I would like to cover the subject of Survey Technology in this newsletter. If done correctly, surveys can assist a company to greatly expand. At Endless Graphics we find that clients who have surveyed get better results in their general promotional campaigns.

Have you ever thought of asking your clients what they really need and expect from your business? Getting in touch with your clients or potential clients by finding out what they really need is a very powerful action. Contacting your existing clients to ask them if they have any difficulties in dealing with your business can reveal a problem you may not have realized existed. You might discover that there is something you could improve upon or assist them with that could increase your service to them and thus your sales.

The basic concept of ‘asking clients or potential clients information to discover something you would like to know’ is referred to as “surveying” in the marketing field. This subject is very broad and expansive in application, but you can begin in simple ways.

Surveys can be designed to discover an emotional reaction towards a product or idea.

Surveys are best done on an individual, one at a time. This way you give the person a chance to tell you their own personal opinion, uninfluenced by other factors.

“Positioning surveys” help a company to work out how to communicate about their company or product “in relation to” or “for or against”something else that is already known to the general public

For example, a new drink campaign might introduce a new drink as being “like Coke”. You get an instant idea of what they are trying to sell very quickly. This can be valuable considering you have less than a second to grab the interest of a client in promotion!

It can be a good idea to survey a new set of logo designs to see which one your public best responds to. This is referred to as “impression testing”. Also asking many people what they think of a new “name” or a new invention or product that someone is interested in developing. It is usually a good idea to show people a new product prototype and get their individual feedback on it.

Sometimes you might find that a minor design change in a new product would make the difference in whether a person will buy it or not. Sometimes you will discover that this item will sell like hotcakes and that everyone needs it….sometimes, you might find the product is of no interest at all. Discovering such information early on can save a developer money, time and headaches.

So it is important to survey your publics; those who you intend to sell your product or service to. It will save you quite a bit of time and money in the long run and will help you to make the most money that you can from the product or service. You can begin your major promotional campaign or product manufacturing from a position of confidence.

At Endless Graphics we always prefer to have good survey results to work with in our promotional campaign designs. We find our clients get even better results when we have this information to work with. I suggest every company take advantage of surveys. When you hire us for our professional design work, you will make your best return upon your investment in this way. Color use can help to demonstrate a certain emotion, for example.

I have included a very informative Article below by Bruce Wiseman whose company has been doing Surveys for companies for more than 30 years.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have enjoyed our Newsletters. I would love to hear any feedback on them you have!

All my best,
Taina Joseph
VP Marketing Endless Graphics

**Endless Graphics is a full service Graphic Design and Web Development Firm which specializes in high-end collateral campaign design with robust online data base and e-commerce systems as well as reasonable design solutions for small businesses. One thing we know about our company is that our design work makes our clients money. We create Campaigns from Website design to Billboard design to flyers, catalogs, ect!**





“Those On Top, Have Always Been Plagued by Ankle-Biting Midgets.”
Article by Bruce Wiseman

Ask any celebrity, politician or business leader. It goes with the territory.

Microsoft is a classic example, though some of their "midgets" are on steroids.

Mozilla's Firefox has been taking a few well-chosen bites out of the Internet Explorer's mega-muscled market share; my daughter loaded her new laptop with 40 gigs of Windows as well as 40 gigs of Linux, a sign that Gen Y is adopting the alternative as cutting edge; Google, not Microsoft, is the search king of the universe, and Apple's iPod is so hot, investors have been devouring shares like hyenas at a hunt.

Still, the guys at Redmond reign supreme as the 900-pound gorilla of 21st century technology and they have more money than God.

I am not weighing in here on the great Microsoft debate - Satan or Savior.

But I'm not a hypocrite, either. Like most of the rest of the planet, I was nursed into the digital universe at the technological bosom of Windows 95 and remain a dutiful XP user today.

But this phenomenon was a result of technological genius and strategic sales brilliance, not world-class advertising. And with all due respect to the M Crowd, Microsoft's advertising has long suffered from a chronic case of mediocrity. Of late, some of it has become down right disgraceful.

With enough assets to buy several third world countries, it's not as if they can't afford to have great advertising campaigns created, they just don't.

Take the ads running for Microsoft Office currently. Perhaps you've seen them. The graphics are built around office workers who have large head-masks of prehistoric dinosaurs and lizards. In a brief series of cartoon-like panels, these half-man, half-beast creatures have conversations about how one of the group was supposed to show up with some data for a meeting. The person never shows and they are all bummed out.

That's it.

In the small print at the bottom of this two-page presentation we learn that Microsoft Office software has "evolved" and that this kind of information failure among the group is no longer necessary. They even slam their earlier product, Office 97, in the process.

The one I reviewed was a full double page ad in Newsweek. Cost a couple of bucks. But more to the point, it breaks my mind that a company that is a world leader in technology - the world leader in technology - spends good money on an ad that has all the sales appeal of a Dick and Jane reader.

I know, it's easy to be a critic, but let's get real simple here; advertisements are supposed to make the reader want to buy the product or service being advertised.

To do that, they need to get the readers attention - fast! You have a short, defined moment in time to grab the reader's attention. The communication must be as close to instant as possible. There's a glance. Did you get him or her, or did they move on to one of the 3000 other messages they will see or hear that day?

The immediate communication one receives glancing at this ad is that of a cartoonish bunch of very odd, dinosaur-headed office personnel sitting around talking. There is no message. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing in the entire two pages of color graphics that communicates the concept that the new version of Microsoft Office helps to keep staff connected and informed and is therefore valuable.

I had to read the small print at the bottom right hand corner of the ad to get that; something I never would have done if I were not writing this newsletter. And something most readers will not do unless you had grabbed their attention earlier.

You with me here?

Agencies often get caught up in the creative aspect of the ad without following the prime directive - sell something. And management, for its part often has strongly held, preconceived ideas as to why the public will beat the proverbial path to their door and overwhelm the sales desk with orders.

Creativity rocks! It's what makes life joyful. But the creative aspect of an ad should be built around what the Customer thinks is valuable about the product or service. Use that to stimulate desire to buy.

This ad doesn't. Somebody got the bright idea to show that existing methods of office communication are prehistoric. Nothing the matter with the symbolism, but there are two problems here: One is that the existing method of office communication is their own company's product - bad positioning.

"Dude, you know that office communication system we sold you a few years ago?"

" Yeah?"

"It sucks."

And more importantly, the solution - what they seem to be secretly trying to sell - is buried in small print.

This is Microsoft's responsibility. Even if an agency created this ad, someone in marketing had to bless it. Someone at Microsoft had to say, "Oh, cartoonish dinosaur-headed office workers. Cool."

Corporate marketing departments and their agencies should always get down and ask the customer their opinion about the product as well as their proposed ads and use the information that was given to them.

A few years ago, we conducted a survey for a leading financial services firm in New York - a big industry-leading firm. They had developed a new digitally-based service for a certain segment of their market. The Chairman had come up with what he knew was the way to pitch this to the intended market (lawyers and accountants who do Merger and Acquisition work).

The advertising agency handling the account convinced him, through the Corporate Marketing Director, to at least test the pitch - the key phrasing of the ad - on the intended public. The agency asked us to conduct the surveys.

We attended a conference in New York and surveyed 100 M&A lawyers and accountants. The results were very poor. The respondents didn't understand what the Chairman's tag line meant. This was the public for whom the service was intended; a well-educated public to boot. But they didn't get it. In fact - something I have rarely seen - it antagonized them.

We were asked to do another survey in Philadelphia. We did. Same result. We then went to Chicago, Houston and San Francisco. Each time the results reflected a misunderstanding and keen dislike by this public of the wording that the Chairman knew would communicate and sell the service.

At one point, he had the Corporate Marketing Director review our credentials (didn't like the message so considered shooting the messenger). We sent our professional qualifications, client lists and testimonials to New York. Satisfied, he had us continue. But the results never changed. At one point, I suggested an alternative approach, asking the respondents for their suggestions. Reject.

This example may seem ridiculous to you. And it was. But fixed ideas by management about why their prospects will want to buy their product are more prevalent than you might think and they can be costly in the extreme. Your ads should parallel the mind of your public. What's really in their heads? The more accurately you do that, the better the response to the ad.

Can I get an Amen?

Okay. What should he have done?

He should have had the marketing department create several (4-6) potential tag lines or slogans for this product - including his. Then the tag lines should have been tested.

They could be read to members of his target audience. What did the tag line mean to them? Which did they like best? Which least? And Why? This would have gotten him inside the mind of his public, given him something effective he could have used in his campaigns and cost him a fraction of what he spent.

The correct strategy for marketing, advertising and public relations campaigns is to talk to your public first. Get their likes, dislikes, opinions and attitudes about the product or service (not in focus groups, by the way. One-on-one interviews: face-to-face or telephone). Now you can craft your message about the benefits in a way that gets this public's attention.

Bruce Wiseman
Survey Specialist/Owner of On Target Research