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Every business needs to do everything it can to stand out from the crowd, to differentiate itself from the competition. This is a major challenge for companies that sell substantially the same thing as their competitors.

The average business does not have the resources of a multinational corporation that often uses its substantial marketing muscle to buy market share or to drive competition out of the marketplace. Big business also uses its deep pockets to flood various media with advertising, making them a pervasive presence.

The Web has always been an egalitarian environment where smaller companies could present themselves using the same techniques as the big boys, and if these companies did it well they could stand side-by-side with their competitive behemoths.

One thing that small and medium sized businesses should take some comfort in is that many large corporations are notoriously poorly run, relying on brawn rather than brain to get the job done. Many survive because over time they have acquired huge resources, become oligopolies, or they use predatory marketing practices to stifle competition.

As the Web becomes more and more a multimedia environment, corporations are starting to use their financial resources, and inventory of commercial assets and programming (not to be confused with computer programming), to deliver their marketing messages. The question is can smaller businesses compete, and if so, how?

Slipstream Marketing

Dr. Max Sutherland, a Marketing Psychologist and Professor at Bond University, has written about a concept he refers to as 'slipstreaming.' Anyone who is familiar with motor racing or even bicycle racing understands that slipstreaming is a drafting method where a racer tucks behind a front-running rival reducing wind resistance and saving fuel and energy, and with a quick move, the challenger can slingshot past the race leader.

The clever implementation of slipstream style marketing campaigns can allow you to blow by your competition by using the momentum of well-known and instantly recognizable campaigns.

Slipstreaming references a collective audience memory, a kind of shared consciousness. Skillful execution draws ínstant recognition and an "Oh I Get It!" reaction without a lot of wasted setup or groundwork.

"Give Me The Same Thing, But Different!"

The key of course is how you make your version different. What's the twist? Blake Snyder, a Hollywood screenwriter and author, writes about entertainment executives' constant refrain, "Get me the same thing, but different." What Snyder has learned and what he preaches is that movie moguls understand it's easier to get people to go to a movie they understand and that was already a success, but the trick is making the new version different, that is different but the same.

If you think slipstreaming is an easy way to be creative you're wrong. Being different but the same is not as simple as it sounds, but success can depend on it. Done poorly slipstreaming comes off as lame and imitative, but done correctly you appear clever and cutting-edge, and more importantly you deliver the marketing message in a way your audience will remember.

There are an endless variety of things you can slipstream: personalities, icons, slogans, music, advertisements, news events, pop culture phenomena, movies, television shows, commercials, and sporting events.

Personalities

One of our favorite personality slipstreaming techniques is the use of voice-over. It can be implemented as part of a video campaign or as a stand-alone feature. We have used sound-alike actors to portray Rod Serling, Sam Elliot, Steve Irwin, Paul Winfield, Tom Brokaw, and many others.

What makes this approach so valuable is that most people will relate to the voice as someone they know, or are familiar with, but not immediately recognize.

This method captures people's attention with the familiar sound of a famous voice but without the cost of hiring the celebrity. Often the voice does not even have to be that close to the original, it's the cadence, delivery, tone, and scrípt that makes people sit-up and take notice.

Cutting through the jungle of advertising noise is a challenge for everyone in business and this technique is a very effective method of getting heard and being remembered.

Television Shows

Another slipstream technique we've used is to play upon the audience's knowledge and familiarity with certain television shows. We have created Web-videos, written scrípts, added dialogue and composed music that reminds people of the old 'Twilight Zone' series and the popular A&E show, 'City Confidential.'

Commercials

One of our most successful Web-promotion campaigns was the 'Multimedia Versus SEO Campaign' where we took advantage of the well know Macintosh Versus PC television commercials. Nobödy needed an explanation or setup to understand what was going on in the commercials. We basically slipstreamed Apple's television campaign.

Slogans

Slogans are another resource for slipstreaming and if you think only small companies slipstream, think again. The A&E Network used the slogan "Time Well Spent" for many years, while The Comedy Network slipstreamed it with their own twisted version "Time Well Wasted" - the same thing, but different.

Music

With the popularity of Hip Hop music, the milk marketing board developed a series of commercials with dairy farmers rapping to a catchy Hip Hop tune well prancing around their farm animals. Hip Hop was also slipstreamed by Smirnoff in their Raw Tea campaign and 'Tea Partay' viral video.

Pop Culture

With the popularity of poker and the World Poker Tour, we developed a Mike Sexton style character, host of the television show, for one of our projects. We've even created nostalgia radio-style audio pitches that hark back to the olden age of radio plays.

Movies

We created an entire campaign for a client based on the idea, "Life Deserves A Sound Track" where everyday situations were described in dramatic style with familiar voice-over announcers, which was our take on Will Ferrell's hit movie 'Stranger Than Fiction.'

Sports

We've created presentations using the personas of famous sports figures like Hall of Fame pitcher and broadcaster Dizzy Dean and Mel Allan. We created scenarios and scrípts using the voices and personas of World Champion racecar driver Jackie Stewart and one crazy scrípt fashioned in the style of college basketball analyst Dick Vitale.

Conclusion

As you can see from these examples, there are an endless number of ways to take advantage of the public's shared experience. So the next time you need to come up with a new Web marketing campaign for your company, think like a Hollywood mogul: Come Up With Something That's The Same, But Different.

About The Author

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, www.136words.com and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

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Wouldn't it be nice if everyone got as excited about your company as you are? Unfortunately some businesses just aren't very sexy; in fact, some businesses are downright boring. As a consequence, companies that sell commodity products and routine services tend to rely on presentations that load-up on features, specifications, and statistics that may be relevant to anal-retentive types, but hardly compelling to the vast majority of your audience.

There is no reason why every company can't deliver an exciting image to its audience; one that generates the kind of buzz and excitement usually associated with companies like Apple, Victoria's Secrët, Benetton, Absolut Vodka, and Sony.

It may seem impossible to produce a whole lot of steam for things like sand paper, accounting services, and facial tissue, but thanks to the Web and it's extraordinary ability to deliver multimedia content, even the most mundane offerings can get hearts racing and the blogosphere blogging.

Emotional Experiences Connect

Let's take facial tissue as an example; it is one of the most common, boring everyday products you can imagine. There is just not much you can do to sell this stuff other than telling people yours is softer and cheaper than the other guys, but then the other guy is saying the same thing; the result, consumers buy whatever is on sale. But wait, the clever fellows at Kimberly-Clark instituted a brilliant website campaign for their facial tissue, called "Kleenex - let it out."

The campaign zeros in on the emotional experience associated with why people use facial tissue: to wipe away tears of joy or sadness or maybe to clean-up cute little runny noses - in each case the result of some moving event.

Tapping into this emotional association is key to the Kleenex campaign and key to your new thinking on how to make your boring stuff, exciting.

Video - The Best Way To Tell A Story

The Kleenex campaign features prominent videos of articulate people telling their personal stories, all resulting in the need to use a facial tissue.

A pregnant woman discusses the emotional impact of having a child and as her eyes begin to tear, the interviewer hands her a Kleenex. A second video features another well-spoken woman talking about her return to New Orleans after the devastation of hurricane Katrina. Again as the woman becomes emotional and begins to cry, the interviewer hands her a tissue. Nothing more needs to be said, this is very powerful story telling that connects to the audience and delivers an image of the brand as caring and sensitive; the exact kind of impression the company wants to portray.

Even companies that aren't exactly dead-from-the-neck-up boring can benefit from this approach. The Home Depot ran a series of advertisements with a husband showing his wife a series of power tools that he wanted. Rather than try to convince his wife, and by association all the wives in the audience, that he needs another expensive toy, the husband points to each tool and states, "this is your new shelving unit" and "this one is your new kitchen" - a far more dramatic and effective way to make the case for a new purchase.

You can deliver the same kind of powerful marketing messages for your own company by presenting Web-based videos that follow a few very simple guidelines.

Six Steps To Turn Boring Into Exciting

1. Use People to Sell People

There is no substitute for people. Human beings are capable of communicating with an enormous degree of nuance and subtlety, using voice, expression, body language, and gesture; no animation, avatar, or artificial substitute can take the place of a real person for communicating meaningful, memorable marketing messages.

With relatively easy-to-use production tools anyone can create a video, but not necessarily one that delivers the message or image that your company wants to present. We have seen far too many poor quality efforts both on the Web and even on local television, where company presidents with bad haircuts and ill-fitting suits, uttering nonsense-riddled scripts in zombie-like performances expose themselves to audiences expecting more, much more.

Skilled performers communicate in very subtle ways to an audience, and only the well-practiced professional has the experience and capability to deliver the intended experience. The cost of saving monëy by doing-it-yourself or with amateurs can result in delivering an unintended message that may undermine the impression and image you are trying to create.

2. Perception Is Reality - Use Scripted Professionals

You will notice that I described the women in the facial tissue videos as articulate. Now I cannot tell you if these women were actors or not, or that their powerful presentations were scripted, but if I had to guess, I would say these very effective videos were about as carefully produced and constructed as the latest episode of 'Survivor' that by no means makes them any less effective.

The point here is that perception is reality, and the professional filmmaker knows how to tell a story and communicate a message; and that is not the same thing as being able to turn on a video camera.

3. Tell A Memorable Story

When we talk about companies telling their story, it is important to distinguish between the company's history and the emotional experiences generated by the product or service.

Company histories can make for interesting videos and can produce a sense of trust associated with being in business for a considerable length of time, but that sort of presentation does not speak to the underlying emotional and psychological factors that actually trigger a sale.

It is difficult but imperative that businesses understand that marketing is not about you, or even the product or service, it's about the audience.

Like the Kleenex videos and the Home Depot commercials, every product and service that is purchased from your company represents an experience, a story that relates to your audience's aspirations and needs. It is the audience's story that demonstrates credibility, clarifies purpose, penetrates memory, and makes the message compelling.

4. Create An Emotional Experience

The vast majority of decisions we make are colored by the emotional relevance associated with those decisions. No doubt rational factors figure into our decision-making process, but the pivotal factors that attract the use of one product over another are emotional.

If you're not connecting to your audience on an emotional level, then you are left with a commodity that can only be sold on price and features, and unless you're a monopoly, there will always be some competitor willing to offër your customers more for less.

When presenting your product or service it is important to tap into an emotional element that your audience can relate to as its key purchasing decision factor. When people purchase boring accounting services and software, what they're really buying is an improved life style for their families. It really doesn't matter what you sell, if you look hard enough, you can find the emotional benefit that should be the central element of your marketing message.

5. Create a Believable Relevant Personality

Part of the process of connecting with your audience is creating an appropriate personality for your company. Many corporations today believe in the cult of management personality but this is a dangerous game. Your company needs a personality of it's own, one that is distinctive and that will stand alone and not be dependent on senior management's ego and self-promotion.

Web-video marketing campaigns provide a vehicle that allows companies to create appropriate personalities that engage, inform and entertain your audience in ways that establish your identity and create the basis for a prosperous business relationship.

Clever marketing can create a corporate personality but it is imperative that you follow through and deliver that personality in all aspects of your relationship with your audience. Producing a campaign that promises one thing and a website, staff, and product that delivers another is one of the easiest ways to alienate customers.

6. Deliver A Critical Hot Button Moment

Web-video presentations need to focus on single issues that are driven home by the addition of a hot button moment or punch line. Remember you are telling your audience a story that needs a beginning, middle and end. That story should build to climax and deliver the point in a single memorable moment.

The era of point förm slide presentations is dead, along with the laundry líst of benefits approach.

Creativity, personality, and the ability to communication and develop an emotional connection to your audience through the use of Web-video campaigns has the potential to turn even the most lackluster company into a vibrant and exciting marketing business.

About The Author

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, www.136words.com and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

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The new efforts of marketing are quickly migrating to online efforts as more and more companies realize that to effectively reach their target audience they must go to where the customers are, and that is online. Being able effectively to spread your word to the right areas online is much easier, quicker and more effective than attempting to reach them through traditional means.

Using affiliate marketing a company can have one of their advertisements placed on a web site with no cost, paying only when results are achieved. The ad are placed on various sites and when a visitor to that site, goes through it and buys something from another site, the site hosting the ad receives selling commission, the amount of which is agreed to by seller and the site owner.

Most companies have found this to be an ideal way of increasing their ad presence on the internet, being able to have much more exposure than paying for an ad. With paid advertising a company buys ad space and hopes for a return on their investment. When they place an ad on an affiliate site, they pay for the space based on the amount of the return. This can work out well for both parties because the site hosting the can look as though it is receiving paid advertising. People browsing the web has no idea how the advertising got there, it just knows it did.

Advertisers also maintain control over which sites their ads appear on, and may not want their name associated with sites that carry advertising for other companies that may be deemed to have no redeeming qualities. Additionally, they may not agree with a site’s business methods or message and reject an offer to have their ad posted there as well.

Traditionally, inclusion of a web site into a company’s network marketing plan was determined largely based on the traffic of the website to get as much exposure as possible. However, as companies begin a more targeted approach to advertising, they may look a web site of higher quality and with a mission similar to their own, presuming they would attract the same type of visitor more often, increasing the number of visitors that click through to their site.

Another means the new network marketing online is helping businesses is they are able to offer distributorship opportunities to people with little or no experience to place their ads for them on their own web sites, paying commissions on sales as well as training them to host additional distributors and giving them a share of their sales as well. This is referred to as multilevel marketing and is growing in popularity as more people realize it is different that the older pyramid schemes and perfectly legal.

The other advantage to network marketing online is feedback from the ad can be almost instantaneous with a company having the ability to change the direction of their advertising at a moments notice.

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