Greetings,

So, how do I look? Is my tie on straight? Hair combed? Freshly shaved? Can you tell since you’re only reading me? Probably not. Do you care?  Maybe, but I doubt it. But perhaps you should because my manner of dress is an outward reflection of what’s going on inside.  Don’t discount the value of packaging!

When I look good, I feel good. If I feel good,  I believe I do better work, feeling the part. When you surround yourself with quality, style and class, you tend to reflect that back to your viewers, readers, listeners, no matter how they receive your messages. Even if my communication to you is non-visual, I will exude that aura of confidence in my voice, my writing, my every mannerism will be on display based on how I dressed. You can be certain your audience is looking for any and all clues to gauge your level of quality, and the calibre of performance they can expect to see or hear or read from you

We opened this series with the urging of making a good First Impression. That will always stand you in good stead. That does not, for a moment, give you license, to treat the 2nd impression and each one after that as inconsequential. You are advertising YOU. The brand we are developing is you, my reader, and we want to make certain you are on your game, all the time, in every media, to every viewer, listener, reader. The continuity of the brand from media to media is vital to sustaining the image, reputation, and viability now and moving forward.

You should use multiple media to communicate your message. But that message should be consistent from media to media to ensconce trust and confidence. Several clients through the years have developed some ‘cracker-jack’ campaigns. Powerful. Insightful. Traffic Stoppers. Sales Generators. Then they take that hard earned image and try to shoehorn it into a media which diminishes its cache overnight.

It can take a lifetime to build a good reputation, and only seconds to destroy it when positioning is changed from its intent. Here’s a brief story which may echo some familiarity for you:

Several years back, one computer printer client had a leg up on the competition due to a proprietary ink cartridge system. The colour reproduction was crisper, cleaner, and the nuances between shades could be distinguished more readily than ever. Impressive stuff.

• This was an exciting opportunity to showcase this in the richness of high end consumer and trade magazines. 

• Vibrant backlit outdoor media to demonstrate magnified detail.

• A foray into On-Line would have been a perfect launchpad.

While I pressed long and hard for these to be the media of choice, it was decided that daily newspapers would be the deliverer of this new eye-popping colour explosion printer. No one has more affection and appreciation of the longevity of newsprint than yours truly. However, the reproduction capabilities of colour on newsprint, while better now, left much to be desired at the time.Several pricey ads were rendered unreadable on newsprint. The older printing presses could not do justice to the look necessary to make this an enviable printer to purchase.

All the effort the creative team went to, to straighten their tie, and polish up the ad. And the production team combed their hair, making sure colour balances were their best. All that combined effort could not undo the misstep of utilizing a media which had better strengths elsewhere than colour reproduction. To suggest the end result was not flattering is being kind. Sadly, that was a disheartening first impression for this new product launch.

On the plus side, it showed the client, more powerfully than anything I could say, it demonstrated the need for media which has the integrity of the look of the brand at it’s core each time. Subsequent campaigns changed media mixes. Newsprint was still a vital part of the campaign, but was smartly used for the strength of text delivery and less for graphics at that time. Does this mean don’t use newspapers? Hardly. Despite erosion to the digital world, print media remain an important component to our communications. But it’s vital, I believe, that your media vehicles, whichever they may be, are well chosen and adaptable to the message. You must maintain the integrity of the brand, allowing it to shine through no matter how your audience experiences it.

Tell me please, Do you like my tie?

Stay tuned.

P.S.  The year 1964 brought The Beatles to America.  Musically nothing rivals them before or since. But the forward thinking statement of that year-perhaps decade-came from Marshall McLuhan who famously coined the phrase ‘The Medium Is The Message.’

Solidifying his reputation of being ahead of his time, he opined that not only is the content of the message you deliver important, the media you choose to deliver that message is as important as the content itself.  Smart guy this Mr. M

P.P.S One simple step could save you as much as 50% of your media spend. Want to know what it is?