Why Display Ads Should Display Expertise

Two ads in today's Wall Street Journal show how professional firms should use advertising – not just to promote a brand image but also to plug specific insights and client work.

Accenture ran an ad in its continuing Tiger Woods series, a now 5-year-old campaign featuring the world’s premier golfer. The ad shows Tiger sizing up a putt, with the copy below the ball mentioning the firm’s research on 500 “high-performing” businesses and client experience. The jump page is www.accenture.com/research

EDS, in the same edition of the newspaper, ran an ad featuring its client work at Molson/Coors.

When they run advertisements, professional services firms should go beyond their brand positioning statements, especially when they are unmemorable, vague and non-distinctive. Why not point to a new piece of research or a client case study on a website to increase the chance that an expensive advertisement goes beyond the vague benefit of “brand enhancement” to actually generate specific inquiries about specific expertise?

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