Guaranteed Indeed

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was an extraordinary philosopher, renowned to this day for his words of wisdom, but if what he said about life’s uncertainties were to still hold true, 21st century consumers might even be more reluctant to part with their money.

“In this world,” he once opined, “nothing is guaranteed except death and taxes.”

Of course, Ben wasn’t around when L.L. Bean guaranteed the first pair of boots its founder sold in 1912.

But seriously, the world in which Ben lived was obviously far, far removed from ours today, a world in which almost everything is guaranteed – and rightly so – by those in sales.

As Dean Rieck, President of Direct Creative, writes in a recent (October 18, 2004) issue of DM News, “If you really have a good product or service, stand behind it. A guarantee proves that you’re reputable, and it helps lower the perceived risk your prospects feel.”

I couldn’t agree with Dean more. In fact, when I had my own small creative services agency in the mid-1990s, I once went so far as to guarantee our work in order to land a piece of new, potentially lucrative business. In a letter I mailed to a number of hot prospects, I proudly proclaimed, “The chances are very slim that you’re not going to like what you see from Cargill Creative, but you might never see a thing unless we make such a bold offer.”

Truth is, as any experienced direct marketer or advertiser knows, a good, strong guarantee invariably increases your response rate and is rarely, if ever, triggered by the customer. Back in the day, a guarantee worked wonders for my fledgling agency. For a prospect that may have been on the fence about the services we had to offer, such precious words of reassurance virtually sealed the deal.

“A guarantee is one of your most important marketing tools,” says Katharine Barr, independent creative consultant and copywriter – and a past president of the New England Direct Marketing Association. “A guarantee articulates that you stand by your product or service, and that there is absolutely no risk in doing business with you.”

“But the guarantee must be as strong as possible, or it is useless,” adds Katharine. “A simple, strongly-worded statement WILL increase response. Guaranteed.”

Guaranteed indeed.

“The risk is ours, sure, but we honestly don’t look at it as a risk,” I wrote with confidence in that simple, albeit successful lead-generation letter for Cargill Creative back on February 9, 1996. “We look at it as an excellent opportunity to introduce not just ourselves, but our copywriting and design, to a number of new clients (including you), and to do some of our best work ever.”

Yes, contrary to what Benjamin Franklin said more than two centuries ago, it seems everything is guaranteed by us marketers nowadays – everything, that is, except death and taxes.

Scared Into Submission or Frightened Away

There are a number of reasons why people are motivated to speak up and take action, many of which could be chalked up to feelings, not facts. Those in the business of proselytizing – such as lawyers, preachers and, yes, politicians – know that much, if not more, about the human nature of their target audience. And so do the more experienced direct marketers and advertisers among us. Play to people’s greatest fears and desires, and chances are they will respond accordingly. You can either place doubt in their minds or provide them with hope on the horizon, depending on the emotions – and response – you want to trigger.

This is all easier said than done, of course. It’s not a stratagem to be taken lightly. After all, whether you’re raising funds, promoting sales or lobbying for votes, if your appeal is perceived as manipulative, your honesty could be called into question. And your integrity, lost. It is indeed a fine line to tread. Just ask George Bush and John Kerry. With the national elections less than two weeks away, both presidential candidates are using scare tactics as a ploy in most, if not all, of their advertising campaigns.

“In the final days before the election,” writes Jim Rutenberg in The New York Times recently (October 17, 2004), “the campaigns and the outside groups supporting them are taking an already unusually intense and confrontational advertising war into grim new territory, with some of the most vivid and evocative images and messages seen in presidential commercials in a generation, political analysts and historians say.”

And to what emotion do you think they’re playing?

According to Rutenberg, “At work, they say, are direct appeals to fear, with Mr. Bush’s campaign and supportive groups making the case that a vote for Mr. Kerry is a vote for insecurity at home, and liberal groups and Mr. Kerry using commercials to make the case that Mr. Bush’s Iraq policy has caused needless deaths that will continue if he stays in office.”

Yikes. I suppose whether or not such blatant, “direct appeals to fear” will lead to a referendum on character (whichever candidate comes across more truthful, wins?) come November 2 depends on the height of the American public’s moral ground. On the one hand, you can scare people into submission. But such tactics can also work against you, frightening away those whom you covet.

At the end of the day, however, I have to believe that one set of negative messaging (e.g., “Are John Kerry and his liberal allies a risk we can afford to take today?”) will have simply offset the other (e.g., “President Bush has failed to see the reality of the situation in Iraq…”), resulting in a stalemate of sorts in the theater of advertising war. The outcome of the election will likely be more a reflection of how Americans judge the incumbent’s performance and his opponent’s potential, not their respective advertising campaigns. The scare tactics will have gotten them only so far. The rest will be history.

If it wasn’t for a pair of brown leather cowboy boots, my career in direct marketing may have taken a different turn a long time ago.

The year was 1984, and I had a great job as a copywriter at RCA Direct Marketing. But when a friend told me about another job as an account executive at Grey Direct, my youth and ambition got the best of me. I applied for it. The interview went well, but word got back to me afterwards that I hadn’t dressed the part. Sure, I was wearing the requisite Brooks Brothers blue pinstripe suit, but my feet were covered in Dingo boots instead of classic wing tip shoes. My bad!

Today, of course, I would like to believe the fact that I didn’t land this new job was a blessing in disguise. After all, I stayed the course as a copywriter and eventually “happily” grew into my present role as a creative director. However, ever since that bad, fateful interview two decades ago, not only have I always worn oxfords to the office, but I have also had an affinity with those on the client services side of the house. I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with the axiom, “one of the best ways to understand someone is to walk a mile in his or her shoes.”

Given that spirit, I have always made a point of understanding what it takes to be a good AE, going so far as to read recently “The Art of Client Service, 54 Things Every Advertising & Marketing Professional Should Know.” Written by Robert Solomon, President and CEO of the New York office of Rapp Collins Worldwide, this 168-page book is really the definitive guide to everything anyone would need to know about client service and then some.

Broken down into three parts (The Work, Relationships, Style and Substance), Solomon uses both successes and failures to make his points about looking at creative (”When you are in front of the client, never throw the work, or your colleagues, under the bus.”), to running a meeting (”Once a meeting is underway, the goal should be to make it as short as possible. Get it done so everyone can get out and do the work.”), to communication (”A commitment without consultation ignores the collaborative nature of making advertising. It pays no respect to the people you work with. Besides, you might not be able to deliver on your commitment.”), to “apropos of this post” style and substance (Looking good is just one more detail in a business that is all about details. So why not get this one right?).

Okay, so that’s one detail I got wrong back in the day. I wore boots when I should have worn shoes. At the time, I felt bad about making such a foolish mistake. But today, I can’t help but feel good about such a momentous quirk of fate. After all, I think life on the creative side “so far” has suited me just fine.

A Reasonably Good Ad Campaign

With the home team in the American League Division Series and playing baseball like they really mean it this year, it certainly is a good time to be able to call yourself the Official Hospital of the Boston Red Sox. After all, winning is contagious. But that’s just one thing Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has going for it this fall. Something else that’s been working in the hospital’s favor lately is its current advertising campaign, which is designed to call attention to the many different reasons people (750,000 of them annually) become patients there.

In a series of large, clever display ads in this town’s two major dailies (of course, there may be other publications on the media schedule of which I’m not aware), this nationally-renowned academic medical center distinguishes itself well in articulating its unique selling proposition.

For instance, on page 19 of yesterday morning’s Boston Herald, “Reason #11” in this series is promoting “open heart surgery that’s a lot less open.” A plastic adhesive bandage – yes, commonly referred to as a BAND-AID – is the visual centerpiece. And the feature highlighted in this particular ad is that BIDMC “is pioneering minimally invasive heart valve repair and replacement.” The benefit? “For patients it means less painful surgery, less cosmetic trauma and faster recovery times.” Okay. What obviously ties this campaign together is the fact that each ad in the series is numbered, giving prospective patients – and, I suppose, prospective employees – the impression that it contains just one in a long, impressive list of reasons why they shouldn’t even consider any other hospital. This is good.

I personally have seen five of these ads, numbers 8 (“making heartburn a quaint memory of the early 21st century”), 9 (“really, really tiny surgical instruments”), 11 (“open heart surgery that’s a lot less open”), 16 (“the better to see you”) and, yes, 63 (“apparently, the grass is greener”). Interestingly, though, when I followed the URL that’s included in these ads, I found the campaign prominently displayed on the BIDMC home page, but the list in its entirety was conspicuous in its absence. Only five “Reasons to Visit BIDMC” were there, and what had heretofore been “Reason #11” in the ads was now listed as “Reason #17.” This is not so good.

As fellow copywriter, creative director and past New England Direct Marketing Association president Bob McCarthy (of McCarthy and King Marketing, Inc.), cautions: “If you are using the ‘numbered ways’ approach in a series of ads, remember the reader may not see the entire series. If you cannot provide the entire list in your promotion, consider producing the full list in a brochure, booklet or flyer – then offering it to respondents.”

After reading just one of these ads, if I’m the target audience, I can’t help but want to find all of the “Reasons” together in one place on the hospital’s Web site. That’s my thinking.

Bob also says: “Keep your numbers reasonable. If you are writing an ad that says, “Reason No. 59,” you have pretty much maxed out your credibility. One can only imagine how trivial or watered down the reasons are if there are at least 59 of them.”

In this case, we’re apparently talking about a grand total of at least 63 reasons to visit BIDMC. Of course, no one’s arguing that there aren’t that many, but highlighting just one-third of such a large number would likely be perceived as more credible.

All this said, please don’t get me wrong: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center still has a winning campaign here, one certainly befitting its status as one of the top health delivery organizations in America. And, by the way, one that’s going to get much more attention if the Red Sox go all the way this year.