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Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz – Do NOT Market to Ignorance

Posted by Michael D Jensen on March 30th, 2007

“Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz, I don’t know what’s in it?”

Just 2 minutes ago I heard a radio commercial from Alka Seltzer. They put their whole radio ad message into a jingle (clever…) with the line “Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz, I don’t know what’s in it”. They are betting on my ignorance to sell their product, and that does not make a customer out of me. They want me to use it without even knowing or caring what is in it.

This is 2007, not 1907. Back then you didn’t have ready access to all the information you wanted even if you wanted it. Big difference, no Internet (and obviously no Google et al.). Today’s average person is information-oriented. They aren’t going to just go on the advice of some celebrity spokesperson (okay, some people still do). The customers that I want to serve love information and want to know as much as they can before making a decision.

I’m building a new house right now. I feel bad for my sales rep and the builder because I am so information and detail-oriented. Sure you can offer me a water softener, but I want brand, price, any other options, and contact information for the installer. I don’t want to just look at the fireplaces I can install, I want to know what company makes them, what kind of finishes are available, what else can I customize, and I want to know who the vendor is.

Give them information, they want it and will ask for it, now just give it to them. Case in point. We run Applied Content, a well known company that writes content for large and small web sites. For almost a year we went without displaying pricing on our site. So much of our time was spent informing our contacts of what our pricing was. We of course got clients from it, but obviously just a small percentage. Now we display our pricing on our homepage. The conversion of those who actually call or contact us? Nearly 90%. Now that’s efficient. Information is powerful.

Oh, you wanted to know what’s in Alka Seltzer. It’s made by Bayer, so it of course has Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) as a pain reliever, but it also has citric acid to neutralize stomach acid and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to react with the acid and dissolve it all (and make it fizz fizz). I for one will probably go with Tylenol (pain reliever), some oranges (citric acid), and some fresh cookies (baking soda).

5 comments Visited 4929 times March 30th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Entry Filed under: Advertising, Branding, Business, Marketing, SEO