Idioteex

Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

I think we would all agree that humor sells. Just look at television commercials as an example. The ones we remember and don’t mind seeing over and over again are the funny ones.
There was a study done a few years ago which looked at the attention and retention of academic content by university students. The results indicated that both retention and attention increased significantly if the professors used humor in their lectures. If these results are accurate, and I believe them to be, they validate my long held belief that if you want to make people listen to you and remember what you said make them laugh.

When you apply this to marketing and sales you realize that the use of humor not only gets your customer’s attention, but also helps them recall you and your message long after you have left the scene.

A happy, humorous, smiling company representative is a powerful promotional and selling agent. So hire people with these qualities and train those working for you who don’t. Remember a sense of humor is a learned response, it isn’t genetic. People are attracted to those with a great sense of humor and a cheerful disposition.

Over the last couple of decades the face of marketing has changed drastically.  About a decade ago marketing underwent another transformation.  Where paper advertisements and radio spots used to be, the internet has stepped in to become one of the most widely used advertising and marketing tools throughout the world.  Currently more people are using the internet to dig up reviews, information, and products than ever before and the amount of potential clients you can reach is growing daily.  With this being the case, how can you make your site, product, or company stand out from the thousands of websites available to be memorable in a client’s mind?  This is where animation steps in.

 A website complete with tasteful flash animations, informational videos, and interactive content allows visitors to engage with your site and remain there longer to discover more about your company.  While a static website is the bare minimum for any business these days, it isn’t enough to win out over a competitor who took the time to include an animation or two on their site.  What is needed now is an aesthetically designed, visually appealing, and easy to navigate user interface that will provide a memorable and positive user experience.

Some forms of animation that are used to demonstrate an idea or illustrate a concept and which capture a visitor’s interest are:

2D Animation
3D Character Animation
3D Modeling & Product Design
3D Walkthrough Animation
3D Mobile, Online and PC Games

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Are you looking for a new way to market your business? One that has withstood the test of time? One word: Storytelling. Recently BusinessWeek, featured an article on the importance of using Storytelling for customer interest. Need to kick it up a notch? Check out storytelling with sand animation or “Sand Art.”

Sand Story is a fresh and innovative storytelling approach to business marketing. Mixing sand and light, pictures are formed and reformed into ever changing shapes and images that tell visually powerful stories. Set to music, these images inspire, challenge and motivate in a captivating way. Sand Art is performed live and projected on screens for a powerful and standing ovation experience. More than entertained, the consumer walks away remembering the corporate message – which is after all essential for any business choosing to marketing its products and services.

Sand Story also reaches across a broad spectrum of marketing venues from nonprofits to corporate business. Newsweek Magazine has also affirmed the versatility of Sand Art as a storytelling marketing strategy for business: “Part performance art, part visual art and part storytelling, the craft has been featured at Cirque du Soleil and Christian youth camps, Russian nightclubs and corporate events. Live shows enchant audiences not only because the visual effect is riveting, but because they tell a story, typically about love, war, or faith.”  Read more...

Have you been told that you have a good sense of humor throughout your life? Do you find that things are easier to understand when they are described in a humorous way? Humor helps us appreciate the good times and smile through the bad times. Humor is a good memory tool. It is part of who we are as humans.

Perhaps you enjoy a good joke every now and then, or you find yourself seeing the funny side of things. Did you ever think that you could use humor to make money? Many people use humor as a marketing tool to make money, and not just stand-up comedians and television writers.

If you are an exceptional observer and commentator, if you spend time analyzing jokes and why they are funny, if you want to spend many years working hard to make it, then you very well may have what it takes to be a successful stand-up comedian.

For most of us, however, getting on stage and speaking in front of people is not something we want to do. Some people are terrified of speaking in front of a group; it’s the number one phobia world-wide.

There are many other ways to make a good living using humor. Try to think of commercials that are particularly effective. Chances are the commercials you thought about were funny. This is because a good joke is memorable. Advertisers have understood this for decades.

Behind every great funny commercial, there is an ad writer. The ability to find the funny side of things is a hot commodity in the advertising business. Talented ad writers make a good living. Even in political campaigns, humor is used to make a point, or get folks to pay attention to a person or issue.  Read more...

If you know me personally, or have read my articles before, you know I am a goofball. There is nothing subtle about me or my sense of humor. I’m sure a psychoanalyst could write reams of data about what is wrong with me. I’m blatant, crude, way over the top, off-color, and often offensive.

But that is me and my blog, NOT my work as either a consultant or as a marketing executive in my previous life. Because my blog is personal (as I think all good ones should be) it is the genuine me, burrs and all.

However, when I am working with a client, the suit goes on, the language is toned down, and humor, which defines me as a person, is actually rarely used as a marketing vehicle at all. It kills me, but there are SO many pitfalls if used inappropriately, it is often just not worth the risk for a client.

Sometimes I get lucky and a client and their audience have a very similar tone and market as me. In that rare case, our marketing results are just off the charts, but those cases are few and far between.

Being a guy who places tremendous value in humor, I offer these 6 tips for using humor in your own marketing materials. Use at your own risk.

1. Be Genuine

There are many types of humor: Subtle, sarcastic, slapstick, off-color, clever, etc.

 What you need to figure out is which one you are. I am definitely the slapstick, off-color type. What can I say – I realize I am a large child, and fart jokes still crack me up. Compare that to Mikey, a good friend of mine (he hates when I call him that…It’s Mike, thank you.). He has a fantastic subtle sense of humor. He is the type that rarely pipes up, and you really have to pay attention; But, when he says something funny, it is obviously well thought out, and it always frigging kills me.