advertising

Advertising, like executive jets, is commonly supposed to be a preserve of the corporate rich. On the contrary: it can be a fast-track method of joining their number. Obviously, the relatively poor can't achieve that result by monetary muscle - but mental muscle can work wonders.

As in business generally, the short-cut to a brighter and better solution is often contrariness. Whatever the conventional wisdom dictates, don't go and do likewise. That's how The Edinburgh Club, a health and fitness outfit, bucked an adverse trend. For all the hype about keeping fit, real consumer spending on such clubs has been falling since 1990.

In fact, only one in seven people take regular exercise. The conventional wisdom would preach to these converted, defining them as 'the market'. But the famous story about two shoe salesman sent to the same underdeveloped country applies. One wires back, 'Coming home. Nobody here wears shoes'. The other demands huge shipments at once - for the same reason.

The latter logic is what appeals to George and Pauline Kerr, the owners of the Edinburgh Club. With 10% of a market consisting of 14% of the population, doubling your share will require massive effort. It certainly won't be achieved by 'tactical price promotions', on which the Club used to rely. Convert 2% of the unconverted, however, and you achieve the same effect: but the Kerrs' efforts to reach the unfit and fat were hampered by ads that one corporate member bluntly called 'crap.'

The member is the Leith Agency - like its client, a local business. It followed through on its bluntness, and on the Kerrs' view of their market, in six prize-winning advertisements. Since the targets were the fat and/or the unfit, they were used as models for witty copy: 'Join the pudding club' shows seven well-padded members and asks 'So why do they use our exercise machines and follow our fitness programmes? Well, you should have seen them before they joined.'

Since 1990, the Kerrs have more than doubled their membership (now 1,300 paying up to £440 a year), with profits up 174%. The intake of new members has more than quadrupled - and over a third say that the ads first aroused their interest. In subtle ways, the ads directly attacked a powerful objection to health clubs: fatties don't fancy being surrounded by athletic beauties. As every salesman knows, though, objections are heaven-sent: they give you something on which to work. Remove the objection, and the target is brought much nearer to purchase.

With a budget of only £10,000, spent with Edinburgh newspapers, the campaign obviously earned its silver in 1994's Advertising Effectiveness Awards. This modest business rubbed shoulders with 'new campaigns' from giant advertisers like Courage (John Smith), Unilever (Peperami) and Playtex ('Hello Boys', of course). These awards themselves convey an advertising message: that ads really are effective - if the advertiser possesses clear aims, an equally clear strategy for reaching his objectives, and clear evidence to show whether they have been achieved.

On all three counts, that's doesn't differ from any other business expenditure. If you have no objectives, or fuzzy ones: haven't thought through how to get to any destination you may have in mind: and haven't discovered the key measures that prove how well or badly you're managing - well, failure in these all too common circumstances can't be a surprise.

But advertising isn't a substitute for poor or mediocre products. The Edinburgh Club wouldn't have kept its new members if they had been disappointed by the quality of the premises, equipment and service. But after 30 years, George Kerr knows his business: although he's only concentrated on the Club since 1989, when he ended a gold-medal career as Austria's national team coach in judo.

Brilliance isn't the only element in his advertising's effectiveness. Nor, self-evidently, can total spending be the key. But consistency counts for a lot. The 'fatties' campaign has been running three years. That's much less than BA's decade of calling itself 'The World's Favourite Airline', at a cost of £400 million. But the Kerrs are spending their £10,000 just as wisely: the campaign has been repeated because it's effective, and its repetition has created more effectiveness still.