R
ecently (April 2000) TeleCheck paid for
a twelve-page advertorial in STORES
magazine, titled “Electronic Checks: The Payment Solution for an
Electronic Age.” I hope that you all saw this piece on electronic
checks, and I’m sure that TeleCheck does as well, given that this type
of ad has a price tag of about $29,500.
If
you saw the ad, you probably recognized a good deal of the opening
information, as well as about half of page three, as it is material from
The Green Sheet, Inc.’s book, Checks
at the end of the 20th Century.
Page three also has two charts from The
Green Sheet,
although this is not the reason that I am pointing out this story to you.
The advertorial (I love this word) talks about electronic checks in both
the physical and virtual retail environment, and two-thirds of page five
talks about a TeleCheck customer, DesignersDirect.com.
In
a quote from the STORES
magazine story, Errol Getner, Chief Executive Officer of
DesignerDirect.com notes, “If I can’t offer my customers the
convenience of paying the way they want to pay for purchases, they’re
just a few mouse-clicks away from a competitor who will.” Well, after
thousands of dollars in advertising, and only one customer in the ad, it
appears that DesignerDirect.com was just a few mouse clicks away from
bellying-up, announcing that they were done, just days after the TeleCheck
ad appeared.
Now,
I am not taking shots at TeleCheck. I liked their ad, and loved that they
used some of my stuff, but it does allow me to point out that we all must
watch who we use as customer names in our advertising. Frankly, it’s
embarrassing to have a customer you mention be unhappy with you after you
name them, or, as in this case, not survive the shelf life of the ad in
which they are mentioned. So think about it with the next marketing
materials you write. It can happen to the best of us, so watch out and
know your advertising references.
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© Copyright 2000;
The
Green Sheet,
Inc. |