we need more ipods in the world.

business is changing and in order to succeed you need to swim in the opposite direction. or at least think in the opposite direction. i think the reason that so many people live 'boring office jobs' is because business today is stagnant. everyone just shuffling along, throwing around terms like 'market share' 'brand loyalty' 'target demographic'. everything has already been done. the boom is over. but how can we get that rush back? if business executives spent more time thinking of new and exciting places to take their companies, not only would they create better products (that would sell on the bases of it being a new idea) but they would stimulate the market.

having six tire companies fighting over whose tires grip better is pointless. using your energy to create a tire that doesn't loose its tread or could be recycled in months instead of years? yes my friend. thats where you need to focus your attention. think new.

and i understand that sometimes a company has pushed all of the potential out of a product. it no longer can be 'new, and improved'. but please..do not try to use traditional advertising to gain more customers.

advertsing will not work with magority of products today. as i say this i realize this leads my current carear path down a cermaic toilet bowl, but i will still say it with confidence. the problem lies in the products and the quantity of them that are available. the only time traditional advertising worked, was when housewife sally looked in her brand new maccaulls magazine that she waited all month for, pouring over every page with anticipation. she sees an ad for floor polish. she thinks to herself. "yes, i am running low on floor polish, i must remember to buy that next time i'm at the store" AND SHE BUYS FLOOR POLISH AND THE AD WORKED AND MR. FLOOR POLISH MADE HIS MONEY BACK FOR THE AD AND EVERYONE IS GEE GOLLY HAPPY.

but guess what? today there is a mr.floor polish, a mrs.floor polish, an uncle floor polish and even a foreign floor polish. and all of them have the same ingredients, and all of them are about the same price and no one knows really what the difference is.

SO

when your flipping through your magazine today, and hell no you never look at ads anyway. but say there is a chance you stumble across mr. floor polish ad while your waiting in the doctors reception. and you see that ad for floor polish, and yes just like sally maybe you think "hmm i should pick up some floor polish" and it triggers something in your brain to remember to buy floor polish. AND THE AD WORKED RIGHT?!!!

WRONG. because you get to the store, and you see mr.floor polish, mrs.floor polish, uncle floor polish and foreign floor polish is on sallllllllllleeeeeeeee. so you buy that.

and holy crap, did you just realize that you spent all that money and you just advertised for your competition?! yes my friends. this is where the problem lies.

traditional advertising only works if people can specifically remember your brand. and that doesn't happen very often. (i'll prove that by challenging you to ask yourself how many times you have said, "i saw this really great commercial, i can't remember who it was for, but some (insert product category here) ie car company and blah blah blahhhhhh happened"

thats why i get so frustrated making tv, or radio or magazine ads, or (worst of all) bill board ads. i KNOW they will not do what ever bullshit story I pitch to the company.

-oh i should mention that many companies will throw around the term ROI (return on investment). they look at the sales graph. they see when the ad started. and they can clearly see a spike in sales after this. we did it! they holler. we are so clever!
BULLSHIT. i say. because if you look at everyone else's sales they also went up! not so smrt now I say.

this is the inspiration for this rant of a post-
I didn't write this but I fully agree with it. a company name Blueprint did write it though, and i agree with a lot of what they have to say.

"To the extent that sales is taught in business school, which is very little, we are told to sell using features and benefits. So that’s what virtually all companies do: they make a list of the features and benefits of their products and services, and then fight in advertising and other communications channels over whose list is better. There are many problems with this approach, not the least of which is it is a very narcissistic way of convincing the customer to buy.

The biggest problem with selling on the basis of features and benefits is it actually encourages prospects to check out the competition and compare. Why on earth would you use a sales technique that encourages your prospects to go to the competition?

Here’s the alternative: do what Apple does with the iPod (and our clients do with their offerings!). Inspire your customers so much in what your product or service does for them (this is different from features and benefits) and they won’t consider your competitors. Most people don’t shop and compare when they want to buy an MP3 player, they just want – and buy – an iPod.

Every company can make its products or services like the iPod. If they think or say they can’t, what they are really saying is they just don’t know how!"