What's Wrong with Today's Advertising and Promotion?

Look through the yellow pages in any category and you’ll notice every ad under each subject says just about the same thing. They generally use what is called menu advertising, like a restaurant menu. These ads just tell you what services or products they offer and use a bunch of meaningless, unconvincing words and phrases like best quality, timeliness, great service, fast service, lowest price, personal attention, serving the community since forever or thorough. Effective marketing requires differentiating your product or service from your competition in such a way that it makes yours the clear choice over the others. Ads must be convincing. "Menu ads" totally fail this test.

Corporate giants like Coca Cola, General Motors and Mircrosoft use the advertising formula creativity plus repetition equals awareness. The idea is that if you spend enough money on advertising, people will remember who you are and then buy what you sell. This is what is taught in universities. The problem is that when a small business tries this without the advantage of a virtual unlimited budget, they create no understanding as to what their product or service offers over their competition and their advertising falls way short of its potential.