A great post in Fast Company about the power of billboards to transform R&D combined with a recent road trip got me thinking about the power of context in marketing. Billboards are a great litmus test for this because the target audience shares a lot of contextual similarities: they’re travelling down the road at 70+ mph in a vehicle of some sort and are likely to have a fairly immediate need for food, gas, or a place to stay.

But audience context is likewise valuable in other marketing settings – whether one-to-one, print, or online. Let’s get the slam-dunk out of the way: if you have strong brand recognition and a known value proposition that your target audience likely has immediate need of, you’re done.

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Bankers are not marketers. This much should be obvious, but the point was driven home to me not too long ago as I was sitting in my local branch gazing at the POS collateral scattered around the lobby (see example at left).

Getting a new credit card isn’t typically a spur-of-the moment decision. Nor do most people regularly have luggage on their mind. Could the Venn diagram of customers who were thinking of opening a credit card and getting new luggage – and were spurred into action by this promotion – really be substantial enough to meaningfully drive customer acquisition? Frankly, I’d be surprised if this promotion drove any incremental business for my bank. Read more