How Not To Evaluate Service Firm Ads

In the Chasers section of the August 16, 2007 issue of B-to-B - The Magazine for Marketing Strategists (one of my favorite marketing magazines), we are presented an article titled "Selling Services All In The Image" that analyzes 4 full-page magazine ads for service companies.

In an ad for insurance giant Unum, the article lauds the imagery in the ad as well as the use of a case study:

...case histories are often credible ways of demonstrating that an advertiser can solve a problem for a business. Unum explains in copy that it can provide income protection to disabled workers and offer solutions to get them back on the job sooner.

The accounting company Grant Thornton gets a nod for strong brand imagery as well as connection with a real-life CFO:

Grant Thornton, a provider of accounting and audit services, turns things over in its ad to Brad Johnson, chief financial officer of REI, who sings the firm's praises. The testimonial copy sounds genuine, which is key to convincing an audience that your company's service may be the answer to a reader's problem. And the ad looks clearly like a Grant Thornton ad thanks to its trademark red rose.

The technology consulting company Accenture ad, featuring Tiger Woods, is dissed:

The risk to using a famous pitchman, however, is that his presence may overwhelm the ad–what's known as "vampire creativity." The pitchman sucks all the life out of the advertiser that is making the actual pitch.

It's too easy to mistake this piece for a Nike ad or for any number of other products or services that Tiger represents.

And the ad from offshore outsourcer NIIT...dismissed:

We'll start with the exclamation points in the headline and the first word in the copy: "Possible!" They're amateurish. If the points are so compelling, they should speak for themselves without the embellishment of dramatic punctuation marks. Here are the ungrammatical opening lines: "Possible! When you partner with NIIT Technologies."

Under the subhead: "Our BPO and Contact Center Services," technical help desk is listed twice. And while we're nitpicking, there needs to be a space after the comma and the word right after it: " …no matter what, wouldn't you rather go with …" The ad for this service provider appeared in a major business publication where space is not cheap. It was not money well-spent because the ad's technical problems overwhelm the message.

A few thoughts...

NIIT

Joan Rivers tirelessly seeks out the best and worst dressed red carpet walking celeb. "Does Denise Richards look good in Versace? There's George Clooney, sassy in Armani. What is Phyllis Diller doing with that hair? What do we think of Harrison...."

Wait a minute. Phyllis Diller? That's not fair. Beneath Joanie's dignity to take a pot shot at Phyllis. Pick on someone you own size (so to speak), Joanie.

Same thing goes with NIIT. Anyone can see this ad is horrendous from a mile away. How can leadership of a company with 4,554 people and seemingly pretty good margins put out such a pathetic ad and then face themselves in the mirror in the morning? Amateurish is being nice. All the feedback needed for this ad is, "Don't have a 3-year-old design and write your ads." Comparing NIIT to Accenture and Unum...well, that's not fair. (Next time an offshore outsourcer says to me, "Why don't we get no respect?" I'll send them to this ad.)

Unum

The Unum ad looks nice, but the offer goes something to the effect of "Find out how Unum can benefit your business by calling your broker..." Not particularly value added. They might as well just say, "Call and I'll sell you something," which fits for an insurance company. (Next time an insurance company leader says to me, "How can we shake the image of being cheesy sales guys?" I'll send them this ad.)

Accenture

The article picks on the ad for having Tiger-The-Pitchman overwhelm Accenture. I don't think so. Tiger and Accenture are pretty well linked, and if you see the Accenture/Tiger ads enough (and I do because I'm awake, I read, and I don't live in Siberia), Accenture in the message registers. Maybe a non-business person won't key in on the Accenture part, but Accenture's market probably connects the dots.

The ad also features research on high performance. In fact, many ads for Accenture feature research for high performance. The ad provides an easy-to-find landing page for readers to get their copy of the research. This is smart marketing.

Forests And Trees

So we've looked at imagery and copy and we've seen the forest through the trees. Of course, I have a different opinion than the other reviewers (more on the Woods than the forest), but copy and imagery are subjective. They're not necessarily wrong. I'm not necessarily right. And we're both right about the dumdum ad from NIIT. So what?

Problem here is that there's no review of the offers the ads make, no review of the media placement, and you can't see the ads in context of the rest of the marketing and sales process. In my opinion, the article is in the wrong forest. Selling services is not "all in the image."

For the most part, image-based advertising isn't even a good choice for service firms at all for marketing, or at least not a good choice for the lion's share of a service firm's marketing budget.

Mike Schultz is the Publisher of RainToday.com and an advisor to service businesses worldwide. He can be reached at mschultz@raintoday.com. 

Read additional posts from Mike Schultz at the Services Insider Blog: http://www.whillsgroup.com/blog.cfm.