What Can We Learn From Korean Air?

NUGGETS FOR THE NOGGIN

By Jim "Gymbeaux" Brown

If you are in business, do you watch advertisements?  Better question:  Do you REALLY watch advertisements or are they just on television or in a magazine or newspaper and you simply “glance” over them?  Even better question:  Do you grade the advertisements you watch or read as to their effectiveness?  I do and so should you.

What can we learn from the Korean Air television commercial?  Actually a very valuable advertising and marketing concept.

How often do you think of Korean Air?  Before their most recent television commercials I would think – never.  At least for me it was never.  Then I watched their commercials.  

I remember vividly the first time I saw it.  It was not that men and women were over sized and superimposed on natural settings appearing as giants, it was because of what appeared to be three airline attendants walking side by side.  If you have seen the commercial surely you must have thought as I did, no one walks like these three women.  How stupid is that?  

Surprise, surprise, stupid maybe, memorable – absolutely.  I am writing about it am I not?

Think about Stephanie Courtney.  Who is Stephanie Courtney you ask?  Would you know if I called her Flo?  You probably know Flo.   Flo is dressed in all white and sells insurance.  Which insurance company?  Progressive Insurance.  Love her or hate her you know about Progressive Insurance because of Flo.  In fact if you look Flo up on the Internet under her real name Stephanie Courtney you may not even recognize her.

“How much wood can a woodchuck chuck?”  Does GEICO come to mind?

“Things go better with – COKE!”

Here is one that ages me, LSMFT.  If you know what that means you are older than I thought but I remember it as if it were on the tube just last night, Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco.  Do they even make Lucky Strikes anymore?

Just as old, “Timex, takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”  John Cameron Swayze

One more example, Cadillac.  Have you seen the television advertisement where they talk about how their new model can wipe rain drops away from the windshield at 190 miles an hour?  Who drives 190 miles an hour?  Who would want to?  How stupid is that ad?  Is it?  I am talking about it.  I have thought about it.  Did the advertisement work?  At least for me it did – I am recalling Cadillac am I not?

What can we learn from these companies and others?  

Whatever you do, give it time to work.  Do you think people remembered Coke because they initially came up with the slogan, “Things go better with Code” or did the message stick because they stuck with it?  Obviously because they stuck with it.  

Korean Air probably had no idea that the 2 seconds of their commercial would cause the ad, stupid as it appears, at least to me, would cause me to remember the air line.  Therefore, you never know what might click.  In fact Korean Air may not even know and then again maybe it is just me that found it unbelievable to the point of remembering it.

What are you doing to get people to remember who you are and what you do?  Are you thinking outside the box or are you simply doing what everyone else is doing and expecting different or better results?   Doesn’t that describe insanity?  Hmmmm?

Can we agree that the Internet is here to stay?  Do your own study.  Focus on television and print ads for just a day and count the number of times you see a company’s web address prominently identified in the advertisement.  I can save you the time – they don’t include it except for very few.  That is mistake number one.  Mistake number two is that when they do advertise a web address or an email address it is typically so small that you cannot readily read it.  Mistake number three is that the web address is so long or has so many words in it that again, it is difficult if not impossible to remember.

Correct me if I am wrong but just about everybody has cell phones and they keep it at their side constantly.  Most if not all of these phones have a built-in camera.  Put the phone/camera in YOUR hand.  You are reading a magazine or watching television and there appears an advertisement that catches your eye.  What good is your camera at this point?  If the company had included a QR code in their ad AND you had downloaded a FREE QR AP, you could use your camera to scan the QR code, yes even on your television set and immediately be taken to the company’s web site, or YOUR web site, hint, hint, hint!  Eventually everyone will be using a QR code at least until something better comes along.  If you want to be different, start using QR codes before everyone else does and especially on your yard signs where buyers passing by can obtain detailed information on your listing.

BE DIFFERENT; BE REMEMBERED.  In my area the car dealership advertisements all look and sound the same because they are the same.  None of them are memorable!  So why do they create them to where they are all the same?  I have no idea.  If you want to be different and also be remembered, check out this YouTube video for a car dealership.  You will probably remember it forever as I have; first saw it about 5 years ago.  Maybe one of the best advertisement series I have ever seen.  Johnson Automotive!  It is funny because it is based on some truths about sales people, certainly not you.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGJdNPiWZzQ

 

On being different and being remembered, I initially did it just to be funny.  I was checking in at a convention and the registration lady asked me what name I wanted on my Identification Card that you wear around your neck.  Don’t know what made me say it but I said “Gymbeaux” a phony Cajun take off on Jim Bo.  That was 1992 and the name stuck with me; one of the better things I have ever done.  Who remembers Jim Brown except for the football player?

And the kicker?  I took a photo of a bottle of Lemon Pledge and Pride the furniture polish.  I put the photo on the back of my business card.  When I gave someone the card I would explain;

“This card is special; you will want to keep it in your wallet/purse.  Whenever you are around people talking about their ‘pride and joy’ (usually kids, grandkids, dogs and/or cats), show them your pride and joy!”

There are people to this day that still have that card in their wallets/purses because there was a reason to keep it.

What reason do you give people to remember who you are and what you do?

 

ANY QUESTIONS?