The Commercial Opened with a tight close-up of a live turkey. As the off-camera announcer spoke, the camera pulled slowly back, and the turkey rested to the copy with an occasional" gobble ". The announcer said: At Tom Thumb we stand behind everything we sell... And that's a promise. It's always been that way. Even when we started, Mr. Cullum said, "We want our customers to be happy with every thing they buy in this store. If a woman buys a turkey from us and comes back the day after Thanksgiving with a bag of pones and says she didn't like it we'll give her money back or give her another turkey." The moment he said that, the turkey reacted with a big " gobble " and ran off-camera.
The commercial closed on the company lag with the announcer saying, "That's the way we do business at Tom Thumb... we stand behind everything we sell, and that's a promise." The company merchandised the campaign by printing the slogan " We stand behind everything we sell... and that's a promise". On grocery sacks, on red lapel buttons for employees, and on outdoor billboards. The audio portions of the commercials were aired as radio spots. Most important employee-orientation meetings were held to explain the concepts to the company's personal and to make absolutely sure that any customers returning merchandise received a friendly, cordial smile from the employee handling the transaction. The reaction to the campaign was astounding. First, it became the topic of local conversation. Then people began to wonder how many turkeys' people began to talk about the campaign and showed the commercial in their newscasts. Finally, the top disk jockey in Dallas sponsored a contest inviting listeners to guess how many turkeys would be returned to Tom Thumb. The day after Thanksgiving, the local TV film crews waited at the stores to count and interview people carrying in bags of bones. One customer said she returned a turkey and got her money back with no questions asked. Another said she was given her money immediately but that she then gave the money back. She had just wanted to test them to see whether they were telling the truth.
The final score was 30.000 turkeys sold and only 18 returned - a fantastic marketing, advertising, and publicity success. Since then, the store has been reported in numerous grocery and advertising trade journals, and Tom Thumb Page successfully continued the " we stand behind everything we sell " advertising campaign theme.
This " talking turkey " example shows that creativity in developing an ad campaign is just as important at the local level as it is on the national level, Local advertisers often fail to realize that their print and broadcast messages the budgetary constraints of local businesses, creativity becomes even more important in grabbing the consumer's attention. The final section of this chapter addresses elements that go into creating local ads, and the kinds of creative assistance available to local advertisers.
1.5 SEEKING CREATIVE ASSISTANCE
Local businesses have a number of sources they can turn to for creative help, including advertising agencies, the local media, free-lancers and consultants, creative boutiques, syndicated art services, and wholesalers, manufacturers, and trade associations.
CHAPTER 2. "PUBLIC RELATIONS, CORPORATE ADVERTISING, AND NONCOMMERCIAL ADVERTISING"
1. THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
Public relations (PR) is a term that is widely misunderstood and misused to describe anything from selling to hosting, when in fact it is a very specific communications process. Every company, organization, association, and government or says. They might be employees, customers, stockholders, competitors, suppliers, or Just the general population of consumers. Each of these groups may be referred to as one of the organization's publics. The process of public relations manages the organization's relationships with these publics.
As soon as word of the Valdez Spill got out, the PR staff at Exxon assumed responsibility for handling the barrage of phone calls from the press and the public and for managing all company communications with the media.
Simultaneously, other company departments had to deal with numerous local, state, and federal government agencies and with the community at large - not just in Valdez, Alaska, but anywhere in the world where someone was touched by the disaster. In addition, myriad other publics suddenly popped into the spotlight demanding special attention and care: Alaskan fishermen, both houses of congress, local politicians, the financial community, stockholder, employed, the local press, national networks, Exxon dealers, and environmental groups, for starters.
Companies and organizations know they must consider the public impact of their actions and decisions because of the powerful effect of public opinion. This is especially true in time of crisis, emergency, or disaster. But it is just as true for major policy decisions concerning changes in business management, pricing policies, labor negotiations, introduction of new products, or changes in distribution methods. Each of these decisions affects different groups in different ways. Conversely, effective administrators can use the power of these groups' opinions to bring about positive changes.
In short, the purpose of ever using labeled public relations is to influence public opinion toward building goodwill and a positive reputation for the organization. In one instance, the PR effort might be to rally public support; in another, to obtain public understanding or neutrality or in still another, simply to respond to inquiries. Well-executed public relations is a long-term activity that molds good relationships between an organization and its publics. Put yourself in the position of Exxon's top public relations manager at the time of the Valdez accident. What do you suppose was the major thrust of the PR staff's efforts in the days immediately following the discovery of the oil spill? What might they have been called on to do?
We will discuss these and other questions in this chapter. But first it is important to understand the relationship between public relations and advertising they are so closely related but so often misunderstood.
2. CORPORATE ADVERTISING
As mentioned earlier, corporate advertising is basic tool of public relations. It includes public relations advertising, institutional advertising, corporate identity advertising, and recruitment advertising. Their use depends on the particular situation, the audience or public being addressed, and the message the firm needs to communicate.
2.1 PUBLIC RELATIONS ADVERTISING
Public relations advertising is often used when a company wishes to communicate directly with one of its important publics to express its feelings or enhance its paint of view to that particular audience. The Claris ad in exhibit 18-7, for example, targets customers investors, and stock analysts. Public relations ads are typically used to improve the company's relations with labor, government, customers, or suppliers.
When companies sponsor art events, programs on public television, or charitable activities, they frequently place public relations ads in other media to promote the programs and their sponsorship. These ads are designed to enhance the company's general community citizenship and to create public goodwill. The ad in Exhibit 18-8 promotes an art exhibit ant southwestern Bell's sponsorship role.
2.2 CORPORATE/INSTITUTIONAL ADVERTISING
In recent years the term corporate advertising has come to denote that broad area of nonproduct advertising used specifically to enhance a company's image and increase lagging awareness. The traditional term for this its institutional advertising.
Institutional or corporate ad campaigns may serve a variety of purposes - to report the company's accomplishments, to position the company competitively in the market, to reflect a change in corporate personality, to shore up stock prices, to improve employee morale, or to avoid a communications problem with agents, suppliers, dealers, or customers.
Companies and even professional advertising people have historically questioned, or simply misunderstood, the effectiveness of corporate advertising. Retailers, in particular, have clung to the idea that institutional advertising may be pretty or nice, but that it " doesn't make the cash register ring ". However, a series of marketing research studies sponsored by Time magazine and conducted by the Jankelovich, Kelly & White research firm offered dramatic evidence to the contrary.
In the first of these studies, 700 middle- and upper-management executives were interviewed in the top 25 U.S. markets. The researchers evaluated five companies that were currently doing corporate advertising and five that were not. They found that the companies using corporate advertising registered significantly better awareness, familiarity, and overall impression than companies using only product advertising. In fact, the five corporate advertisers in the study drew higher ratings in every one of 16 characteristics measured, including being known for quality products, having competent management, and paying higher dividends. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the research was the fact that the five companies with no corporate advertising spent far more for total advertising than did the firms engaged in corporate advertising.
David Ogilvy, the founder and creative head of Ogilvy & Mather, has been an outspoken advocate of corporate advertising. However, he has been appalled by most corporate advertising, characterizing it as filled with " pomposity ", " Vague generalizations," and " fatuous platitudes". Corporate advertising has also been criticized for oblivious to the needs of the audience.
Responding to such criticisms and to other forces in the marketplace, corporations have made policies and campaigns. Expenditures for this type over the last decade. The primary medium used for corporate advertising is consumer (primarily business) magazines, followed by network television.
A change in message strategy has also accompanied this increase in corporate ad spending. In the past, most corporate ads were designed primarily to create goodwill for the company. Today with many corporations diversifying and competition from for ling advertisers increasing, these same firms find their corporate ads must do much more. Their ads must accomplish specific objectives- develop awareness of the company and its activities, attract quality employees, tie a diverse product line together, and take a stand on important public issues.
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