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So you've got a great idea. Maybe you should patent it, or perhaps go straight to the market. But, before you take either step, it?s best to review not only what it is that makes your product one that the consumer needs and wants. An overlooked area is; how are you or the company that you choose to market the item going to promote it so that instead of just a want, it will become a need (necessity).
Be advised that it takes commitment, as an example,
Aart Van Wingerden came to the U.S. with $6 in his pocket, a devoted wife and three children. He died, an industry leader. His cornerstones:
1) Have faith - makes a simpler, less stressful and happier life
2) Believe in your family - a strength that helps in good and bad times
3) Help people as much as you can - kindness cost little and returns much
4) Work hard - make your hobby your work and your work your hobby
5) You can do anything you want - believe in yourself.
So it takes more than money and a good idea, it takes commitment. Take for example
P. T. Barnum's Rules for Business -
1. Select the kind of business that suites your natural inclinations and temperament
2. Let your pledged word be sacred
3. Whatever you do, do it with all your might
4. Sobriety, Use no description of intoxicating drink
5. Let hope predominate but be not too visionary
6. Do not scatter your powers
7. Engage your employees
8. Advertise your business, Do not hide your light under a bushel
9. Avoid extravagance, and always live considerably within your income, if you can do so without absolute starvation
10. Do not depend on others.
Barnum and Van Wingerden seem to be preaching from the same book but there is a difference. One went on to found a leading greenhouse business, the other a circus. Barnum was the greatest , Huckster ever, but surely not a humbug as some have described him.
We're all hucksters in our own way. Everything we do, regardless of motive, is selling and the act of promotion is just one element of the transaction.
Barnum said, "When an advertisement first appears, a man does not see it; the second time he notices it; the third time he reads it; the fourth he thinks about it; the fifth he speaks to his wife about it; and the sixth or seventh time he is ready to purchase." This was his first rule.
The second "Rule of Barnum" is information gained from a third party is always more effective.
The third "Rule of Barnum" is that the actual object need not be shown in the ad, only linked to it.
The forth "Rule of Barnum" is that you identify a small influential group to market you product to first. Then spring-board off their acceptance to the next market group until you reach the mass market.
The fifth "Rule of Barnum" is animation sells. His most popular shows involved action.
The sixth "Rule of Barnum" is build on your reputation
The seventh and final "Rule of Barnum", give the public something to take home. Some of his shows, acts, displays were pure shams. And yet the public yearned for more.
These rules are unstated in the books by and about P. T. Barnum, but a careful reading yields them and others.
These are rules for the advertising man to live by, and demonstrates the life long passion that Barnum had for selling. He knew his business well.
Another great promoter of Barnum's time was John Richard Desborus Huggins, Barber most extra-ordinaire. He called himself; the Empereur des Barbieries, Emperor de les modes, et Roi de Barbiers, &c;, &c;, &c;.
Huggins' promotions;
1) entertained with puns, sarcasm and humor,
2) set the hook for products that became not simple wants but necessities by repeating exposure to them,
3) never mentioned price, which would have either cheapened the product in the eyes of some while making them appear unattainable in the view of others, and
4) showed that Huggins was just a common man like all those in his audience.
How's that for a barber. In his time it was a mark of a man to have been shaved by the barber most extra-ordinaire.
Yet another was, Robert Warren, producer of boot blacking, a product widely sold in London in the 1820's. Warren advertised his blacking in advertising (parodies based on creations of famous poets and prose writers of the day) that captured and held the buying public?s interest. He has been immortalized by the book, Warreniana written by William Frederick Deacon in 1824.
Warren's rules of advertising would appear to have been:
1) Use a third party to advertise your goods, (Shakespeare, Irving, Baron and others). Parodies all.
2) Use humor, as example a cat alarmed at its image in a boot blacked with Warren's paste.
3) Advertise widely; newspapers, flyers, billboards, sandwich boards, word of mouth.
4) Don't be afraid to mention price, but do stress economy.
5) Make sure the buyer knows where the product can be found.
But there's more. What you see is not what you get in really great advertising.
If you can involve the viewing public's imagination in advertising, it is never boring and your product will sail off the shelves! How so, you may ask?
Consider the following signature items: a Holstein cow packing box, cool camel, serial posting of road-side advertisements, red hot chili pepper, sign for a large egress, a two finger behind-the-head photo opportunity, windmills, a partially eaten apple, a chicken scratching, distance marker to a drug store.
You are able to identify the product(s) promoted instantly. (Some of these date to before the turn of the century so may not now be familiar.)
These symbols either in print or on television bring to mind a product. The advertising budgets are long past spent but the images remain. That's great advertising, or promotion if you prefer.
What exactly was it that all these individuals were selling? Hope and Fear.
Psychologists discovered (shortly after they discovered sex) that it's the sizzle, not the steak, it's the illusion. Their teaching was that some deeply desired, previously unattainable want could be satisfied and would sell products so identified. The object of this type advertising campaign can hardly be resisted. Who doesn't want to be more popular, smell better, hold their water just a bit longer, have larger (or at least appear to have) whatever's?
How to accomplish this is another matter. The Rules of Advertising can be greatly simplified as the four " e's"
Excite
Entertain
Educate
End (Make the sale. Those who can close a deal are in demand everywhere.)
Before you go forth with your idea it"s important to note that your competition may not be as right and proper as you. The dark underbelly of marketing and its twin accompanist, advertising, is that the public"s vulnerable to these same hopes and fears.
The stable keeper Hobson offered the oldest most weather-worn nag first. Since his was the only game in town, he often succeeded. So it is that we understand,Hobson's Choice, or, move the distressed merchandise first, and don't worry about accuracy when it's time to make a sale. Who was to stop him, he lived under the following cloud.
A thief on his trial refused to be sworn.
"Of what use," queried he, "will my evidence be?
If I tell the whole truth, I shall get the Old Nick;
If I tell what's not true, the Old Nick will get me."
Francis E. Leupp
Perhaps some are not so bold as Hobson, and their sanctimonious garb may not be seen as that of hypocrites, but hypocrites they are. Benjamin Morgan, speaking through the character of Miss Julia Spear, in his book, Shams or Uncle Ben's Experience with Hypocrites, listed the following examples as Shams.
Fashion
Music
Manners
Money
Character
Politics
Time
Here's a short list in today's dealings, simply substitute gulling for shams:.
Let me count the ways;
False economy,
False nutrition,
False packaging,
Bait and Switch,
Knock the competitor's product,
Fix it, even if it ain't broken,
Information that is meaningless,
Or my favorite, the guileless(?) politician.
Been Gulled lately? Of course you have. Hopefully, you wont have to resort to the same tactics for your new product.
Advertising has changed little, and so have business practices changed little or not at all. The moral judgement of what is right and proper remains in the eyes of the doer and the one who has been done to. Wilhelm Windelband in his book,A History of Philosophy, reviews morality and found that morals were based on how public opinion view the individual, how the laws were obeyed and finally how in the eyes of God the individual would be judged. In today's market (business or politic), public opinion can be swayed by advertising (promotion) no less, the laws can be subverted, ignored or other ones chosen to better represent the view of the one being judged and finally God. If the individual is Godless, it makes little difference how much he or she may appear before the alter; that individual's morals are not going to be affected. Such it is, as it is today. I wish you well in you adventure in the market place! Just remember that the art of puffery is alive and well.
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