Consistency Strengthens the Campaign
Last month, I spied an eatery screaming out to be heard as I sat there waiting in my car for the traffic light to turn. With COVID still in full swing, and restauranteurs being particularly hurt by the pandemic, it was clear that the owner was using outdoor banners to do some extra marketing. The first thing I noticed was the sheer number of banners. There were no less than 7-8 extra large banners on the building that I could see from my vantage. Every banner seemed to be designed using a different set of fonts & colors, plus several with different logo versions between them. They also read with a cornucopia of selling points about menu items, service & safety, to-go & delivery options, etc, etc, etc. Honestly, I can barely remember even one piece of information from all those signs.
Anyway, it got thinking about my first graphic design shop I co-founded over 20 years ago, called BlueBoxer Communications. We came up with the tagline, “Consistency Strengthens the Campaign,” not just that it sounded zippy, but because we truly believed it.
Say it with me, “Consistency strengthens the campaign… Consistency strengthens the campaign.” It’s a marketing mantra that I have been beating like a tribal drum. This seemingly simple, yet nuanced guidepost can effectively activate your marketing when applied in a thoughtful manner. Let’s start by looking at who you are…
When we look any brand’s overall communication strategy, there are several questions to consider:
What do we provide? (product/service category)
Who are we speaking to? (target market)
How are we speaking to them? (brand voice)
What makes us unique? (point of differentiation)
What do people love about us? (customer benefit)
No matter how you think about the questions, it will improve both the existing & potential customer digestibility of your brand to communicate the answers simply, directly & consistently.
It should come as no surprise that we think about our own specific brand WAY more than even our most loyal customers. The average consumer gets pummeled with thousands of marketing impressions every day. In fact, one study found that the number was between 4,000 and 10,000 impressions to the average U.S. consumer. Now, to be fair, many of these impressions are whizzing by us in fleeting desperation as we drive our cars, pedal our bikes, ride on our buses & trains, and surf our internets. But still, that’s a lot of noise out there, and we need to cut through all of it if we want to connect with our target markets.
Over the years, I have worked with dozens of clients who think their products are awesome— and in many cases they truly are. For example (and without naming names), one client’s product was in the luxury lifestyle space. When I looked at their previous digital, print advertising, sales materials, etc, they were all over the place. Every communication had a unique point of differentiation. One told a culinary-type story of richness in flavor, while another spoke to sustainability in an earth-friendly way, and yet another talked about top quality with a luxurious look & feel… you get the idea. They were all indeed true, but there was no “hook you could hang an elephant on,” as my NYC writer friend, Ken Carlton, used to say. The client had endless ideas, and he was letting his fervent creativity get the better of himself.
As a solution, instead of telling all these stories, and in different ways, we focused on an overarching common customer benefit— what did their existing customers love above the product, and more importantly, how did these product attributes make them feel? With the scattershot messaging now simplified & cohesive, it allowed their customers to connect with the brand in a much easier way.
In the end, that’s all we’re trying to do... find the right customers to tell our authentic brand story in a way that simply connects who WE are, with who THEY are.
