When does advertising become hype?

Sal:

I'm looking at the front cover of a catalogue: scenic mountain vista, trout stream, happy group of guys sharing a fine moment of fraternal bliss along the trail.

So . . . what's the product? Is it the boots? The rifle? The back pack? The handheld GPS? The binoculars? The clothes?

Does it matter? No. This marketing scheme is designed to sell something (anything, everything) as an admission ticket to participation in the life-style depicted in the photo.

This type of advertising--selling a physical object as the key to a door marked "the real, better, happier, more authentic, more desirable you"--is both unbelievably ubiquitous and unbelievably dishonest.

Here's the truth no advertising firm in the civilized world wants us to reflect on: possessions do not define us.

(The product was detachable sling swivels.)
 
"You have a Rolex on your wrist and a Steinway in your living room. Your pocket knife? Spyderco of course."

Blech!!

Crude version of virtually everything currently being done in marketing.
 
Radarman - My apologies for what I may have missed in the initial post.

I would still be interested to learn opinions. That's how I learn. I appreciate the comments concerning the banquet. My marketing style is just that...and certainly not the best. Improvement is always possible and my education seems to come from unlikely sources. Certainly I can learn more and my contemporaries can as well. That's why I posed the question. Bob "T" probably made it sound like more than it was and he left out the "luck" part.

sal
 

I don’t know … my father is fond of saying “the harder you work the luckier you get”.
smile.gif
 
I'm enjoying this thread a great deal - there are clearly quite a few brain cells at work here.

I'd like to make a small comment on the features/benefits issue. It is very true that some features must be expressed alongside a picture, such as steel - I can't tell by looking. But others are a pure waste of space, and I might for that reason call them hype. Don't ever tell me a knife is a clip-point or has a double-guard, for example. I get that information from looking at the picture; we only have words to describe those things for times when pictures are unavailable. You might tell me "the clip-point provides an acute and centered point for good penetration." Then you have told me the benefit, not just the feature. In short, "proper" advertising is information on the product that educates. Hype is information that is untrue, meaningless, or simply obvious.

Cougar gets a gold star for pointing out that tests without standards are meaningless. In my previous example, it would be better, instead of simply stating the steel type, to give some information on how it performed relative to other steels. I assume knife companies expect us to have this info (or to have a forum board that discusses the topic constantly)... but more information is always better than less. Don't drive your knife through that car door without showing me another knife breaking in an attempt at the same feat (yeah, right).

-Drew
 
Standardized meaningful testing would be wonderful.However,I`m not sure that it is in the individual cutlery companys or cutlery magazines best interest.At least from their perspective.Baseline testing would draw more similarities between products in a given classification.Everyone wants just the opposite,for their products to stand out.
That is where the creative imaganation comes in.
Also,the magazines would have a hard time staying "F.C.", Financially correct.Standardized testing may not favorably rate a company that is a bread and butter advertiser over another company who doesn`t spend the big ad.bucks.We`ve all seen positive magazine ads for relatively lame knives.Ideally we should have a Gun Tests type report that doesn`t rely on advertisers.This would be a great place to do it.
My 2/100 of a dollar`s worth
David
 
There is what I consider the most noble side of sales and marketing--education and exchange of information. This is where you tell a customer about the useful characteristics of a product and optmally engage in a dialog to discover how this product may be useful to the consumer. If this is done conscientiously you match the consumer only with products that are truly useful to him and establish trust. The possible consumer becomes a loyal customer because you haven't sold him something he doesn't need.

There is another semi-legitimate side of the business. This is where you provide products to people to support their image. It isn't to my taste, but there are many people who want to have things to show off to convince themselves and the world that they are 'cool'. This may seem like pandering to vanity, but it is giving them something that really has emotional value to them. The fashion, automotive, and housing industries support these 'impractical' desires. I believe many people are happier if they buy products that have been heavily 'hyped'. You have actually done them a service if you have associated a product they buy with 'the good life' or some other image.

Then there is the dark side of the industry. Hucksterism that sells people products that are supposed to fulfill a practical need and don't. False cures, false nutrition, and substandard materials and workmanship fall under this heading. The Food and Drug Administration was founded to deal with this level.

So you try and make a quality product that will have value to consumers. The value may be strictly utilitarian, in which case you don't need hype. It may be a status luxury item (many knives fall into this category) where you will make some of your customers happier if you use a little hyperbole in your promotion. Or your product may be bad and hype makes you doubly guilty. If you make a really good and useful product I can forgive a lot of marketing hype. I just try and not step in any of it.
 
I like it when the head guy enjoys talking about the technical specs of his product, and refrains from the use of the "ER" "EST" kind of language. Tell me why you do what you do, what kind of realistic tests you ran to come to your conclusion, and then allow some honest feedback from guys who do no bias testing. I also like a maker with a backlog of orders, but one that can give you a pretty accurate delivery time. If others are waiting for the product, and if the maker is good enough at producing his product that he can give me an accurate estimate, then to me he's got his act together. I don't mind someone having a bit of an ego if he has the history to earn it.

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Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with
confidence.


 
Uncle Bill's post reminds me of my late father's response to a television commercial featuring a pretty girl:

"Does the girl come with it?"

I have remembered those words all my life, and am ever mindful that the girl does not come with it, nor does the landscape, nor does the atmosphere of friendly cameraderie....

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
Allen, when you get the performance video done could you drop me an email. I would like to see it.

-Cliff
 
I personally believe that 90-95% of what I read and hear about "any" product is more hype than anything.
The things I look for to help in my decision to purchase most any item are Pictures(obviously), Specs(I like to know about the knife), Backround(if it is a company or brand I am not familiar with and most important I have to "handle" it. I need to open and close(if a folder) check the balance, the "walk and talk", the fit and finish etc.... If a fixed blade I check the balance, the materials, the fit and finish of the handle, how it feels in my hands, how it fits/rides in the sheath and on my person.
What it boils down to is that the advertising or hype if you will, serves only to inform me that that particular model exists. The real clincher for me is not videos, or performance tests(well these help) but how I like that particular model.
I suppose you could also say that I am "brand loyal" to a point.
Just my $0.02.

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The bible is not such a book a man would write if he could, or could write if he would.

*Lewis S. Chafer

2 Tim 3:16

[This message has been edited by Scarman (edited 23 November 1999).]
 
I personally believe that 90-95% of what I read and hear about "any" product is more hype than anything.
Click to expand...
I like what Scarman says as it is what I would deem a statement from an informed consumer. The 90-95% he dismisses was probably not intended for his persuasion to begin with. A good product becomes known in its venue for just that, being good. The hype broadens the consumer base by persuading others that this is worth the money, and in our case..... the time. When one thinks hype is needed to persuade or justify performance to the informed, the seller runs in to a problem.



[This message has been edited by RadarMan (edited 23 November 1999).]
 
As an art director...
The 'ers' & 'ests' That is what people want, the biggEST, to be fastER. That is why we have Cadillacs and Ferraris. Ever hear the phrase "Give the people what they want"? What about all of the discussion here, of the Axis, Liner & Rolling Locks?

False claims are hype. That cowboy on the catalog cover is not hype. It is a pleasing image that relates to the copmany's and product's heratige. It would be hype if he was making a 1000 yard shot on a coyote. And that same image would do nothing if he was holding a flashlight.
I don't see anything wrong with 'romanticising' a product. I will probably never rope cattle, but I do enjoy my Tony LLama boots.

An informed consumer will take advertising with a grain of salt, an impulse buyer will grab at the first product that he recognizes.
That is why we advertise radios (or what-ever) at LOW prices (& they are that price, we may even just break even on 'em), but we put them way in the back of the store... to get the impulse buyers. That is why the beer cooler is in the back of the 7-11 guys, so you walk past the chips and batteries and other goodies.
Sorry if this post is a bit disjointed, I am at work, busy scheming new ways to sell MORE drek, to UNWARY consumers ;-).
Dont hang the Art Directors (OK and the Copywriters too)!

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Can it core a apple?
 
Well, I don't know if you'd want to use the word "hype" or not ... but buying that knife would not turn me into a cowboy. In fact, not even the cowboy hat comes with it....

You might not believe this, but although some of us knife knuts might be attracted to pictures of cowboys, all of us are attracted to pictures of knives. Show us a display of different catalogs and we'll go straight to the one with a big picture of a knife on the cover, and we'll pore over that catalog and study every page before we ever even glance at the catalog with a picture of a cowboy on the cover.

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
Show us a display of different catalogs and we'll go straight to the one with a big picture of a knife on the cover, and we'll pore over that catalog and study every page....
Click to expand...

Truer words have yet to be spoken. This would be one of my few impulse buys. If it has knife content....yoink it's mine.

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The bible is not such a book a man would write if he could, or could write if he would.

*Lewis S. Chafer

2 Tim 3:16
 
Good thread, you guy's are making me think
wink.gif
(always good!) Your also making me flash back to my high school days. I had an art teacher who was not against the hype, but said that we must understand what is being pushed at us from the TV or radio or wahtever. He told me that all commercials are based on only 4 scheme's or combinations thereof. Unfortunatley do to brain lock I can only seem to remember three, here they are maybe someone who's actually in the ad game can fill in the last.

"Snob Appeal" -- where rich successful people have this product so you should too! the implication being that you'll be successful too.

"join the bandwagon" also know as "keeping up with the jones" or "regular folks" -- everyone else has it so you should too!

"the testimonial" -- usually a famous person saying that they have and use product "a". Sometimes this one goes oppisite and they use an unknown person to give there take on this wonderful product, combining "the testimonial" and "hop on the bandwagon".

the point is to understand that you are being analized with the expressed purpose of figuring out how to sell you stuff.

Oh and no the girl doesn't come with that but "sex sell's"



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~ JerryO ~

Cogito Cogito Ergo Cogito Sum


 
That's the deal JerryO!
Thanx for summing it up in so few words. I'm much better with pictures :-)
A famous person said "Know thy enemy" and while ads/advertisers aren't an actual enemy, it is in your benefit to know where they are coming from. It aint personal, just business.
We have a saying, "there are no new layouts" That's why those pretty girls keep showing up!!! :-))

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Can it core a apple?
 
Hype is when you here polymer instead of plastic or alloy instead of aluminum. The truth becomes hidden with these other terms.
 
I don't consider the word "polymer" hype. "Plastic" acquired a meaning of "cheap ugly junk that won't last long" early in its history. We have polymers now that are not like that at all, and making that clear isn't hype.

"Alloy" doesn't bother me either. For one thing, many of the alloys that contain aluminum are far superior to pure or low-alloy aluminum for most purposes.

By the way, "polymer" and "alloy" are also more accurately descriptive, besides avoiding false connotations of junkiness. There are some plastics that are not polymers, some of them natural materials, tortoise shell and horn.

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
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