Tis the season for holiday commercials.
My daughters and I agree that these holiday spots are on TV sooner and sooner after Halloween every year. (Don’t even get me started about how soon the Christmas decorations come out on big box store shelves.)
There are many different types of holiday commercials. You have those Lexus commercials – you know, the ones where somebody gives their loved one a Lexus with big red bow on it for Christmas. All the big name retailers go all out with holiday sales, too.
It’s a real frenzy on the tube.
There are also a fair number of cartoon ads.
The fact that holiday cartoon ads are appearing everywhere is kinda cool. I love cartoons, as you know. It’s my bread and butter. If you were to show all these to the Vince P. of 2005, he’d be happier than a pig in poo. Why?
Well, back in 2005 I had to work hard to educate customers about the benefits of cartoon marketing. I had to tell them how they’re more attention-grabbing and engaging – people can’t stop watching them once they start. And once they’re done they’re more likely to take action. That means they boost response – that’s more leads and sales – over other forms of marketing. Back then most people didn’t get it. They thought cartoons were for kids.
But the industry has caught on, and now you see cartoon commercials everywhere… and not just during the holidays.
So it’s great these cartoon commercials are out there. But here is where these ads fall short. They are created by big dumb agencies that want to differentiate their clients from the rest.
Good instinct.
But the execution of the idea is all wrong. And you can do so much more with cartoons than just be “different.” You could have a huge impact on your bottom line if done correctly.
Let me give you an example of holiday cartoon commercial gone wrong.
One of the major phone carriers is running a series of cartoon ads.
There are three issues with these holiday cartoons.
1. They are image based. Meaning they don’t say why someone should shop with this phone carrier versus the rest. The ad just shows a series of images of lists and people buying things.
2. There’s no way to track their success or failure. They say you waste half of your ad spend. The challenge is you don’t know which half. Holiday cartoon ads fit this bill.
3. It’s a color ad. Not that color is bad but in some tests we have run, hand-drawn ads that are black and red beat full color ads with the exact same audio file and message. Beat ‘em by over 200%.
The lesson here is that spending millions doesn’t guarantee your ad is successful. Big dumb companies blow millions on dumb ad agencies
who slap together some image-based holiday cartoon ads that aren’t effective.
But that doesn’t have to be you. You know what’s up. Smart marketers
measure the success of an ad through basic direct marketing principles,
like a call to action, which is something directing a customer to your offer.
This, along with getting you a lead or sale, allows you to measure the ad’s effectiveness.
At AdToons all our whiteboard cartoon video ads are based on direct response principles. We worship direct response… because we’ve seen it work a thousand times. This is one of many things that allow us to help our customers achieve greater success from dentists to doctors, travel agents to tech gurus, homebuilders to home repair experts… and everything in between… we’ve worked with just about every type of client in every industry you can think of. And bottom line, an AdToons video created with direct response in mind has worked for them.
So you’re pumped and ready to get moving on your AdToons video. Preparing ads for the holidays is probably not realistic. But we can get you started on creating a cartoon ad for the new year.
And not just the New Year’s holiday. Let’s put together a powerful AdToons video for the coming year that works for your business now and lasts for many years after. That’s the way to go. Like an annuity, many of our customers leverage their videos for several years.
Lots of holidays coming up. Our workflow is filling up. So if the idea if creating your own AdToons video interests you, procrastinate no more so you can get on the schedule.
Run over here and sign up so we can chat more about your video. Do it now while it’s top of mind.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best,
Vince Palko
The post How Big Dumb Companies Mess Up Holiday Cartoons ads appeared first on AdToons.