the sephone blog

“The truth, George. Always tell the truth. It’s the easiest thing to remember.”
–David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross

One of the services I provide as a media developer is producing audio — commercials, on-hold messages, and more recently, podcasts. I’d like to recommend one of the latter.

Dean Brenner is President and Founder of The Latimer Group, a company that focuses on helping executives and professionals develop powerful and persuasive communication skills. I recently finished work on one of Dean’s podcasts, called “The Key to Delivering a Powerful Message,” in which he discusses the importance of authenticity in delivering your message. When delivering any message, Dean explains, simply be yourself: “It’s more honest. It’s more real… The last thing we should attempt to do… is to sound the same.” Dean goes on to say that “being authentic when you speak is a form of telling the truth.” In addition to their importance in public speaking, those two statements alone almost entirely define what make up a successful advertising campaign, because after all, what is advertising but persuasion in thirty seconds?

One key to having your ads work as effectively as possible is to have them be remembered. And the best way to fail at that is to have your ads look or sound like “all the other ads out there.” This month, as you know, is the NCAA Basketball tournament. Have you noticed how many advertisers are having “March Madness” sales? It happens to be that the phrase “March Madness” is copyrighted, and thus, illegal to use without consent from the NCAA… However, it doesn’t stop the phrase from being bandied about the newspapers and the airwaves by virtually every car, furniture, and RV dealer across the country. I have colleagues in the radio business who are upset because “Joe’s Furniture is using ‘March Madness’ in their ads. So why can’t my client use it in his?” Legal issues aside, if someone else is saying it, why do you want to? That doesn’t make you stand out. It makes you blend in. It makes you part of the crowd. It makes you forgettable.

Honesty in your advertising is as important. More and more nowadays, the public’s “BS radar” is up, and very finely tuned. Consumers rely on other consumers for information, rather than ads, which are often discounted as “them just trying to sell me something.” Instead, people consult blogs, online user reviews, friends and “regular people” in a fervent search for honest feedback about their purchases. This is why it’s imperative that what you say in your ads, you deliver in your business. If your ads talk about “top-notch auto repair, a clean, comfortable waiting area, and a friendly staff that greets you with a smile,”* then your customers had better get all those things when they come in. Otherwise, you’re perceived as trying to put one over on ‘em. And your customers share those experiences… right after they stop coming to your store.

Thanks to Dean Brenner of the Latimer Group for inspiring this post. For more info on The Latimer Group, please visit TheLatimerGroup.com

* Ordinarily, I would never condone such blatant abuse of advertising clichés in my ads. I only use them here to make a point.

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