Volume 2, Issue 1
Table of Contents

Cover Story:
For RBD, It Was
a Very Good Year

Feature Stories:
Lessons Learned
Starting a small business can be a daunting proposition
Web Masters
RBD's online presence is a natural progression

RBD Round-Up:
How's Business?
The results are in from our
first survey
RBD Business Survey
What's your take on the rising cost of healthcare?

DEPARTMENTS:

Economic Round-Up
• The Smart Investor
How to minimize the affect of the Alternative Minimum Tax
• Economic Viewpoint
Interpreting the Inverted
Yield Curve
• Visitor's Guide
Tour busses in Rockland?

Retail Round-Up
• Where the Jobs Are
Tips for students looking
for work

Business Round-Up
• PSI Health Plans
Offer flexibility and
cost savings
• Marketing By Design
The top 15 campaigns of the last 100 years - Part 2

Ask The Expert
• The Human Factor in
Human Resources

Invest in Your Community
• Looking For a Better Way
Tomorrow's Workplace
offers help
• Leadership Rockland
Graduates class of 2007
• Youth Forum & Awards
Rockland Youth Volunteers Honored

Odds & Ends
• Letters to the Editor
• Rockland Newsmakers

Dedicated Section:
Rockland Business Association:

The President’s Desk
Heart-felt Congratulations
to Rockland's only B2B resource

RBA/United Way Golf Outing
A beautiful day for all

RBA Happenings
• Committee and Council Info
• Calendar of Events
• New Members

Last issue in this column we discussed Ad Age Magazine’s choices for the most successful advertising campaigns of the last 100 years. The slogans they listed all impacted our culture, stuck forever in our memories and sold slews of product. In fact, many of these masterpieces of modern literature (ahem) are still used today.

So what, we asked, made them so successful. While a large budget and the ability to spend it is one key to such impact, was that all there was to it?

Was it just money and exposure that convinced us to buy their products? Or did those Madison Avenue types actually know something? (Almost none of them actually work on Madison Avenue anymore, but the appelation still sticks.)

So how did you do? Did you guess them all correctly? Chances are you did if you’re over the age of thirty. But why were they all so successful? Ah, now we separate the marketing minded from the rest.

Your e-mails ranged everywhere from, “It was all about the money.” to the slightly more analytical, “They all leveraged television.” While several of you voiced opinions, none of you came up with my answers. (Which are, of course, the only correct ones.)

Put simply, every one of these top campaigns have one glaring fact in common. The “Big Idea” for each is all about the product itself rather than just about a gimmick. In other words, make sure your “Big Idea” actually relates to your sales message.

Think I’m wrong about this? Let’s review them all and you decide for yourself:

1. Diamonds are forever - DeBeers
Diamond engagement rings were only indulged in by less than 9% of the world’s married couples prior to this campaign in 1947. DeBeers told women that if men didn’t buy them a diamond, they really weren’t in it for the long haul.

2. Just do it -Nike
Don’t think about how much money we’re charging for sneakers, just buy them and get out there and ‘do it!’

3. The pause that refreshes - Coca-Cola
Back in the day when cocaine was in the recipe and ‘refreshes’ meant more than it does now.

4. Tastes great, less filling - Miller Lite
Miller was the first lite beer that actually tasted like real beer. Or so they said...

5. We try harder - Avis Car Rentals
The market leader (Hertz) had gotten fat and lazy and Avis said so – without saying so.

6. Good to the last drop - Maxwell House
Remember when the last dregs of coffee in the percolator were filled with bitter tasting ‘mud’ and coffee grinds? Maxwell House told us, “Even our mud tastes good!”.

7. Breakfast of champions - Wheaties
First cereal to specifically market itself as a healthy and health-promoting choice with lots of celebrity athletes to attest that this was their choice for successful competition.

8. Does she ... or doesn't she? - Clairol
Told all the women out there that nobody would know they weren’t ‘real’ blondes or disguising grey signs of age.

9. When it rains it pours - Morton Salt
On really humid days salt would clog up in shakers with fine holes, so Morton ground their salt just a little bit finer and carved out a tremendous market share.

10. Where's the beef? - Wendy’s
MacDonald’s was cutting corners to keep their prices down (sound familiar?) and Wendy’s said, “Not us!”

11. Look Ma, no cavities! - Crest Toothpaste
The first mass-commercial use of fluoride made the claim (true) that Mom and Dad would pay for a whole lot less cavity fillings for the kids.

12. Let your fingers do the walking - Yellow Pages
No more hunting for slips of paper or calling information every time you wanted to know a number or find someone new.

13. They melt in your mouth, not in your hand - M&M Candies
It started with Moms who worried about cleaning chocolate off the furniture and led to all women who didn’t want to be caught with evidence that they’d been indulging too.

14. We bring good things to life - General Electric
Back in the day when GE was a leader in electrical products that ‘freed’ people from drudgery.

15. It keeps going and going and going... - Energizer Batteries
Buy their batteries for the kids’ toys and be forced to buy batteries a lot less often. RBD

Steven Powell is the president of Co-oper8 Marketing Group, an award-winning design and marketing firm based in Goshen, NY. He hosts Marketing By Design, a weekly talk-radio show on WRCR 1300AM and WTBQ 1110AM and is co-publisher of this magazine. Learn more at: www.c8group.net.