Don't insult the intelligence of your target market

Do you shop for your household's groceries? If you do, what do you think about this ad? 

I have nothing against the brand at all or even the messaging of how much a day's vitamin serving costs.

That's fine.
What's not fine is jacking up the retail prices on all the other items with costs per container rather than serving.

The text of the ad reads:
"She went out for pickles. And mint chip. And salt & vinegar chips. (And lemons, don't ask.)

Then she looked at the receipt.
Dill pickles: $4.99
Mint chip ice cream: $6.49
Salt + vinegar chips: $4.29
Lemons: $2.50
Her prenatal for the day: $0.57
The thing doing the most work for her baby was the cheapest thing on the list.
That's Mighty Mini Prenatal + DHA:
19 critical nutrients + 100 mg DHA
One tiny softgel a day, small enough to actually swallow
$17.21 for a full month
No horse pills. No $60 bottle. No half-finished prenatal sitting in the cabinet because you couldn't face it.
Feed the cravings. We've got the rest."

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Now let's look at the inflated price claims in this ad. 

Lemons are typically priced at 50 cents a piece, bringing 2 to $ -- not $2.50, though, again, if we're comparing individual amounts, the individual lemon is cheaper than the individual serving of vitamin.

Ben & Jerry's ice cream is under $5 a pint at Aldi's, $5 even at Dollar General $5.19 at Target.


Vlasic Pickles are typically priced at $3 at a cheaper store like Walmart and $4 at a more expensive store like Walgreens.

Likewise, Lay's potato chips sell for about $1 less per bag than the price shown here.

I've done some ad design for both B2C and B2B ads. One thing I never do in any form of marketing is insult my audience's intelligence. That's why I took issue with this ad that was served to me on FB.

Related: 

Why I passed on an opportunity

Major Marketing Missteps from Adidas, M&M's and Coke

The Introvert Cheat Sheet

Why I passed on an opportunity

Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@brett_jordan

 

Today I turned down an offer for a job.

It wasn't because I didn't have time to do it.
It wasn't because I didn't want to work for the person who asked me.

The reason I declined was that I realized, while I could certainly wing it and not mess up altogether, there are better people out there for the particular goal this person had in mind with a very specific target audience. 

Specifically, the person who contacted me is one of my LinkedIn contacts with whom I've exchanged messages. She said she liked my writing style, which is why she thought of asking me for an editing job.

The problem is that it's to edit a book aimed at tweens. I've certainly read my share of such books in the past, but it's not at all my area of focus. 

I could do what others do and just say, "Sure I'm up for anything from anyone willing to pay me." But I'm burdened by something called integrity that prevents me from doing that.

I know that for her book to be a commercial success, she has to work with an editor who really

know the market well. Editing a book is not just a question of catching errors but of making sure

it will resonate with its target audience.

I don't know the ins and outs of that particular segment of

the population well enough to serve the author as well as she deserves to be served. That's why I declined.

If you think that's not the way to do business, then we will never be on the same page. On the other hand, if you appreciate a marketing consultant that will not betray your trust, then we can talk. 

You can send me a message via the contact form on my site.

 

Practical Problem Solving and Project Management

 
I'm a big proponent of smart thinking that increases efficiency and eliminates wasteful practices.

That's why I don't just write and edit for businesses and organization. I think of efficient solutions for their processes. I then use the tools at my disposal to implement them at no or very low cost.

Managing checks more efficiently with Trello style project management in real life 

Pictured above is  an example of project management and design thinking that saves both time and money.

A nonprofit requires two signatures on checks that must be scanned before they are dispatched. Checks with only one signature or no signature and fully signed one had all been put in one basket. That caused some checks of one type to be hidden by those of another and not get signed or scanned as quickly as they should.

One afternoon, using nothing beyond the basic supplies that  the office already had on hand, I devised a system of using two baskets and signs designed with ChatGPT to make it absolutely clear what goes in which basket, so that the person who needs to sign and the person who needs to scan knows where to look to do their part.  

ROI: Cost: $0. Return: 50% better efficiency ever after

It's not the basket but the design thinking that improves efficiency

After I introduced the two baskets for checks, the director at the nonprofit thought that was such a great idea that he  bought a set of desk boxes. He intended them to house the folders holding individual papers for each person who sent in a reservation for for a key revenue-raising event in one of four categories.  

Actual photo of the folders in the set of boxes

The thing is that the idea behind what I did with the checks was not about containing the papers but about understanding the process and streamlining it. Encasing the folders holding a ream of paper in matching boxes doesn't help anyone when they are still stuck in the last century.

For years, they've been printing out individual emails for each person's request and then manually sorting them into four folders that each had to be arranged alphabetically. That had been the practice of the nonprofit -- to not just waste a ream of paper in printing out each individual person's reservation but to then photocopy it to keep one copy in the office while the other was taken off the premises and typically returned with the painstaking alphabetization all messed up. 

I solved that on a Monday morning.

I went into the list of submissions on the SaaS and whittled the biggest group down by category.

Then I directed it to arrange the submissions in alphabetical order by last name instead of in order of submissions.

Next, I eliminated some of the unnecessary columns that were the result of the poor design of the form. All that extraneous data creates clutter and diffuses focus.

Finally, I employed free generative AI tools to label the essential columns to make the key information clear. I found that ChatGPT failed to deliver because it misapplied the labels, though Google Gemini did just what I wanted it to do.

I also directed Google Gemini to transform the spreadsheet from Excel into an easily shared Google sheet. The  that can also be printed out on just a few sheets of paper if they still wish to work off paper copies, though they are not necessary for anyone who understands the purpose of the data and how to put the labels on the digital  spreadsheet.

ROI: Cost: $0 in material or specialized tools 

Return: Embracing digital transformation allows the nonprofit to get more value out of the SaaS it already pays for. Plus it saves the cost of printing out 2 reams of paper and a couple of hours of manual labor for sorting through and alphabetizing hundreds of  individual sheets of paper. It also eliminates the need for people to come in to the office to pick up physical folders and return them. Reducing use of paper and travel is not just economical but helpful for the environment.