The Physics of Advertising

To most people, advertising is a black art. It is a craft practiced by both wizards and charlatans alike and rarely produces measurable results. Even when the most obvious measure, sales growth, occurs it is hard to attribute sales directly back to advertising. Maybe it was just a good week? Maybe the economy is just improving? As jewelry retailers, we know from experience that sometimes folks are shopping, and sometimes they aren’t and it is exasperating to figure out why. There are simply so many variables that make up consumer behavior that it is difficult to say what one reason lead to the business improvement. Unless there is a specific store event, over a specific weekend, with a specific call to action, it is almost impossible to actually measure advertising isn’t it? Well that depends on your perspective.

You see, advertising has it’s own physics and like real physics principles, they are theories that try and define a world we can’t exactly see. You can’t actually see hot and cold but you can feel their results right? You can’t actually see your store’s popularity with consumers but you can feel it in your cash register. You can’t see consumer sentiment because you can’t see thoughts and beliefs in people’s heads. Those beliefs are constantly changing and it is up to you to define your company and brand. You have to get into their head. So you see, advertising is nothing short of the battle for the consumers mind. Your advertising is your primary weapon in that battle and it will in the end have a larger impact on your company’s market position than anything else you do outside your store. This is why it’s critical that you understand the physics of advertising. Now some of these concepts I have learned from other advertising gurus and are well known. Some of them, like Conversion Frequency and Media Massing, I have coined to define the principles I have experienced in my 30 years in advertising. Here are the five basic Physics Principles of Advertising :

Share of Voice: Share of Voice is the your competitive share of commercials heard or seen by consumers. If three jewelers are buying radio commercials in your market and you are buying half of all the commercials, you have a 50% share and have the largest share of voice. Achieving a dominant Share of Voice is not just about spending, it’s about sustained spending over time and buying media much better than the competition.

Chronos: Chronos is the preference order consumers have about every brand, product or service held in long term memory. This Chronos order is constantly changing as a reflection of experience, education, peer pressure and advertising. We are constantly trying new products and rearranging our personal Chronos. If your store is not in a consumer’s top three, you simply don’t exist.

Conversion Frequency: This is the sustained frequency necessary to change Chronos order. I call this the tipping point. It takes a consumer at least 7 times, hearing or seeing a meaningful advertisement to start to change long term memory. You can’t change long term memory with a short term strategy. It take Conversion Frequency, sustained over a long time to actually change the way people think. Most advertising campaigns never reach conversion frequency, that is why they fail.

Share of Mind: Share of Mind is mental real estate. The whole goal of advertising is to buy Share of Mind. The more Share of Voice, combined with true Conversion Frequency, the larger your Share of Mind. Holding the largest Share of Mind sustained over time will inevitably lead to having  the largest Share of Market and that is our ultimate goal.

Media Massing: Media Massing is the concentration of media dollars in one dominant medium. The media mix myth, the idea that you should spread your media dollars across multiple mediums to reach the most people is, I assure you, very dead. In today’s mass media based economy, only by concentrating your media dollars were you can get maximum Share of Voice and sustainable Conversion Frequency can you build an effective advertising campaign. Media Massing assures that your campaign has enough power not to be missed.

All Bark, No Bite

It is however the application of these principles as a part of a sustained long term media plan that is the real test. I call it the heavy lifting. Most jewelers simply do not have the will to actually lead their markets. They have bark but no bite. Almost every jeweler I talk to is looking for some silver bullet, some catch phrase, some central selling proposition that is going to be their “game changer”. Then when it comes to media they won’t put enough effort and money behind it, for a long enough time, for even their own staff to remember “the phrase”. Few jewelers understand the 5 Physics Principles of Advertising much less put them into practice and that my friends is why they don’t get results.
Now if all this seems complicated, it is. Just writing compelling radio commercials is an art in itself. Negotiating, buying and managing media is a whole nother beast that is only learned by years of doing it in multiple markets. That is why having the right advertising agency on your team, just like having a great manager or goldsmith is an asset that pays for itself very quickly. Every “Jewelry Superstore”, every jeweler I know of doing over $5 million has an advertising professional behind them. In getting from $1 million to $5 million, advertising is always a critical part. Yes it takes guts, yes it is expensive, but when the right jeweler, in the right market, with the right timing, with supporting inventory and staff commitment, mounts a serious campaign built on compelling creative in accordance with the 5 Physics Principals of Advertising, I have never seen it fail. The alternative is leaving that victory, and your market to someone else.