Creativity goes far beyond an awarded communication campaign. Creativity starts already when you define your offering. By thinking differently there are huge possibilities to outsmart competition and win the market race. Then you also have something substantial to communicate.
This is partly about innervation, ie influencing how your prospective buyers see your brand and the product or service you offer. But also how you can solve problems by approaching them in an untraditional way and find new arguments for your product – today hidden in front of your eyes.
Let’s start with the beautiful French island Corsica. Full of tourists in the Summer, the challenge for the business owners on the island was that the Summer season was short. In the Autumn airlines stopped flying due to too few passengers.
Since the government of the island believed that Corsica had a lot to offer also earlier and later in the year, a marketing campaign was planned for the major cities in Europe presenting the beauty of Corsica. But someone then raised the question if this was the real problem to be solved and the right use of the budget available.
So instead of spending millions on billboards and TV commercials, the government of Corsica went to the airlines and subsidized their empty seats, basically paid “tickets” so the airlines got a normal cabin factor. The airlines continued to fly since the flights now were profitable. And Corsica got the promotion in Europe for free through the airlines marketing campaigns and their booking systems. Smart.
Speaking about airline promotions, one fantastic campaign was launched by Swissair many years ago. The ad and campaign were quite boring. It listed X00 check points with the claim “Before each start our pilots is doing the following checks” with the claim “Swissair. The safest airline in the world”.
Big success, and it made all competitors angry. The X00 check points is mandatory for pilots to check in the IATA flight manual. In short, every airline did the same thing – but Swissair communicated it and won the market position as the safest airline.
Think about what you have for properties in your products or solutions that you take for given. Does your customer really know about them, their importance and how much time you have spent to develop them? Maybe here is a base for new argumentation.
And it is often very profitable. If we can use communication to increase the perceived value of a product or service, we should be able to charge a premium price. Since we have not changed the technical specification or replaced components, the only cost we have is the investment in marketing. The effort it takes is creativity and understanding of what drives the customer, ie the cost and revenue analysis for such an investment are normally very positive.
If you want to discuss communication, you are always welcome to contact ulf@sfinxagency.se
