Awareness Is Not the Point
The marketing old
guard is quick to defend the power of the TV commercial. They’re
delighted to point out the great success stories of years past, and
to happily articulate why only TV can get the awareness needed to
launch a new product or maintain an existing one.
Yet Sergio Zyman,
the marketing guru who was there for most of Coca-Cola’s rebirth,
points out that two of the most popular TV commercials of all
time—“I’d like to teach the world to sing” and “Mean Joe
Greene”—sold not one more bottle of Coke. They entertained and got
attention, but they translated into no incremental revenue. He
jokes that the commercial should have been, “I’d like to teach the
world to drink.”
In Sergio’s words,
“Kmart has plenty of awareness. So what?”