What Are You Paying For?
My favorite Marketing/Advertising book of all time is a book called, “The End of Advertising as We Know It” by Sergio Zyman. Zyman is best known as the chief marketing officer for Coca-Cola at its peak. Another thing about Zyman is that he simply knows what he’s talking about.
My favorite Zyman story is that when he left Coke, and they stopped listening to him, the company came up with “New Coke” which has since become Coca-Cola’s dumbest mistake in the brand’s history not to mention a comparison point for marketing failures, “well the campaign sucked but at least it wasn’t New Coke right?”
Zyman knows his stuff and what I like about him is that he’s a marketer, not an advertiser. There IS a difference. Zyman’s approach is simple – do you get results? Advertisers love awards and love ads that people talk about. Well if that’s your goal then great, enjoy your Clio. But, if your goal is to sell a product, service or brand…then awards don’t mean a thing. Results do. Zyman uses the Pets.com dog as an example. For a whole year everybody loved that little sock puppet. Even his commercials were some of the most talked about the day after the Super Bowl that year. But getting talked about was not Pets.com’s goal. Getting people to stop by their web site and, most importantly, buy their products was that goal. They didn’t achieve it. So what did they pay for?
Advertisers and designers will always talk about trends and how cool they can make your brand. If it doesn’t translate into results, primarily sales, than what’s the point? What are you paying for?
Zyman’s book is a must read for anybody in the industry or, at the very least, trying to grow their brand. The people in charge of your marketing should NOT spend a single dime until they’ve read this book. It will save you money, but follow his lead, and it will get you the results you want.
