Is your advertising 100% successful?

"Use XXX diapers to help mom have a good sleep"

"Using XXX electric toothbrush is more convenient"

What do you think of these two advertisements?

I personally think it's okay. It speaks straightforward human language, is targeted, and highlights the selling points.

So what is the effect when it is put on the market?

This brings up two real cases.

The first case is Pampers disposable diapers from Procter & Gamble.

Diapers are now very common and have wide market acceptance. Almost all new mothers use them.

When Procter & Gamble first made Pampers disposable diapers, it was named one of the 100 greatest inventions of the 20th century by Time magazine. At that time, P&G realized that one of the biggest pain points for new mothers was the need to frequently change their babies' diapers at night. Even if mom and dad take turns, they can’t handle it after a long time and suffer from severe sleep deprivation.

Therefore, the original slogan of Pampers was "Use Pampers to let mom sleep well", which was intended to solve the pain point of new mothers not being able to sleep well after changing diapers at night.

There is no doubt that diapers do have this function, allowing babies to not need to be changed again throughout the night, or at most once in the middle of the night.

The product was good, but the result was that the sales of Pampers diapers were not ideal after they were launched on the market.

Through subsequent market research, P&G found that diapers were a new product to the market. Therefore, new mothers feel guilty about using diapers for their babies in order to get a good night's sleep, and they don't know whether it is good for the babies. Moreover, many elderly people think that new mothers are lazy and use diapers for their babies.

In such a market environment, it is natural that sales will not be boosted by the slogan “Use Pampers to help moms sleep well”.

So, P&G changed its advertising strategy and changed it to "With Pampers, your baby will sleep dry and soundly."

All the publicity revolves around the baby's sleep quality rather than the mother's good sleep. There are pain points and positive reasons for purchase. The market soon opened up and Pampers diapers became a best-selling product. After a period of development, not using diapers has become a wrong choice. Using diapers is really good for babies.

Let’s look at the second case, which is an electric toothbrush.

Electric toothbrushes are now also a very common daily necessity, and the market has long been opened up. But before the electric toothbrush was invented, consumers had already developed the habit of brushing their teeth manually with an ordinary toothbrush, so the promotion of electric toothbrushes was not smooth at the beginning.

At the beginning, the advertising point for promoting electric toothbrushes was "Using an electric toothbrush is more convenient." There is no need to brush your teeth manually up and down, left and right. The advertising appeal is very clear: brushing your teeth is more convenient, and this should be true.

But after the promotion, the sales effect was still not good.

After conducting market research, it was found that consumers had always used ordinary toothbrushes to brush their teeth and did not find ordinary toothbrushes inconvenient. Moreover, brushing your teeth with an electric toothbrush requires charging and replacing the brush head every once in a while, which seems even more inconvenient, leading to a low acceptance of electric toothbrushes.

Therefore, electric toothbrushes adjusted their strategy and switched their advertising direction to focus on "Use an electric toothbrush to brush more cleanly."

Electric toothbrushes use high-frequency vibrating brush heads, which can deeply clean the gaps between teeth and remove tooth dirt more thoroughly. Ordinary toothbrushes really can't compare.

Therefore, after a period of marketing promotion, the electric toothbrush market has gradually opened up and gained recognition and use from more people.

Let’s go back to the question at the beginning:

"Use XXX diapers to help mom have a good sleep"

"Using XXX electric toothbrush is more convenient"

How about these two ads?

no? Self-entertainment? Written by a novice? Parallel imports?

Actually, I personally still think it’s okay. It can be seen that whether it is Pampers diapers or electric toothbrushes, there is early insight into consumers and selling points are found based on the core functions of the products. There is not much problem with the whole process.

It’s just that after being put on the market for a period of time, you will see many expected or unexpected problems.

It is possible that the Pampers team had previously considered the entry point of "baby sleeps soundly and dry", and the electric toothbrush team had also considered the point of "using an electric toothbrush to brush more cleanly", but ultimately did not adopt it for various reasons.

It's not impossible, it's just too common.

Failure does not mean that the entire team has not considered or thought of the right direction, but that no one knows which direction is the right one.

A marketing strategy, a slogan, a piece of copywriting... no one can 100% guarantee the results unless it is put into the market and tested. Even powerful super brands like Alibaba, Huawei, Apple, and FaceBook are not immune to a series of marketing failures.

Marketing is not a foolproof calculation problem that can produce accurate results. There is no standard template or algorithm. It is a process of continuous trial and improvement.

When many people see such temporary failure cases, they will say that it is because of insufficient early insight, insufficient understanding of consumers, poorly written advertising slogans, obvious inconsistencies, etc., and then they will infer a good solution based on the failures of others.

It's a bit like hindsight.

Even with sufficiently deep insights and even very comprehensive consumer research, different teams may have different directions. There is no absolutely reasonable solution, and the final result still depends on market feedback.

Therefore, what is important is not hindsight, what is more important is: allow mistakes, look at the feedback and re-test.

• Whether your advertisement can arouse users’ interest and stimulate their needs requires testing!
• Whether the core selling point of your promotion is what users care about requires testing!
• Whether the advertisement is placed in the right place and whether there is any problem with the label targeting also needs to be tested!
• Which marketing strategy works better? This requires more testing!
• …

Without test feedback, it will not work at all. There is no such thing as a marketing genius, and no one's strategy is guaranteed to succeed. Everything is developed through testing step by step.

Others will not tell you how many times they have failed, and how many famous masters have "wasted" their real money.

Mistakes and attempts must be allowed.

In the world of marketing, nothing is certain, and without testing, it’s impossible to create a good ad the first time every time.

What is a good advertising strategy?

It’s very simple. Anything that has been proven effective in the market is good. Whether an advertising strategy is good or bad can only be judged after it actually comes into contact with consumers. Only by getting real feedback through market testing can you have the opportunity to adjust your advertising strategy, advertising content, and even marketing strategy.

Discover the problem → analyze the problem → propose a hypothesis → verify → solve the problem - this is eternal and unchanging.

We always say that we need to polish out the best solution, but the subtext is actually:

Nothing is optimal. We need to look at feedback and re-test to continuously expand potential and find better options.

To all the marketers, advertisers, and copywriters who are constantly experiencing failure and adjusting their direction.

Author: Mumu Old Thief

WeChat public account: Mumu Laozei (ID: mumuseo)