stay classy - don’t poke fun at your competitors.

10. Get a second opinion from a lawyer.

Here are five great places to use humour to build your brand besides on video:

1. Recruitment ads, like this one from SodaStream.

2. Internal communications. Just make sure that managers and leaders are fully onboard.

3. Email signatures. Here are some great ideas from RightInbox.

4. Create backgrounds for digital media meeting platform meeting rooms like Zoom and Google Meets using Xsplit Vcam.

One should never forget that using humour in advertising is the riskiest of our five tenets. Humour isn’t for everyone, but if you crack the code, prepare to enjoy the rewards.

In our next blog, we’ll take a look at using testimonials to create better advertising.

And while we’re waiting, here are 17 minutes of great examples of humour used in advertising. Enjoy!

Advertising for children.

In New Zealand, the transport industry is more than just businesses with trucks and trailers.

It is a tight-knit community of hardworking individuals that pass on their skills and knowledge to their families and friends – from generation to generation.

The New Zealand Trucking magazine features a kids’ magazine called “Little Truckers Down Under”. This year, we’ve had the pleasure of working with TR Group to put together advertising that resonates with both the adult and children readers of Little Truckers.

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TR Group is a proud supporter of I AM HOPE and its cause to raise mental health awareness and provide free counselling sessions to Kiwi kids. The first advert is focused on spreading hope and simply being kind to others – a timeless message that everybody needs a reminder of. With this comes a nod to mental health awareness in kids as they navigate the early stages of their lives.

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The second Little Truckers advert focused on the environment and how every single human in the world has a responsibility to keep our home habitable for generations to come. It has easy tips for sustainability that any kid or grown-up can follow – while simultaneously showcasing the hard work TR Group does in their commitment to a sustainable transport future. This is important because the children who read this will be the ones driving fuel-alternative vehicles.

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The next ad focuses on the connection between generations of truckies and how extraordinary a career in transport can be. TR Group is a company that prides itself on its people, and what better way than to ‘start them young’. This ad communicates how dreams can turn into reality and a career doing what you love, surrounded by the trucks you love, is a possibility.

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This takes us to the latest ad, paying homage to the truckies who deliver everything we have – from toys to food and everything in between. This showcases how trucks affect everyone’s life, bringing a sense of gratitude towards these big rigs and their drivers. It’s important to deliver this message for kids to be aware of how essential trucks really are. Often they’re seen as mere vehicles, but really, they are vessels that keep the world moving.

The Little Truckers Down Under adverts for TR Group has been a delight to work on, and we have another one on the horizon. We are grateful to TR Group for allowing us to do what we love as they communicate to kids and adults alike, empowering children to have the right mindset about the industry while waiting for their turn to take the wheel.

New Experiences in Advertising

The only purpose of advertising is to generate sales.

However, in this connected multi-channel world, getting the numbers is nowhere near as simple as it used to be.

No matter who you are or what you sell, your competitors are only a click away, and this ‘Rule of Google’ applies to all.

What worked in the past simply isn’t as effective now, so you need to take a new approach to your advertising to lock down the strongest market position possible.

Effective advertising comes from creative thinking, clever planning, careful budgeting and a long-term commitment. The problem is that there are so many options out there, which means it’s all too easy, and often extremely costly, to get things wrong.

If your messages don’t appeal to, or fail to reach your target market, then they’re worthless. The best advertising message in the world is irrelevant if it doesn’t convey the benefits your customers need or want.

It will always be your customers who decide the worth of your advertising and not you. That’s why it’s vital that you create an advertising plan with a foundation built on modern advertising principles that respect your customer’s inherent right to reject and ignore your messages.

Before you even start planning your advertising, you need to forget (and please say that you have) all about the Product, Price, Place and Promotion mentality that ruled last century’s advertising.

The Four P’s made sense in a world dominated by newspapers and televisions, where marketers could easily reach big, obedient audiences and where product differences lasted.

But today the consumer has control and unlimited choice, audiences have scattered to new platforms, and product differences have meaning for days, not years.

So you need to move towards the Four E’s.

Think of Experience rather than Product, Everyplace rather than Place, Exchange instead of Price, and lastly, Evangelism and not Promotion.

Disregard product advantages and focus on how your customers experience your retail business. Why would they purchase from you instead of your competitors?

Why do they shop online instead of in-store? What influences their buying decisions? How do they use your product and how do they stay linked to you after their purchase?

Thanks to the Internet, consumers can buy products, even the ones you sell, everywhere, so all you have to differentiate both your company and your stores is a unique retail experience.

Once you know what this experience is, you need to consider how you’ll communicate it through your advertising.

Then focus on how you can reach your potential clients when they’re most receptive to engaging with you, rather than interrupting them to grab a fleeting moment of their attention while watching TV or reading a newspaper.

Your advertising must be flexible enough to meet consumers on their terms; today, that’s everywhere and anytime.

Want to know what’s increasingly more important than price to your customers?

Their time. What are you prepared to exchange for this so that you can grab a share of their wallets? You need to offer more than low prices, especially when you consider the real value of your customers – what they bring to you in revenue over their lifetime.

Picture twenty years of interactions with one customer rather than twenty minutes on a single sale and you’ll start to see the bigger picture. In all likelihood, this long-term brand-based thinking is the most important aspect of your advertising and marketing plan.

Retail promotions used to revolve around price drops or constantly pushing product benefits. That’s old hat now that the lowest price is probably online, and the product benefits no longer last.

How can your brand become so inspiring that your customers actively seek it out, choose to engage with it, and then share their enthusiasm with others?

Evangelism is incredibly powerful today because it marries the oldest form of advertising – word of mouth, with the newest – social networking. However, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed or the occasional blog post isn’t enough to create a real sense of involvement.

Frankly, it’s 2022, and you have to stand out to succeed.

If you don't embrace the most up-to-date advertising methods in your strategic planning, then you may as well not bother planning at all.

On the other hand, if you can get the Four E’s approach entrenched into your company’s culture, you’ll soon see how it filters through to and positively influences every aspect of your marketing and advertising efforts.

More importantly, you’ll see the results in your sales figures, and that’s the whole point of the exercise, isn’t it?