Impressive...but Worth It?

A recent insert in The New York Times got me thinking...

The insert was a huge 8 page printed piece that double-opened, with the interior, a horizontal infographic displaying the process a startup goes through, from “dreamed” to “conquered."

The inside folded pages included 3 case studies of startups and how they succeeded. There were also 2 paragraphs that explained how Dropbox is an ideal tool for today’s virtual workspaces.

The back page had a listing of 45 startups with their website addresses.

The Dropbox logo appeared at the bottom of the front and last pages, about ¼ inch-high.

It took me a moment to realize that this was an advertorial for Dropbox, the cloud-based tool that allows people to share and store digital files.

It was an impressive piece of advertising.

BUT DID IT ACHIEVE ITS GOAL?

A cloud-based company spending a substantial amount of money, chose to advertise in the print version of The New York Times (vs. the online version).

My marketing sense tells me:

• The demographics of readers of the print version of The New York Times are very different than the online version of the publication. The New York Times has nearly 7 million online subscribers and 831,000 print subscribers, Did Dropbox miss an opportunity to reach more people who are also more likely to use a cloud-based tool?
• The branding was hard to find. Why did they make it so hard to find their logo?
• The infographic was cool. But did they expect people to actually hang it up on an a wall?
• Were eight pages really necessary? Could this have been done on 1, or maybe 2 pages?

And more importantly, where was the value statement? How does Dropbox differ from other cloud-based sharing tools such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or Apple iCloud?  

Maybe it was an "ego program." That's when a company wants to do something “big” assuming that more...is better?

I don’t know the answers to these questions.

When I speak with small business owners about their marketing goals and plans, these are questions I make sure we can answer.

Always consider the right campaign for the right audience and the right channel.

Bigger isn't necessarily better.