Why are all car commercials are the same? And why are they so bad?

They are bad because it feels like they constantly go through and follow a similar blueprint: “Have a diverse family with two kids (one boy and one girl), smiling having a good time as they drive down a bendy road. Then cut to the leasing.” 

The ones that are a clique and the ones that are the ones that we don’t remember. I know I have seen this commercial more than hundred times but was it a cadillac? a honda? a toyota? – I couldn’t tell you.

The car marketing projects we remember are the ones that stood out. Wither it was car hamsters or Fords F150 loading commercial.

But its not enough to just stand out – people have to take you seriously too.

Marketing and positioning was never really about being different. It is about serving customers in a way that they haven’t been served before. This is a small but power distinction.

No one chooses a brand just because it’s different (although this maybe true for some specific fashion / luxury brands) but even the most different and unique brands must add some type of underlying real value to the customers reality – or else it is not a brand – its just an egocentric circus.

Differentiation for the stake of differentiation is the tool of the amateur.

Standing out and being different is a by product of serving a market subset that was once neglected.

Everyone has a different range of perception – it is a set of rules, assumptions and fundamental beliefs of how people see the world.

An economist looks at the world with different assumptions then a marketer.

A mom looks at the world through a different lens then a dad.

This “lens” is not just limited to assumptions – it is also subject to language.

Words mean different things to different people – sometimes extremely different.

For example, when a Poker player here’s the word check – it means something a little bit different then when an account heres the word check.

However, the meaning of words and the conflict created through interpretation are often way more subtle than this.

To change or have influence on anyone you must first ask: What is their range of perception? What are the assumptions? Am I speaking in words and phrases that are foreign to their range of perception? 

Once you know the range – you can craft a message that feels unique to them.

Time is neglected in marketing and is usually referred to as “set laws” rather than “curious theory”.

Whether, it’s time spent watching a video, the time spent with a customer on a support call – time as it relates to the customer is important.

For example, if you are measuring watch rate on a video, sometimes you want the time spent to be high. While with something like a customer support call, you may want the time to be lower.

But the interesting thing with time is that people relate to it differently.

‍Some people desire having more time spent with them on a customer call if they are looking to connect and less time spent on a videos if, for example to they need to watch a quick tutorial. The same goes for social media posts – some people like short and some people like long.

Time spent in marketing should be an element that is not a “law” but rather something that is customized and designed for the benefit and experience of the customer.

A brand is really in other terms – a concentration of energy. Light that is dispersed widely can light up through a whole area but can cut through nothing.

A laser on the other hand is that concentration of light – that can cut through almost anything.

The brands that impact us the most are the ones that cut through us to our hearts. The only way this can be performed is through the concentration of the energy of the brand.

Without concentration of energy – you have mass annoyance, mass interruption with no real impact.

It’s easy to get lost in using templates to fix our website problems.

From landing pages to full websites templates are a useful tool to guiding work however, sometimes people forget altogether what web is for.

Web at its highest level is there to not only provide information to the customer but to create a feeling inside of them to take some type of action.

No template is going to have exactly what your brand stands for or what your customer cares about in a design – but its a start.

Creating a web design experience ends up being something where we settle for templates but what it should be is a set of tools to create a feeling.

Imagination is a powerful word in marketing.

Imagination is what creates brands but is also allows customers to see themselves in a different place, state and/or future if they engage with your product.

It is at the core of what drives us because if we couldn’t see a new and brighter future where would we go? Why would we even decide to change?

It’s part of the marketers job if not their main job to guide the customer using the energy of the customers own imagination to act as a catalyst to guide them to a different state.

Marketing without imagination is only interruption.

Brand is a type of synergy – it is taking all the parts of your marketing – design, messaging and purpose for example and putting it together to get an outcome larger then the sum of its parts. That creates synergy which gives you the ultimate outcome of a brand that people connect with and relate too.

The spirit of the brand lays in the synergy of its total parts and not in the brunt strength of its individual components.

Managing a brand is about bringing out the synergy – its important to remember that.

People respond to marketing they “hate” in different ways.

Some people attack marketing aggressively, bash advertising for the way they believe it manipulates people.

Some feel like they are above advertising and give off a vibe that they are immune to it.

Others deploy ad blockers and try to avoid even coming in contact with it.

Whether it’s avoidance, aggression or claim to immunity – people will typically only use these methods to block out advertising that is not relevant to them at the time.

That’s the thing with marketing – barely anyone talks about the good of marketing “how the package was designed” or “how the funnel educated them so well”.

No, what gets most of the conversation is people experiencing marketing that wasn’t relevant to them.

For marketing to work it requires commitment.

You can’t half have a purpose or half do a campaign.

You can’t give the customer half of what you promised them.

You have to pick and that requires commitment to an idea.

It’s the only way that idea can have impact aways.

Impact increases commitment and commitment increase impact.