There's no excuse for lazy advertising
Published on 03/11/1996 under Ad Strategy
I was recently asked to conduct a competitive advertising survey for a client in the industrial valves industry. It made me sad and angry at the same time, because I remember a time fifteen or twenty years ago when valves was a hotly contested category and valve advertising was among the best that business-to-business marketing had to offer.
Apparently this is no longer the case. After scrutinizing the magazine advertising for some 60 valve manufacturers in 25 major trade publications, I have to conclude that no one cares anymore. As a group, it is some of the lamest stuff I've seen in years.
It's not that they've quit advertising altogether -- we tracked almost $2 million worth of ads for products our client considers competitive. It's just that they've quit investing in creative advertising that delivers benefit-laden messages with visual impact.
The question is: How can they afford to do this? How can any company in today's market afford to run inane, invisible advertising? And why would any advertiser consider it a good value to run ads that look like they were created by a high school art student on Quaaludes?
If you think I'm exaggerating, here are a few example headlines:
"Valves and fittings for the world marketplace"
"Valves and support services for oil, gas and processing plant"
"High performance valves for the process industry"
"The industry's leading manufacturer of corrosion resistant and cryogenic valves"
I guess the more specific you can make headlines like this, the better. Several companies saw the fallacy of totally generic headlines, but felt it sufficient to add their name in front of these statements:
"Starline forged steel ball valves"
"OMB valve specialists"
"Breda products for oil industry"
And the fun doesn't stop with headlines. The valve industry is full of great taglines and slogans:
"We care, and it shows"
"We get the job done"
"The best ... by design"
"Innovation in every valve"
Speaking of innovation, it's obvious this attribute is very important to valve manufacturers and end users judging from the frequency with which it's mentioned:
"Creating value through process innovation"
"From innovation to excellence"
"Technology for the future"
"Technology that's simply better"
"The leader in valve technology"
"World leaders in flow control technology"
One company didn't feel strongly enough about their technology position to claim total industry domination, so their tagline was simply, "A leader in valve technology." Looks like a definite self esteem problem.
Two valve manufacturers were "raising the industry standards" and another company was "The World Standard," although it's not clear if it had been supplanted as standard bearer and could still make the claim. Talk about relentless pressure!
And a half dozen other valve suppliers were conscientiously working to provide solutions to customer problems, named or otherwise:
"Economical flow control solutions worldwide"
"Think of us first for final control element solutions"
"Solutions through engineered products"
"If you have a valve problem, TBV has a valve solution"
The Brevity in Headlines Award goes to Dixon Valve and Coupling Company for its very concise, "Valves" headline.
The Verbosity in Headlines Award goes to Orbit for "Important new developments from Orbit Valve Company are setting higher standards in valve technology" headline. Of course you can see this line was a clear winner for its cross-over ability, hitting several of the key headline categories in one fell swoop.
Lest you think that creativity is totally dead in industrial valves advertising, I submit these headlines for valve actuators from Keystone Controls:
"Straight torque"
"Torque is cheap"
"Can we torque?"
Now you know what Joan Rivers is up to these days.
The Most Bizarre Valve Advertising is from Winn Valves, a British company for its "Well thought out high performance butterfly valves" campaign. In one ad, they compare butterfly valves to electric tricycles (too low, fragile and lightweight; looked terrifyingly vulnerable in London's traffic). In another they compare their valves to "the tilting train" (tilting induced travel sickness in some passengers; a series of tiresome faults finally resulted in a 100 mph derailment).
I'd love to have been there when this misguided campaign idea was presented. I wonder what other product failures they will be comparing themselves to in the future?
Are you starting to get the picture? Industrial valve advertising is atrocious. It's lazy and unprofessional, and it creates a bad image for all of us in the industry. Plus it reinforces management's growing perception that media advertising really doesn't playan important role in a company's success or failure.
Companies that run lazy advertising are playing a dangerous, self-fulfilling game. I, for one, wish they would throw their money in some other direction. It has an odor about it that stinks up things for all of us.