Starting a small business is always an interesting venture… we at Imaginary Sandwich have gone through it – so
I know how you feel – all the paperwork, getting capital, advertising and research and then hopefully finding your
target market. While reading a recent article on www.businessweek.com about advertising and getting the right
message out I thought I would share it with you. Thought the article starts out with a funny little story about a
girl who wouldn’t go out on a second date with a guy just because he had one of those bumper stickers on his
truck of the character Calvin relieving himself on FSU… Now you ask what does that have to do with advertising…
it has everything to do with it!!

Getting the write message out to your target market is key! The American public is bombarded by messages
everyday. Do they actually work? The answer is yes! Whether you may love the advertisement or loath the
advertisement you will remember it. Here is the question I pose to you: What is the last ad you remember seeing?
I have found that people will always talk about the ad/message they remember the most – it may have been an ad
they saw a week ago or just yesterday but for some reason it stood out to them… Why?

Why do we remember some and not the others? Design is the answer!!! The way the message is portrayed is why
you actually remember it. Color has a lot to do with it. If a message is colorful – both in language and the design
of the font it makes things stand out. Color interpretation is very important to understand – what do people think
of when they see the color red or blue or green… it is important for the designer to know these things & understand
what attracts the human eye and what draws the eye in. The way things are placed on a paper or a website or in
a spot on TV is key… Design in the most important aspect besides the message.

Want to know more about design and if we can help your business portray the right message to your target market?
Contact me at j.leili@imaginarysandwich.com for a consultation and quote.

Here is the article that started my whole rant on finding the right message! : on www.businessweek.com

Advertising: Think Before You Speak

by Steve McKee

click here for full story

Recently a colleague told me an anecdote from her personal life. She went out with a guy who had one of those
bumper stickers on which an ersatz Calvin (from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes) was relieving himself on a Florida State University logo. When he called her for a second date, she declined. It wasn't that she had an affinity for Florida State, it was just that (in her words), "I thought, clearly I can't have anything in common with someone who voluntarily drove himself to the store, purchased that sticker, and applied it to the back of his vehicle."

That's one of the problems with bumper stickers. The young man who put Calvin on his truck no doubt thought it was funny, preoccupied as he was with putting down a football rival. But the message it conveyed said more about him than he thought, and it cost him that second date.

When you put a bumper sticker on your car it represents just one element of your personality; it's one small sample of how you look at the world. Yet to the guy stuck behind you in traffic, it's the defining element of who you are. As a result, the message you send can become louder than intended, and often misunderstood.

The Message Is Everything
Take, for example, the "my child is an honor student" bumper stickers. That's a nice thought. And Mom probably put it on her minivan out of a combination of delight with and obligation to her wide-eyed sixth grader who proudly brought it home. She displays it to reward her child for his hard work, not to brag. But not every other driver interprets it that way—that's why we see stickers that say things like "my kid can beat up your honor student" or even "my French Bulldog is smarter than your child". (Yes, that's a real sighting.)

The same is true of advertising. It may be O.K. for you to risk the ire of other drivers by virtue of the stickers you put on your car. But when you're paying big money to run an advertising campaign, the message your audience receives is everything—regardless of what it is you intend to say.

A marriage counselor friend of mine defines communication as "the meeting of meaning." I think that's as good a definition as I've heard. We don't truly communicate simply by speaking to someone, we communicate only if they understand what we mean for them to know. The trick of creating effective advertising is to get inside the skins of your target customers, to see your message through their eyes and hear it through their ears.

How You Say What You Say
When you do, you might be surprised at how they interpret what you're trying to say. Here's an all-too-common example. When you hear retailers yelling (as they so often do), "There's never been a better time to buy," you don't think, "There's never been a better time to buy." You think, "There they go again, trying to coerce me into buying a car/sofa/TV." Not the message they intend, but by failing to take into consideration the fact that you may have heard that line once or twice before, advertisers can be their own worst enemy.

Or consider the positive example of companies such as Nike (NKE), Apple (AAPL), and Gatorade (PEP), which rarely overtly ask people to buy anything. They simply develop appealing, interesting, often thought-provoking advertising that involves consumers in the message and invites them to draw their own conclusions. Even more direct-response-oriented brands such as Geico, eBay (EBAY), and Capital One (COF) know how you say something is as important as what you say. Because they've done such a good job of understanding who it is they're trying to reach, their ads
have a positive effect.

You aren't the target
Remember, it doesn't matter what an advertiser intends to communicate, what matters is how the target audience interprets the message. Don't just put an ad out there because it sounds good to you. You may like what your advertising has to say, but that can be misleading. You, after all, aren't the target. In fact, since you know so much about your products, your industry, your competition, and even your own good intentions, your reaction may be as far from the target's as it can get.

Learn the lesson of the bumper sticker. Study the people you're trying to reach. Get to know them. Understand their attitudes and perceptions, even if you think they're incorrect. And don't just say what you want to say. Make sure you achieve the meeting of meaning, and save self-expression for the back of your car.