When the facts are with you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. At the risk of Perry Masonizing, it seems a case of denial is playing out in the legacy media and it’s an open-shut case. The Associated Press reports:

In TV’s worst spring in recent memory, a startling number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show.

Blame technology: DVRs and TiVO mess up ratings
Blame economics: people are working harder, watching less
Blame weather: daylight-savings has people outside later
Blame calendars: end of school… people are crazed.

Blame it all. Blame George Bush–just don’t fix the content.

Sitcoms. Reality TV. Dramas. News-magazines. Contrived content. Phony-baloney doesn’t cut it anymore. We’re living in an age of authenticity. Give viewers something worthy of watching and they will.

I’m not a fan of American Idol, but you can’t argue results. In a special production, American Idol Gives Back,  major stars performed to benefit a charity. It was genuine and authentic and entertaining and it drew an audience almost larger than all four of the other nets COMBINED.

It’s an example of alignment, the beginning stage of attraction marketing. When you become aligned with consumer desire, you create a magnetic draw and pull business to you. Because alignment’s draw is  authentic, this business don’t just buy, they bond.

Bonding is a deeper step of the process we cover soon. Till then, take stock of your messaging and see if there’s enough evidence to convict you of being aligned with your customers.

Every good priest, politician and comedian understand something you should know:  attracting people’s attention means talking to the room. You know this, right? After all, you don’t speak to every customer the same way; each comes to the conversation with a unique angle of approach. Words are important. Effective communication begins when your messaging speaks the consumer’s language. When your branding makes this leap, you’ve gone from advertising to attraction.

Messaging is strongly affected by its venue. Just as you tailor messaging to specific personas, messaging should be relevant to its setting. Writing for print is different than writing for broadcast–and writing for broadcast is wayyyy different than writing for online. Recognize the room you’re in and speak to it.

Want more effective online messaging? Read this.

That old real estate maxim applies to the location of your ads within a cluster of ads, or pods.

For years media buyers have maintained the first position in a commercial pod is best. Now, Magna Global proves it: the first minute in a broadcast commercial network television commercial pod is  about 3 percent higher rated than the overall pod, and for cable, it was 6 percent higher.

This research break out from Nielsen’s numbers gives new importance of auditing media invoices. It’s not just the program, nor the block, but your place in the block.

Continue Reading

A bullet doesn’t discriminate; it goes where it’s sent and does what it was made to do. Choosing words are like loading the right bullets; choose the right ones and they’ll deliver regardless of where you aim them.

Good web copy is good radio copy is good tv copy. Words are agnostic beasts, carrying their meanings without regard to placement. When you string the right ones together, the result is killer creative that punches through no matter how or where you aim it.

Testing creative to determine optimal click-through, VideoInsider reports an advertiser discovered that repurposed broadcast spots out performed web-only video by 25%. Similarly, they reported standard JPEG and GIF ads outperformed rich media placement.

It’s not the media, it’s the message. Messaging is everything. Delivering salient, relatable meaning  attracts attention; attention leads to action.

Continue Reading