Look around you.  No, really, look around you.

They’re everywhere.

Right now, as I look around my office I see a Chick-fil-A calendar, Zaxby’s napkins, a Donald Trump doll (bought years ago, but not a bad branding technique for the Donald), a Holy Events banner (unashamedly, lol), an AT&T phone, an HP printer, and one or two other items with a brand stitched, taped, glued, or somehow stuck to them.

They say that we are hit with over 3,000 advertisements daily whether we realize it or not, and if you look around your place at home or at work, it’s not hard to see why.

Branding is big business, but this business can be taken too far.  Recently, some friends and I have noticed the uptick of ads from major chains and local small businesses, but it seems as though their efforts are not solely due to the Christmas season.  There have been many requests for support on Facebook, Twitter, through email and even recorded phone calls reminiscent of political campaigns.  While the businesses that do this believe it’s just marketing, many people — including myself — are just plain tired.

Source: Ironic Sans

Now it seems the same is being done for many “holy” events and stores, with merchants and organizers trying to convince us that their product or service is the best thing since sliced bread.  The truth of the matter is, a good product or service will sell itself.

Really.

You don’t have to tell me 50 times in one week what you are doing, because you just said the same thing to me yesterday.  And maybe even the day before.

And even though you told me about how successful your last venture was, somehow… I just don’t believe you because you tell me every single day.

For some reason, today’s advertisers either really underestimate the power of word-of-mouth advertising, or they don’t understand it completely.  This is how it normally goes: you provide something of value to people, they like it, and then they talk about it to their friends.  In essence, that’s word-of-mouth.

This is not to be confused with you telling me what you have or sell is the greatest.  That is words-outta-your-mouth.

Maybe instead of the constant barrage of advertising, you could try to do something for people, even something unrelated to your business.  A group of Korean churches came together on Thanksgiving to donate food and their time to help Hosea’s Feed the Hungry campaign.  The story was covered by the local news and no doubt raised their profile.  Even if this was solely done to increase their exposure, I and perhaps others perceived it to be a genuine act, and I have a more positive view of them (not that it was negative before).

In closing, in the spirit of the season, instead of shouting from the rooftops and asking people to  buy buy buy, try this four-letter word:

Give.