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Mistake 1. You don’t know the exact parameters of your target audience

What's better: a good ad for people you don't need? Or an unsuccessful announcement to the right people? If there is no third option, then an unsuccessful advertisement to the right people is more promising - some of them may not pay attention to the failure of the advertisement. But even the most wonderful masterpiece of advertising will not seduce “unnecessary” people.

How to: Look for a niche - a group of people who are particularly interested in your product and your service - and offer something strictly for them, taking into account their characteristics. One of the best ways to narrow the populace down to a small group is to study or imagine:

Select a group of people that will look unique and not mass - and make ads “for them”, according to their interests, for which you selected them.

If you can explore Facebook groups that match what you found in your research, go to them under your personal profile. Facebook will suggest related pages - and you will receive Additional information and potential impression channel. But ignore those groups that don't have a strong connection to buying your product.

You can also use this tool to gain insight into how your audience behaves, how they spend - and much more about them if you're interested.

Mistake 2: Having too wide an audience

You need to understand the composition of your audience - take some things from analytics, but also guess some with your marketing instincts. For example, it would be a mistake for an online coffee retailer to think that people who like Starbucks on Facebook (33 million followers in mid-2017) might be interested in buying your coffee. Perhaps a few of them are like that. But you’re unlikely to be able to recoup impressions from 33 million Facebook accounts.

How to: First, imagine the optimal audience size based on the ratio of investment in targeted advertising to lead conversion. For example, in the West, an audience that ranges from 500 thousand to 1.5 million people is often the best impression volume for many online stores.

If your audience is too large, try narrowing it down to new and emerging interests that your “main” audience should also cater to. If your audience is too small after this, try shuffling interests to create a wider range of users.

Mistake 3. You are impatient and often change campaign parameters

With any paid advertising, it may seem like you are losing money if there are no immediate results or sales. Sometimes online stores begin to reconfigure their ads immediately after publication so that they bring in customers as quickly as possible.

How to: Try not to make any decisions about your ads, such as pausing or retargeting them, until you reach 1,000 likes, clicks, or other leads that don't necessarily convert into purchases.

Only at this point will you have enough data to at least know who exactly was interested? what these people are like.

Impatience also hurts your advertising because you don't give Facebook the opportunity to learn over time, something the social network's advertising platform does. For example, you can set your campaign goals to “optimize based on purchases” - but of course, at the beginning, when you have zero sales, Facebook still has no way to optimize targeting based on purchases.

The main thing is not to rush and not change anything. Once you get your first customers, Facebook instantly becomes better informed about your audience - and can automatically optimize impressions to show "you" primarily to those who are very, very similar to your existing customers.

Mistake 4: You're working with multiple audiences

In marketing, the harm and unprofitability of simultaneously working with different audiences and different advertising for each of them is often underestimated.

Simultaneously testing different audiences on Facebook, each of which you bombard with different ads, will not tell you which gave better results, even if something went wrong .

You risk getting confused: did this audience work? Or did she just have a better ad? Or was the timing of the show better for her? or was it a combination of several things?

What if the parameters of the audiences are similar and a number of people fall into several of them? Or people visited your group and saw several ads in a row for different audiences - will it be very easy for you to analyze people’s reactions to such a heap of impressions?

How to: A small business can only learn something and save money if you test one audience at a time.

As much as you can, isolate each impression group, each ad, so that after such an experiment you can move forward with new knowledge. At a minimum, with knowledge about those groups of people to whom you should not show “yourself” at all - this vital information, which will save hundreds of dollars of your advertising investment.

Even if your main goal is to get sales, that's not the only possible "income" you can make from your ads. There is a lot of added value you can get from your ad to attract customers to you.

How to:

There is also invaluable knowledge that you can gain from your paid traffic. This is knowledge about how visitors navigate a page on a website: what they scroll through, when they leave the site, what they click.

This way you can find out if you have problems with your audience, with your website layout, or with anything else.

How to:

Error 7. You are not configured to receive data from Facebook Ad Manager

Many features in Facebook Ads Manager get lost in their own complexity. For example, not everything you see by default in Ads Manager is actually useful to you, but then not everything that is important to you is displayed by default.

How to: You should definitely customize your columns to get more information. It is worth adding the following:

Finally, you can also use the Breakdown options to analyze your ad performance based on a number of factors. This could be a report on the devices from which ads were sold. Or maybe a report on the gender difference in reactions to your ad - buyers vs. female customers.

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Errors in advertising are becoming more common today and spoil not only television commercials and billboards, but also Internet and video advertising. Some of them can cause tenderness and laughter, while others can lead to serious losses.

10 common mistakes in advertising

At one or another stage of a company's development, its management is faced with the issue of advertising placement, be it the use of complex marketing techniques or a banal sign. Some businessmen turn to the services of advertising agencies, and such a step is more than justified.

However, there are often cases when a businessman, in an effort to save money, starts developing advertising on his own or manages this process at his own discretion. This approach threatens to create a number of errors not only in advertising texts.

1. Ignorance of the laws of marketing.

The popular thesis “everyone should mind their own business” works worst of all in the field of advertising. Most entrepreneurs believe that only they know how to properly promote their company and that there is nothing difficult in creating advertising.

Such ideas are fundamentally wrong. By reading the literature and attending thematic seminars, a manager can gain a theoretical understanding of marketing, which will undoubtedly be his advantage.

However, gain practical experience much more complicated, but it is precisely its lack or complete absence that most often becomes the cause of errors in advertising and advertisements. Because of them, the company, having invested a lot of money in promoting the brand, does not get the desired result.

1. “Shove in the unshoveable.”

Many businessmen, when placing advertisements, strive to provide the audience with as much information as possible about their own company. Therefore, there are a lot of advertisements overloaded with information: a list of services, a list of store addresses, etc. Remember: by advertising everything at once, you are not advertising anything.

1. Ignoring basic advertising technologies.

Many businessmen believe that there is nothing complicated in writing advertising texts. However, even an ad consisting of two or three lines is not at all easy to compose. There are advertising technologies that were invented several centuries ago and have remained relevant to the present day.

These are AIDA (Attention-Interest-Desire-Action) and ODS (Offer-Time-Limit-Action). The viewer must hear a specific offer that he cannot refuse and which will force him to familiarize himself with the full range. For example, (O) All dresses are 500 rubles! (D) Only 5 days! (S) Hurry up to buy!

1. Copying advertising from market leaders.

Customers quite often say: “Give us advertising like MacDonald’s, but for little money.” It sounds quite strange, because it is impossible to buy a Mercedes for the price of an Oka! And even if there is a company that will take on such an order, you can be sure: the quality of advertising as a result will correspond to the amount of money spent.

No specialist will work at a loss to himself. Moreover, giant companies use other marketing technologies and strategy, so directly copying their advertising is unlikely to have any effect.

1. Selling a product, not value for the client.

Most people are not interested in goods and services as such, but in the benefits of using them. Therefore, offer not a new car, but unsurpassed comfort and an excellent reputation, not a metal door, but reliable protection from a thief.

Advertising should evoke certain feelings - desire, fear, etc. Advertising that awakens positive emotions and leaves a “positive” imprint on the brand will help increase brand loyalty.

1. Direct sales.

This mistake and the other one described above, about ignoring basic advertising technologies, often become the cause of a negative psychological reaction on the part of consumers. Many clients perceive such an offer as deception and a desire to take money from them.

Your main task is to unobtrusively push them to the first step, which will most likely be followed by a purchase. How to achieve this? If we are talking about, say, a dance school, you can invite those who want to take the first lesson for free, and then offer to extend the training.

1. Advertising without contacts.

This is a clear example of a small but very serious mistake in advertising. A potential client became interested in an attractive offer, but did not remember how and to whom he could contact.

The viewer is only able to remember a simple and short number, even if he has time to look at the advertisement, say, in a print publication. Analyze how a potential client can most easily contact you, and list only that contact in large font.

1. Advertising a company name, not a product or service.

The desire of any entrepreneur to tell the whole world about his company and the reverent attitude towards its name are quite understandable. However, the task of any advertising is to ensure that the viewer first of all remembers your product or service, and not the name of the company. The best option– combining the brand name and service in an advertising slogan.

1. Overdeveloped imagination.

Each of you has probably seen beautiful advertising stories that cause laughter or affection. Many viewers exchange such videos or retell their content to friends. The problem is that the advertising object is not remembered by potential customers. Therefore, when creating advertising, remember its main task - to promote goods and services.

1. Wrong target audience

Any action requires careful preparation. To create effective advertising, you should first determine its target audience. The most accurate method for doing this is analytical research based on focus groups and surveys.

First, draw up a detailed portrait of the consumer and only after that start selling. For example, not all owners of men's clothing boutiques are aware that their main target audience, oddly enough, is women - wives, mothers of teenagers, etc.

Practical experience shows that the cause of most errors in advertising is not advertising producers, but representatives of the advertiser (customers). It is these people who accept the work and dictate to the performers what needs to be done.

Agree, the situation when a patient pays a doctor for pills that he liked, and not for recovery, is puzzling.

Spelling errors in advertising

The most common spelling and grammatical errors in advertising

Often, even copywriters with extensive experience make spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors in their texts. The Russian language is quite complicated - once you relax a little, you will immediately expect retribution. Let's look at the most common mistakes in advertising.

• At the end of (semester), upon presentation of (passport), upon arrival (bus), upon completion of (study). Writing the letter "yu" at the end of each preposition is a mistake.
• As a result, during, like, in contrast to, in continuation, in completion, in conclusion are written with the letter “e” at the end and nothing else.
• Prepositions that are written together: instead of (you), towards (the ship), after (the girl), like (similar), about (talk about work).
• Handwriting (“handwriting” is an incorrect spelling of a word).
• Anime (ends with "e" rather than "e").
• Traffic (with one “f”).
• Bath (washing device), but bathroom
• It is necessary to distinguish between “Sunday” (day of the week) and “resurrection” - the miracle of the resurrection of God.
• Campaign (advertising) and company (organization) are written differently.
• When writing all texts (unless we are talking about personal letters and documents, as well as questionnaires), the address “you” should be used. The content of the sites is public, so the use of “you” in this case is unacceptable. This type of error in advertising texts occurs very often.
• Abroad. For example, last winter I traveled abroad. However, there is also “abroad” - a specific place, country. The expression is widely known: abroad will help us.
• Remember the word “scrupulously” - this is the only way to spell it.
• Catavasia - and nothing else.
• Unmeasured (extremely many). Word highlights this spelling of the word in red, but it is the only correct one.
• A firefighter is a firefighter, and a firefighter is a fire victim.

No less terrible linguistic errors in advertising

The most common linguistic errors in advertising are lexical errors, logical contradictions and stylistic defects.

Logical errors in advertising are no less common. For example: “We don’t use toothpaste anymore. We use Aquafresh. And although Aquafresh is nothing more than toothpaste, the advertising context suggests otherwise.

Or: “Windows are the face of your home!” In this case, advertisers draw an analogy between a house and some living creature, but the question inevitably arises: if a window is the face of a house, how many faces does it have?

Incorrect word usage is something that also plagues many advertising texts. The choice of word must obey a number of conditions. Any word should be used in accordance with the meaning it has. If a word has several meanings, then the phrase should be constructed in such a way as to reveal one of them.

Words that accurately express a thought - necessary condition when composing advertising text. Violation of this rule leads to speech errors in advertising and a decrease in its effectiveness.

For example, a travel company offers: “Spain (Tenerife). Do you dream of a good mood and a chocolate tan in winter? Warm ocean waters and sandy beaches will relieve you of the fatigue of the past year!”

The dictionary interprets the word “sandy” as “containing sand,” and “sandy” as “consisting of sand.” Therefore, if the text refers to a shore covered with sand, it is correct to use the adjective “sandy”.

Incorrect use of the meaning of words leads to a violation of the literary norm. This happens when the author does not know the rules for using a word or forgets that it has several meanings.

Consider the ad construction company, in which the phrase “build institutions” is used. From the point of view of the Russian language, you can build a residential building, a store, a warehouse, etc.

What does the explanatory dictionary say about the meaning of the word “institution”? Firstly, this is the establishment of a scientific society, the establishment of new orders; Secondly, non-profit organization, carrying out socio-cultural, managerial or other functions of a non-commercial nature. There is a lexical error in advertising, made without taking into account the meaning of the word.

Or, for example, “Our store’s assortment includes collars, napkins, tablecloths, and underwear from Vologda lacemakers.” A good example a curious situation that arose due to the absence of the noun “product” after the word linen.

There are also stylistic norms that define the rules for the use of linguistic means in accordance with the characteristics of the functional style, the laws of the genre, as well as the conditions and purpose of communication. Stylistic errors in advertising arise due to the unmotivated use of words of a different stylistic coloring in the text.

Verbal games in advertising texts undermine the existing norms of language, the reason for this is often the elementary illiteracy of the compilers, as well as the pursuit of originality. Due to shortcomings and errors, advertising not only becomes less effective and informative, but also often causes a negative reaction from viewers and readers.

It is hardly possible to call such methods of manipulation and influence on the consumer justified, especially if we are talking about the unformed lexical consciousness of the younger generation.

The most important requirements for advertising are its truthfulness and reasoned statements, confirmed by factual data (specific figures, descriptions of consumer properties of the product, scientific data, documentary information, opinions of authoritative people, etc.).

Experts agree that the verbal correctness of an advertising text and its design in accordance with linguistic norms should become not only the most important criterion for assessing the quality of an advertising text, but also one of the indicators of the veracity of the information offered.

The primary task today is to improve the language and style of advertising in print, on television, and on the Internet. When writing texts, you should use literary language, as well as literary (speech) forms. This will significantly improve the culture of speech, increase the information content and efficiency of mass communication.

Mistakes in creating outdoor advertising

Spelling, stylistic and logical errors are also common in outdoor advertising, and this list, unfortunately, is not exhaustive. What should a beginner pay attention to before starting to design a billboard?

Color range and color combinations

Color is the finest matter that can influence a person’s subconscious. In other words, using colors and the psychological characteristics associated with them, you can shape the consumer’s attitude towards trademark.

Psychologists say that the yellow color, symbolizing the sun and warmth, evokes pleasant emotions, but not everyone likes mustard or, say, dark gray.

• to create effective and stylish advertising, use contrasting combinations and color accents;
• One design layout should not contain more than three primary colors.

The emphasis is on the color of the model’s clothes and the brand logo: spectacular black, which stands out against the yellow, instantly attracts the attention of the audience, which moves to the beautiful hands in stylish gloves, then to the cigarette and gradually to the brand.

In this case, one glance is enough to see everything, and one word is enough to reveal the meaning of the advertising message.

Absolutely unreadable

Let's look at another example:

How great do you think are the driver’s chances of reading at least a third of the text and remembering the phone number? Yes, quite small.

Today, unreadable advertising can be found at every step, on any media - signs, billboards, city lights. Ads that are overloaded with small (small patterns, font) or large elements (for example, volumetric letters) are especially difficult to perceive.

That is why it is very important when working on advertising to take into account the location of its placement and the conditions under which the consumer will look at it.

Or, for example, if you are working on creating a sign, take the time to take a walk near the store where it will hang. Imagine a finished version of the advertisement and answer the question: would you pay attention to it?

Lack of creativity

It's amazing how many hard-to-read and downright ugly advertisements surround us. But advertising can easily be called a unique form of art. Why does it seem like marketers have completely forgotten about this?

Before your eyes is a vivid example of how sign design turns into a routine that has nothing to do with marketing.

Absurd advertising or over-the-top creativity

Such advertising is even more common today than ads devoid of creativity. Of course, there is plenty of stupid advertising in other countries, but the CIS countries are leaders in this regard. We bring to your attention eloquent examples.

Meanwhile, the sexual theme, which has become the basis of much of the absurd advertising, deserves a separate article. To make you feel the difference, we will give just one example of advertising in which sexuality is used on a completely different qualitative level.

Stupidity

Such mistakes in advertising (example in the photo) are in many ways reminiscent of off-scale creativity. It happens that an original idea, even with good execution quality, ends up looking ridiculous. Why is this happening? It turns out that it's all in the details.

Obviously, in this case, an analogy was used with a virtuoso hairdresser named Edward, the hero of the cult film by Tim Burton. The stylistic decision can be called quite successful - a minimalist black and white combination on high-quality glossy plastic. A simple and readable sans-serif font is used.

However, the question arises: how will such a title appeal to people who are not familiar with Burton’s picture? And what does a logo that looks like an egg have to do with the overall idea? Conclusion: a successful idea should always be followed through to completion.

Saving on designer

Design layouts that later turn into finished goods outdoor advertising are a direct and often the only connection between a company and consumers. But sometimes it’s not enough to just visit an agency and place an order for the production of outdoor advertising.

First of all, you should analyze what information and how you want to convey to the audience, whether advertising reflects the essence of your business. Not only the text will tell a potential consumer about your company, but also the objects and colors that he will see on the signs. High-quality design is something that every viewer without exception will appreciate.

Don't repeat these mistakes in online advertising!

– We produce fish fingers. Which advertising should we choose – contextual or search engine optimization?

– When looking for food, people very rarely turn to Yandex and Google, and the price per contact is unreasonably high. It’s worth taking a closer look at other channels – banners and online videos.

– We will consult with the central office on this matter... Still, let's talk about optimization or context.

So, many mistakes in advertising occur due to the fact that brand managers independently make decisions about choosing promotion methods, without taking into account the recommendations of employees of specialized agencies. Moreover, while small tactical mistakes can be corrected, strategic mistakes often become irreparable.

Let's look at these online advertising mistakes in more detail.

• Overload.

Often the cause of failure is non-compliance with the basic rules of text placement and design when creating banner advertising. Let's give an example. The owner of a baby food company contacted the agency to introduce a new series of products to consumers using online banners.

Internet marketers offered the entrepreneur a project of banners, in each of which the brand was clearly visible, the messages were short and clear, and each frame was independent of the others.

The client approved the banners, but demanded that each of them be supplemented with a description of the entire product line. Advertisers tried to explain that as a result the banner would be overloaded and the main message would become too difficult to remember, but their attempts were unsuccessful.

The businessman did not give up his demands, and also asked to bring short description each product in the advertisement. Then the customer had the idea of ​​​​creating an interactive character.

“This will negatively affect efficiency,” agency employees objected to him. But the client continued to insist on his own, having also decided that one character was not enough, he needed friends with whom the children could play.

The advertisers had to fulfill all the client’s wishes, and soon the banner was put into rotation. It could only be compared with the tasteless outfit of a provincial girl. As a result, out of a thousand people, only two became interested in the game, the rest simply did not understand its essence and advantages.

• Error with gender and age.

The effect of advertising is significantly reduced by blindly linking its placement to the content of the resource without taking into account the behavior of visitors. At the request of a large distributor of children's products, advertisements for the corresponding toys were placed on online cinema websites before the cartoon. The stories were popular with buyers, which ensured an increase in sales.

In an effort to repeat its success, but with racing cars, the company posted videos about them on the Russian website of the famous British car show Top Gear.

The mistake of advertising in this case was that it never reached its target audience - mothers and their children. The thing is that Top Gear is mostly watched by single men. As a result, the advertising campaign turned out to be practically useless.

• "Unformatted".

Let's imagine a bank that issues a new credit card for shopaholics. In an effort to keep costs to a minimum, management decided to organize the collection of applications through online promotion.

Employees of the advertising agency suggested that the bank rely on contextual advertising and use relatively cheap small “click-through” banners, customizing them by segment (say, “clothes and shoes”).

However, despite the desire to save money, the customer decided to supplement the offer with premium platforms for shoppers with the placement of large banners, the cost of which was several times higher than the price of the proposed compact ones.

What results did such advertising bring? The application price has increased sharply, while click-through banners and contextual placement would have cost at least three times less. At the same time, premium sites brought in much fewer applications than placements through other channels.

Image channels, which are more expensive per click, have shown their low efficiency in solving conversion problems (collecting applications, etc.) and have proven themselves to be an ineffective use of the advertising budget.

The main purpose of large image formats, clicks on which are often expensive and do not lead to the user taking an action on the site, is to display advertising to a potential client.

• Advertising is out of place.

To reduce the cost of contact and expand audience reach, large companies, in addition to TV, use a tool such as online video. TNS data shows that 40 million people access the YouTube video service every month, and in terms of this indicator it leaves many TV channels far behind.

The owners of a popular cosmetics brand decided to post an advertising video on YouTube. The main condition was payment solely for viewing the entire video, that is, the company does not pay for the contact if the viewer does not finish watching the video.

As a result, the reason for the customer’s dissatisfaction was a small share of full views and a large number of skipping advertisements. The video service staff recommended that the client re-edit the video and change its sluggish beginning, which was unable to involve the user in watching.

In addition, the client was offered a benefit in the form of the opportunity not to pay for the first five seconds of the plot. However, the client refused free five-second contacts, and full views were still few and far between.

As a result, the budget allocated for online video was not fully spent, and the customer paid only for the stories that the visitor watched to the end. Yes, money was saved, but the advertising campaign did not achieve its main goal.

• Problems with contact depth.

Thanks to online advertising, companies have the opportunity to step by step increase the depth of contact with the audience: first, this is acquaintance and studying the benefits (videos and banners), then a more detailed study of information (advertising articles). It is impossible to move to the second stage without going through the first.

The managers of a large company specializing in the production of medicines decided to promote a drug to support immunity through advertising articles. However, as it turned out, only 20 percent of the target audience (mothers with children) are familiar with the medicine; for the rest, the mention of its name in articles does not mean anything.

At the same time, placing banners on sites that are popular among mothers would make it possible to tell at least 60 percent of the audience about the brand, and advertising articles - only 5 percent. Of course, further interaction with these 5 percent will be of better quality, but they will not be able to provide the required sales volume.

Due to mistakes made in advertising, its budget was spent ineffectively: one view of an article by a user cost the customer 20 rubles. At the same time, exposure to the brand in a banner format, which the customer ignored, would have cost him several times less.

• Unjustified ambitions.

Another common misconception is the desire to rise to the most prominent positions with the help of contextual advertising. How does this happen in practice? A new cosmetics company needed to attract visitors to its website, which is not an online store.

As a tool, the company used contextual advertising, or more precisely, advertisements in the Yandex and Google search engines. The advertiser competed with online stores at the auction, and the cost of a click reached 20-30 rubles.

Instead of searching, the client was asked to use the Yandex and Google advertising networks, where the cost per click is almost three times lower. As a result, with a similar budget, not only the number of transitions to the customer’s website increased, but also such indicators of the quality of clicks as time on the site and browsing depth significantly improved.

During strategic planning campaigns, it is important to correctly identify goals and identify online advertising tools. Of course, you can hammer nails with a drill, but why, if you can do it with a hammer.

And you don’t need to come up with a technique for driving nails in with a drill - this is an absolutely pointless activity, you just need to work with a hammer from the very beginning. Advertising without errors, as an ideal business, does not exist. Mistakes and failures happen to everyone, but it is important to draw the right conclusions from mistakes so as not to repeat them.

Errors in contextual advertising

There are many of them, but we will look at the main ones. So, the 10 most common contextual advertising mistakes:

You launch advertising without analyzing the market

There is always a risk that your topic is simply not suitable for contextual advertising. Let's say you are the owner of an online store. cutting boards with sides. Such a product is not searched for purposefully, so contextual advertising in this case will not be effective.

The same goes for, say, some cool mask made of black clay against blackheads, children's smartwatches with a GPS tracker, laughing shaking hamsters, etc. Such products are in wow demand - you may not even be aware of their existence, but as soon as you see them, the desire to buy immediately appears.

If your goal is to introduce your audience to a new product on the market (the so-called unformed demand), you can use targeted advertising. If demand is low, advertising with related (indirect) phrases will help, but it is important to set it up correctly.

It also happens that the system predicts many impressions per month, but analysis of nested queries allows us to determine that users are not interested in bank guarantees as a service. If you set up a display for the keyword “bank guarantees”, then the ad will be shown for all these queries, most of which are not targeted.

This explains the need to conduct a thorough market analysis, competitive environment. Perhaps your product needs a different way of promotion. It is also worth considering that many users are suspicious of sites from advertising results, especially if they are dedicated to the topic of loans, bank guarantees and the like.

It often happens that users read your website with interest, but go to a real bank or offline store to conclude a transaction. In other words, there are clicks, but sales are passing you by. Websites often encounter this problem. finishing materials, plumbers, etc.

You launch advertising without evaluating your competitors

Even if you offer the most favorable terms for customers, never forget to compare yourself with other companies. Remember that the market today is full of offers.

Furious competition leads to users being in constant search better conditions, and they are interested not only in favorable prices and speed of delivery. A convenient, simple website with an attractive design will be your advantage.

Seasonality is also of great importance. If you are selling Christmas trees, then take care to launch an advertising campaign before December. Timely preparation will not allow potential buyers to go to competitors.

You strive to get high reach with low traffic

Launching contextual advertising is painstaking work and considerable expenses. As practice shows, experienced specialists reduce the cost per click over time. It will take about three months to set up your ad correctly, taking into account all the tests.

If you don't have experience, don't expect to do everything quickly and perfectly. Analyze statistics and draw the right conclusions, which will help you avoid mistakes in advertising in the future.

You are wasting your budget

The next extreme is that many beginners forget about saving and spend their monthly budget in a couple of days. With this approach, you should not expect high efficiency from advertising.

Of course, you should aim for first place if your site is dedicated to a topic such as, say, “opening car locks.” If you offer goods that are not in immediate demand, then less noticeable positions may also be optimal for you. They will help you maintain attendance and avoid unnecessary costs.

Don’t forget about proper distribution of your daily budget. Let's say you sell wedding dresses. For example, in the Yandex advertising network, due to beautiful picture They can tell you your monthly budget in one day. That’s why it’s so important to control the budget, test and analyze it.

You have developed an advertising campaign, but do not launch it

Just before launching an advertising campaign, it may not seem ideal to you. Cast aside doubts, even if your advertising is not entirely professional! IN contextual advertising There are no exact ways, but any accumulated statistics will allow us to draw conclusions that will certainly find their practical application in the future.

You have chosen the wrong semantic core

Professionals are often asked to analyze advertising campaigns with low efficiency. And the problem often lies in the incorrect selection of keywords.

The main attention should be paid not to the quantity of key phrases, but to their quality. To avoid mistakes in advertising in Yandex. Direct, when creating your first campaigns, use the most targeted words possible. In the future, you can get additional traffic to your site by adding campaigns for indirect keywords and competitors.

You are creating irrelevant ads

Make it a rule to create a separate ad for each keyword. This will not only increase the productivity of the ad, but also easily track statistics and make timely adjustments.

Write a unique text for each keyword (for example, that there is a 30 percent discount on children's jackets, and a free bag with a dress). If a potential client is looking for a coat, then he will be attracted by an ad with words about a coat. In a general ad, you will only be able to use general phrases (“discounts,” “special offers,” etc.).

You have configured your geolocation incorrectly

For displays, choose only the region that you are able to serve. If you sell budget jewelry in Murmansk, then launch advertising in your region. The thing is that for residents of other cities, delivery of your goods may be unreasonably expensive.

You ignore additional advertising system tools

We bring to your attention an example of an ad using additional features. Such advertising not only provides users with comprehensive information about the product, but is also more noticeable in the search results:

Try to closely monitor the new products announced by advertising systems and promptly add them to your campaigns. This approach will give you a significant advantage over your competitors.

You are not managing the advertising campaign

So, you've launched an ad. Do you think that now all you need to do is replenish your campaign balance in a timely manner and get new clients? Unfortunately, it is not. Any advertising campaign needs constant improvement, which consists of tracking statistics, changing ineffective ads, testing new features, etc.

The main mistakes of targeted advertising

The purpose of the target is a targeted appeal to the audience, and not media coverage of everyone and everything. Experts identify 5 groups of targeted advertising errors.

• You do not set limits on ad and campaign budgets.

Correctly calculating the cost of funds in advertising campaigns with an auction system is not an easy task. Remember the basic rule: money must be given to the system in parts. If you give her access to the full amount, you risk losing all the funds.

At the initial stage, the pilot budget should be spent, having worked out all controversial issues on it. Next, select the most successful ads and estimate in what time frame and for what amount they can bring results. Only after this add the main budget to the campaign.

Eg, social network VKontakte offers limits on the maximum amount that can be set both for one ad and for a campaign or group of ads. The system will not charge you more than the limit; instead, once the limit is reached, it will simply stop the ad.

• You spend money ahead of schedule, or, on the contrary, save too much.

How to keep up with the times?

The higher the bid and CTR (click-through rate), the faster the funds are spent, thereby shortening the advertising period. The lower the bid and CTR, the slower the budget is spent, and the campaign, accordingly, lasts longer. It is important to know that the CTR metric is floating, so it is recommended to change the time by bid.

To get the required volume of transitions/impressions in a short period, it is enough to raise the bid higher than the proposed system. Reducing the rate below that offered by the system will allow you to get the required volume of conversions over a long period and at a minimum price.

• You measure CTR, not conversion.

CTR allows you to judge how interesting your ad is to the audience, but it does not say anything about the popularity of the final offer among users.

A low CTR means a high conversion rate (362 clicks 107 subscriptions = 3 to 1).

A high CTR indicates a low conversion (five clicks one subscription = 5 to 1).

In this case we are talking about deceiving the user. Therefore, if your ad promises a unique discount, then this is exactly what the user should see on the site. If the ad is about communication, then the audience should see a platform for communication.

• Lack of targeted appeals and appeals.

There is a risk that the person will not take action until you directly tell him what to do. Targeted advertising is aimed at specific groups of people, so if you have the opportunity to address a person, feel free to use it.

So now you have an understanding of many of the major advertising mistakes and can easily find and correct them in your campaign.

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An unsuccessful marketing campaign can result in lost budget and decreased sales. This is often faced by both individual entrepreneurs and owners of startup companies, as well as heads of large organizations.

We have prepared a selection of 10 typical mistakes marketers that can cause a campaign to fail, with examples of successful and bad decisions. Read in the article what difficulties businessmen face, how to avoid mistakes and correct them by investing a minimum of funds.

From this article you will learn:

10 most common mistakes marketers make

A common mistake marketers make is to neglect strategy development, analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of promotion channels, or to develop a campaign strategy without first setting goals. Entrepreneurs often pay for advertising without a well-thought-out plan and strategy. They “inflate” or “waste” the budget without investing in developing a brand and quality advertising content.

We have collected 10 classic “blunders” of marketing departments and entrepreneurs who do their own promotion.

Poor name, logo and their design

It is important to carefully think through the name, sign and colors, slogans and melodies by which consumers recognize you - your brand will be built on these components. If the components were initially chosen incorrectly, this will certainly affect the results of the marketing campaign. They are especially important when the company has just entered the market and the campaign is the first in its life.

Cafe “Stolovaya” or beauty salon “ADB” (owner’s initials) are examples of boring names on which it is impossible to build a recognizable brand. The problem may also be due to poor design - too bright or dull colors, unreadable font, poor-quality packaging of the product that should be advertised.

The company or product name should not be associated with swear words, funny words, competing companies, or drugs. We told a story that the target audience will remember and love.

The famous Korean noodles "Dosirak" in Russia were called "Doshirak" so as not to cause funny associations. The French baby food brand “Bledina” also caused a mixed reaction among Russians. There were also problems with the launch of the energy drink Cocaine, which the target audience refused to buy because of the provocative brand.

The provocative brand “Cocaine” repels the buyer, but a clear and succinct inscription combined with a successful design attracts

The brand should not evoke unnecessary associations

Harm. If a company is just entering the market and no one knows it, then correctly declaring its brand is very important. An unsuccessful brand leads to it not being remembered, confused with another, or bypassed. The name and design of the brand do not catch on, do not create an emotional connection and do not motivate to buy the product, and sometimes even repel - the brand is poorly recognized, and the products are not bought. Branding is also important for those who have been working in the market for a long time, because recognition affects sales and helps to stay ahead of competitors.

How to fix. Measure brand awareness using a survey and calculate BrandForce (BF) - an indicator of brand strength (recognition). This is necessary to understand whether there is a problem or not. Knowing how consumers evaluate your brand can help you understand whether your company needs a rebrand.

Use the formula:

BF = (share who know the brand(%) : 100) × (share of those who identified the strongest emotion of the brand (%) : 10) + number of brand properties that exceed consumer expectations

The minimum BF value is 1.5, the maximum is 10. Brand awareness measurements can be ordered from a company that conducts opinion polls.

The cost of one questionnaire depends on the sample size, the complexity of the survey and other factors, but on average it costs 170 - 200 rubles. You can order a survey online or conduct it yourself by posting it on your website or social network.

The share of those who know the brand of your chips, “Antoshka-Kartoshka,” in the total number of store visitors is 7%, of which only 1% are completely delighted with them. In the survey, consumers identified only one property of the chips that they did not expect to receive upon purchase - the unusual taste of horseradish.

We calculate the strength of the chips brand: 7%: 100 × 1%: 10 + 1 = 1.007

A score below the minimum level means a rebrand is needed. The new brand should be simple, meaningful and original. Rebranding includes changing the image, name, assessing the position of the brand relative to competitors and developing a new brand strategy.

Typically, branding agencies do not publish prices on the website, since in each case the budget is calculated individually. According to media reports, rebranding costs an average of 1.2 to 1.5 million rubles.

The rebranding of the Moscow metro, which was carried out by the design studio of Artemy Lebedev, cost 232 million rubles. Costs include brand research, development of a visual image and corporate identity.

The development period for a new brand is 20–30 days, and for large businesses up to 4–5 months. You can find the artist on the website of the Association of Branding Companies of Russia. You can create a logo design on a budget from a freelancer on one of the content exchanges (fl.ru, kworks.ru, etc.). It costs from 3 thousand rubles, but the result depends on luck.

There is no clear focus on your audience

The target audience of car insurers is car owners and companies with a fleet of vehicles. An insured who bought a car on credit is interested in saving on insurance and automatic remote renewal of the policy. Legal entities I'm interested in discounts and bonuses for wholesale insurance.

Knowing your target audience helps create an effective marketing strategy. For example, boxed products for car borrowers who actively offer Insurance companies— CASCO with restrictions, at a lower price, but covering all the borrower’s risks.

An attempt to reach everyone with a product or service at once can lead to the product being unclaimed.

Launching jeans for everyone on the market, the manufacturer used only thin models in advertising

Harm. Ignorance of the target audience leads to pointless waste of money on ineffective advertising. Instead of studying the needs and habits of the client and focusing on targeted attacks, the company “inflates” the advertising budget, but it does not produce a return.

How to fix. Study the target audience and the most active consumers using surveys, marketing research, communicating on social networks and studying reviews on the site. If you offer many different products, then you need to segment your target audience. This makes it easier to choose the appropriate promotion methods for each segment. For example, for a youth audience - social networks and viral advertising, and for pensioners - print or banner advertising.

Portrait of the target audience:

• demographics (gender, age, education, work);
• geography (region, country, language);
• values;
• Problems;
• interests;
• level of computer skills, access to applications;
• activity;
• solvency.

It is necessary to study consumers every year, because the interests of the audience may change due to the emergence of new products, fashion and other factors.

The mobile application market, according to App Annie, will grow by 18% annually. Russia is one of the leaders in application downloads, it is in the Top 5 for App Store and Google Play downloads in the world, so consumers will be increasingly interested in their availability every year. Conduct a survey to find out the interests of your target audience and get an effective sales channel, ahead of your competitors.

Do not limit yourself to a superficial study of the target audience. Knowing their favorite books, films, radio stations and TV programs will help them choose promotion channels and create interesting, creative content.

Failed copying of competitors' work

Brand wars are a common phenomenon in the market. In the fight for clients, companies try to stand out and get ahead of each other. But blindly copying a competitor's marketing will not lead to anything good.

For example, a competitor places banners or throws the entire budget into distribution, and you rush to do the same without even analyzing the results of his campaign. This is often dictated by the fear of falling behind and losing clients.

Copying can also happen unconsciously. For example, both companies created an online store from similar free templates or ordered advertising from one agency that decided to save on creative.

Harm. The main problem is wasting your marketing budget. Consumers will confuse your product with your competitors' products and will not visit your websites or stores. Attachment to the actions of a competing company leads to a lack of independent development. If competitors take a hit and change promotion channels, gradually optimizing marketing budgets and plans, you are marking time, not achieving results.

For competitive analysis need to:

• know 10 companies with which you are forced to compete for a client and their main marketing tools;
• find offline advertising and competitor sites. Analyze the sites through the services Wordstat, Similarweb, AdVodka, etc. This will show how high their traffic is, where the client “runs” from;
• Find out consumer opinions about your competitors through surveys, reviews on websites and social networks.

How to fix. Instead of blindly copying, analyze the advantages and disadvantages of your competitors' campaigns. Develop your own marketing strategy that takes into account the identified problems or is radically different from someone else’s.

Analysis of a competitor’s website will show what requests and in what quantity visitors come from, from which regions there are more requests, how many lost customers, etc.

If it is difficult to carry out the analysis yourself, then you can order it from a contractor company that deals with marketing research.

Sometimes, in order to break away from competitors, radical marketing is used - provocative slogans and original promotions, competitions, prize draws.

While competitors are busy designing pizza boxes, you can start giving away a second pizza at pickup or selling a third one at half price. You can announce a party for customers, during which you are allowed to try all types of pizza, or hold fun competition to eat it.

Incorrect distribution of marketing budget

Too little or too much of an advertising budget can be detrimental. It should be distributed through effective promotion channels and align with campaign goals. If a product is suitable for all consumers, such as soap or toothpaste, then 70-80% of the budget should be spent on TV advertising, billboards, print advertising and other direct tools. This is exactly the approach that sellers of this type of product take.

If the goal of advertising is to increase sales of an online store, then 90% of the budget should be allocated to digital tools: SEO, contextual advertising, targeting, etc. Installing billboards with the address of an online store can be one of the final activities when consumers easily find the site in search engines and often go to his page from social networks.

Typically the budget is based on projected profit and is equal to 1 - 5% of sales. If you do not plan expenses or invest only the remaining funds, then important tools may not receive enough funding and the effect of the campaign will not be the same.

Harm. The success of a marketing campaign depends 90% on optimally calculated investments in it. Funding ineffective tools with finances leads to unnecessary expenses, and situational expenses give short-term results.

How to fix. Analyze a previous marketing campaign and understand which tools were effective and which were not. To do this, an analysis of key performance indicators (KPIs) is carried out.

In marketing, these include metrics:

• attendance;
• percentage of visits converted into purchases - conversion, bounce rate (if we are talking about online marketing);
• average check size;
• return on investment in advertising - ROI.

ROI is calculated using the formula:

ROI = ((marketing revenue − marketing expenses) : marketing expenses) × 100%

In this formula, marketing revenue refers to the profit received from the sale of a product sold through an advertising campaign. Marketing expenses - expenses for organizing all marketing activities (payment for advertising, promoters, etc.).

The coefficient must be at least 100%. If the number received is less, then the marketing campaign did not pay off.

ROI is calculated for each promotion channel separately and for their totality.

It is better to completely remove unprofitable tools from the marketing campaign plan or reduce them to a minimum. For example, if distributing leaflets is effective, we increase expenses for promoters. And if advertising on social networks is unprofitable, we change the presentation or look for other promotion channels.

The average check is calculated using the formula:

RR = revenue for the period: number of orders for the period

A decrease in the average bill, if it is not associated with a seasonal decline in activity or a reorientation to cheaper goods, may indicate an outflow of customers (including due to the economic crisis).

Considering the KPIs, create a new optimized budget based on the expected profit or cost of the product.

Ignoring SEO, social networks, the Internet

Refusal to promote on the Internet is becoming increasingly rare. However, it happens that the strategy itself is chosen incorrectly or startups do not understand the benefits of SEO optimization of a website or social networks as channels for promoting their product.

The website of a clothing store may be “dead” - with poor product descriptions, blurry photographs, and hanging customer questions that no one answers. This means they are not working on the online page.

Beginning entrepreneurs often copy product descriptions from suppliers, not taking into account that consumers go to other people's sites by sending queries to a search engine. The lack of communication with clients on social networks leads to the fact that only a few people go to the site, and the entrepreneur himself knows nothing about the needs of his target audience.

Harm: While competitors build online presences, launch mobile apps, and increase online sales, you remain in the 1990s.

The future is e-commerce, every year. In Russia, according to forecasts for 2018, the growth was 18%, the market volume reached 1.115 billion rubles. Having an online presence allows you to increase your customer base, make your brand recognizable and expand the geography of purchases, including through foreign buyers.

Example of large direct traffic to the site

How to fix. Ordering SEO for a website and creating interesting accounts on social networks is the bare minimum. To promote, come up with an original promotion that will encourage social network users to rush to your website and buy the product.

For example, organize games in the style of “Choose a gift on the site”, where, if the conditions are met, the buyer can choose a product as a gift, purchase exclusive products, or launch an unscheduled “Black Friday”.

The easiest way to promote your website is to find a digital agency. Its services will cost 12 - 50 thousand rubles per month, such prices are offered by 1PS, Skobeev, ArtSide, Leaderweb. The texts will be optimized for search engines, the design will be improved, and search engines will begin to show your site on the first pages.

Website traffic before website SEO optimization

Website traffic after SEO optimization of the website

Lack of clear marketing planning

Lack of a marketing plan is a problem for small companies. This is usually due to lack of money. Some people pay for advertising unsystematically, without planning anything or setting goals, while others pay for 2-3 TV spots and, not seeing any return, stop. A normal campaign takes at least 3-6 months and is calculated down to the smallest detail.

Harm. Lack of a clear plan can ruin the entire strategy.

How to fix. Define marketing campaign goals and develop a strategy. If you need to increase online sales, focus on website promotion activities: SEO optimization, contextual advertising, social media development, etc. You can create an interesting blog on the website that will be cited, and only a set of these tools will lead to achieving the goal. Having thought through a set of paid and free promotions, calculate the final budget.

Example marketing plan on introducing a new yogurt to the Moscow market

Lack of creativity: boring advertising, posts, news, newsletters

Spending a lot on boring marketing is not effective. Advertising should not look like a newspaper ad with a themed picture. You need to come up with an original slogan, attract interest with an unusual presentation, and an original color scheme.

In social networks, newsletters and news, messages about company life and boring posts “about nothing” repel readers. Your recent meeting with business partners or the opening of the 104th ATM in the Republic of Mari El means nothing to them. All this, if you don’t add a touch of creativity, resembles spam. People quickly unsubscribe from such pages so as not to litter their feed, and the news on the site is read only by those who compose them.

Harm. The target audience does not form an emotional connection with the product and service. Advertising does not increase sales, and the messages that the company puts into it are not understood. Half-dead social networks with formal posts do not stimulate transitions to the company’s website, reviews and reposts.

How to fix. Find a good copywriter and SMM specialist or order advertising from a creative marketing agency. The design and slogans of advertising, the style of information posts and mailings must be linked to the entire marketing strategy of the company.

Advertising must be memorable no matter what it is to sell. Companies spend billions of dollars every year on promotions designed to engage their target audience, be informative, promote their brand, and make it recognizable. But more and more often we are witnessing how attempts to stand out from the crowd of competitors lead to advertising campaigns that only cause irritation and shame.

The 15 pathetic marketing parodies discussed below left a dark stain on the reputations of those involved in their creation, reduced sales and made Don Draper turn in his grave.

Sexist Dockers slogan "It's time to put your pants on"

This ridiculous Dockers ad is so riddled with misogyny that it reads like a parody of bad marketing. First of all, 165 words of text crammed into a tiny rectangle is simply hard to comprehend. If you manage to get over yourself and read through to the end, you'll be faced with a sexist tirade that argues that men are no longer the stronger sex, so they need to start wearing "real pants" again. And all this is argued by the fact that women open doors on their own, and men drink low-fat lattes and eat salads.

Right! Fuck modern society with equal rights for women who no longer need men's permission to enter a building! Where do these salad eaters come from, refusing real "manly" food that will clog their arteries and kill them by age 52? And all these feminists with their lattes! Disdain oozes from the text, and it evokes everything except the main thing - the desire to buy pants.

What's the best way to advertise a cool gaming console? Show off stunning graphics? Or release exclusive versions of games? No, perhaps it is better to make the consumer associate the product with a frightening baby who seems to be possessed by the devil.

The 2007 campaign looks less like a Playstation 3 commercial and more like a teaser for Lars von Trier's new film. A terrifying baby doll sits in a white room, where there is nothing but a console, and as a sound design eerie music plays, like the soundtrack to nightmares. The doll begins to laugh hysterically, then cries, but the tears return to the eyes. "What was it?" - a natural question arises after watching.

This is not even an intriguing teaser that was shown a couple of times and forgotten. No, that was Sony's main advertising campaign for the PS3. The company later clarified what it meant: the Playstation is such a powerful console that a baby experiences a wide range of emotions when it sees it. But no one understood this; the average viewer perceived the video as another experimental project in the field of contemporary art or a new version of the video from “The Ring.” Witnesses of this masterpiece spent many sleepless nights, and the start of sales of the console had nothing to do with it.

McDonald's call for copulation with a hamburger

The provocative slogan “Double cheeseburger? I would have screwed it up! $1 menu for me.”

Large companies try to use Internet slang in advertising, trying to show the target audience that huge faceless conglomerates run by 50-year-old men in formal suits are on the same wavelength. But first they should have learned more about the meanings of the phrases used in multi-million dollar campaigns.

Apparently no one at McDonald's cared about this before releasing the ad in 2005. It appeared online and consisted of three banners with the words of a teenager: “Double cheeseburger? I'd hit it." The last expression can be translated into Russian as “I would blow,” which is a well-known euphemism for “I want to have sex.” And this is advertising largest network fast food in the world, not just another piece of American Pie!

A stinking spread in a magazine about Nintendo Power games, the meaning of which is still unclear.

Earthbound, an RPG released in 1994, gained a cult following but was a complete failure upon release in the United States. This happened for a number of reasons, one of which was a ridiculous advertising campaign. Nintendo spent $2 million promoting Earthbound, and much of that money went toward smelly magazine pages that emitted foul odors.

The centerfold of a now-forgotten Nintendo Power magazine included the words: "Because this game stinks." There was a strip in the middle that really stank terribly when rubbed. For the brave souls who dared to rub it, the entire magazine acquired the smell of dirty skunk smoked over a fire.

Other notes included a picture of an air freshener with the caption: "If you want to play Earthbound, you'll need this." Other slogans included: “It's like living inside your shorts after the gym,” “We warn you: the game stinks,” “Comes with smells worse than Pull My Finger,” and “We've got plenty of stink left in stock.” "

Who was this supposed to attract? According to Nintendo, the average gamer just wants to smell sweaty shorts? The advertising campaign definitely managed to stand out from the rest, but not in in a good way.

LifeLock company provides services for the protection of personal data. What could endear her better than a CEO publicly disclosing his real Social Security number? The company, you see, is so good that Todd Davis can freely disclose any personal data! “Yes, that's my Social Security number,” the banner ad reads. - No, I'm not crazy. I just trust our system.”

The experiment could either justify itself or end sadly. Guess what ended up happening? After the launch of the advertising campaign, Davis' personal data was used by attackers more than 13 times. The idea itself was not bad, but the shortcomings of the promotion turned it into a powerful anti-advertising. If a company can't protect the CEO's information, how will it protect yours?

Dr. Pepper - a drink “not for women”

In 2011, employees of Dr. Pepper discovered that men were dismissive of diet drinks as feminine, resulting in a poorly conceived ad for a 10-calorie soda. In the television commercial, a brutal macho man blows things up as he runs, pretending to be an action hero, and then says to the camera: “Hey, young ladies! Do you like the movie? Of course not, because it’s for men.”

Apparently the logic is this: Dr. Pepper 10 is a drink for real men, because women only watch romantic comedies while drinking their girly drinks. The official slogan (“Dr. Pepper 10: Not for Women”) only made things worse. Excluding 50% of your target audience is not a good marketing move. The ad is based on the stereotype that girls don't like action movies. Perhaps this was a clever trick of reverse psychology aimed at making women buy the drink out of a sense of contradiction? But people are not that stupid. This would pass for subtle satire if it weren’t so unfunny and tasteless.

Miracle Whip Sauce Rebranded: Hipster Mayonnaise

It used to be that you could piss off an American child with just the mention of Miracle Whip salad dressing. In 2009, Kraft decided to rebrand and, of all the possible ideas, chose the most ridiculous one: advertising its product as a punk rock alternative to mayonnaise.

A video was broadcast on TV in which a group of hipsters ate sandwiches, played the guitar and danced to rock music on the roof, because nothing makes you want to go wild like sauce on a three-layer sandwich. All this was accompanied by the following text: “We will not be silent. We don’t want to pretend, to blend in with the crowd, to remain in the shadows. We are not like everyone else. We will not try to change ourselves. We are a blend of unique spices. We are Miracle Whip and we are not going to turn down the volume."

This attempt to appeal to a young audience backfired and caused nothing but laughter. When Stephen Colbert made a parody of the ad, Kraft responded with public insults and assertions of its own superiority. Speaking badly about young people’s favorite comedian while trying to establish contact with them - you can’t imagine anything worse!

JC Penny and the accidental use of Hitler's image

Somehow it turned out that not a single JC Penny employee noticed: the teapot bears a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler - the spout with a bell shows the “Sieg Heil” gesture, the lid is topped with a “mustache”, and the handle repeats the outlines of the dictator’s hairstyle. This is not so noticeable up close, but when looking at the billboard from afar, the image of Hitler is clearly visible. Considering that billboards are designed to be looked at from a certain distance and briefly, it turned out badly.

It's unlikely that this was done intentionally, but JC Penny was inundated with complaints, so the ad had to be removed. The teapots began to quickly sell out in online stores, so it is possible that all this is some kind of well-thought-out marketing ploy.

If you were a representative of a mattress company, how would you present your product to consumers? Convenience? Good dream? Reliability? Al-Qaeda? To advertise their mattresses, Kurl-On chose the latter, releasing a flyer in which terrorists shoot a little girl in the head, after which she falls, bleeding, onto the mattress and jumps up.

What's worse is that this is not just some abstract child, but the famous education rights activist Malala Yousafzai, who was seriously wounded by Taliban extremists when she was 14 years old, but managed to regain her health and continue her work, becoming the youngest laureate Nobel Prize. Ogilvy & Mather, the company that released the advertisement, decided to draw an analogy between the springy properties of the mattress and the biography of the girl, without thinking that a wounded child was not the best image for advertising. What greater disrespect could there be than to use the scariest moment in the life of a real person to promote a product?

The company said it was conducting an investigation, making it seem like the oversight was the work of prankster hackers, when in fact the ad could not have appeared without management approval.

Levi's "All Shapes and Sizes" campaign featuring only slim girls

In 2012, Levi's launched a campaign with the slogan "Attractiveness comes in all shapes and sizes." Great, so the idea is that you don't have to wear a size XXS to be beautiful, and plus size models will appear in advertising?

But no. Under the slogan, which screams “all shapes and sizes,” three slender girls are depicted. Moreover, in most versions of this advertising there is not the slightest difference between their body types. I wonder how this is supposed to represent all the diversity of female figures? By "all sizes" do you mean XXS, XS and S? In another version, the girls lined up one after another, making it clear that their weights are different - plus or minus two kilograms. Although you can indeed buy jeans in any size at Levi's, you wouldn't know it from the advertising campaign. At its core good idea, but the execution leaves much to be desired.

Malaysia Airlines and death reminder

After the company's image was tarnished by the death of 500 people, all its resources were directed toward further marketing. In September 2014 (six months after the disappearance of Flight 370), the company held a competition called “What I Want to Do Before I Die,” which required participants to describe in 500 words what dreams they wanted to achieve before they died. . It never occurred to anyone that compiling wish lists was not the best advertisement for a company responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. The winner of the competition was entitled to a free economy class ticket on a Malaysia Airlines flight. What is this, a kind of black humor?

Incorrect label on Bud Light

"The perfect beer to take the word 'no' out of your vocabulary tonight" is one of those cases where it's clear what it's about, but it's also obvious that the wording is clearly ambiguous. Previously, the advertising campaign used the slogan “The perfect beer, come what may” with the hint that Bud Light will help you have a fun night and decide to do something crazy that you wouldn’t dare to do sober. This makes sense, because people drink beer just to relax and have a good time. The campaign even had the hashtag #UpForWhatever to promote the brand on Twitter. We could have stopped there, but then the fatal motto appeared.

Getting drunk and not understanding the word “no”? The implication is that you will try new things, but this is not the first association that comes to mind. Anheuser-Bush quickly removed the slogan from the bottles, apologizing and admitting, “We went overboard with the new slogan.” Oh really?

Renault and the N-word

It's hard to believe that Renault didn't know what it was doing. The car advertisement said: Renault dealers are prohibited from saying the word “no” to customers for 10 days. The idea is good, but an unfortunate slogan was formulated for it: “For 10 days we will forget the N-word.” At the mention of the forbidden word to the letter N, to any American immediately comes to the mind of a racist word “Nikger”, but not “no”.

Many were offended and Renault stopped using the motto, saying it was a misunderstanding. Can anyone remember the word "no" ever being replaced with the euphemism "N-word" before? The company was well aware of how people would react, and it deliberately attracted attention by using a dishonest tactic to force the consumer to read the entire text. This was not a simple oversight, but a deliberate and offensive use of a negatively associated word to sell cars.

Some of the incidents happened by accident: marketers simply got carried away with the slogan, which eventually acquired a double interpretation against their will. Flora's advertising is difficult to find any explanation other than the company's hatred of homosexuals.

In 2013, margarine manufacturer Flora decided to emphasize the health benefits of its product, resulting in horribly inaccurate advertising. It depicts the words "Dad, I'm gay" in the shape of a bullet flying towards a porcelain heart, and underneath it is the following slogan: "Today you will need a strong heart." Do the creators really think that finding out about your son’s sexuality is like getting a bullet in the heart?

Flora says it did not approve the ad and that it was developed by a third party. But it’s hard to believe that the entire leadership had their hands tied in this matter. The managing director of the organization that produced the ad apologized for the "unintended offence". But how can they be unintentional, if there is simply no other interpretation (other than homophobic) for this advertising?

Creating a good advertising campaign is a difficult creative task. The perpetrators of the incidents collected above do not seem to think so. The only way to make advertising better is to collect and analyze the mistakes made in it. The presented selection can be considered as harmful advice to a novice marketer with a wish to avoid such mistakes in every possible way.

Lately I've been paying attention to bad advertising a lot. This is the strange kind of entertainment I have. But besides having fun, it’s a great way to improve your knowledge, and it also gives you an understanding of what not to do.

In this article I will show you examples of bad and, to some extent, very bad advertising. But all this, of course, comes with conclusions and recommendations. Therefore, you and I will laugh and learn.

Most often, small companies make mistakes. They come up with various unusual moves in order to attract buyers. And yes, they are attracted to them, but usually in a bad way. If they are remembered at all, they are remembered as short-sighted companies that couldn't do anything worthwhile.

Hence the conclusion - the company has low-quality advertising, therefore, poor services or goods. But, there are also companies that do “bad advertising” deliberately.

This move is dangerous, but I agree that in some cases it gives results. This is from the category of opinions that bad advertising is also advertising. We will also consider such situations.

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Is there such a thing as bad advertising?

There will be a result in any case, it’s only a pity if it is tiny or indirect. And in some cases it is better not to exist at all than to be like this.

Below I want to give you examples, each of them will contain suggestions for improving advertising. But, they are just examples for thought. The final version with all the details worked out will definitely be different.

Example 1

There really is a phrase in life: “I’ll go and think on the toilet.” And from an advertising point of view, it’s very good when we speak the client’s language (especially the word “push”).

But there are topics that are beyond the bounds. Despite all the stupidity of this advertisement, it has its place, but it should be wrapped in more beautiful packaging and a more aesthetic appeal from the “Toilets for beauty and thoughts” series...

Example 2

Moreover, it is very strange that the phrase does not harmonize well with the image. Advertising needs to be completely changed. If you focus on your wife and family, then think in the direction of “A family table without sausage is an indicator of a man.”

Example 3

What do you think is the target audience for this advertisement? Will men send their ladies to such a clinic? And will women go to such a center? I am sure that in both cases there will be failure and even the opposite effect.

The target audience is extremely unselected, and the advertising is made for the sake of advertising, not effect. The way to improve is obvious - remove everything and make the offer “Warranty for dental implantation – 10 years. In case of any difficulty, you will receive our services for free.”

Example 4

Another mistake, similar to the one in example 3. This advertisement develops fears.

Men may be offended because it is hinted to them that they are not professionals. Women may be afraid, because it is not clear whether a maniac or a normal person will come to them.

Example 5

Well, here’s a more interesting option. The target audience is more understandable - men with a car, and with a pronounced problem in an intimate sense.

But the question is: how many motorists have erection problems? Let's imagine that's quite a lot.

Kind of like hitting the bull's eye. Only bad luck, this proposal completely takes the focus off auto air conditioners. After all, advertising reminds you of the main problem, which immediately occupies all thoughts and does not allow you to think about anything else.

Example 6

Sometimes such details are really difficult to think through, but if this happens, then change everything, and don’t leave it with the words “I’ve already paid the money, so be it.”

Example 7

Well, it’s hard not to note the acting and plot. As they say, the idea is 5, the implementation is 2. If you decide to make a video, then do it professionally and efficiently.

In general, the main message that should be in the advertisement is “Huge shawarma with a lot of fresh and natural meat.”

Example 8

No, of course I tell everyone that laughter encourages purchases, even in the marketing of the most serious company, but who knew that they could understand me like that?!

And even if the naming idea isn’t so bad, everything else is a shame. Unnecessary additional names or it is not clear what and why.

And the main cherry on the cake, or rather the octopus’s head, is something special. The head should have been an octopus logo, not a man with tentacles.

Example 9

There are two very useful articles on our blog for advertisers, but it is obvious that the creators of these advertisements did not read them.

Example 10

In the example you see a tube, but I assure you that a dozen miracle properties were also written on its packaging. Such advertising is not only difficult to remember, but also looks very suspicious.

Therefore, if you make a product, then let it eliminate 1 (maximum 4) global problem, and does not become a magic pill against chalera, caries and dust on the shelves.

Example 11

Young people won’t recognize themselves in this, but grandmothers will turn over in their graves from this. Ideally, the advertising character should be an analogue of customers. But maybe I don't understand something...

Example 12

And in this example we see the successful implementation of this error (bottom line). On the one hand, such advertising causes shock and a smile. But on the other hand, she talks all about the quality of work.

As a way to improve, you can back up the bottom phrase with the argument “Guarantee”, “More than 1000 machines made” or “Certified team”.

Example 13

The scandal reached the FAS with the help of law-abiding citizens of Russia, who are trying to sue them for insulting society using this method. Such cases are not new, and usually they end positively for the company.

But interesting fact, the company began to grow in turnover. But now it’s more difficult...

Example 14

Is it possible to be good to everyone? For example, in life can you do everything so that everyone without exception loves you?

Let's be honest, this is almost impossible. It's the same in business. You can't be good to everyone. You must have a clear .

Example 15

What is below is practically invisible. It turns out that they gave advertising for the sake of advertising. Therefore, do not forget to talk about yourself, but do not make the basic mistake of “delusions of grandeur” (more details in the video below).

Briefly about the main thing

I hope that after reading this article, you looked at your advertising layout with relief.

However, you should not relax, but each time approach such an important issue as advertising more and more responsibly. Surely you don’t want to shine in the “bad advertising” sections on the Internet. I also recommend that you watch a video on the same topic.

Believe me, you can always do better. How?! We have written more than one article on this topic on our blog. For the impatient, I am posting a list of them below. Click and read. You'll like it.