Awareness

I presented a paper at a conference. I referenced the fact that you can't get away from Duluth Trading Company advertising. 

And it's somewhat true ... the target TV-watching audience can't get away from it!!

As I shared examples, I could tell that the audience wasn't on my side. You know this feeling if you are a presenter ... you hear groans, you see people shaking their head back-and-forth to simulate a "No" motion. You see people whispering to other people ... "he's an idiot and my company paid for me to listen to this joke of a presenter". Ok, that didn't happen. I don't think it happened. Whatever.

I paused, then mentioned to the audience that I could tell that they "hated" Duluth Trading Company. The "no" motions changed to "yes" motions. I asked the audience why they hated a company that tripled in size in the past decade while leveraging catalog marketing, the very tool that the audience loved. One person volunteered an answer.

• "Their advertising is stupid. They assume that men are dumb fat morons."

What does that comment really mean?

• It means that the person who said the comment was not part of the Audience that Duluth Trading Company targets, and it means that the form of Awareness (TV ads) did not align with the preferred Awareness technique advocated by the Professional (Catalogs).

In modern marketing, Audience / Awareness / Acquisition is all part of what is called a "Marketing Funnel". The person at the conference preferred tactics (boring catalogs) that were further down the funnel, tactics closer to the sale process.

For me, Awareness became important late in my career. Even though examples were all around me for five decades, I was blind to the importance of Awareness until I saw Duluth Trading Company excel at Awareness. Then it clicked. Now I'd advocate spending money in ways I'd never have advocated through most of my career.

I grafted the lessons of Duluth Trading Company onto my Marketing Management System. I don't care that the majority of my readers don't like what they do ... if anything, it should motivate my audience to do something unique and clever on their own ... creating their own Awareness programs, right?

Right??