Talking to yourself. One of the things kids learn in the first week of Advertising 101 is the absolute imperative of communicating in the language of the target audience. Unfortunately, it also seems to be one of the first things they forget.

"The language of the target audience" doesn't just mean English or Spanish or Urdu. It means the idiom and syntax in which the target communicates. Not the idiom and syntax of a product manager's English-teacher spouse or a marketing director stretching painfully to sound like a teenager.

Now there's an additional aspect of talking to yourself: not putting your message in the media the audience uses.

Gen-Y doesn't watch much TV and seldom reads newspapers. Geezers don't text message much. And it's unlikely that the CEO's favorite Golf Channel program reaches an audience much beyond other CEOs.

When an individual talks to him- or herself, we call it insanity. When a company does it, we call it marketing. Actually, we should call it waste.

Avoid the pitfall: Plan from the perspective of the people you're trying to reach.

Make sure your copy is written by someone fluent in the language, idiom and syntax of your target audience.

Don't attempt to edit copy unless you're right on the bulls-eye of that target – demographically, psychographically, and every other way imaginable. 

Put your message where your audience is, not where you are.

Talking about yourself. The target audience doesn't give a flip about most companies. They couldn't care that they have "state-of-the-art factories." They're not interested in "traditions of innovation." Don't make purchase decisions because a company "Gives back to the community."

The only thing that will motivate a target audience to act, think or feel the way an advertiser wants them to is a convincing answer to the question: "What's in it for me?"

The benefit may be anywhere on the Maslow pyramid from physiological (I'm hungry) to self-actualization (I want to grow spiritually) or any of the levels in between. But if the communications is going to work, it had better be all about the target audience's self-interest.

Avoid the pitfall: Make sure every piece of communications you produce is all about what's in it for the target audience.

Talking for yourself. Bill Ford, Pete Coors and Augie Busch all thought they were the best possible spokespeople for their companies. After all, their names were on the building.

Actually, it was their great- or great- great-grandfathers' names. These distant descendants of the founders don't come across as competent  dynasty builders proud of their products, but as clueless dorks who would have gone in the first wave of layoffs if it wasn't for that name on the building thing. Not exactly persuasive spokespeople.

Of course CEOs don't have to be born into cluelessness, they can attain it. Dieter Zetsche seems to have proved conclusively that, whatever other qualifications he has for running Chrysler, he was no Lee Iacocca in their television spots.

Lee Iacocca brings up the exceptions that tempt so many folks who really shouldn't get in front of a camera to do it anyway. Sometimes a chief executive spokesperson is very successful. Iococca certainly was for Chrysler (the first time, not his recent cameo return). Dave Thomas for Wendy's and Frank Perdue for Perdue Chicken come to mind immediately. They have some characteristics in common:

• They earned, rather than inherited, their CEO jobs. Two of them built the company.
• They have lots of personality and likeability. We've never seen  Q scores for these guys, but they must be through the roof.
• They're comfortable and natural on camera.

One of the ad industry's giants, David Ogilvy, summed up the speaking-for-yourself syndrome nicely:

Only in the gravest cases

Should you show the clients' faces.

Avoid the pitfall: Odds are, your company's CEO doesn't have the strengths of a Lee Iacocca or Dave Thomas or Frank Perdue. The way to avoid the speaking-for-yourself pitfall is simple:

• Don't do it.
• Not ever.
• Really. Not ever.

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