Syndicated Advertising
By Roy Williams - Oct 25 , 2007
Dear Mr. Gibb,
You indicated in your email that you are a journalist researching the features and benefits of a specific syndicated advertising program. Hopefully, my comments and observations will be useful to you—or, at the very least, entertaining.
Let us examine the heart of the press release you forwarded to me:
“[Syndicated campaign] is a customized turnkey package of advertising and marketing executions for firms in the mortgage industry seeking to support their sales programs with a creative, compelling and cohesive message. Television and radio commercials, print materials that include newspaper layouts, yellow page ads and direct mails, and even on-hold telephone messages, all featuring sports legend [name deleted], are the featured elements of [syndicated campaign].”
As an advertising consultant, here’s my interpretation of what’s actually being said in the press release: “A syndicated, one-size-fits-all advertising program is now available to mortgage brokers who have no message of their own.” (Harsh, I know, but accurate.)
A company wearing a syndicated advertising program is like a man wearing a toupee: It’s not really their own identity, but they feel it’s better than not having one at all.
But a bald man wears a toupee because he wants to have hair and can grow none of his own. I don’t stand in judgment of that. (Actually, I’m bald myself.) But any company that wants to ‘grow hair’ can do it. To wear a syndicated identity is simply an indication that you’re too lazy to create a compelling message of your own—or worse, that you have no message; you offer no real benefit to anyone and therefore shouldn’t be in business.
Will the [syndicated campaign] get customers through the door? Absolutely. Even weak campaigns get results. But will those results be enough to justify the high costs of advertising? I can guarantee there will be mortgage lenders who use the [syndicated campaign] in cities where the competition is asleep and these lenders will achieve superior results, because, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” But any lender who runs the [syndicated campaign] against a two-eyed competitor is going to get his happy butt kicked.
Let me summarize succinctly by quoting Sarah Boatz, a recent graduate of Wizard Academy: “If you’re paying to advertise who you are, and you don’t know who you are, you’re stupid.”
I hope you’ll forgive my lack of grace, but I thought that, as a reporter, you might prefer candor instead. I’d love to see your story when it comes out.
Yours,
Roy H. Williams
