7 Keys to Marketing Genius: Hitting the Target
The following is an excerpt from The 7 Keys to Marketing Genius by Michael Daehn
Television commercials are the most widely recognized form of advertising. When I ask my marketing students on the first day of class for an example of marketing, they usually talk about television commercials. Usually their favorite commercials are beer commercials (remember, these are college students). Budweiser and Bud Light have some of the funniest commercials. Many people have seen these commercials and will even imitate the characters. I often ask my students to raise their hands if they have seen a particular Budweiser commercial and if they like it and/or think it is funny. Almost all of the students raise their hands. Then I ask them, “How many of you drink this beer?” In all of my classes only a few, if any, raise their hands. Do they not drink beer? No, they just drink different beer from the ones advertised by Anheuser- Busch. This leads to a discussion about targeting new potential customers.
Most of the people who see these commercials are not, and will not ever be, customers for Anheuser-Busch, so who cares what they think? There is no return on the advertiser’s investment for these students to see the commercial. The advertiser is paying to reach this audience who does not buy the product; therefore there is no return on investment for this audience.
While no advertising can be perfectly targeted, the more targeted, the better. When unintended viewers are receiving your message, you are wasting money. Even worse, if they do not like the advertising (i.e., think it is funny), you might be creating antagonists out of potential future customers. The more targeted the message, the more effective, the less expensive, and the greater the return on investment. We will go more in depth into this concept in Key 5 when we look at the Marketing Funnel.