eBusiness Weekly
Joseline Sithole
I love Twitter wars (TWARs). If you are having a bad day just go to your Twitter page where you are assured of a “juicy” conversation.
In many cases, someone is not happy at all about something. Even influential people are big Twitter users. Donald Trump is one favourite user of Twitter. But the most recent TWAR came from our neighbours down South.
Somizi Mhlongo, one of South Africa’s favourite “sons of the soil”, came out guns blazing against butchery in the Limpopo province for daring to publish an insulting advertisement.
Part of the advert read: “For all your braaivleis needs, we have rump, Fillet and T-bone steaks. For your domestic worker we have chicken necks, gizzards, head and feet.” This daring insinuation that domestic workers were only fit to eat chicken feet, got Mzansi into frenzy.
Somizi called it, “Msunery” (The first time I have heard of this word) The word usually refers to anything that you strongly disapprove of. Another TWISO (South African Twitter user) called it “sheer racism, bigotry, and an insult to our beloved mothers.” The butcher was forced to apologise but not before a boycott had been called out.
This “faux-paux” in advertising is quite common and even the big companies have been found on the wrong end of what I call “advertising mischief”. Companies such as Volkswagen, KFC and Pepsi all had their adverts pulled out for various reasons ranging from extreme violence to racist comments.
Though, advertisement in Zimbabwe is not as eventful as above, we have also had some pretty interesting stuff here ranging from rude, unbelievable and just clumsy. In one of my WhatsApp groups an MC (Master of Ceremony) broadcasted an advert that had so many grammatical errors.
I then in-boxed him and highlighted the grammar problems. His caustic response was “I am already famous so no one really cares”. What is most worrying though is the lackadaisical attitude our SMEs view this business function. According to one SME who is into printing, “Ha business rinongofire, pasina kana advert” (one can still succeed in business without any advert).
Basically, the fundamental objective of advertising is to sell. Peter Drucker, a global management guru points out that advertising is meant to achieve the following; retain loyal customers, retrieve lost customers, recruit new customers and reassure old and new customers that they have made the right decision in choosing that particular product.
Certainly in the global arena, advertising is an important part of business development. Statista, a website that collects global economic statistics estimated that in 2019, advertising spend surpassed $560 billion representing a growth of 4 percent. Globally, SMEs are also spending on advertising, although according to manifest . com SMEs spend an average of $10 000 per year.
So who are the big spenders in advertising? According to Neil Patel a search engine analyser; Samsung Electronics spend US billion $2,41 billion, Ford Motor Company US $2,45 billion and Proctor and Gamble spend US $4,39 billion. In addition, the AD Age, a leading National Advertisers report that top 200 advertisers collectively spent a record $163 billion on advertising in 2018 with some of the biggest ad spending increases came from internet based giants like Amazon 32 percent, Google 23 percent, and Facebook 236 percent.
In Zimbabwe, the high cost of advertising within the main line media such as newspapers and television deters SMEs from using these channels, opting instead to leverage as much as possible on social media. Since 2016 twice as many small and medium-sized businesses are advertising on YouTube.
Though SMEs use a plethora of channels, interestingly they seem to rely a lot on Word of Mouth (WOM) as a form of advertising. A majority (85 percent) also do not prioritise advertising in their day to day businesses Wilfred who owns a printing shop in Harare CBD but has been forced to stay at home because of Covid-19 notes that ; “Ah people know me and they just come without me having to go to them.” Another big insight that came out of the research was that, SMEs are not really clued up about the basic principles of advertising.
There is a plethora of advertising principles in the market, but I have borrowed from the AIDA model which was developed by Elmo Lewis. AIDA is an acronym that stands for; Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. According to Elmo, for an advert to be effective it should exhibit all those four characteristics.
Attention
Elmo points that an advert should first try to elicit attention from its readers or viewers. To this end the advert should clearly show consumers what it is you are trying to portray. According to Howard Gossage, “Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them.” What grabs attention is striking colour, provocative imagery, powerful diction and voices.
Interest
The next phase of an advert is to generate interest. This can be done through story- telling, and a very good Punch line, (Motto) a clever hint or even a joke. Car adverts are my favourite in this category. Here are a few memorable ones. The Aston Martin advert reads like this, “Protected by more pre-nups than any other car”.
One BMW advert was saucier; and went like this” You know you are not the first but do you really care,” The Daihatsu advert played on men’s favourite topic, women. The advert reads like this; “Picks up five times more women than a Lamborghini,” The Mercedes Benz leveraged on its function and power; “525 horses working in a way that animal rights associations could complain about” The Porshe gets attention from the male ego motif when it claims that “Porsche separates LeMans from LeBoys.”
Desire
After the customer’s interest has been piqued, the advert should thus provide information on why they should buy the product. Customers buy products for two reasons. These are emotional and rational reasons. SMEs should note that because of the competitiveness of the market consumers use emotional reasons to buy products.
According to Hub Post “Emotional marketing refers to marketing and advertising efforts that primarily use emotion to make your audience notice remember share and buy. Emotional marketing typically taps into a singular emotion, such as happiness, sadness, anger, or guilt to name just a few. (Check out Nike’s emotional advert on Covid-19 lockdown. The website continues to say that out of 1 400 successful advertising campaigns, those with purely emotional content performed twice as well.
Soft drink companies normally use the happiness emotion to great effect while the insurance industry is good at “instilling” fear. Fast foods companies normally leverage on the instant gratification emotion. Big companies who are heritage brands love to remind consumers about the values that have been key to their success.
However, according to Forbes Magazine, in some instances, consumers want to know the functional benefits of products. For example, with hair products sometimes would just want to know whether their shampoo has anti-dandruff properties of has a scent that they are looking for. In these instances no emotions are needed here.
Action
After you create a desire, the consumer is then ready to take action. Sometimes adverts should be replayed for a long time before a consumer decides to use your product. It also depends on consumer switching behaviour. Provide contact details of places where one can get products. Feedback mechanisms are also very important.
A good example of the way you can use this model online as an SME is by starting a website. For example, a good website or animation advert can generate attention.
Then generate desire through ensuring optimum search ability. In addition the website can be user friendly. Some testimonials from consumers cab also encourage other consumers to uptake that particular product. A trusted payment system and a review system can also encourage the consumers to action their payments
In conclusion, SMEs need to take the advertising function of business very seriously. Let’s reflect on these quotes as we seek to change our attitudes on Advertising.
“Doing business without advertising is like stopping your watch to save time.”
“Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark”.
Continue to stay safe out there!!!!
Joseline Sithole is an SME Consultant and founder of Southern Africa Development Consultants (SODECO). For comments write to her on [email protected] or whatsapp +263773634062
