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Have you noticed recently that Alka-Seltzer has brought back one of its old ad campaigns: “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing”. Only this time around with Peter Doyle and Doris ?, most recently from ‘Everybody Loves Raymond.’ The thing to point out immediateley is that this marketing campaign is most certainly the right match, to the demographics of the product’s aging customers. Generation X’ers don’t use Alka-Seltzer.Why? Well first off it can’t be delivered by e-mail!!!

And as a minor point,we are certainly going to be noticing that the recycling of old advertising will become an ever increasing trend in the coming years.

The other day I also happened to stumble across a new TV commercial for the very first time. This time it was for a “new” extreme version of the old”over the counter” version of Pepcid. This is actually a medicine intended to treat a much more serious condition, but it is now being used as an alternative treatment to Tums or Alka-Seltzer.The big point of difference is that it is taken before eating the food, that you already know will give you problems and try to kill you! Rather than taken afterwards, as in most similar products case. In other words “pop the pill” and eat the pizza!

Some years ago, when Dan Kennedy was a heavy drinker, grossly overweight and eating junk food 24/7,he suffered badly from stomach troubles and used to joke constantly about sprinkling Tums on his food as seasoning! In his first sales job,he often tells the story of the guy that was duly appointed as his sales trainer. A 30 year veteran territory rep, who ordered a drink comprising of three glasses in the bar. The first glass, straight Scotch, the second glass, iced water, and in the third glass,ice only, to which he added Pepto-Bismol. Then he would sip glass #1, #2, #3,followed by #1, #2, #3 and so on!

Anyway, the new Pepcid slogan is a real dandy: FEAR NO FOOD.
If they are really smart,(and I bet they aren’t), they’ll make up T-shirts, start a “Fear No Food” Club, get a Club celebrity endorsement who is known for over eating, etc. It reminds me of the old “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz”, “oh what a relief it is!” slogan. This was also a terrific one, because it instantly tied the entire experience of using the product and the promise into the one single sentence.

USP’s (unique selling propositions),slogans,“elevator speeches” are all important items. Particularly When you get them right, when you can capture and hold a piece of the marketplace’s mind as your proprietary territory. When they think of product or service “x”, they think of you. Truth is, few marketers ever get close to successfully getting into such elevated territory,largely because they can never really,clearly, enunciate what they are about, and then consistently stick with that message. It’s definitely something to aspire to. That is, to being understood, as being about something.

Dan Kennedy hung one of his hats on the “No B.S.” tag for that very purpose. To ultimately be known, as the guy who tells it to you straight, who’s certainly blunt,maybe a little coarse, definitely insensitive, but always delivers value. And I think he’s been pretty successful making this positioning stick. It’s a promise that he has become known for, and known for keeping. This then begs the question for you and your business. Are you about something? Is there a promise you’ve become known for, and known for keeping? What is it? Can you define it in words? Are you communicating that message to the marketplace?

http://www.richardbutler.biz