The 5 A’s from Dave Saunders with Madison & Main Advertising Agency, Richmond, Virginia, USA
If you’ve read the Weekly Report for some time now, you may be familiar with the 5 A’s of Marketing. More than a decade ago, I essentially categorized five different ways that companies should communicate brand messaging to their customers. I called it the 5 A’s; Attention, Access, Authority, Affinity, and Acclaim.
Attention is all the ways marketing can grab attention — TV, radio, billboards, etc. Access is direct access to your target market, i.e. direct mail, email, PPC ads, etc. Authority is essentially PR and reviews — having a third party endorse your company’s products or services or some offer differentiator. Affinity is about establishing partnerships with other organizations, especially non-profits, so you can leverage each other’s audiences and show that your company “plays well with others.” Lastly, there is Acclaim, getting recognition for your company’s products, services, culture, or some other wonderful thing.
Most companies can get a few of the 5 A’s working for them, but only a few manage to get them all — and most don’t get Acclaim. They don’t seek the limelight and they won’t apply for awards and recognition. “We don’t want to be seen as bragging,” one CEO told me.
And that’s exactly the point. You get Acclaim from others — you can’t give it to yourself. Doing something great and then not telling anyone about it is not the smart thing to do when marketing your company. Bold brands win. Arrogant brands don’t. There is a fine line between the two.
Madison+Main has had lots of recognition through the years, and you can check out the big list here. Companies wouldn’t want to hire us if we’d never won awards for our TV ads, design work, PR work, or culture, would they?
Source: Madison & Main Weekly Newsletter, Jan. 15, 2021
