This marketing stinks!

I’d like to share an example of shockingly bad marketing with you today. In fact, you could say this marketing stinks! However, there are 2 great lessons to learn, which you can apply directly into your business.

Smelly marketing

I’ve used the same brand of deodorant for years. Recently, my brand wasn’t in stock, so I looked for another brand and noticed for the first time that they all claim to offer 48 hour protection.

Think about that for a moment.

Clearly, there are very few people who only shower or wash every 2 days; whose armpits remain unwashed for 48 hours. And if you’ve ever stood close to someone with such bad hygiene habits, you’ll know these people don’t buy deodorant! Sadly.

But that’s OK. The ridiculous 48 hour claim on the packaging has nothing to do with deodorant. It has everything to do with ineffective, uncreative marketing.

Here’s how it happened

The marketing team behind one of the brands decided to use a bigger number on their product (48 instead of 24), to make it look more powerful.

The others followed suit. The number remains, even though it’s now totally meaningless. No one needs 48 hour protection and having that number no longer generates additional sales, because they all use it.

As a marketing tactic, it stinks. It fails on every level.

There are 2 useful lessons here

Firstly, if you want to make your product or service stand out from the competition, make it meaningfully different. Provide something that adds genuine value. Something your marketplace will get additional utility from.

Secondly, if you want to really stand out, get creative. Because the first deodorant brand with the ridiculous 48 hour claim simply moved the dial on the number, every competitor could follow suit almost instantly. Any competitive advantage would have quickly been lost. So choose something that is harder for others to copy and you will maintain your competitive advantage for far longer.

Avoid gimmicks

To consistently stand out from the crowd in a meaningful way, you need to continuously look for opportunities to make your product or service worth talking about. This requires creative thinking.

Yes, it’s easier to come up with a gimmick. Gimmicks require almost no creativity and anyone can copy them, which is why they’re of so little value.

In short, the less creative your marketing is, the easier it is to copy and the less effective it will be.