Issue #29 Tuesday,
October 23, 2018
Posted by
Denny Hatch
Ads in Unexpected (and Logical!) Places
It’s
a Guy Thing.
Half of all men ages 51-60
suffer from enlarged prostates. At age eighty and above, 90% of men have
enlarged prostates. —health24
You’ve seen TV
commercials for Flomax that depict middle-aged and older men
forced to dash off to the loo.
Why TV Advertising Can Be the
Greatest Rip-Off
Take the Flomax ads—such as the
one above.
The benchmark cost
of a broadcast TV spot in primetime is $22/M to reach 1,000 viewers—or
2.2¢ per person.
Half of viewers are women. So a
Flomax commercial costs 4.4¢ to reach a man.
Plus… during commercial breaks
half the older men who would respond to a Flomax ad are likely in the bathroom.
So let’s say the actual cost to reach the target is 6¢.
Using TV, the actual cost to home
in on a true Flomax prospect is probably 3x the rate card!
Okay, maybe the ads register with
wives who are influencers, so the cpm is not quite as high.
But the arithmetic of TV
advertising gets worse.
Much, much worse!
The Rule
of 7
“The Rule of 7
is a marketing principle that states that your prospects need to come across
your offer at least seven times before they really notice it and start to take
action.” —John
Stevens
Thus seven TV exposures cost 42¢.
But wait… to guarantee 7 TV
exposures to the same guy means the commercial has to run 20+ times. So Flomax
will spend $1.20 to get one prospect to suggest to his doctor that maybe he
should try Flomax.
A Personal
Aside
Recently my doctor prescribed
Flomax. I went to my pharmacy to pick up the prescription and got 90 capsules
of tamsulosin—the generic version of Flomax. My cost: Roughly $28.00
All pharmacies have a sign that
says under Pennsylvania state law, they can substitute the generic version of a
drug unless the doctor says it must be the original.
I asked the pharmacist how much
real Flomax would cost, and he said around $200.
Talk About
a Screw-up!
Think of it! The German
pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim spends $8.40 to get a guy’s doctor
to prescribe Flomax— which results in the sale of a generic version made by
somebody else!
I am a direct mail veteran of 55 years who
knows marketing arithmetic down to a gnat’s eyebrow.
Quite simply this may be the most cockamamie, money-losing business model I have ever seen!
Alternative Marketing
Several years ago at a Philadelphia restaurant
I went to the men’s room.
Staring back at me was the poster you see
below. Next to it was a plastic rack of take-one brochures.
Go
Where Your Prospects Go
What Uroxatral Did
Right
• The message was precisely in the right
place—at eye level.
• This is a good deal for the
restaurant—advertising revenue from a private area that does not interfere with
the ambiance of the eatery.
• Marvelously efficient. Unlike direct mail or
television—where the message goes out to everybody—only men with that problem
will pocket a flyer. Young men and boys will leave the brochure in situ for
the next guy.
• What’s more, there’s no “Take-One” flyer
with a TV ad to remind you of the opportunity. Broadcast ads are all about
“recall” and “memory.”
If you see an ad on TV that is immediately
followed by the dog vomiting in your wife's handbag, the ad is forgotten.
• Uroxatral made a good offer—TWO WEEKS
FREE TRIAL!
What Uroxatral Did
Wrong
• The take-one brochure was flat, boring,
technical—what you’d find in a doctor’s office.
• The take-one made no mention of the TWO
WEEKS FREE TRIAL! on the wall poster.
• I had to search all over the take-one for
the 800-number and Web site. I finally found these buried amid blocks of sans
serif mouse type.
• No call to action. No reason to act. The guy
would not remember the free offer and discard the piece.
Takeaways to Consider
• “Fish where the fish are.” —MacRae
Ross
• "Always make an offer."
—Elsworth
Howell, Founder & CEO, Howell Book House
• “Make it easy to order.” —Elsworth
Howell
• “The order mechanism should be so
simple an idiot can understand it.”
—Malcolm Decker, Freelancer
• Can you get your product or service directly
in front of the prospect by short-circuiting the system à la Uroxatral?
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Word Count: 725
Howdy, Denny!
ReplyDeleteWe used to say, "The easier we make it for people to do what we want them to do, the more likely it is that people will do what we want them to do!" As I recall, Freeman Gosden used to say that in direct, 40% is list, 40% is offer, and 20% is everything else. All guys go to the can and stand in front of the urinal. So that's a good list. FREE is a good offer. Now, did you ask your doc about Uroxatral?
Hey, Tim, thanks for taking the time to comment. I always attributed the 40%-40%-20% ratio to Ed Mayer. Who knows this many years later? Regarding Uroxatral, no, I didn't ask my doctor about it. Let's just say I had other things on my mind. Do keep the comments coming and ginning up the discussions. Cheers!
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