Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
This month we look at the gift-giving season and how creativity in your brand advertising can build your brand awareness.
Christmas is right around the corner and the signs have been evident since September. Have you walked the aisles of a Costco or Walmart lately? Yes, it’s the beginning of November and if you’re a business owner, you should be well into thinking about what to do this festive season. If you haven’t, then you’re procrastinating (like me writing my HCN articles). Right now, you should be implementing your Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or above all, Christmas strategies as folks top up their credit cards or stuff their bank accounts in preparation to open their wallets. What’s your Christmas strategy?
Don’t have one? Well, I have an answer. Come up with an ad campaign to grow business awareness, but also grow your customer base for the long run. You want to leave your competition in your wake. Your rearview mirror. Your dust. And you want to keep those customers coming back year-round.
The first step is to look at your current brand. Is it aligned with your target audience, your customers? Do you need to rejig it? Polish the edges? If you’re trying to be all things to all people, you’re not going to succeed. However, if your products/services are focused on a well-defined target audience, using entertaining and engaging creative, you’ll see more traffic resulting in greater sales.
So, what constitutes a creative ad campaign? Simple. A series of messages that intrigues, excites, and most importantly is memorable to your target audience. Speak in their language and leave them emotionally engaged with your product or service.
Here are some weird and whacky top-of-mind ideas that do just that: for instance, using Santa, show him in different circumstances. Maybe for a television spot he’s not so jolly because he has a dump truck sized load of boulders to deliver for a Harder & Sons job. In a print ad he’s over-joyed as someone has left him a bottle of Bragg Creek Distillery Whisky instead of milk with cookies. Better yet, radio is great theatre of the mind, and we can hear Santa moaning and groaning, after a long night’s work getting a massage at Bragg Creek Physio. And finally, on social media, we can see an exhausted Santa after Christmas finally treating himself by dining at the Bav Tav. Those are just a few random examples.
This is where professionally trained or educated creatives come in to save the day. Not so simple if you’re doing this solo with an engineering degree or ticket in electronics. Depending on the size of your enterprise, and of course, your budget, seek professional help from design studios, ad agencies or freelancers. Creative thinking is brain science. So don’t dawdle. Hurry.
Until next Month, please don’t forget to honour our Veterans on November 11th, a day to remember.
Cheers, mark.
