You're Not General Motors, McDonald¹s or Coca-Cola,
So Don't Emulate What They're Doing.

The key to their success isn't necessarily based on how  good they are (inside reality), but rather on advertising  repetition. General Motors, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola  advertise for the sole purpose of building distribution and  BRAND awareness. They do image advertising - their ads attempt to marry a lifestyle feeling to their product so  you'll get that same feeling when you go to buy.

In 1997, Pepsi spent $1.24 billion in advertising, while  Proctor & Gamble spent $2.743 billion. McDonald¹s spent  $1.041 billion and General Motors spent a whopping $3.087  billion! That's why GM can hum a tune "like a rock, like a  rock, like a rock" and it works. If you spend over a  BILLION dollars, you'd get stellar results too! Here's a  stat that will surprise you: Do you know how many  billboards Coca-Cola has along American roads? A thousand?  10,000? 100,000? Try 300,000! Along with 20,000 building  walls painted with their logo, over 5 million soda glasses  with their name printed on them, and over 400 million  newspaper and magazine advertising impressions... IN 1930!   See, it takes time and money to really build that kind of  brand awareness... and it can work great for your advertising  and marketing If you are fortunate enough to have a  marketing budget over $100 million a year.

99% of advertising is nothing but a huge jumble of  hyperbole, fluff and unbelievable platitudes with  black-hole nothing words: cheapest, professionalism,  service, quality, speedy, convenient and best. You'll hear  a lot of commonplace phrases and one of the most popular  ones is We're Number One. Well, whoop dee doo. Number one  in whose eyes? These mindless words and phases do  absolutely nothing to communicate why you're the best deal,  why you're an exceptional value, why or how you solve the  problems that nobody else solves. But most businesses go on  year after year spewing these verbal platitudes that do  nothing more than get their name out there... if that. Why  would anyone want to waste marketing dollars that hardly  say anything to anyone? It's because the majority of us  have been obediently trained from the wrong sources on how  to advertise.

We now have three types of businesses that give people what  they want. Level ONE business, surprisingly, is the biggest  provider of services and products in this country ­ our  government. Some of us would adamantly argue that our  government has taken over our education system,  transportation, safety & protection, our savings for  retirement, and distribution of food and clothing for over  15% of our population. Even many of the medical and legal  services are closely controlled/provided by our government.  Average business owners cannot compete in these markets,  which control as much as 40% of our gross national product.

Level TWO businesses are what we call the Fortune 5000,  which includes the top 1 to 5 thousand companies in the  country. They are comprised of premier global majors with  diverse growth portfolios such as ConocoPhillips,  ExxonMobil, General Motors, McDonald's, and Wal-Mart. Some  of the top Fortune 5000 companies have portfolios of high  quality assets, capabilities, and financial strength to  generate enhanced value for its shareholders. We've been  indoctrinated by years of advertising and social acceptance  to buy from these companies. Any product or service that  can be standardized and distributed to 80% of the  population without changing the design or concept has been  converted to a national brand name over the last 50 years.  They have the financial resources to advertise all over the  place... a million dollars here, half a million there. It  takes a lot of money and time to build that kind of brand  equity.

Level THREE businesses include everybody else. Everything  from start up businesses and mom and pops, all the way up  to companies that do hundreds of millions of dollars in  annual sales. Level 3 companies cannot rely on broad-based  repetition-oriented advertising that builds brand  awareness. It's not that Level 3 businesses can't or  shouldn't build brand awareness. And it's not that they can't spend a lot of money on advertising. They just can't do it nationally on ABC, NBC, and CBS at $50,000 to  $500,000 per 30-second spot. Level 3 businesses need to be more frugal with their marketing budget in order to create  successful action-oriented advertising.

Because of the integration of advertising into our daily  lives, we are constantly exposed to Level 2 advertising.  And everyone assumes, based on years of passive  observation, that's how marketing and advertising are done.  That probably explains why so many people consider  themselves to be advertising experts. People say, "Hey,  I've been submersed in it my entire life, so I certainly  must know something about it." If you go to college and  learn how to do advertising, they'll teach you Level 2  business advertising. That's fine if you're working for a  Level TWO business. But here's the problem: most of these  folks who graduate with all these degrees in advertising  and marketing don't know how to make money in the real  world. If you stick them in one of the Fortune 5000  company's marketing department, they might do okay, but if  they don't have the 20, 50 or 100 year history of the  company backing them up, along with the multi-million  dollar or billion dollar advertising budget, they don't  know how to make money. They don't know how to get prospects  to take action. And for you, that's what's crucial ­  getting the prospect to get past the confidence gap, to  realize that you offer a superior value, and to take  action.

What you need to be able to do is craft your business and  then advertise where prospects can take action that will  lead to a purchase. That action could be anything. Maybe  it's to call in and place an order or to request an  information kit. Maybe you want the prospect to send in a  reply card, call a toll-free hotline or visit your website.  That's different than Level 2 advertising where you're  trying to create a feeling/lifestyle and attach it to your  product. You've got to manipulate your advertising so the  prospect will take ACTION!

The bottom line is that you have to spend your marketing  dollars more intelligently than level 2 businesses. The way  you do that is by using action-oriented advertising. There  are many benefits to this type of advertising. The main one  is that you know almost instantly how profitable or  unprofitable your ads are... based on the number of  inquiries, orders, hits or leads you receive DIRECTLY from  the ads. You'll hear a lot of people in the advertising  industry say you can't quantify the results of your  advertising like that... and in some cases they're right. But  that's only because many businesses don't understand the  fundamentals of how to make their advertising make money.  Some people will bark that you can't do action-oriented  advertising in certain media. Again, you can, IF - and only  if - you know how to do it properly. There are a lot of  factors and components that will affect your response.  You're not General Motors, McDonalds or Coca-Cola, so don't  emulate their advertising.