Saw this advertisement in the Times of India. This is an Ad for the Samsung Notebook Series 5 ULTRA NP530U3B-AO2IN
Even though I have never worked in marketing and only understand marketing from having been a consumer, I am certain there are several things wrong with this Ad. Here is a list of things that could be better
1) This is a consumer device. So please do not use a number plate to market it. Which consumer will remember the name of this product? For most of us, going to a store and saying "Can I have the Samsung Notebook Series 5 ULTRA NP530U3B-AO2IN" is going to be impossible. By the way, as you can see from the ad, shockingly enough you can instead ask for the NP530U4B-SO21N !
2) Consumers like choice. But consumers dislike complicated choice. The brain cannot handle complicated choice. Having to choose between a NP530U3B-AO2IN and a NP530U4B-SO21N is complicated even before comparing any other feature. beauty of an iPad for example is that there are only 4 variants for any series of iPads. And there are only 2 series in the market at any time. So you can ask for an iPad 2 WiFI or iPad 2 GPRS. In any case, the choices are not prominently displayed in an ad. That is provided inside web pages and when you walk into the store. The idea is to introduce the product, and invite the customer to a store. The idea is not to hit him with everything we have right away.
3) Suppose the product in this example were renamed as Samsung ULTRA 5 and when you walk into the store two options were provided - the Jamoon and the Rasagolla (just to illustrate that simple everyday words are easier to connect to than complex alphanumerics) I can bet the ad recall would have been much higher.
4) While this is not shown in the photo above, the ad also has Intel Ultrabook mentioned in several places. So if you read the ad carefully you will realise that the product being advertised is
The Intel Ultrabook from Samsung called the Samsung Notebook Series 5 ULTRA NP530U3B-AO2IN which, by the way, has an Intel Core i5 Processor. Samsung may have signed a complicated agreement with Intel. Intel may have licensed the Ultrabook design for Samsung to productionize. But the customer does not need to know all this just yet. There are simpler ways to communicate this.
One way to redo this Ad
- Ultrabooks look beautiful. This is their biggest appeal. So the Ad should have a good photograph or couple of photographs that occupies most of the space in the Ad. If a consumer likes what he sees he will come over to the store.
- The thing about Samsung is that they make beautiful screens. Show this through the photograph, not by saying it in text.
- Prominently say "ULTRA 5" at the top of the Ad.
- At the bottom of the Ad say "Samsung ULTRA 5 inspired by the Intel Ultrabook with Intel Core i5 Processor. Visit us at ..."
- Do not use a blue background in a newspaper Ad. The Samsung logo may be blue. But that does not mean you can use it anywhere in your advertisements.
Like it or not, every consumer electronics company is up against Apple. And there is a lot to learn from Apple. Aesthetic appeal matters like never before.
It is usefull for gaming.
ReplyDeleteDuring Steve Jobs' Vanavasa years, Apple's product line naming system had become nearly as grotesque as that of the rest of the industry, e.g., 'Apple Macintosh Performa 6310CD'. Nobody had any idea what such a product looked like. There were hundreds of products, each with minor differences. Job's first order of business was to eliminate nearly all of the products and consolidate everything into a 2X2 matrix -- portables and desktops; consumer and pro. To start with, there were exactly 4 products: iBook, Powerbook, iMac, PowerMac: that's it. Thus began the path to simplicity and succcess. Incidentally, Jobs was a follower of a Japanese Zen master, from whom he learned the virtues of simplicity.
ReplyDelete