What a week for news. First, Jan Thompson, Nissan's VP of Marketing for North America sets the trades ablaze with her assertions that manufacturers are over spending per new vehicle retailed and that their timidity in embracing new media is partly to blame.

In the same week, the Harbor report, the industry standard for vehicle manufacturing efficiency, announced in its annual report that Nissan is the most efficient vehicle manufacturer, followed by Toyota, Honda, GM, DCX and then Ford. While quality is not part of this report, manufacturer profitability is. While the domestics did well with individual plants (landing 6 of the top 10 spots), the overall picture is what counts. The report goes on to assign corporate losses per vehicle manufactured to each of the these brands. Ford and GM showed significant losses per vehicle manufactured, while the others were profitable.

The trades didn't link these two stories together, but perhaps they should have. Thompson points out that advertising per new vehicle retailed has grown 1378% in the last 20 years while the average sticker price of a new car hasn't grown nearly at that rate. Certainly competition plays a major role. 20 years ago Toyota and Honda were just gaining respect while Hyundai and Kia non-issues. Lexus, Acura and Infiniti didn't yet exist either, leaving most of the pie for the domestics. When competition grows significantly in a highly profitable and prestigious industry, a fight is bound to break out. In this instance, it broke out in the form of markeitng spending.

So how can the industry get this under control? Surely Ford and GM can't save their way to a profit, so doesn't reducing the marketing budget sound counter-productive? Well, that depends on how you're spending the marketing budget. This is where Thompson hits a home run.

Just as things have changed in the auto industry in the last 20 years, the media landscape is equally different. See my first-ever blog (below) about the staggering declines in mass media efficiency and also the growth of more efficient marketing channels and you'll see that way people think about marketing budgets has to change. TV is great if you need to talk to 75% or more of the U.S. population. But who needs to do that? Cadillac with its less than 2.0% retail share? Acura with less than 2.0% retail share? Even Dodge with its less than 7% retail share? Hardly.

The solutions are simple, but-oh-so painful as they require a change in the way we think. First, in planning for 2007, I urge marketers and their agencies to plan their media the way the consumer plans its media consumption. For Buick that may mean starting with the 4pm TV news. For Dodge Caliber, that may mean starting with Podcasting and RSS-fed banners. Then, continue to augment and improve the plan the way to consumer further engages themselves in media. To start a media plan by dropping 200 GRPs into 36 weeks and seeing what's left is outdated, inefficient, and frankly, doing yourself and your brand a real injustice.

Second, know the facts about new media channels. When incremental funding gets approved to bolster a lagging vehicle, the challenge is to get sales up fast. So agencies think to themselves, "To place and produce TV is about a week with existing footage, Newspaper can be bought and trafficked in four days..." etc. The fact is that new media channels can be bought and produced as fast or faster than the traditional channels. Such as:

A highly targeted web campaign with flash banners and a microsite can be bought and up in a week. A full SMS/Mobile text campaign can be placed and ready in less than a week Mobile ad banners can be produced, bought and served in 4 days In-video game advertising can be produced, bought and up in a little over a week

You may have heard recently about Google's new product Trends. I read about it in various blogs and feeds so I checked it out. For the first five seconds I just sort of stared at it. "Ok, this is neat, but so what?" I thought. Then it hit me in a huge way.

Research, or at least campaign measurement, is vital to understanding the successes and shortcomings in any marketing effort. While sales are the ultimate measure of a campaigns success, Google has developed one heck of an awareness research tool. Let's try this.

The all-new Toyota Camry just launched and is big news in perhaps the most competitive automotive segment. It's especially big news if you're Honda, where they rely on the Accord for a good chunk of profits. So, with a $175 million launch behind the Camry, does Honda have anything to worry about? In the old days of 2005, it would have either taken some very deep digging online, or Honda and Toyota would have to wait for the newest Allison-Fisher consumer awareness data. Now in futuristic 2006, awareness can reasonably be tied to search activity. Not all search activity is good for a brand (think automotive recalls), but very telling nonetheless. Let's take a look at how Camry and Accord are performing here.**

The results may not be horrifying for Honda, but they're certainly worth watching. Throughout 2004 and 2005, the Accord held a stellar lead over the Camry, but that gap has closed in the last few months. Something at Toyota is working.

To be sure, there are other factors. Honda likely has a more web-savvy audience, for example. But does that matter? The web's audience composition didn't change in the last year - external sources influences this gap consolidation.

Right now, this can only be viewed on a country or world basis. Hopefully Google will move toward DMA-based reporting (or better) and in time periods of less than one month. Then, if Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse wanted to measure its campaign's success in achieving greater awareness compared to Peggy Sue BBQ, they could do daily or weekly comparisons, gauge how long their ads took to impact awareness, and ultimately sales. Right now, neither search comes up as having enough volume to measure on Google's grand scale.

Professionally presenting your products in an ad copy can make the million dollar difference in your results. You can literally turn a mediocre product into a successful one - with the right ad. Research has shown that without the right ad an outstanding product will go relatively no where. The right ad is everything!

In this article you'll discover a guaranteed method that you can use in turning your product into one of the best money makers online. This is a method that I've used and continued to use in marketing my products. The good part about it is its simplicity. It is a method you can profit with - every time!

Here is a method that works any time.

This method which I call the copy-cat technique is one of the easiest and effective ways of increasing the success of your ads. When you browse advertising sites you'll discover that there are many ads that are poorly written and presented. On the other hand, there are some that are very creative and incredibly effective. These are the ones that the marketer has taken some time and experience to create. And these are the ones I want you to focus on really good.

By simply copycatting those ads you can increase the success of your ads incredibly. Whether you're running classified ads, pay-per-click ads, ezine ads etc. the guaranteed route to success is the copycat technique.

Now I'm not advising that you go out there and copy another person's ad word for word. No, no, no! Remember copy right laws exist!

However, you can copy the ideas, techniques, and selling strategies used by the advertiser. You must understand that a successful ad is a workable combination of some essential elements. These are the ideas, techniques, and selling strategies that you can easily copy to sky-rocket the success of your own ads.

To effectively use this technique, take time to go through classified sites, pay-per-click listings, ezine ads (sure you're subscribed to a couple few). Note the presentation of the ads. Note also the content included in the ads. Observe carefully the descriptive words used. Take note of the meaning or feeling conveyed by the ad's text.

As you browse through these ads, copy out those ads that you discover to be successful. Now as I mentioned earlier you don't copy someone else's ad word for word. This is where the diversity of the English language becomes useful. By simply rearranging that ad or changing the wordings, you can essentially say the same thing in a different way. You can also convey the same message or idea through the same process.

Using this copycatting technique you can project the same thoughts, emotions, and information in someone else's ad into your own ads. You don't have to duplicate the ad directly. Simply playing with the words you can easily get the same point across and therefore achieve the same, if not a better, result.

When it comes to small business marketing and advertising, I am amazed at how many local advertisers squander their money. I wish I had the money they wasted. I'd be a rich man.

Let's talk about your typical retailer with 1 - 5 locations.

One of the biggest problems I've seen is that most retailers have no idea of which media to use when running a campaign. In fact, some don't even know WHY they are running a campaign.

They know they should advertise, but they don't really know what they are trying to accomplish.

Let's clarify the TOP 10 obvious reasons you should advertise.

1. You are opening a new business

2. You are closing a business

3. You have a problem selling sufficient quantities of your product or service

4. Your competitor has started a price war

5. You have taken on a new product line or phasing out a product

6. Your business is expanding with new locations

7. You need to renovate but don't want to lose business

8. Sales are dropping and you need to create a new buzz

9. You are moving your location

10.You want to go public

All these reasons to advertise are born of typical "problems" and Advertising solves problems!

I prefer to see problems as challenges and recommend that mindset for everyone. It makes it more of a positive game and stimulates the problem-solving areas of the brain instead of bringing on the worry & depression when you're scrambling to generate sales or save a business.

Now. Which media to use?

Let me give you the bigger picture of the Top 5 advertising vehicles.

RADIO

Need to get a message out fast? Nothing works better than radio!

Radio Pros: This is the sizzle. Hollywood. The Buzz. Entertainment. Excitement. Light my fire. Theatre of the mind. Fast turnaround. With the right production your local burger joint can come across like MacDonald's. Fairly inexpensive. A "word of mouth" medium that taps into the trusting subconscious that "A friend told me about such & such...".

Radio Cons: Sausage factory radio spot production and mediocre creative copywriting due to time constraints and poor client communication. Limited inventory of spots means there's nothing to buy when station is in a sold-out position.

PRINT

Print is all about details. Not enough time to say it in 30 seconds on radio? Take out a print Ad!

Print Pros: Powerful headlines work. Graphic images can be a powerful selling tool! Lots of room to showcase plenty of inventory. Good target market penetration. Good vehicle for couponing. Color Ads grab the eye. Reader can cut & save Ad or coupon.

Print Cons: Slow turnaround time due to production. Your Ad can end up on the same page as your competition (not recommended if the competition is underselling, but that's a whole other story!) Print production by the newspaper graphic department offers up less than interesting creative Ad design or punchy layout (because of time constraints). Can be quite expensive in certain markets. Easy to get lost on a page of Ads. Powerful headlines are key but hard to come by unless you hire an outside creative person oe design firm.

TV

How else can you walk into someone's living room and get them to buy your product while they're still in their underwear?

TV Pros: Let's face it. Nothing beats the one-two punch of audio-video. Powerful visuals. Emotionally stirring music or audio sound bites. A dash of sex...intrique...fear...laughter... Yes - your emotions are being assaulted & manipulated by the very best advertisers in the world. And you know what? TV works!

So what if it cost Apple $10,000,000 to sell you 1 ipod? They'll make it back a hundred times!

TV Cons: Can be very expensive in local markets. Production is key but again, very expensive. Out of reach for many local businesses. That being said, there are TV. package opportunities available during off-season and sometimes end-of-season that are affordable. (I highly recommend you take advantage and get your feet wet with these type of offers).

FLYERS / INSERTS / DIRECT MAIL:

I have grouped these together because they fall into the category of distribution of printed material. The most telling difference is the way they are distributed. Let's define each. A flyer is an independant piece of printed material typically distributed by hand and bundled with many other flyers. An Insert is a flyer that is inserted into the local paper for distribution. Direct Mail is a flyer, card or Ad in a sealed envelope that can be specifically targeted to certain city zones, apartments, streets, businesses, high or low income areas etc. As you can imagine, direct mail is the more expensive method but best targeted.

Pros: Flyers are stand alone Ads that thrifty retail shoppers look forward to. The key is, to have an outstanding promotion or offer. Strong creative, pleasing layout and quality paper stock all make a difference as to how you are perceived by the shopper. Shoddy Ads = Shoddy business. (There are exceptions, but that will be discussed in another article.) Flyers allow you to coupon your product or service.

Cons: Flyers rarely deliver a high rate of return. Even when expertly conceived, designed and printed, they can easily get cast into the garbage bin. The key is to pre-promote your flyer in another medium or offer samples. (I'll cover the powerful effects of combining complimentary media in my next article).

BILLBOARDS

There are many types of billboard services. From huge highway, street-level and bus shelter signage to bus, train, and taxi signage.

Pros: There is an "air" of big time advertising associated with billboards. Great for image building as long as you follow the 7 second rule. (Never say anything on a billboard that takes longer than 7 seconds to register in someone's brain!). Powerful visuals & headlines are key!

Cons: You pay extra for mass targeting. Can be very expensive. Poor creative can render your efforts invisible. Production can eat up alot of your budget. Slow turnaround. Key positions are booked sometimes for years in advance.

The biggest question you are probably asking is: What do I do now?

That all depends on what "challenge" your business is presenting.

You need to formulate a plan of action. This is typically called an advertising plan.

You must:

1. come up with an affordable advertising budget

This money should be viewed as an investment

2. create a timeline (how long you need to advertise)

Decide if this is a longer image-building campaign or a short promotional campaign

3. define the nature of your campaign and what you hope to accomplish

Do you want to build up your name or sell a particular product or service?

4. come up with a strong creative campaign

You can play safe and follow everyone else who is successful, or lead with new and aggressive creative

5. select the media (preferrably more than one) you can afford

I caution you to avoid a one media campaign. They are very limiting. Whenever possible, use a combination - ie: print/radio, flyer/radio, tv/print, tv/billboard

Is print advertising headed for extinction? No way, but I am seeing more and more companies pulling dollars from their print advertising budgets and moving them into other alternatives. The reason? To brand their product or service more effectively by balancing their ad campaigns and reaching their targeted demographic audiences from different angles. And even within the print medium, the playing field appears to be changing. Newspaper and Yellow Pages advertising has suffered a blow from the growth of the internet. Googling, Yahoo-ing and online news sources are pulling from their numbers. With internet research more easily available, more advertisers are targeting their prospective customers with direct mail campaigns which gives them the ability to pinpoint the demographic they are trying to reach by age, gender, income and location.

The internet is a growing alternative. Google Ads and Yahoo Sponsored Search "Pay Per Click" advertising is grabbing a growing share of ad budgets. This new medium gives you the ability purchase a keyword and only pay for it if someone clicks on your website. The way it works in a nutshell is, when someone does a search using your keyword, your website url and a three line promotional ad appears on the right side of the search results page. It can be as inexpensive as a nickel per click and you can limit what you spend per day, so that Google/Yahoo shuts off your ad campaign for the rest of that day when your budget "limit" is reached.

Outdoor advertising and signs on buses and transit systems is often in the mix of successful advertising budgets.

Radio utilizes the magic of music and imagination to reach an audience in a lasting way. Of course this is one of my favorites because music, jingles and ad production are what I do. But all bias aside, radio is a way to reach a broader audience with the ability to drive home a message.

One lesser know alternative within radio broadcast advertising is the traffic or weather sponsorship. This is a ten second (or less) message that is read within the traffic report: i.e. "Today's traffic is brought to you by ________ ". Metro Networks, the Westwood One company created the traffic sponsorship industry years ago by putting a fleet of planes and "news" copters in the air to monitor traffic in the largest US cities. Instead if selling their services to the radio stations, Metro made a trade for advertising "air" time. So most of the flying traffic reporters that you think work for your local radio & TV stations are really Metro Networks employees who have cut a deal with the local stations. The local stations also sell traffic and weather sponsorships but they are usually not during the report, they come before or after it. So if you hear two traffic sponsorships for the same report, it probably means one was a Metro sponsorship and the other was a station sold sponsorship.

Television advertising is a traditional advertising medium we all know well but the advent of cable television has changed the face of the industry. With cable advertising, you can now reach a more targeted demographic, very similar to direct mail, by age, gender, income & location and it can be done on a smaller budget. *If you decide to go in this direction, or in the direction of radio advertising check out my site and drop me a line. I will be happy to go into detail about branding alternatives to help you get maximum effectiveness from your campaign.