Finish this sentence: "Certs with Retsyn gives you ___, ____, _____ ______ ___ ____."

If you were able to supply the missing words "two, two, two mints in one," you are a living, breathing example of the effectiveness of advertising creative. This Certs breath mint ad ran years ago, yet most people can still spout it off as if they had just viewed it this morning. This creative scored well because the message was concise, memorable, benefit-oriented, frequent and distinctly unique.

Of the five attributes, being distinctly unique is the most important. We're fighting for attention in a noisy world. Surveys show that readers, viewers and listeners give you only two seconds to gain their attention. If you can't stop the reader, viewer or listener, you've wasted your investment and you've communicated nothing.

Before you start crafting jingles or designing creative, it's best to clearly define exactly what advertising truly is. Advertising is controlled communications designed to increase profits. Properly done, good advertising will increase brand preference, increase product trials and increase sales leads. All of which are designed to create more sales.

According to the Small Business Administration, the leading cause of business failures is "not having a sufficient number of buyers to produce consistent profits." It's very simple. If you can't sell your product over time, you won't be able to keep your doors open. As exciting as it seems, advertising is actually a very sober art and science. It's a means to an end, and that end is to increase profits.

The pathway to achieving that end starts with answering the following three questions:

• Who is my target market? By defining who your buyers are, you'll be able to select the most appropriate media vehicle (print, television, radio, Internet, etc.) to reach them. The media vehicl
  e determines the shape of the creative message.
  
  
• What is it they want? Research your prospective market as thoroughly as your budget allows. In many cases, you can negotiate free, or reduced-cost studies of your market from the media vehicle you pay to broadcast your advertising. Customers don't buy what they need. They buy what they want.
  
  
• Why should they buy it from me? The reasons you list here will form the backbone of the creative that drives home your message. Your ad creative must quickly communicate perceptible points of difference. Seemingly small points of differentiation can become the key selling points that lead to success.

Once you've answered the above questions, it's time to build creative that succinctly and uniquely conveys your message and gives the viewer a call to action. Great creative and copy must be driven by a defined purpose. It must communicate to the correct target audience. To be effective, great creative also needs to identify and demonstrate key benefits, stop the reader by communicating a unique personality or tone, and finally, what is so important for increasing profits, leave the potential customer with a call to action. Here are some tips on building great creative:

Headlines. Make them concise, clever and direct. When you think you have them just right, continue to test them. A simple change in a headline has been shown to give 10%, 100% and as much as 1,000% more response.

Benefit-oriented copy. When writing the ad copy, think fact, feature, benefit. Back to another Certs example, the breath mint ad had this voice over: "Certs with Retsyn..." (Fact) "Gives you fresh breath..." (Feature) and the actors conveyed through their actions: "Which makes all the girls go after you..." (Benefit).

Communicate a personality or tone. People don't buy what they need, they buy what they want. It's an emotional buying decision, and people sometimes don't even want to admit that to themselves. Create a personality or tone that first stops the readers to view the ad, then plays to their emotional wants and needs.

Size or frequency? To look big and "safe" to the consumer, choose the largest ad you can afford. But if you must choose between size and frequency, pick frequency. The "rule of seven" says that consumers need seven impressions over a 12-month period to receive your message. Great creative can grab attention even with smaller ads by using color, shape, artwork and headline.

Provide a strong offer. Make your offer very clear. If you can get your offer into the headline, great. If not, make sure you don't bury it. Types of offers that drive response include discounts, free information, free samples and free product trials.

Leave potential customers with a call to action. Leave your message ringing in the potential customers' ears. Tell them exactly what you want them to do: Test the product. Call for information. Buy today. Visit your Web site.

An example of great creative that drove sales was a campaign RMR & Associates did for Yurie Systems. Yurie Systems was Business Week's #1 Hot Growth Company in 1997, and RMR needed to put together a campaign that helped them increase their brand awareness and generate sales leads. We needed to design a campaign that worked as a stop sign in terms of the color, imagery and layout. It needed to stop people and make them pay attention.

Yurie's product was a computer network protocol product called Intelligent Access Control that through a series of multi-service switches can direct any traffic to any network. The key product attributes were power and grace. Because Yurie's competitors were all heralding just the bandwidth (power) aspects of their product, RMR's creative had to herald the importance of both power and grace.

The ad pictured a Sumo wrestler dressed in a tutu with the caption: "More bandwidth won't always improve performance." It also told customers to visit Yurie's Web site to order a free sample CD ROM. Over 1,000 people did just that within the first 30 days of the campaign.

Since then, Yurie was bought by Lucent for a billion dollars. While RMR certainly can't take all of the credit, having strong products, strong markets, and a strong focus on marketing communications played a significant role in Yurie Systems’ success.

Robyn Sachs is the president of RMR & Associates, a full-service advertising, marketing and public relations firm based in the Washington metropolitan area that specializes in the high tech industry and is known nationally for its innovative campaigns. She can be reached at rsachs@rmr.com. The Marketing Advisor is published quarterly. We welcome yolur comments or questions.