I’ve been studying and writing ad copy for 30 years. My eyes and ears have experienced tons of advertising messages. Some are out of the ordinary to say the least. Take a look at what’s around you. Every consumer product is branded with some type of logo, either on Television, in a newspaper, magazine, flyer, or on the product itself. A few however, stick out like a sore thumb. It’s like the winning team waving a victory flag after a close game!

Advertisers want to be noticed, and with today’s economic turmoil, some go to the extreme to get attention. In fact, these oddball promotions made a huge impact on their business.

Here’s my top ten of all time…

#10. Bald Head Web Address: I’m sure you’ve heard of people placing advertisements on their body parts up for the highest bidder on eBay, Right? Well, recently I attended a fundraiser for our local homeless shelter. I noticed this well dressed young man walking up to donate. He wasn’t wearing a hat and was completely bald. Except for the tattoos around his head. His entire head was tattooed with many web site URLs. I approached this young fellow and asked him how many web addresses were on his head. He said, “26 total.” And that he was working on one more. He told me he owns a tattoo parlor, and he gets $250 per URL. I then asked, “What happens if one of those web sites dies off?” He replied, “I’ll get rid of it for another advertiser!” Go Figure.

#9. Going Out Of Business: A long time clothing store decided it wasn’t working out with the state of the economy. The store owner came up with the idea of placing two dump trucks back-to-back in front of the building. Both trucks were loaded with fake clothes and other items that appeared in the store. A huge sign stretched from bumper-to-bumper: “Going Out Of Business Sale. One Week Only. What Don’t Sell Will Be Hauled To The Dump.” They reported selling every single item from 60-80 percent off.

#8. Fishing Tournament Trailer: A popular fishing club that hosts a tournament trail at one of our local lakes has a one-of-a-kind trailer. They use it to haul around their gear, tents, scales, and other items needed for their fishing tournaments. It’s a 12 foot tandem axle panel trailer loaded with small ads all over the sides, back, front, and even the top. Each ad represents a sponsor. A one foot square logo with address and phone number covers the entire trailer. From a distance it looks like the trailer is camouflaged, but when you get a closer look, it’s littered with advertisements. In fact, is has so many ads it took me 30 minutes just to glance at all. And I thought Pixel advertising was so unique!

#7. Beauty Solon Hair Knots: During a business trip, I stumbled upon a small, yet busy Beauty Solon. I decided to get a quick hair trim before the meeting. I walked inside and was fortunate to get a chair. One of the young ladies finished with her client and motioned for me to come forward. While she was trimming my hair, I noticed a tall, well dressed female mannequin standing only a few feet away. But, the hair was full of twisted knots and made of several colors. The mannequin stood upright, pointing to what appeared to be a special looking shampoo and conditioner. I asked the young lady, “What is with the knots in the mannequin’s hair?” She explained to me the shampoo and conditioner will help eliminate tangles and will aide in bright and colorful hair. She further stated that since they placed the mannequin in their Solon they couldn’t keep it on the shelves. Only two packages were available and I witnessed a sale right before my eyes!

#6. Rotating Car-On-A-Pole: An auto parts facility (junk yard) has what it takes to be noticed. Approximately 60 feet high sits a Voltswagon that rotates on top of a huge 36 inch diameter steel pole. The junk yard is roughly a quarter mile off the highway and can be seen while driving past the entrance to their road. Their name and phone number is displayed on both the car and the pole itself. The car stops rotating after 5:00 PM when the junk yard closes. And, that’s exactly what is says on the sign: “Junkyard Closed When Car Stops.”

#5. Sawmill Giant: A replica of Paul Bunyan stands handsomely holding its ax in one hand, while pointing the way to the sawmill with the other. Only thing is, it towers above 25 feet!. The name of the sawmill is on its chest with a dark colored beard, hat, suspenders, bluejeans, and work boots. If you have trouble finding the sawmill, just look for big Paul Bunyan by the Highway. Believe me, you can’t miss it.

#4. Audio and Video Store: A 1957 panel van is outfitted with enough sound system to hear miles away. But, buried beneath the speakers is a lift away console, which emerges into a full surround sound theater. Once inside two people can sit comfortably and watch their favorite video on four wide screen Television monitors. This incredible mobile entertainment center is simply awesome to see and hear. And, of course, their advertisement is beautifully displayed on the exterior. But, that’s not all this fancy shop engages in for advertising. Once a week they place their entire catalog on two FULL pages of the newspaper – under the Obituary section – the most read section of any newspaper. WOW – That’s nearly 250 products!

#3. Real Estate Broker Lights: While driving through a nice rural neighborhood one night, I noticed a house that had Christmas lights lit up all over the place. Bright lights were on the chimney, gable ends, doors, windows, and even on the brokerage sign. Here it is July and this house is brighter than Yankees Stadium at night. I wrote down the phone number off the signage and called the broker the next day to see if the house was available. The broker answered and told me the house was sold an hour ago!

#2. Port-O-Jon Rental T-Shirt: One day nature called while on a construction job site. While inside the Port-O-Jon, a truck pulls alongside and a worker begins to clean each one out. When I made my exit, the worker stood ready to clean the one I used. He had a bright red t-shirt on with BIG black letters that said the following: “You Dump – We Pump – Give Us A Call.”

#1. Direct Snail Mail Smell: A local furniture store mailed me a sales letter one day. This was a regular two page letter that outlined many super bargains. But, that’s not all that accompanied the letter…it had a wonderful perfume aroma. I read it over and checked out the envelope and began to sniff. I thought, “Boy, does this letter smell great.” I knew the couple who owned the furniture store, so I decided to give the owners a call to see what they were up to. I told them both I received their letter with a strong perfume smell to it.

They told me a surprising story. John and Kristy tried direct mail in the past, but failed every time to yield a good return. This time, John asked Kristy if he could barrow her best bottle of perfume as he prepared to mail 5000 sales letters. John carefully sprinkled a few drops of this expensive perfume on each letterhead. They both took part inserting the letters into the envelopes and sealed each one with postage.

Approximately three days later, John started to receive customers and began to make sales. He coded the letter with instructions to bring in a coupon for the items on sale. In fact, they sold out the bargain item, then worked on selling out their entire inventory of kitchen tables and chairs, mattress sets, and sofas. This popular furniture store sold $32,000.00 worth of furniture in two weeks time – all due to the smelly sales letters. However, it dealt a not so rosy smell to women of the house. It appeared the women had something to say to their husbands, why they were receiving such a smelly letter, and who sent it. Nevertheless, John and Kristy had an astonishing 72% open rate!

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As tough economic conditions have caused general advertising revenue across the board to diminish, newspapers across the nation are closing their doors entirely. Some are willing to take a chance of converting over to the Internet in hopes of keeping the local news in front of their loyal subscribers. Others who are currently using the Web to generate ad revenue have already experienced low volume ad sales.

The thing is, a local newspaper that once filled neighborhoods with the community news in print is NOT going to reach that same audience with the Internet. Why? Not everybody has the Internet that reads the newspaper. And Not everyone who does will read the online version. In fact, 23.7% of the World still does not have Web access. What’s more, 32% still uses dial-up from their remote or rural location. This makes it difficult to view all of what the media has to offer.

Newspaper owners have NO idea what they are about to face when it comes to Internet advertising. With all due respect to the industry I love, calculating profits and measuring metrics is venturing into unknown territory for most publications. With little or no way to know if online news or ads even reach their target audience, it’s shotgun marketing at its best! The only way to know is to measure it.

Online Advertising Analytics

More Web staff will be needed to help process log files for measuring and analyzing the effectiveness of their web site in terms of customer experience, return on investment, and site effectiveness. They must learn how to collect massive amounts of site visitor and usage data to provide a better customer experience and determine ROI. Employees will have to adjust with greater intelligence regarding how their online publication operates. Everyone will need to know how to execute precision marketing, effective sales, and real-time customer service. This will be extremely important in the current economy when they can’t afford to waste time, resources, or money.

Understanding Data Collection

Various niche publications that choose to place their entire operations online must enforce a niche concept that rests on the importance of customers to its company. They must determine the needs of their customers. Develop their competitive advantages. Select specific markets to serve. Determine how to satisfy those needs and analyze how well they’ve served their customers. Online sales and conversions are not enough. They need to find out who the customers are, what the customers want, where and when they want it. This type of research can also expose problems in the current news service, and find areas for expansion of current services to fill customer demand. This should also encompass identifying trends that may affect sales and profit levels.

Advertiser Experience

Every media kit from every publication is negotiable. One of the best kept secrets in newspaper advertising is how to get better rates than what the publication tell you is available. All will quote you their rate card numbers. And they will offer you a discount if you agree to do multiple runs of the ad. But, what about online ads? Will they be upfront and inform you about the banner impressions you couldn’t track? Or will you ever hear from a visitor who has been bombarded with pop-up display ads? How will they combine news and ads for a pleasurable reading experience without compromising standard business relationships? Clicking Web ads while reading the latest news column weighs heavily on whether the visitor will return to read more.

For once, newspapers hold an edge. While larger publications hire professionals to do their research, smaller ones are close to their customers. They can learn much more quickly the likes and dislikes of their customers and can react quickly to change in customer buying habits. While there is NO safe prediction on where our economy is heading, a decision to go entirely online is seldom a purely rational one. One that can influence your reader’s behavior. As you explore various techniques for presenting your publication online, do not ignore psychological and emotional appeals. It might save your paper!

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If you understand the concept that advertising is a multiplication of a selling conversation, then the basic ingredients of advertising media are easier to grasp. First, there must be an audience. A newspaper printed as a single copy could not function as an advertising medium unless the single copy were passed from person to person to create a worthwhile audience.

In that case, the advertiser probably could go from one individual to another and be more effective while reaching at least as many prospects in the same amount of time. A potential advertiser will require evidence that an audience does exist, and will want to know the size and location of the audience, as well as other characteristics.

The second ingredient on which an advertising medium can be evaluated is its acceptance in the marketplace. Acceptance is related not only to the total number of customers in an audience, but also to the composition of that audience as compared to the target audience of the advertiser.

In addition to an audience’s acceptance and size, the medium also must have a usable frequency of exposure. Most retailers and other local business establishments rely on their advertisements’ reaching potential buyers regularly, some even several times daily.

A medium with a once-a-year or even a once-a-month frequency might deserve nothing more than a very small part of a retailer’s advertising budget. Remember, one way advertising functions is by repetition; a commercial message increases in audience awareness aftermore than one exposure.

Various advertising media will be examined from the standpoint of these three basic ingredients: the audience (coverage) each enjoys; the acceptance (impact) of the medium on the audience; and the ability to expand its initial impact by being available more than once or twice in a particular time frame (frequency).

Direct Mail

We would be remiss not to mention the U.S. Postal Service and its ability to deliver your advertising message. The direct mail advertising message can be highly personal and powerfully effective.

You know how saturated your home mailbox is with nothing to buy contests giving you chances to win new houses, cars, world cruises and big checks for every month as long as you live. While there is no obligation for you to buy anything, there is always something available for sale subscriptions, books, records, videos, personal products, real estate usually at discounted prices.

The give-aways are possible only because enough people are tempted by what is available, and what they buy can be traced to direct mail advertising. In almost every business there is an opportunity for increased business through intelligent use of direct mail advertising.

Because the per-piece cost of direct mail is much higher than most forms of print, it must be used carefully, selectively and efficiently. Mailing lists are difficult to prepare, expensive to buy and are partially obsolete the day after they have been completed. Because people die, move away or get mad at you at an alarming pace, keeping an accurate mailing list is not easy.

Still, direct mail can be an efficient way to deliver a sales message to a specific target audience. If your audience is composed of doctors, lawyers, dentists or school teachers, for example, only direct mail offers you the chance to direct your ad to that target audience with no waste circulation.

Direct mail also makes couponing and sampling practical. It can help isolate advertising response to one segment or another and compare returns in one area with those in another.

The most critical part of any direct mail program is the mailing list. Keep a list of all your customers, either by asking them to fill out a mailing list card or by taking their names off the checks you receive each day. Hold contests to get your customers to fill out an entry form. As your list grows, you may need to buy a computer or hire a mailing firm to keep the list current and to prepare mailing labels.

Magazines

Print media also include magazines. While most national magazines are not practical as an advertising medium for local businesses, some local magazines may be. City magazines are now published in hundreds of cities and towns. They may look as sophisticated as their national counterparts, and they are edited to local tastes.

They use color, photography and professional writing and editing to create high-interest stories about people, places and things. They frequently are distributed free to certain people on special lists restricted to higher income families. In this way they can reach relatively exclusive audiences, but the frequency of publication (usually monthly) restricts their use as a basic medium.

Many regional and national magazines include classified ad sections that may be useful for promoting the availability of a catalog or for selling individual products. The advantage of magazines is that they have highly defined readerships that allow you to focus on specific market niches.

If, for example, you run an ad in a boating magazine, you can be fairly sure the people who subscribe either own a boat or are looking for one. The Standard Rate and Data Service (SRDS) publishes a complete listing of all the magazines that serve particular market interests; it is available in the business section of most libraries.

Brochures

For many small businesses, a printed brochure may be helpful to establish credibility and tell your story in more detail. Computer type setting and laser printing have reduced the cost of producing a brochure. Free layout help is available at many copy centers. You can keep your costs down by using standard 8.5 x 11 inch paper and by using a triple-fold design that will fit into a standard business envelope.

Other Local Print Media

Don’t overlook drop-point media such as booklets available for free pickup in high-traffic areas like convenience stores, banks and motels. These may include guides to local television programs, listings currently available from real estate firms, entertainment or sporting events. Evaluate each booklet on its ability to provide enough value to justify using it.

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