Is brand marketing dying? Are we entering a golden age of “pull marketing.”
Many people think that while promotion can be effective in getting people to try a brand, once a purchase is made it is only the intrinsic qualities of the product that matter. Therefore as technology enables consumers, broadcasting brand messages is increasingly a waste of time and money.
Recent research, however, debunks this notion. Marketing actions like brand promotions and discounting can actually affect how consumers experience products. Moreover, follow-up fMRI studies show that this is a verifiable physiological process that we can see working inside our brains.
Last April, I went to work at a global agency network, which was a new thing for me. For most of my career, I’ve been working for local companies on what agencies call, “the supplier side.” In other words, I have been mostly been figuring out how to create and sell media rather than what to do with it.
Nevertheless, I had built enough of a reputation in the advertising community that I was given the opportunity to start up a special strategic unit at ZenithOptimedia in Turkey. Unfortunately, mostly for family reasons, I had to resign my position in September, but stayed on till December.
Having heard much, and much untrue, about the how the big agency world was bureaucratic, impersonal and behind the curve, I wanted to relate my experience.
The arguments are twofold: one based on supply and one based on demand. On the supply side, pundits say that that consumers have grown tired of having their media experience interrupted and will increasingly avoid ads. On the demand side, they say that marketers are becoming more savvy and are learning that advertising never worked anyway.
Both arguments are specious and don’t hold up to scrutiny.
The Web has become the most consequential force for the spread of information and innovation since the advent of the printing press. The debate over its future is heating up, so it was inevitable that its creator, Tim Berners-Lee, would eventually weigh in.
He did just that in an article in Scientific American in which he lays out the facts as only he could. The online world as we know it is under dire threat from a variety of special interests who seek advantage at the expense of the rest of us.
The issues, although abstract, are far from esoteric and there is truly a lot at stake.
It’s a tired old tale. A plodding industry, stuck on a conventional business model, blind to the new realities, digs in its heels and gets world upended by a young, tech savvy company. They never knew what hit them.
That’s what Ken Auletta, says Google is doing to traditional media in his 2009 book Googled. As the story goes, with powerful algorithms and a disruptive business model, the web upstart is killing the media business as we know it.
The book is a worthwhile read and he largely gets his facts right. However, he gets the media principles wrong. While Google has truly become a force to contend with, its effect has been a mix of positive and negative. Old media is prospering and, increasingly, it is Google who is having to adapt.
“New Economy” theories are usually popular during booms. After the party is over, more conventional ideas inevitably come back into vogue.
However, things are clearly changing, despite the dismal times. The way businesses function and compete has altered considerably and, most likely, permanently. While this probably won’t bring about a revolution in productivity, it is already creating big changes in how companies are managed and how they succeed.
The fundamental difference is that, while in the old economy promoting efficiency and organizing work reigned supreme, in the emergent new economy inspiring the passions of employees to create and innovate is far more important.
While conventional marketing targets consumers, disruptive marketing creates them. It’s exciting, very profitable and even one big success can make your career. Nevertheless, most efforts go towards conventional marketing and with good reason.
Knowing when to be conventional and when to be disruptive can make the difference between an innovative coup and a huge flameout.
Do you have a strategy? Is it the right one? Does your organization buy into it?
These are all important questions, often without clear answers. Strategy doesn’t play out in PowerPoint or Excel, but in the real world. We have much less control over it than we would like to admit. Even the best laid plans can go awry.
Albert Camus famously said that ideology should serve people, not the other way around and it is the same with strategy. In truth, to find the one that will serve us best we need to pursue four types of strategy simultaneously.
Are newspapers dead? Probably not. However, they do need to seriously rethink their business model.
As traditional media in general are making a comeback, newspapers still have a very tough road ahead. While circulation numbers show a long, steady decline, classified revenues have plummeted and newspapers have never been a strong display medium.
There has, of course, been much discussion about this subject, but one thing that has been missing is any serious discussion of the one part of the newspaper business that has experienced amazing growth over the last decade: Free newspapers.
Are you making your own decisions or just going along with the crowd? The answer might suprise you.
Collective wisdom is entering a golden age. Opinions are aggregated though search engines, social media and croudsourcing initiatives. New “creativity” is sought through conformity.
There is something seriously wrong here. Often, crowds can lead us astray and, as we have seen in the recent financial crises, you often follow them at your peril. So the operative question is, when should you bet against the crowd?
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