Learn to advertise with the help of Adams Streetwise

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): One of my favorite magazines is Home Office Computing. I still subscribe to it today and it has been mailed to me directly from the United States. I like the magazine because it contains tons of tips and guides for small business owners.

Although there is the word "computing" in the magazine's name, the tips and hints are not limited to how you can increase productivity with your computer. In the last issue I received (April 1997), for instance, there were 101 Windows 95 shortcuts for finding files, accessing e-mail and speeding up systems. In addition, there were also tips on marketing and increasing sales, tips on giving one and one's company legal protection, tips on choosing a new 17" monitor and a report on on-line investing.

Certainly Home Office Computing is not the only recommended periodical for small business owners. For some time I also subscribed to Entrepreneur, which contains more guidelines for strategies of building start-up and small businesses. I canceled the subscription because the piles of magazines in my study began to stack up uncontrollably.

In addition to magazines, small business owners can now take advantage of a multitude of CD-ROM-based aids, including a collection of business letters that you could modify to suit your needs. And, quite recently, I came across a CD-ROM-based advertising tutorial that could effectively replace a three-month advertising course.

This CD-ROM, called Do-it-yourself Advertising from the Adam Streetwise collection, is a real masterpiece. Based on work by Sarah White and John Woods, it perfectly demonstrates what one can achieve with today's state-of-the-art computer-based training or teaching (CBT), both as trainer and trainee.

Your own pace

As you have probably heard many times, one of the good things about a computer is that it lets you choose your own time for learning something. You no longer have to attend a class when you're too tired to learn. Instead, you can just switch on your PC, sit back and follow the lessons at a time when you feel that your mind is fresh and thus more receptive to new concepts and ideas.

Better yet, CBT allows you to learn subjects at your own pace. If there is a certain section that requires repetition for you to really grasp a concept that was dealt with, you can simply go back to it. You can repeat it as many times as you wish.

My experience with this particular CD-ROM totally confirms the above claims. While advertising terms such as 'copy writing' have not really been alien to me, others such as 'positioning', 'media planning' and 'tag lines' have. But, after sitting in front of my monitor for two hours, I had at least some idea of what they meant.

As you can see in the accompanying picture, the Do-it-yourself Advertising main menu lets you choose any of seven topics that you can explore: positioning, promotions, media planning, creative approach, print ads, radio ads, TV ads. If you think you're ready to create your own ad, you could hop directly into a module called Ad Maker. I'll talk about this more later.

A click away

Let's see what happens if you click, for instance, on the Positioning icon. You will have the Positioning submenu. Do you want to watch a video, learn what 'positioning' means, brush up on your marketing theory or learn something about market research? Or do you want to delve into the components of positioning, positioning strategies or marketing plans? All these options are only one click away.

Let's start from the very beginning, as our favorite song from the movie The Sound of Music also says. If you click on the Positioning Video button, you will have a darkened TV displayed on the screen. On the bottom left there is a button with the word Introduction written on it and a speaker icon. Click on it and you will hear the voice of the narrator informing you of the name of the guest speaker.

The voice recording is excellent. The guest speaker, Erika Kleinkopf, is introduced as co-owner of Thirty Petals Boutique. She will be talking about locating her business and positioning it. If you click on the Play button, Erika appears on the TV and makes her speech.

If you need to stop her speech temporarily because you want some coffee, you could simply click the Pause button. I guess you really couldn't do this to a live guest speaker, could you? Then, after you have the steaming cup of coffee in your hand, you can click on the Play button again and Erika will continue right from where you left off when you clicked the Pause button. Of course there's a Stop button to rewind the video reel all the way to the starting point.

Interactive

While what you're interacting with is just a recording and therefore not live interaction, being in control from start to finish is certainly far more superior to sitting in a crowded classroom with a real teacher communicating one way at you. At any time you can go back to the Main Menu, and from there you can choose other topics to explore.

For example, let's see what the Media Planning section contains. If you click on the icon, you have the option to learn about the components of a plan, options in print, options in broadcast, evaluation of options, timing strategies, calendar and budgets, and tips on working with media reps. Or, as before, you could start by watching the Media Planning video to get the background of subject matters covered in this section.

In the Creative Approach section, you can learn about how an ad strategy is devised, how big ideas are invented, how to judge these ideas and what items an ad must have. Like before, the introductory video is the best place to start.

In each section there is also a button that you can click to get the summary. There is another button to get some expert advice. Click on still another button, and you enter the Q&A section where more tips and advice are shared.

Create it

When you think you have learned enough about the theory of advertisement, it may be time for a real world task. Click on the Ad Maker icon in the Main Menu. A demo is available to give guidance on how to use the program.

Before proceeding, you have to tell the program whether you want to advertise a service, a retail shop or a product. The program provides a number of templates that you can choose based on the dimension of the ad space that you intend to use in a magazine or newspaper.

For the headline, you can pick one from the list that is already available. For instance, you can start the headline with "Problem with your _____?" You can add the word "waistline" to make it read "Problem with your waistline?" The program also has ready-to-use tag lines, such as "Same day service, same great price." Of course, in advertisement, the sky is the limit for creativity.

Adams Media Corporation, the publisher of this CD-ROM-based tutorial, also publishes a number of other titles, including guides for hiring employees, for starting up new businesses, and for managing your company.

After exploring this CD-ROM, the question that pops up in my mind is, when will our children in Indonesia benefit from this already available technology and be able to learn at their own pace at their own convenience? When will all the incredibly useless learning materials they have to swallow in school systems be replaced with professionally presented ones such as the Do-it- yourself Advertising from Adams Streetwise collection?