Perhaps a better question is this--what are the relationships between your company's name and your advertising?

Companies spend a great deal of money on their names and presenting them to the public.  Sometimes names are legacy driven, sometimes they are artificial words made up to invoke a certain image.  Everyone needs a name for identity and great care is given to the name, how it looks, and how it is presented.  

It amuses me when I walk into a pulp or paper mill and see the names displayed on the equipment.  Obviously a great deal of money is spent making the signs and placards look just right.  Then I wonder what is the purpose of this--for whom was it done?  What is the justification for this expenditure?

The same could be said for the livery on your trucks and other vehicles.  Driving down the road, your industrial vehicles have no appeal or interest for the general public.  Arriving at a mill site, your trucks are merely more in a fleet of those whose presence is required to perform tasks for which the mill hired you. 

I am particularly amused by elaborate names on equipment in remote parts of a mill site that are usually observed only by wildlife, or ever increasingly, in operations that are fully automated and usually in the dark (such as automated warehouses).  I walk through paper mill basements where totes and metering pump systems are plastered with elaborate logos seen by no one.  Yet, this business represents the past--sales made or at best, sales continued.  These locations have nothing to do with gaining new customers and growing a business.

Back in the day, your name on a piece of equipment might be seen by future customers.  Today, however, future customers are seldom allowed into existing mills as confidentiality becomes more the norm than the exception.  Your name is being seen only by customers you have, not future customers.

Now, contrast all of this to advertising.  Often, I run into companies that, while taking great care of their name image, spend almost nothing on advertising.  Why is this?  Again, your name on a piece of equipment, a truck or something else is being seen by people to whom you have already made a sale.  Displaying your name carefully in advertising is about future sales.

Yes, this is what advertising is about--the future.  It exists to inform new prospects of your solutions to their problems and to inform old customers about your new solutions.  These are very critical functions required to ensure the sustainability of your business.  Advertising performs these functions more economically than any other method.  

So, the next time you sign the order for those fancy cast placards that you proudly mount on your equipment, or the next time you assign a team to come up with a new logo, think about who is going to see it.  If you do not have a comprehensive advertising program, only your existing customers will see it.

Jim Thompson is CEO and Executive Editor of Paperitalo Publication.

For more information on Paperitalo Publications, feel free to contact:    

 

Curt Gifford  

[email protected]
770-367-4823

 

Helen Roush

[email protected]

937-403-8602 

Jim Thompson
[email protected]
678-206-6010