Anyone who’s walked past a building site in Stockholm has seen them. Bright orange and usually filled with rubble, they’re everywhere. Heck, even I’ve seen them, and I’m pretty good at filtering out anything to do with hard physical labour. That said, I take my hat off to Big Bag. As far as I’m concerned, these bags are sheer marketing wizardry.

I can think of few other products that also double as well crafted adverts. All the information you need to place your order – should you suddenly feel an urge to own a huge orange bag – is there: product name (simple, alliterative and descriptive), web address and phone number. But what lifts Big Bag to genius level is that the company’s customers actually pay for the advertising space. Think about it, every time somebody buys and uses a Big Bag, thousands of people get the message. You can’t beat that for a savvy media strategy! I’ll probably never buy one, but I’m still a Big Fan.

Advertising is a constant battle for attention. In spite of that, the majority of ads only engage one of our senses – sight. Hearing is equally powerful, but is not equally exploited as a ”means of persuasion”.

But, you probably say, we are surrounded by sounds from commercials. Anyone can testify to an endless stream of jingles and songs that get under our skin making us either happy or really annoyed.  And sure that’s true. But the kind of sounds that most effectively trigger emotions and make us prone to buy, are everyday natural sounds – and they are not as common in advertising.

Which sounds create the strongest emotional responses has been examined by Martin Lindstrom, marketing consultant and author of the bestseller Buyology: Truth and Lies about Why We Buy. To get an uncensored image of our emotional responses he has used an MRI to monitor the brain activity of people listening to various sounds. Not what we think we feel but how we actually feel.  And in terms of creating positive feelings one sound stands out, the sound of a happy baby. So, if you want to sell, do it to the soundtrack of a baby giggling.

That particular sound might not be very useful in all communication. But there are definitely other sounds that can enhance the positive experience of your products and services. Just think primitive responses; feelings and associations that are hardwired in your brain. Sounds that your body already knows the meaning of.  An image of a cold beer accompanied by the sound of pouring liquid makes you more prone to buy than the same beer image with music. And more car buffs get chills down their spine when they see a sports car and hear the perfect purring of an engine, than when they see the same car to the sound of rollicking rock’n’roll.

Sophisticated brain scanning and other medical imaging technologies teach us more about what works in advertising, but so far we’re only at the beginning of what is called neural marketing. And anyone who wants to explore the soundscape has plenty of virgin territory to cover.  Not to mention the possibilities of brand building with our remaining senses: touch, smell and taste.

Natural life is cyclical. Just as spring gives way to summer and night to day, human behaviour follows recurring patterns. I’ve long believed that when a certain type of conduct has become sufficiently pervasive for our collective consciousness to accept it as the norm, it has probably reached the top of its cycle and is about to head into retreat. The challenge is to identify these cyclical peaks as they occur.

I’m going to stick my neck out, and point to one that is long overdue for a downward trajectory: the brazen dishonesty of our elected leaders – regardless of their affiliations. We readily recall Bill Clinton’s many peccadilloes, all of which he vehemently denied despite the overwhelming evidence against him. Or his successor’s determination to rid the world of a tyrant’s weapons of mass of destruction, when it turned out those weapons were, in fact, ‘discovered’ for the sole purpose of manufacturing consent. Does this mendacity lead to public disgrace, immediate resignation or impeachment? Heck no, we shrug and accept it as the norm. But if my instincts are correct, perhaps we won’t for much longer.

What, you may wonder, has this got to do with communication? A lot, as it happens. In a world where ‘spin’ and dissembling are commonplace, honesty, integrity and respect for the audience stand out like roses in a thicket of brambles. As legendary adman Bill Bernbach once put it, “I’ve a discovered a great new gimmick – just tell the truth.”

More and more people are turning to social media to find relevant business information. Research studies on how we use social media professionally are now also starting to turn up.

One such study is the 2009 B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study, at business.com. This study was carried out among 2393 North American professionals within B2B. This is to date the largest study of its kind.

Among the participants 69.1 per cent prefer to attend webinars or listen to podcasts. 62.2 per cent visits sites and forums that feature user ratings and reviews for business products. Almost as many, 62.1 per cent, visit company or product profile pages on social media sites.

Many also choose to visit company blogs (55.1 per cent), conduct searches on social media sites (54.5 per cent) and participate in online business communities or forums (51.1 per cent).

During the 1960s our predecessors Anderson & Lembke produced a publication called ”Technical advertising texts – how and why?”. It was meant as internal training material for copywriters.

The publication is of course dated in many ways (few would call an art director a layout man today). But on the whole, it contains thoughts and writing tips that as just as relevant today as they were then.  Here are some of them and if you are interested you can download the whole publication as a pdf. (Only available in Swedish. The ten points below are a summary of the contents)

“Ten things to think about before you start”

1. Most of what we have previously taught you about the art of writing does not apply to technical advertising texts. You have to learn to condense large amounts of complicated information into a few, simple words. You have to go through every line you write and weed out all the unnecessary words.

2. Readers read fast. They don’t take the time to read a long unclear sentence. It’s easier to turn the page than look for facts in a stodgy text.  Say it clearly, say it simply and say it fast.

3. It is two totally different things to write a text about an ice cream and a contractor’s machine. There is no impulse buying when you sell producer goods.

A businessman that invests in expensive equipment is tied to it for a long time. If the equipment does not correspond to the promises you give him, he can not throw it away or put it in the freezer and forget about it. His existence as a businessman is dependent on the efficiency of his equipment.

It is possible to hypnotise a buyer by shouting loud and long enough. But as soon as he has bought his equipment, the brainwashing ends. And one of two things happens. Either the goods work as they should and everything is fine, or you have promised too much and you can just as well cross that customer off your list. And not just him but also many of his colleagues – word travels fast in the world of business.

4. Too many superlatives, too broad generalisations and far too much emphasis on secondary product features can have a negative effect. Just one incompetent, exaggerated or naive statement is all that is needed to blow away his interest and get him to turn the page.

If you promise too much, you set a trap for yourself. The text is not credible, and at the same time creates dissatisfaction with customers. Sooner or later they will work out that the promises aren’t real. This can lead to discontent with products that actually work faultlessly. And just one dissatisfied customer can make all your customers in a sales district start buying from the competitors.

5. Write simply and to the point. Keep to the spoken word as much as you can without the text getting too familiar. Eloquence and the style of essays and fiction are not suitable when you want to sell producer goods.

6. Write directly to your buyers.  Not everyone who reads the publication is a buyer (less than 25% for nearly every product in most trade journals). Of course, it is fun if others also read the ad. But still always write only to those who are buying or who can influence the buying process. Forget all other readers.

7. The B2B advertising manager nearly always has a limited budget. He must therefore make sure that he primarily does advertising that helps sell the company’s products. Such advertising is also often the best corporate advertising. Corporate advertising of the conventional type is seldom a profitable investment taking into consideration how narrow and clearly defined the markets are for the majority of producer goods.

If a company wants to give to charity, it should be done in a more suitable way than through the advertising budget. If you want to use advertising to help recruit qualified personnel or try and influence the company’s share price, then you should have a separate budget for this. The advertising budget is normally administered by the sales department and then it should be used for producing sales results.

8. Do advertising for the company’s products and services, not for the product name or technical quirks. It may be necessary to work up a product name. Do it by clearly associating it with specific product advantages. The company may have made interesting technical progress. This may be incredibly interesting but it does not belong in advertising if it does not offer the customer a direct benefit.

9. Avoid meaningless, boring and tiresome ”advertising language”. Words like biggest, best, unsurpassed, revolutionising – and quality, operational safety and operational economy  – are so worn out that they are completely ineffective. Avoid comparisons that are not comparisons. Build on facts and common sense.

10. Speak to one reader at a time. He’s sitting at his desk in a quiet room. There’s no reason to shout. He’s a professional in a business where they use the product you want to sell, and he probably knows more about how to use the product than you do. Far too much B2B advertising is written as if it were a ceremonial speech. It’s easy to fall into that trap. You think of the 18 000 civil engineers that read technical journals or the 50 000 leading people within business that read financial journals. And suddenly you are standing on the podium looking out at an auditorium of 100 000 people – then you begin your speech. You use solemn phrases, you make dignified gestures, you formulate, generalise. You get drunk on your own knowledge and the result is just words, words, words …

To the reader sitting alone at his desk using some of his limited time to look for useful facts, you come across as plain silly. Writing B2B advertising should be like writing a personal letter, a business letter to a business acquaintance. The advertising reaches thousands of readers but it reaches them one at a time. They read it during a time when they are expected to do something of value for the company, every minute, every hour. Or they read it as ”homework” in the evenings, which they would really prefer to spend with their families or friends. There is only one reason for reading B2B advertising – the advertising must give the reader something of value for his work. The reader wants facts, served as clearly and simply as possible.

The reader is in a hurry. He skims and jumps in the same way as you read an evening paper. As soon as the copywriter starts to generalise, use cliches or gets lost in discussions that only interest the advertiser, he gives his reader a chance to give up. The same effect is achieved when the text contains unsubstantiated statements. You have to keep in mind that the reader does not know the author personally. Not even the company brand
is any guarantee for credibility of the text. Advertising is always regarded as biased and that’s a fact. Which is why it is vital to give clear, convincing evidence in the text that the statements made are true.

Speak calmly, clearly and as simply as possible to the reader. Explain the benefits that the product can offer. Avoid superlatives. Avoid generalisations. Give specific facts. Don’t write fiction, hold lectures, don’t boast or sound like a high-flying salesman. Write simply, understandably and genuinely for one reader at a time. End by asking him to test the correctness of what you say. Offer him more information. But never urge him to buy.

In consumer advertising an attention-grabbing film on YouTube may be enough for a breakthrough. You watch a funny film about say ice cream, and then you buy a tub next time you are out shopping just to try it. If you like the ice cream everything’s OK. If it’s not that good, just go back to your favourite sort next time.

But purchasing decisions within business-to-business are a bit more serious. It can take weeks, months, sometimes years from the point when a buyer checks out the market landscape to the time he or she is ready to sign a contract. Listening to a client’s needs is crucial to success. The better you listen, the better your chance of putting together a winning proposal.

Which brings us to the crux of the matter: Don’t just think about social media as a way to spread your message. Use them to hear what your customers want to buy. Follow the debate in blogs and forums. There you can find out more than your customers will ever tell you in a sales meeting.

Difficult to know where your customers are? Try Google Blog Search, BlogPulse and Twitter Search.

If you then want to take part in the debate – that’s another ball game. Apart from the usual question of resources it can be wise to leave the source of information untouched and make other online investments instead. Why not buy sponsored links for the key words you’ve just found out that your customers use?