Head-On: Apply Directly to the Forehead

I'll spare you the three-peat, but you know you've heard that commercial. You may try not to hear it, but it still gets stuck in your mind. Could there be a more annoying marketing campaign?

Well, it seems to be working. The Head On people have gotten a large part of the nation to know and remember the name of their product and what it does through what I'm guessing was not a very expensive commercial to produce! They put some cash into buying spots, but they seem to have gone for a quantity over quality approach in that area too. Yet, they are gleaning semi-regular references from Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, David Letterman and countless others.

It seems as though everyone in America has seen these things. Somehow, these people have done the near-impossible. They've taken a very simple, cost effective ad, and seemingly overnight built a very well known brand.

Now, I have no idea how well this campaign is converting into sales and profits for the unique pain reliever. But I must admit, solely out of curiosity, I'm tempted to pick up a few tubes myself. Honestly, I don't know if I'd ever want to use it, but how much fun would it when someone at a party asks if you have an aspirin and you whip out your Head On?!

So anyway, as always, I'm asking myself what marketing lessons can we as small business owners, learn from Head On.

I think the moral of this campaign is the old clich K.I.S.S. or Keep It Simple, Stupid. (Not to infer that you are stupid, nor am I!)

As a small business owner, it is far too easy to get caught up in the latest marketing trends. Especially on the internet, you can literally go crazy worrying about your SEO, SERM, etc. Those are all important pieces of your marketing puzzle, but let's not forget about good old fashioned, tried and true marketing tools that we may have forgotten or forgone. Print advertising, cold calls, radio and tv spots, if feasible, are all valuable tools and should always accompany your web marketing and non-traditional methods. More than likely, some percentage of your target market may still be fonder of the yellow pages, mailers, flyers or the like. Plus, if there's one thing we can definitely take from the headache causing campaign for the headache relieving product, is that repetition is still a marketer's best friend, so don't worry about a little overlap between mediums.

It's always a great idea to examine popular ad campaigns or marketing techniques and determine whether they can be directly applied to your forehead, I mean business!

Dana Wallert is the owner of an online virtual assistance company. She has over 10 years experience in sales and marketing, as well as office management. Read Dana's virtual assistance blog and find out what a virtual assistant can do for you at DW Office Solutions - Virtual Assistant Services

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