Whats up Mike.

99% of the times I agree with you on your articles
and comments but I might have to pull my 1% card out today.

:-)

First let me state that I firmly believe in direct marketing principles in many cases. But I also believe in the power of image building too.

How can you say that image ads dont work?

Sure, some of them dont work just like some direct marketing projects dont work.....but for you to say that they dont work at all kinda baffled me.

I firmly believe it depends on your *product*
or *service* to determine if direct marketing or imaging should be the best way

For example lets take company like *Nike*.

Im using this company because there is nothing addictive about them like cigarettes or soda so you cant say there is an addictive ingrediant(sp) involved.

You might think that Nike makes its money off it well designed clothes, shoes and accessories. Not really. I mean they are really no better than any other type of athletic apparel.

The reason Nike is #1 is because of its image. I dont care how much direct marketing you place with a rival company ...Nike's Image is more known and more profitable.

They didnt use direct marketing by stating that you will run faster with buying their products. They didnt say that you will look better with its product.

What did they do? They used athletes such as Michael Jordan as celebrity endorsers.

Michael Jordon took a shoe that should cost no more than 20 bucks to buy at your local footlocker and turned it into a $200.00 shoe
that cant stay in stores. Why? The image of the
that Nike built around Michael Jordan gave the shoe a higher standard then other shoes.

Thats what I call building an image.

In fact I believe that most business that deal with clothing would be better at dealing with Image than direct marketing because the products
are "image products"

George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine is another example. If you go to Wal Mart and looked for home grills you would see 10 different brands on the shelf. They all do the exact same things. The George Foreman grill is the most expensive one of the bunch.

Guess which one will people buy?

They will buy the George Foreman grill because of the image that is associated with a celebrity. Its
not because its the best grill or that it will make you leaner( George Foreman is still superheavy)...its all because that image he created around the grill.

So I see no reason not to mix image and direct marketing and then determine the best results based upon the product you are trying to sell

Terrance