Hi Michael,

> Disagree. They have grown big for other
> reasons. "Image building" came
> later.

There's a saying, "We buy on emotion, and justify it with logic."

What is "image building" - or building an "identity"? It's purely the "emotion" part of the equation....

It helps us to build an emotional attachment to the product concerned.

There are many ways this can be done.... It can be done by associating it with a famous star, and so having some of the "personality" of that star "rub off" on the product. Or it can be done by showing the product being used in a variety of situations, therefore adding the "emotions" of the occasions being attached the product.

However, if you accept that emotions do play a role in selling, and if you accept that an "image" can help build an emotional attachment to a product - then it follows that an "image" can help a product to sell.

Of course, it has to be a "good" product as well. However, in a crowded marketplace, a product with an "image" that people can relate to would probably help that product sell better than a product with no "image" at all.

I'm not saying salesmanship has no role, of course - but I do think that these two roles help to complement each other.

If you go to the supermarket, you'll probably see a lot of "no name brand" items on the bottom shelves. These items are cheaper, because the company spends no money advertising or building the images of these brands.

Now, sometimes the quality of the "no name" brands is worse than the "branded" items, but for some products (in my experience), the "no name" brands are just as good.

However, even in those cases, most people buy the branded items - because the branded items have an image associated with them (often through advertising), whereas the "no name" brands don't.

> The Slogan is meaningless. It does NOTHING
> to generate a sale. The graphics of the ad,
> however, may be a different story - people
> partying, having a good time, etc.
> Associating good times with coke.

I'd say that there are two parts to generating a sale.... There is generating the desire for the product, and then there's getting people to "buy now". (Sometimes the desire for that type of product is already there, though - in that case, you can focus on the "buy now" part. But in general, you need these two steps.)

I'd say a slogan can help with generating the desire, if it helps build an image to create an emotional attachment to the product. I agree it doesn't help with getting people to "buy now" - though even if they don't buy now, they still could buy later, if an emotional attachment to the product has already has been created.

> Cigarette companies have pretty well had all
> advertising mediums denied to them and
> people still take up smoking and smoke for
> years.

Yes, that's often peer group pressure - I'm not saying image building by advertising companies is the only factor.

The cool rugged image of the "Marlboro Man" - who was always a rugged guy in a cowboy hat, smoking a Marlboro - probably helped influence many generations to take up smoking. The message is clear - if you smoke Marlboros, you'll be rugged and cool like the Marlboro Man. So the message is - to be like the image, smoke Marlboros, not a competing brand.

Perhaps you could say that the "image" in this case emotionalizes a benefit.... The alleged "benefit" is to be rugged, and the "Marlboro Man" is a very emotional way of depicting that "benefit". I've never smoked - but even I associate Marlboros with the rugged image of the Marlboro Man, from the countless full page magazine ads I've seen over my life for Marlboros.

According to David Ogilvy's book "Ogilvy on Advertising", in 1983 (when his book was published), Marlboros were the biggest selling cigarette brand in the world. The "Marlboro Man" ads at that time had been running for 25 years. (I don't have any more recent stats handy at the moment.)

You don't always need to build image.... If people already know your company, then you've probably already built an image (intentionally or not). But if they've never heard of you before, or never heard of people doing what you do, then you'll probably need to build an image....

One example in "Marketing Outrageously" which Jon Spoelstra talks about is the time he marketed Arena Football. Most people have probably never heard of Arena Football.... So in order to get people to buy, they had to tell them what Arena Football was. They had to build an identity in their mind about Arena Football - since there's just a blank space there. They could make them a great offer to go to the Arena Football game - but if nobody ever heard of it before, that approach would be a flop. Educating people is part of building an identity and image of the product too.

> I don't see this. I do not see anyone
> pushing us to buy coke now. All the store
> does is stock coke.

I see supermarkets advertising the low prices of Coca Cola in their leaflets regularly.... You know, those leaflets mentioning all their specials? That's "buy now" advertising.

Supermarkets do more than stock Coke - they also try to get you to "buy now" by advertising their low prices. They never explain what Coke (or any of the other products) actually are - because the ads by those companies have already done that for them.

> To say Coke makes sales because retailers
> push it, has no evidence to back it up.

Supermarkets push all their products, from what I've seen, through their brochures advertising their specials for that week. The key is that this is all "buy now" advertising - they're trying to get you to "buy now" based on low prices. The supermarkets do NO image-building advertisements for those products.... That kind of advertising is already done by Coca Cola and the other manufacturers of branded products.

> The sole purpose of an ad should be to
> generate sales. IF a Ford ad gets people
> wanting a certain car enough that they head
> on over to a dealer to buy, how is that the
> salesman's doing? It's not. He is there to
> HELP with the sale.

The car dealers advertise the way the supermarkets do.... They don't build image, but they advertise how cheap their prices are - in order to get you to "buy now". You can see their ads in almost any local paper.

Again, they don't need to build the identity of any of the cars, because the advertising by the car manufacturers has already done that part. The car manufacturers' advertising creates the desire, and the car sales yard ads try their best to get you to "buy now".

> There's a car ad around which has people
> singing to a top 40 song while driving
> around.

> What is the car's name? I have no idea.

> Who is the manufacturer? I have no idea.

> Does the ad make me want to have that car?
> Nope.

> I do remember the ad though.

Obviously, that didn't build a very good identity for the car - I'm not saying that all these ads are good!

> The most successful ad Benz ever had was
> 6000 words long - in print.

If you're referring to David Ogilvy's ad for Mercedes Benz, a lot of those words were to position the product in the mind of the consumer. That is, to build the Mercedes Benz's image. (With some products, words work best to build the desired image, whereas with other products, pictures may do a better job.)

> Compare that to their recent offering of two
> guys on a golf buggy looking at a Benz
> Hatchback "thing" and asking
> "Where do they put the clubs?"
> Then seeing the screen text, "Some
> people just don't get it."

> That's because Image Building is a waste of
> money.

> Your ad has limited space. It's wise to use
> that space to make a sale, isn't it?

It depends on the situation....

If you're a small business, then yes, it is wise. But with some products, you must build an identity and image first.

Here's what Jon Spoelstra says about this.... He talks about "Build Identity" and "Buy Now" types of ads. He says of these two ads....

Can one type of advertising work without the other? Sure? The Build Identity variety can work without the Buy Now ads. Coca-Cola proves it every day. If the Ford dealers didn't run local newspaper ads touting price, consumers influenced by Taurus TV commercials would somehow find their way to a Ford store.

However, the Buy Now variety couldn't work without the Build Identity. Picture a generic automobile, a nondescript box on wheels called "Car." Here's a local ad with a grainy picture of a boxy, gray Car. No scenic shots of Car amid redwoods or splashing through the surf. Ho-hum. Car sells for $3,000 less than Taurus. Will people abandon the Taurus and flock to the Car dealer? Not likely.

(From "Marketing Outrageously" by Jon Spoelstra, pages 160-161.)

Spoelstra goes on to say that if you have a huge ad budget - you can focus on pure Build Identity ads (the way Coca Cola does). But if you are a small business with tight margins and a meagre ad budget - you may often have to both build identity, AND get people to buy now too. You can't afford to wait for people to buy at their leisure, because you need the money NOW. (In contrast, the bigger companies can usually afford to wait longer, for people to buy at their leisure.)

> Fact is... what got some of these companies
> big and the kind of advertising they do now
> are two completely different things.

> Try it for yourself... run an Image Building
> ad and a Buy It Now ad and see which one
> gets you the sale. And compare it to a half
> and half ad.

A pure Image Building ad could take time to work, if you don't couple it with a Buy It Now approach in the same ad. So it wouldn't be a fair test unless you had a long time frame in which to test the ad. I still agree with Jon Spoelstra that the best approach is to do both.

> You cannot start and grow a business by
> spending money building image alone.

> Direct Marketing ads work. And those who
> create them have no worries about tracking
> them. In fact, they want to track them.

> Image Ads don't work. And those who create
> them are worried the client will discover
> this. So they do not want to track the ad in
> anyway. And when you, as the client,
> discover no increase in sales and ask them
> about it, they will tell you you're building
> an image. Problem is... building an image
> does not pay the bills.

> There is virtually a limitless supply of
> "buy it now" sales letters and ads
> which have PROVEN to generate sales.

I think the most effective direct sales ads actually build an image as well try to get you to buy it now. Joe Sugarman's ads definitely did this, for example.

> Show me just 2O image building ads which
> have proven over and over again to generate
> sales? Better yet... show me just 15 such
> ads to match the 15 PROVEN letters Collier
> has in his "free" collection.

Perhaps a good example are David Ogilvy's ads.... Ogilvy comes from a direct marketing background. Yet, many of his successful ad campaigns were not "buy it now" ads. (You can find many of David Ogilvy's ads in his book, "Ogilvy on Advertising".)

Perhaps a good example are his "Schweppes" ads, which featured the president of Scheppes at the time, Commander Whitehead - who had a very distinctive look about him. (I don't have sales figures off-hand though - I'm sure I've read somewhere the sales jumped significantly, but I'll have to try to find the exact details.)

Perhaps the Marlboro Man ads are a good example too. There's no "buy it now" element to the Marlboro Man ads, or the Scheppes ads. Are Marlboro Man ads still running now? As mentioned earlier, they had been running for 25 years by 1983, and had helped make Marlboro the top selling cigarette brand in the world by that time.

Just to clarify - I'm not going against "direct marketing". People like Jon Spoelstra and David Ogilvy actually have extensive experience in direct marketing and have written many successful direct marketing ads. It's just that they've often found that a combination of image-building with "buy it now" types of ads can be effective - that is, the image-building (or identity-building) component is not useless!

The "image building" component can be important to both position the product in the mind of the consumer (what makes the product stand out in your mind, amidst the competition?) - as well as to help create an emotional attachment to the product as well....

- Dien Rice