I Have An Idea!
by Keith Evans

When it comes time to plan your advertising program “I have an idea!” is one of the most valuable things you can hear. The idea may pop into your own brain or come from someone you are working with, but it can be the start of something big.

Ideas are the currency of advertising. It is not that every idea is great, or even usable. But rather that every powerful advertisement or advertising campaign begins with a great idea. Mark Twain once said something to the effect that writing is easy, all you do is sit down and write down what occurs to you. It is the “occurring,” he said that is hard. Advertising is much the same. It is easy to fill an advertising page with pictures and words. But if they are not connected to a plan that is based upon a good idea then most of the ad’s value is lost. Ideas don’t often come easily.

Years ago the Mars Candy Company developed a chocolate candy encased in a hard sugar shell that didn’t melt on hot, humid summer days. In those days when air conditioning wasn’t universal candy sales slowed in the summer because most of it had to be kept refrigerated.
The new product that came to be known as “M&Ms” solved that problem, but how could Mars get people to buy them? What chocolate lover could be persuaded to eat these little candy
pellets?

The company and their advertising agency huddled together to explore the possibilities. They needed an idea, and thankfully an agency pro came up with one. It was simple, “M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand.” In one powerful stroke this marketing idea distinguished M&Ms from any other candy on the market and proclaimed an important customer benefit. The “melt in your mouth, not in your hand” idea made the advertising campaign all about the
customer not about the company. The late David Ogilvy, in his “Confessions of an Advertising Man,” puts it this way, “Your most important job is to decide what you are going to say about your product, what benefit you are going to promise.” He didn’t equivocate. “Unless your campaign is build around a great idea, it will flop,” he warned.

Breeders of registered beef cattle too often design their marketing programs as if they are in the business of selling cattle or genetics. Cattle and genetics are available everywhere. What buyers want is the promise of higher income, reduced workload and improved status. They want their children to win awards in the show ring. If they are in the commercial cattle business they want the calves they produce to be sought after by many feedlot operators. Instead of searching for markets they want feeder cattle buyers to search for them.

Since your customers and potential customers can buy cattle anywhere, you need to  determine why they should be interested in patronizing you. Never mind that you have more big EPDs than your competition. That’s like having chocolate pellets encased in a hard sugar coating. The question is how should you market cattle that have excellent EPDs? Cattle EPDs are a product. A good marketing idea turns this product into benefits for the buyer.

Where do great ideas come from? No one is sure. They can spring from the subconscious, seemingly unprovoked. One advertising genius said that ideas often came to him while he was shaving. Some people keep a notepad by their bedside to write down ideas that come to them in the night. Great ideas sometimes seem to come by chance, but as Louis Pasteur the 19th
century French scientist is reported to have said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

The more you know and understand about your customers and potential customers the better the chance that you will come up with a powerful advertising idea. You have to understand needs, wants and ambitions of your customers and potential customers. Big advertising agencies conduct expensive research before planning a campaign. You probably can’t afford
this kind of research, though you can do it yourself, one-on-one with the people you want to serve.

Top registered cattle marketers also understand the beef cattle business from top to bottom. Too many use the excuse that there is not enough time to read books, magazines or research bulletins. Registered breeders tend to associate with each other. State and local breed association tours often spend most of their time visiting other registered herds or  commercial herds that use their breed of cattle. Marketers need to know what the rest of the beef world is doing in order to be truly informed about our business. The cattle producers who aren’t using your seedstock or even your breed of cattle may have something to tell you. The
best advertising ideas come to those who are prepared. Write down every advertising and
marketing idea that occurs to you even if it sounds crazy or off the wall. You can select the most productive idea or ideas later. Remember it is the “occurring” that is difficult. So be  ready to act when you or someone else exclaims, “I have an idea.”

Copyright Keith Evans, 2005

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