Before developing any advertising creative, our advertising agency completes a Q&A Brand Marketing Audit. This includes Voice of the Customer Research to develop new and unique insights into our client’s customers. It also includes a Competitive Analysis to identify new and unique sources of Competitive Advantage.The output of a Q&A Brand Marketing Audit is a data-driven, fact-based, Q&A Messaging Strategy. Every Q&A Messaging Strategy answers the 3 Core Questions that must be answered to achieve effective advertising:

     1. What’s Important to the Customer?

     2. What’s Competitively Unique to Our Client?

     3. What Can We Communicate Creatively.

The results of our Q&A Brand Marketing Audit for the Sanibel Island & Captiva Island Chamber of Commerce (the local Destination Marketing Organization or DMO) showed:

• From the Customers perspective, the Sanibel and Captiva Island visitor wanted to enjoy what many Florida travelers seek… a warm tropical climate, clean beaches, biking, golf, tennis, fishing, shelling, etc. (Nothing really new here.)

• From a Competitive perspective, the Islands offered many of the same things that other Florida beach towns offered… beaches, biking, golf, tennis, fishing, shelling, etc. (Again, nothing really new here.)

As we studied the results of our Q&A Brand Marketing Audit and dug deeper into the Voice of the Customer Research and Competitive Analysis, we identified a unique, new customer insight and source of competitive advantage.

Visitors expressed a desire to experience Florida, the way it used to be… That Customer Insight… coupled with our Competitive Understanding that the one thing DIFFERENT about Sanibel and Captiva Islands was that there were No Traffic Lights on the two islands led us to our Messaging and Creative Strategy:

     250 Kinds of Shells.

     230 Kinds of Birds.

     50 Kinds of Fish.

     22 Miles of Bike Paths.

     15 Miles of Beaches.

     0 Traffic Lights.

A: A great TV Advertising Commercial – the kind that drives new web visits, call volume, store traffic, appointments, reservations, requests for proposal, etc. — always starts with a unique, new insight into your core customers. Turning insight into a TV Advertising Commercial that stands out and delivers the desired business results in an increasingly noisy marketplace requires the application of proven advertising techniques.

So what advertising techniques are proven to break through the noise and clutter? Let’s look at the TV Advertising research. M.J. Schlinger’s Viewer Reaction Profile (VRP) is a good place to start if you want to understand what make a TV Advertising Commercial effective.  Schlinger’s Viewer Reaction Profile measures a person’s level of agreement (strongly disagree to strongly agree) with 32 descriptive statements about the advertising. The 32 statements are then grouped into seven key TV Advertising Commercial effectiveness dimensions:

     1. Entertainment Value (seven statements).

     2. Confusion Factor (four statements).

     3. Relevant Information (five statements).

     4. Brand Reinforcement (two statements).

     5. Empathy Factor (five statements).

     6. Familiarity Factor (three statements).

     7. Alienation Factor (six statements).

According to Schlinger’s research, high ratings from viewers on the Entertainment,  Relevant and Empathy dimensions correlates to higher levels of TV Advertising effectiveness.  Specifically, high ratings from viewers on these specific questions about their reaction to your TV Advertising Commercial correlates to higher levels of TV Advertising effectiveness.

  1. The commercial was lots of fun to watch and listen to.

  2. I thought it was clever and entertaining.

  3. The enthusiasm of the commercial is catching-it picks you up.

  4. I appreciate that it wasn’t just selling the product; it was also entertaining me.

  5. The characters (or persons) in the commercial capture your attention.

  6. The commercial keeps running through your mind after you’ve seen it.

  7. The commercial gave me a new idea.

  8. The commercial told me about a new product and I think I’d like to try it.

  9. During the commercial I thought how that product might be useful to me.

  10. That’s a good brand and I wouldn’t hesitate recommending it to others.

  11. I know that the advertised brand is dependable and reliable.

  12. The commercial was very realistic-that is, true to life.

  13. I felt that the commercial was acting out what I feel at times.

  14. I felt like I was right there in the commercial experiencing the same thing.

  15. I learned something from the commercial that I didn’t know before.

Research Sources:Strasheim, Arien; Pitt, Leyland; Albert Caruana,. “Psychometric properties of the Schlinger Viewer Response Profile (VRP): Evidence from a large sample. (Report).” Journal of Advertising. 2007.George M. Zinkhan, Scot Burton (1989), “REFINING A MULTIDIMENSIONAL PROFILE FOR TELEVISION COMMERCIALS: AN APPLICATION OF TARGER ANALYSIS”, in Advances in Consumer Research Volume 16, eds. Thomas K. Srull, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 711-718.

Branding is About Strategy. Strategy is About Creating Competitive Advantage in the Marketplace.

When it comes to smart business growth, the quality of a company’s strategic, tactical & creative thinking ties directly to the competitive advantage it enjoys in the marketplace.

The Q&A Brand Marketing Audit is our advertising agency’s quality process for developing the most effective competitive strategy for your brand.

The end result of a Q&A Brand Marketing Audit provides creative new thinking about how your firm can attract, satisfy & retain the dominant market share of high-value, high-volume customers within its competitive set.

While Q&A Brand Marketing Audits differ from client to client, every Q&A Brand Marketing Audit focuses on exploring, identifying & understanding the key business, brand & marketing issues affecting your business’ performance. Our agency’s approach provides a fact-based, structured process for gathering, organizing & understanding your firm’s position with its customers & competitors. Our Brand Marketing teams provide ‘fresh-eyes’ to a client’s historical perspective.

Each Q&A Brand Marketing Audit includes a deep-dive into both the background and history of the key challenges affecting your business. Working one-on-one with a client’s leadership team we also identify or develop the critical Business/Brand performance metrics, which we use to measure progress against the desired Business/Brand performance.

Q&A Voice of the Customer Research – Critical Satisfiers:
To develop a fact-based understanding of your core customer for success, what they value & the key purchase drivers that move that customer segment to take action; we deploy a data-driven approach to identify & rank the most important functional & emotional benefits sought by those customers. We also identify who else they consider as a viable alternative to their needs as well as how they feel towards your specific competitors. The unique customer insights revealed from our Branding Agency’s Q&A Voice of the Customer Research helps to identify critical sources of sustainable, competitive advantage.

Q&A Brand Marketing Audit – Key Deliverables.
A full Q&A Brand Marketing Audit includes the following:
- Q&A Executive Team Survey
- Q&A Associate Survey
- Q&A Voice of the Customer Research
- Q&A Voice of the Customer Competitive Perceptions
- Q&A Brand Marketing Audit – Final Report.

To learn more about how a Q&A Brand Marketing Audit can help your business simply Click: I Want to Get More Customers.

Here, we’ll be discussing Brands, the Branding process & Brand-Building.We’ll share what we’ve observed and learned about Brand Associations, Brand Essence, Brand Equity, Brand Identity, Brand Image, Brand Loyalty, Brand Metrics, Brand Personality, Brand Plans, Brand Positioning and Brand Promise… and, how each affects your ability to Build Your Brand.At its simplest, a Brand is an Identity… the name and/or symbols which identify a particular company or organization from all others. This includes basic design elements like your logo, company colors and slogan or tag-line.A Brand is also a Perception… the sum of all the actual experiences, associations, rational thoughts and emotional meanings someone makes the instant they Recognize a particular Brand name and/or its symbols.This is where it can get a bit complicated. Why? Because once a person forms a Perception about the Meaning of your Brand, it becomes that person’s Reality. And that is a very, hard thing to change.Branding is the on-going business process of developing a deep bond with with your customers by Positively Differentiating your goods and services from those of your competitors. It’s the process of creating a competitive advantage by being meaningful and relevant.Brand-Building is about Need Fulfillment. The more someone feels a particular need, and the more they see your brand as the best possible solution to that need; the bigger your brand becomes. That’s what we call Brand-Building..

Welcome to the all new Quenzel & Associates Agency Blog. Or, should I say BlogS?Today, we launch our new Branding Blog, Advertising Blog and Web Marketing Blog.We will retain our Q&A-format for sharing interesting information. However, by separating our Agency Blog into 3 content-specific blogs, we can provide our clients and prospective clients with a more focused conversation on the specific topic of interest — Branding, Advertising and Web Marketing.You can expect a new Branding post every week. More often, if we get more questions.Thanks!

As a Web Marketing Agency in Florida, we often get asked; ‘How does a search engine work?’ This online video, from Google, provides a nice explanation.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs

New Travel Web Design by Quenzel & Associates for Travel Destination & Travel Marketing client Best Trip Choices.

The principals involved in this travel website are Dr. Stanley C. Plog and Bahir Browsh.  In 2004, Stan received the Alfred E. Koehl Lifetime Achievement Award for travel marketing from HSMAI (Hotel Sales & Marketing Association International). Bahir was one of the four senior executives that started the cable network… Travel Channel in 1988.After 6-months of re-building, we re-launched the Best Trip Choices.com website for them with a new, more attractive design, added features and easier navigation.The new & improved site offers travelers five totally unique features not found on any other website:

• Travel Personality Quiz. Based on three decades of traveler research by Dr. Plog, the scientifically validated survey groups people into one of six travel psycho-graphic profiles. Dr Plog’s method for classifying travelers is featured in his book Leisure Travel – A Marketing Handbook. His break-through work is taught in hundreds of college tourism courses and has been covered in a variety of professional journals, including the Cornell School of Hospitality Quarterly.

• 600+ Destinations Ranked by Overall Appeal. Based on over 60,000 fresh evaluations from actual travelers, the site ranks over 600 destinations on Appeal (defined as travelers’ evaluation of the destination as ‘a great place to visit.’) matches a person’s travel personality with the Top 30 Destinations rated highest for people like them.

• 600+ Destinations Ranked by Value for the Money. Based on over 60,000 actual traveler evaluations, we rank over 600 destinations on value for the money (defined as the experience you had at the destination was worth what you paid, not that it’s the cheapest place to visit).

• 600+ Destinations Ranked by Combined Appeal & Value for the Money. Based on over 60,000 actual traveler evaluations, we rank over 600 destinations on their combined score for Appeal & Value. On the website you can play with the ranking system by using the up and down arrows for either the Appeal or Value dimensions, or the combined scores.

• Top 30 Destinations by Travel Personality. Based on the results from over 60,000 actual traveler evaluations, the site matches the 30 Best Destinations (15 Best U.S. Destinations and 15 Best International Destinations) for each the six different travel personality types. In addition, we included the overall star ratings for each of the 30 Best Destinations by Travel Personality.

This various rankings produce some surprising and interesting results.  And now it’s possible for travelers to select places on the basis of it’s a great place to visit and it also offers good value for the money.

A: A Critical Customer Desire, Clearly Communicated as a Competitively Distinct Brand Benefit.How we create, measure & evaluate a TV Advertising Commercial‘s effectiveness is quite different from most traditional advertising agencies that like to talk about their work in terms of amusing, clever or creative.At Quenzel & Associates, making an effective TV Advertising Commercial starts with a clear understanding that we are salespeople and our job is to sell a client’s products and services.Like any great salesperson, we also like to keep score of what matters.  For a full-service advertising agency, keeping score of what matters means understanding what methods of communication are the most persuasive for selling a particular client’s products and services and what methods are the least persuasive.Over the years, our team has produced hundreds of TV Advertising Commercials that won in the marketplace. We’ve spent countless hours researching, testing and analyzing the commercials that worked the best for our clients… those TV Advertising Commercials that persuaded the most people to visit a website, call for more information, make a reservation, book an appointment, request a proposal or drive to a store. When we studied those TV Advertising Commercials that were extremely effective from the clients point of view — those commercials that truly persuaded people to take the desired action — we heard our client’s potential prospects & current customers describe the commercials as appealing, believable, convincing, effective, informative, likable, true to life & worth remembering.  When we studied those TV Advertising Commercials that didn’t work, we heard them described as confusing, dull, easy to forget, irritating, phony  & pointless.Our research into TV Advertising Commercials, across a variety of advertising categories (Travel Advertising, Retail Advertising, Medical Advertising &  Real Estate & Construction Advertising) shows the following Best Practices:

• Critical Customer Desire. Generating the desired marketing action requires the delivery of a highly meaningful message. The most effective TV Advertising Commercials grow out of a clear understanding of the key drivers of customer satisfaction and delivery of a highly meaningful message to the target audience.
• Clearly Communicated. To survive the ‘sensory overload’ today’s noisy marketplace causes, viewers actively filter out most messages.  The most effective TV Advertising Commercials attract a viewers attention by breaking through their active filters with an emotional sensory connection and then helps them process & comprehend the message by relating it to their past experiences & memories or desired expectations.
• Competitively Distinct Brand Benefit. Generating the desired marketing action requires a clear understanding of the desired customer experience. The most effective TV Advertising Commercials consistently present the customer’s desired experience as a competitively unique benefit of the brand.

Word-of-Mouth Advertising.It seems appropriate to kick-off our Agency’s new Advertising Blog with a comment on one of the oldest and most powerful forms of advertising – Word-of-Mouth.Over the years, we’ve observed and learned that nothing beats Word-of-Mouth Advertising.Why? Because people trust personal recommendations more than any other form of communication.Unfortunately, few advertisers… and even fewer advertising agencies… plan for and actually integrate Word-of-Mouth Advertising into their overall advertising campaigns.To be clear, building a business by Word-of-Mouth doesn’t just happen. A pro-active Word-of-Mouth Advertising effort is not for the faint of heart… or for the faint brand. Building a business with positive, Word-of-Mouth Advertising takes planning and execution. So… if you have the heart for it… and the brand to back it up, read on:First. An effective and efficient Word-of-Mouth Advertising effort requires a solid base of loyal customers. Why? Because Loyal Customers are more likely to personally recommend your company and its products to family, friends, neighbors & colleagues. Our research also shows that Loyal Customers are more likely to post positive recommendations online about your company and its products.(Note: Before we launch a Word-of-Mouth Advertising campaign for a client, we measure the company’s level of Customer Loyalty. If the Loyalty Metric falls below a certain threshold, we cancel the Word-of-Mouth Advertising effort and focus on helping the client address their Customer Loyalty issues.)Second. An effective and efficient Word-of-Mouth Advertising effort requires a well thought-out Strategic Plan of Action. Over the years we’ve observed and learned that the quality of your strategic thinking in this area can really drive a competitive advantage.Third. An effective and efficient Word-of-Mouth Advertising effort requires a robust Customer Relationship Management focus.(Note: I did not say expensive… I said robust. We’ve helped many small companies, with a well-earned brand reputation, beat larger competitors with bigger budgets.)Fourth. An effective and efficient Word-of-Mouth Advertising effort requires a robust, working understanding of Social Media Marketing & Advertising. These are the advertising tools that change the old adage about a satisfied customer telling 3 other people. With the growth of social networks of like minded people, Word-of-Mouth Advertising gets Turbo-charged.Finally. An effective and efficient Word-of-Mouth Advertising effort requires the capability and inclination to monitor and measure the performance of your Word-of-Mouth Advertising efforts. It also requires a couple of hours each month, from senior management, to engage in the Performance Review Process and subsequent action planning.