Setting the Record Straight on What Effective Advertising is and Why You Should Rethink Your Advertising Plan
In January of 2018, I went to a Leadership Summit hosted by the Great Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce. The keynote speaker of the event was incredible and, I have to say, very inspiring. David Salyers, the current VP of National, Regional, and Local Marketing for Chick-Fila-a, spoke on the topic of Creating a Remarkable Business Culture. Many of his talking points were taken from a book that he co-authored, entitled, Remarkable! During his presentation, he quoted the founder of Geek Squad, Robert Stephens, who said, “Advertising is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.” When he said it, quite a few people in the large congregation laughed. I didn’t, however, and there are several reasons why. First off, we believe in advertising around here at Central Florida Media Group, but not in the watered down,
overly-generalized way that Robert Stephens penned it. It’s unfortunate, but true, that advertising just for the sake of advertising is like a “tax” because in those cases, you don’t see the results (if there are any). In fact, it probably went undetected to most of the people in the room that David Salyers’ excellent, heartfelt, and very inspiring speech that morning was actually one big (and I mean, ginormous) advertisement for Chick-fil-a. Am I starting to make sense yet?
People tend to think that the space you buy in a newspaper to promote your sale or brand is all that advertising is. This is a dangerous assumption. Allow me to set the record straight.
What Good Advertising Really Is
Good advertising in today’s world is presented in many ways, but its message must always be authentic and (to coin David Salyer’s phrase) reveal just how “remarkable” your company is. It could be in the form of a Facebook post, a story you read in Central Florida Health News, or yes, even a print ad (the most commonly misunderstood and underestimated form, by the way). It could be a speech at an event. It could be this blog. Effective advertising in today’s world is a complex, beautiful mosaic of telling your company’s story.
Why You Should Rethink Your Advertising Plan
If, however, you aren’t getting calls from your current advertising strategies, there’s something wrong. In this case, you are paying a tax, and it’s no fun. Ineffective advertising should be dead, but unfortunately, the kind of advertising that doesn’t produce results is also alive and well. If you’re not confident how effective your current marketing and advertising is going, then it’s time to try something new. David Salyers is a master of marketing (and consequently, that also makes him a Yoda on the topic of advertising). He’s so good, in fact, that hundreds of attendees at this Leadership Summit walked away bigger fans of Chick-fil-a than they were before. And, why not? Chick-Fil-a has a great story, and it deserves to be told! That, my friends, is advertising at its finest.
Here at CFMG, we practice every day what David Salyers was preaching. We use the power of storytelling (and yes, that’s another word for advertising) to generate new business for our clients. But we don’t do it just for the sake of creating new business. We do it to help people. And that, in a nutshell, is why effective advertising is not a tax you pay but a talent worthy of mastering. That’s what we do here at CFMG, and that’s why effective advertising will never be dead.
