What is the Pure Futures campaign? Well, Steinlager Pure is recognising Kiwis who have uncompromising visions for New Zealand’s future by helping them realise those visions. They have $100,000 to give away, along with help and support from mentors like Dan & Steve at iconic Kiwi clothing label Huffer, awesomely talented industrial designer Jamie McLellan, the great team down at Auckland’s internationally acclaimed business incubator The Icehouse, single handed trans-Tasman rower Shaun Quincey, the team behind mega-successful Kiwi fashion brand Stolen Girlfriends Club, and me.
All you have to do to get involved is register and share a brief summary of your vision and what you think you need to make it happen. The community is then invited to vote and comment on your vision, and the most promising visions will then be given the resource they need to get them underway.
I am really looking forward to working with some big ideas, and hopefully helping people realise their visions by helping them develop brand and/or communications strategies to spread and promote their idea.
If your son or daughter (or anyone for that matter) asked you this question I hope you would have a better answer than “we advertise, they see our advertising, then they come and buy from us”.
If you can’t think of a simple reason why your existing customers would tell other people about your products or service then you probably need to rethink your strategy. People don’t talk about good products at a reasonable price, they talk about outstanding products, unbelievably cheap products, unbelievably expensive products, products that do something unique or unusual, service that is orders of magnitude apart from anything else they have experienced, or products that have amazing stories behind them.
Your products and services should be an integral part of your marketing strategy, not an input into it.
Think about the stories you want your customers to be telling other people about your products and services, and then design them to make that happen.
Over the years the poor innocent asterisk has become the reluctant workhorse of every lazy marketer in the world. Instead of directing the reader toward a simple explanatory footnote it has, and continues to be used and abused as a weapon of mass deception.
If your offer or headline could be reasonably misconstrued by a regular person then you need to rethink what or how you are advertising. Particularly if you have added your footnote in 12 point font on the bottom of your spectacular size billboard.
Using asterisks is like dressing your brand in a trench coat; it makes you look dodgy, and makes us wonder what you are hiding.
Version3.0 is the virtual home of me, Duncan Blair. You will find me writing about an eclectic mix of branding, marketing, music, things that look good, and anything else that I find interesting. For more about me, head on over to find out all about version3.0.
