Marketing High Technology by Davidow William H

Author:Davidow, William H. [Davidow, William H.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 1986-06-01T16:00:00+00:00

GREAT PROMOTIONS are acts of creativity, insight, and brilliance. But they are more than that. They are also acts of great leadership. Brilliant copy, striking ads, and dramatic press releases do not create products. Rather, they enhance what is already there. Great promotions become interwoven into the fabric of a company; they not only augment the product but reflect the corporate strategy as well. They tell a story about both the product and the institution it represents.

Contrary to myth, great promotions do not begin in smoke-filled rooms with corporate executives in animated conversation with copywriters, creative directors, and PR persons. Rather, they are conceived in the market place. They derive from a clear understanding of customer needs and emerge into the world as words. Initially, the words may be tortured, but with hours of long work they become great copy—copy that expresses, with eloquent simplicity, the focal point of the promotion; copy that inspires customers and employees to act; copy that provides leadership; and copy that captures people’s hearts, minds, and imaginations.

Do things like this really happen? You bet. You don’t have to look far for examples. The world’s greatest copywriters are found not in ad agencies but in the capitals of nations and on the battlefields. Some of them have written words like, “I shall return,” “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” Those words positioned the product and inspired the commitment of millions to carry out very distasteful tasks, even to give up their own lives.

Other inspired copywriters, when faced with events of lesser proportion but of comparable significance to their own institutions, have come up with such phrases as, “We’re only number 2, we try harder,” “The computer for the rest of us,” and “The best made, best built cars in America.” Like the words of MacArthur, Roosevelt, and Churchill, those expressions live on. They change the behavior of customers, as well as the actions of the corporations that use them.

But ad copy works only when it is backed by substance, commitment, and leadership. Robert Townsend, the president of Avis, believed in the “We try harder” campaign and led Avis to live up to its claims. Customers loved it. Lee Iacocca renovated Chrysler in order to deliver on his promises. Those promotions were more than just words. They were expressions of purpose.

Not every product is backed by the company president, the prime minister, or the five-star general, but almost every product has a product manager whose duty is to become that product’s champion. The great “little” promotions are waged by those unknown crusaders. If those individuals didn’t exist, neither would most successful products.

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