Advertising waste

All advertisers worry about waste in advertising. This waste can be seen from a lukewarm response to one's advertising campaigns. Ads that don't get the response expected by the advertisers. Or websites that fail to evoke any interest in visiting browsers.

 

The most effective way to eliminate waste on advertising is so simple it may seem absurd: Create advertising that customers or buyers want to read, listen to, or to see. The key word is “want.”

By studying psychological wants, and by constantly checking on buyers on their likes and dislikes, veteran advertising men have found they can create ads that people want to read, listen to, and see – advertising that makes people want to buy.

How deep-rooted is the “I want” force in people? Consider the actual case of a man we will just call “Joe” to hide his true identity.

Joe is an average fellow of 35, married, two children, nice wife, owned a car and his own home, had a good job, mixed well with the “boys” at the office and in his neighborhood. He seemed to have just about everything a fellow could want.

One day, his left arm suddenly became paralyzed for no apparent reason at all. He consulted a doctor. Nothing physically wrong. Worried, Joe's boss sent him to the company doctor. Same report. No physical disability.

Then a friend of him, a psychiatrist, talked to Joe's boss. As a result, Joe's job was changed. Instead of his routine sales and desk work in the office, Joe was given a new assignment selling on the road. Before long, Joe's paralyzed arm returned to normal. He was completely cured.

What lay behind all this?

His ailment apparently came about because of certain want on Joe's part, wants which he felt was denied him again and again. He had often asked for release from office work, but his immediate boss thought Joe was so good to the office job that he kept saying he couldn't afford to let Joe go on the road. “You're too valuable in the office, Joe, you know that!”

Such praise never consoled Joe. It was nothing to thin. Troubled Joe, realizing that what he wanted was getting farther and farther beyond his reach, couldn't take it any longer. His way out was a common one. Meeting an insoluble problem, he developed a psychoneurosis. Or call it a neurosis for short. His physical symptom was a paralyzed arm.

Of course, this kind of disorder, which can affect a person of any age, is extreme. It develops when we want one thing more than anything else, but every avenue of approach was blocked. Completely baffled we began feeling inadequate and insecure. We delay decisions, lag behind in our work. We have no motivation to excel. Then suddenly a physical affliction may appear.

Like Joe we all suffer from similar conflicts. But usually in less intensified form. When we can't get what we want anymore, when unpleasant realities seem impossible to avoid over a period of time, we my become mentally sick, neurotic. This neurosis can manifest itself in mental or physical afflictions.

What happened to Joe's case is an example of what can happen when your wants and desires are ignored or suppressed. It shows you how important are wants in our lives.

If the suppression of wants will drive men and women to mental sickness, think how happy people will be when they are given what they want. So, the basis for an advertisement should b determined by the customer's or buyer's want, not the advertiser's.

And what are the basic people's wants? As I mentioned before, there are eight.

1. Food and drinks

2. Comfort

3. Attraction of the opposite sex

4. Welfare of loved ones

5. Freedom from fear and danger

6. To be superior

7. Social approval, and

8. To live longer

Why are these basic wants strong and persistent in all of us? Because behind the things we want most – could be a steak, marriage to the right man or woman, a good education for our children – are certain driving forces inside all of us urging us to do these things without thinking them out.