‘No Gimmick’ Advertising Is a Gimmick

Now, I know that there are several definions of a gimmick. The defenition of “a device employed to cheat, deceive, or trick” is not what I am talking about, I am talking about the advertising gimmick. An advertising gimmick is an innovative strategy or scheme to promote something. Local ads expecially can benefit from gimmicks, but you see them even on national ads. Do you think there is nothing gimmicky about having a band sing about the potential uses of your project in a different style of music? That is a very good gimmick that works so well that my teenage brother-in-law has the songs on his iPod. Having an innovative strategy and approach is exactly what people hire ad agencies to do. The best advertisers always use gimmicks. No one ever looked down on the Kaplan Thayler Group from using a gimmick that involved a duck that blurted out the odd sounding name of one of their clients.

One of the most success local campaigns was in South California some years ago. It involved a car dealer and his “dog Fido.” The gimmick was that it was never a dog. In each commercial it was a different animal, from porcupines to giraffes, he had every kind of animal except a dog. This worked for him because it was different, it was innovative at the time, and it got people asking about him and telling people about his commercials. Any business can do the same, there is no reason that your business couldn’t find something unique and exciting to use in your advertising to get people talking and sharing about you.

If you take away the negative conotation applied to gimmicks what you have left is good advertising. How are you going to get people involved in your marketing messages without an innovative strategy? Involvement marketing is not your strategy, it is an element of it. If every small business (and large business for that matter) took a look at their advertising and found a way to be innovative, different, and involve their customers and community in their marketing plan, they would get so much more out of it. People who work in advertising and marketing like myself know this, but so many people who work in business ought to know it, but don’t. Hopefully this blog is helping to educate you and others in business and raise the overall quality of advertising.

The purpose of this blog is to stimulate, educate and inspire others to greatness, wether it is you doing the marketing yourself for your business, or if you hire someone else to do it. If you hire someone else I would prefer that you hire me, but I’ll admit that there are many other agencies that have good people. No matter how you advertise remember, gimmicks are your friend.