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BRADFORD ADVERTISING & PUBLIC RELATIONS
'Look What We've Got,' Take II
A New Haven campaign needn't look far to find its target market
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Business New Haven
9/6/1999
By: Wil Bradford
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Before the ad campaign, New Haven needs a few other things.
A shrink comes to mind.
Talk about low self-esteem. New Haven has been down so long, it's starting to look up to me.
Shrink too impractical?
How about a cheerleader? Not the kind you see at football games, but what you see in, let's say, political administrations - publicity machines with a proactive agenda, relentlessly grinding away at a single, consistent message.
Smart, aggressive, proactive and opportunistic - cheerleading doesn't get any better than that.
Twenty years ago, an out-of-town agency developed an advertising campaign for New Haven that had a very prominent cheerleader component:
"Look what we've got, here in New Haven. Look what we've got, you and me."
Remember it? It actually sounds like a cheer.
Notice who it's talking to? It's talking to the head case on the couch.
Us gals and guys here in New Haven. The campaign is not directed to wealthy suburbanites on the shoreline. It's directed to its biggest and (regrettably) best sales force: those of us who live and work here.
That was 20 years ago.
The strategy is still sound, but this time around, implementation might be a little different. I like the military model of softening resistance with aerial attacks before landing the ground troops.
In other words, PR first.
Publications like Business New Haven can help. But they can also hinder. Research studies - information gathering that is invariably a preliminary to aggressive marketing initiatives - have been contracted to non-New Haven firms. More than one of us local firms is disappointed, if not outraged.
It seems to me that behind the premise of this article is the hope that readers, leaders and public opinion will read the marketing sagacity of people like Charlie, Carol, Chuck and yours truly and suddenly think, "They should never have gone outside. Our New Haven marketing people are brilliant."
As true as that might or might not be, I have begrudgingly decided to resist second-guessing those who are leading the charge. The fact is, the greatest challenge in marketing New Haven is not determining the strategy, the tactics or even the creative. It's achieving a unified voice of solidarity.
Agencies and individuals stepping on each other, and on the efforts of those who are giving it their best, don't help. After all, this thing is not about affirming the marketing competence of local New Haven firms (it's the self-esteem thing rearing its ugly head all over again), or assuaging any local or regional constituencies. It's about doing what it takes to put New Haven's best foot forward in the minds of people far and wide.
If it's decided New Haven's marketing firms aren't useful in developing the solution, let's be damn sure we're also not part of the problem.
New Haven has enough problems - or should I say opportunities?
Did you know that, according to the Wall Street Journal, New Haven is one of the hottest high-tech job markets in the country? We'll have job openings for more than 2,000 hard-science positions before we get too far into the new Millennium. We need to attract great people.
If you were thinking about moving your family to New Haven, wouldn't you first want to talk to someone already here? Wouldn't their opinion matter? With the right communications reinforcement, I believe we can all become spirited advocates of living and working in New Haven.
So, now you know who I think the primary target audience should be (you, dear reader), and what the first communications objective should be (to convince you - first with PR and then with advertising - that New Haven really is something to be proud of).
Admittedly, conventional stuff. In automobile marketing, and in the marketing of most sporting goods, primary objectives are usually to convince the core enthusiasts, and ensure they'll recommend your product to the less-informed. After the influencer has been reached, you widen your circle.
Which leads into the area of strategy and tactics.
In 1987 an article was published in the Marketing Science Institute entitled "Advertising Exposure, Loyalty and Brand Purchase: A Two State Model of Choice." Like most great works of research, it affirmed what most know intuitively. The author, Gerard Tellis, substantiated with empirical research the conclusion that "Advertising exposure seems to reinforce brand preferences more than motivate brand choices."
In other words, advertising works better firming up what someone already thinks than it does getting them to change their minds. So if you want to change somebody's mind about New Haven, bring to their attention what they already think is pretty good - and let them draw their own conclusions.
Which brings us back to "Look What We've Got."
A communications campaign for New Haven must direct everyone's attention to what is so great about this city. And it must be focused. If political forces dilute the message by striving to do too much or by appealing to too many, we're sunk. We don't need to promote the region, nor the towns of "greater New Haven."
We need to promote the city of New Haven itself.
Treat the patient. Not his second cousin.
And forget about an exclusively top-down broadcast-driven media strategy. If the campaign exists only on the tube, for one or two 13-week cycles, it will die quickly and quietly.
Sure, at some point TV is essential, but the campaign must permeate every level of the New Haven experience. For example, in the case of the "Look What We've Got" campaign, imagine if restaurants had their advertising subsidized in part by a fund that required they communicate the thought, "Taste What We've Got, Here in New Haven." What if galleries and theaters created posters, " See What We've Got, Here in New Haven." Or "Hear What We've Got… " for concerts, " Shop What We've Got... " for shops. All supported by a top-down TV campaign of "Look What We've Got."
Imagine how much further we could make the money go. What's more, the whole approach would ensure broad-based buy-in. It's exciting, it would endure and it would work. Just ask American Express how well a similar co-op approach has worked for them over the last 10 years.
That's just one creative execution. There are countless other possibilities.
Co-op support programs, point-of-purchase participation among merchants, collaborative promotions with radio stations and daily and weekly print vehicles must all be part of the mix. All done in such a way that everyone shares in a sense of ownership.
Bill Bernbach, an advertising legend and co-founder of the now-merged Doyle, Dane Bernbach advertising agency, once observed that a train has the greatest freedom. It can go as hard and fast as it wants, and it knows it's always going in the right direction.
I don't know what the direction for New Haven's campaign will be (although I think I know what it should be). But I hope those in charge will consider the different ideas each of us have put forth in our respective articles.
And once the direction is set, I, for one, hope I have the self-discipline to rise above my own self-righteous insecurities and support it full speed ahead.
No matter where or who it comes from.
Wil Bradford is president of Bradford Advertising & Public Relations Inc. in New Haven
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