GPI 161 – If your employees do not like your new ads, why do you think the public will?

The first thing your firm should do before running an ad is run it past your employees.  If they do not like it or are offended, this is a good reason to question your own judgment in understanding your market and the consumers or companies who buy from you.  The last thing you want is to offend the public. Your employees are not much different from the public, so gather free advice that sits under your nose.  Ask your employees for their opinion.

Ask all levels of employees.  Question a number of your employees in various positions including lowest hourly position to upper managers.  When they see them, do they like them?  What do they like about them?  What did they not like about them?  Find this out immediately because if your employees are not impressed, most probably the majority of your market will not be impressed as well.

Ask, because it costs you nothing.  Ask your employees because it is free feedback.  It is worth asking, gets you immediate feedback and practically costs nothing before you spend money on more expensive media forms.

Ask your employees these questions about our company’s advertising and its effectiveness:

• What is your first gut reaction to our advertisement?  Ask this question often.  If the employees truly do not think the current ads are effective, what do they suggest?  What do they prefer?  Get their feedback.  Ask them to speak up.  Give them plenty of opportunity to respond.  If you have to, get a third party to ask them questions and allow them to answer them anonymously.  Why?  They will confuse their answers to your questions while thinking about their paychecks.  You do not want this.  You want blunt honesty.
• Rate our advertisement one to ten and be honest.  Consider keeping an open suggestion box reserved for reactions reserved for the company’s advertisements so employees can make comments about changing ads.  Ask for ongoing feedback while the companies commercials run on radio, television, cable or ads are placed in your newspaper.  Put a picture of the current ad or text on the suggestion box to remind participating employees of the current commercial and ask what they think about it this week.  Ask them to rank them.  How do you rate this week’s ad?  (1 to 5, 5 being the best, 1 being a dog – woof) and add a suggestion to make the ad more relevant or to add punch.
• What is missing from this advertisement?  Where, what and when do you think we should advertise that we are not doing right now?
• Who is missing who might be targeted?  What groups do you think we are missing that might be interested in our product?  Who do you think would like our product or service that we have forgotten?
• Did you like it; yes or no?  Did you like the advertising you saw for the company’s product or not?  If not, what was wrong with it?
• What type of advertising do you prefer? The company’s ads may be pointed to a very limited audience, so the general public may not be affected or care about your products or services.
• Is the use of the company product clearly demonstrated for the viewer?  Does the product that the company makes have a lot of uses?  Does our advertising convey all of the uses for our products?  Are all of those uses shown in pictures for advertising?  If not, what uses or great attributes are those ads missing?
• Describe an advertisement you saw that you liked. Which company was the sponsor and what were they selling (if you can remember)?