The Three Sacred Cows of Advertising
(2) Media Mix
Media mix tells us that the same people, who see your newspaper ads, will hear your radio ads and notice your billboards. Media mix further assumes that the customer will recognise all these as having come from the same advertiser. Yet rarely is one of these fragmented campaigns connected in the mind of the customer.
There’s a lot of truth in the religion of media mix, but it is a truth inappropriate for the small business owner.
What’s good for the big corporate giants can be poison to the independent business owner.
The idea of media mix assumes that your advertising budget is adequate to do a good job in each part of the mix. Proctor & Gamble, Coke, Pepsi, Ford, and the other big boys are able to accomplish a media mix without being forced to compromise any part of it. They can mix radio, television, newspaper, magazines, and skywriting without having to do anything halfway.
Is this true of your company?
Do you have this kind of budget?
If not, I recommend that you do one thing well rather than two things badly. You may be able to do two things well, but our firm has never worked with a company that could do three things well. But then our firm has never worked with anyone who had more than a couple of million dollars to spend on advertising.