Tuesday 16 January 2007

Lack of communication competence

Most Advertising Agencies lack the skills of communication, advertising messages are more carefully prepared than interpersonal communication and yet ‘message’ comprehension tends to be lower.

Advertisements are more carefully prepared because gatekeepers (those who prepare and send out messages) are more cautious about what they say to large audiences than they are to audiences of one or a few, they check their facts more carefully and they prepare their syntax and vocabulary more precisely.

And yet, because their audience contributes much less feedback, the source cannot correct for any lapse or understanding, so people are more likely to misinterpret what they hear or read over the mass media.

There is scant, if any, attention paid to the actual process of communication within advertising agencies!



Do you seek more information: Please visit: http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com

Monday 15 January 2007

So just who is running your organisation?

Your customers, that’s who!

Or should be!

So don’t you think that you ought to start a regular dialogue with him or
her, as the case may be?


The word empowerment is a very overused word. However in the near future the primary strategic marketing communications battle will be to see who goes furthest in empowering their customers.

To empower your customers you will have to:
1. Provide them with far more information than you currently do.
2. Allow them to make decisions about you and your company together with your resources.
3. Give them plenty of choice.
4. Give them the perception of control!
5. Allow them to feel that they are running your organisation!

Because anything that tightens your relationships with an existing customer increases the revenue you get from your customer.

And the only form of communication that can do all the above so that you do tighten your grip on your customer is….interactive communication!

Sunday 14 January 2007

The most exciting opportunity...ever!

Interactive Television uses the principals of Game Playing together with rewards; Education (in the form of Programmed Instruction). Interactive TV creates Game Show programmes out of advertising materials ,the current 30-second TV commercial being the source of information, evolving into other forms of presentation as a result of the interaction & feedback, similarly with programme content.

This form of interactive communication dramatically alters the way the viewers perceive the commercials, instead of being seen as an interruption the commercials now become a meaningful source of information (a form of programming) and thus are watched in a totally different way.

Presenting advertising within this format allows the most dramatic evolution of advertising itself. This renaissance in this period of the ongoing history of advertising will be know as advertising by true, accurate, more predictable, instant and measurable results.

Clients will pay only by results. The interactive nature of the new technology will allow Transactional TV to measure the results and present these results as a post-evaluation of their participation. Clients will then pay for participation based upon these evaluations.

Seek more interactive information? Please visit:
http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com






Saturday 13 January 2007

A thousand choices

Everybody has a thousand choices

For any product they might want to buy and there are a million different products competing for our wallets.

So marketers increasingly need to speak to customers individually, or in smaller and smaller groups.

But are they really doing so or simply deluding themselves as usual and paying lip service to the idea?

As questions about the effectiveness of mass marketing have grown, advertising has been assailed by other doubts too.

Where once it was thought that commercials sold goods and increased brand awareness, it is now acknowledged that many of them do no such thing.

Most people never actually buy the majority of products they see advertised on television!

But if mass-market advertising does not sell products, what will?
Interactive communication…that’s what!

Seek more information on how to save your money? Please visit:
http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com

Media neutral planning

In a marketing magazine supplement the other day there was an article “Media-Neutral planning”.

I read the whole issue. Cover to cover, in the usual hope of finding something mentioned about the communication process. Many of the ‘practitioners’ had things like this to say… “Ideas are at the heart of this debate because they create genuine value for businesses.

Agencies must become idea-centric.” Or, try this for size… “The most profound insights, in terms of media-neutral planning, come from a blending of data and ad planning.”

Wow! Stunning stuff don’t you think?

But, not surprisingly, none of the ‘experts’ had anything to say about the communication process, or for that matter, accountability!

So perhaps, we, the tiny band of individuals pursuing the true meaning of communications, should do something about this lack of understanding…after we are all paying for the wretched advertising through, what the Americans call, a brand tax!

We should have banners saying “Unfair to consumers”; “What a waste of money”. Or, how about, “Advertising is nothing more than a Brand Tax”; “TV is the biggest waste of money for Brands” “Consumers don’t read advertisements”… and parade outside of the large Ad Agencies and their Clients offices. Then maybe the appalling waste of time …and money!, undoubted but misdirected would cease!

Seek more information on how to save marketing money? Then please visit:
http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com

Friday 12 January 2007

The truth that dare not speak its name!

The age of the 30-second TV commercial are over!

There’s a lot of hand wringing on Madison Avenue these days. Companies like Virgin Atlantic are concluding that advertising on TV is too pricey and the effects too difficult to measure.

Advertising must adapt to a coming world where consumers enjoy total control and will no longer tolerate tedious commercials that hold them hostage to messages they care nothing about.

There are still a lot of people in the business that don’t accept what is about to happen. That is myopic. Perhaps it is time for the advertising and TV industries to get contact lenses, because the latest research suggests that trouble lies ahead.

However it is what was not said in the article that confirms the impression that most people in the industry(s) still do not understand what the process of communication is all about.

To start with, advertising people tend to think of it as ‘message sending’, and thus spend hours and hours crafting a message, primarily a 30 second TV Commercial and then arranging for it to be transmitted.

Marketing people are moving away from that totally inaccurate picture, however fmcg marketing people still haven’t cottoned on to the fact that “you can sell more goods to less people, and still be more effective”, that is if you understand the benefits of ‘conversations’.

Media people, newspapers, magazines, TV and radio lovingly call themselves ‘the communicators” and say they “are in communications.”

They are not…never have been… all they do is prepare messages and then send them…they most certainly not communicators.

They are totally unaware of those delightful words cognitive dissonance; selective exposure and selective perception. Wonderful words that, however, profoundly affect the meaning of our message and we ignore them at our peril!

However it is the ego that chooses to ignore the word communication, the ego and that other overworked word ‘creativity’, hence the rush to hire, at greater and greater expense the latest creative genius who is going to sell all those wonderful goodies! Utter rubbish!

Certainly in this day and age of commercial clutter creativity alone is no longer the answer, as if it had ever been, to the commercial needs of marketers. Creative genius is not the sole criterion to the success or otherwise of the marketing campaign.

Most advertising today depends on a single-step communications model. A message sender – the message – receiver.

This basic model assumes that the sender is active, whilst the receiver is inactive or passive and the message is comprehended properly.

In this case if the advertisement is creatively prepared and sent through the right medium and, if it cuts through all the other noise, and then if it is decoded correctly the advertisement has done its job!

Dealing with the future will require significant changes in the ad industry. Media research- how advertisers measure what people watch and how they respond to ads-will have to get considerably savvier about gauging media consumption habits. Creative ad teams will have to understand the communication process better and then make involving ads that people are actually interested in reading/watching.

Would you like more information? Please visit:
http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com

A win-win-win scenario, that's Interactive Communication

Interactive Communication, properly executed, provides a win-win-win scenario for all participating parties.

For the first time in the history of commercial communication, participating parties can expect to benefit from appearing in interactive communications "Events".

For communication to be successful mutual self- interest has to be satisfied.
1. The Consumers need for Interactive Communication.

People desire to be taken account of, to affect change, learn and personalise their relationships with their environment. There are a phenomenal number of reasons, which cause people to interact, which go far beyond just giving them things.
When people participate in interactive marketing communication "Events" they are told that their efforts and feedback are of positive help to the advertisers. Moreover, by participating, they then learn and understand the message from the advertiser, personalise their relationship with the advertiser and their products (or services).

2. The benefits for participating advertisers.

For the first time advertising becomes totally accountable with payment by results only.
Interactive communication provides intelligent sales through feedback and involvement. Thus allowing the building of intelligent databanks.
.
3. Thus the interactive Medium becomes accountable and more effective.

By the very nature of interactive "Events" the audience are captivated by the technique. Interaction alters the way viewers/readers perceive advertising, instead of being viewed as interruption advertising becomes a pleasurable and meaningful source of information. There is a substantial increase in the reading/viewing figures and it readily counters zapping.














































































































































effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com

Thursday 11 January 2007

Understanding Interactive Communication!

"Tell me & I'll forget,
Show me & I may remember,
Involve me & I'll understand".
Old Chinese proverb

























http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com

The secret of communication!

"It is not what you say but how a person interacts with what you say that determines the effectiveness of the communication process. Further, a direct request to a reader or viewer to pay attention to a particular advertisement significantly increases the numbers doing so and the level of concentration they devote to it."

Professor Wilbur Schramm –University of Harvard











http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com

Wednesday 10 January 2007

So how much more cost effective is Interactive television?

Interactive communication is really much more cost effective!

Professor E.L. Roberto, PhD, Coca-Cola Foundation Professor of International Marketing reviewed the £5 million of independent research conducted on behalf of Shopper’s Voice and provided this summary as to the techniques cost efficiency:

"The Shopper’s Voice participating advertisements generated recall scores that are more than 50% productive than normal advertising. The effect on purchase intention is just as impressive if not much more.

All these productivity increments are attainable at a reasonably inexpensive budget. One Shopper’s Voice Client revealed that for its participating brand, its quarter television expenditure was $5.7 million as compared to its Shopper’s Voice budget of $0.5 million.

This 1:10 ratio has been obtained in Shopper’s Voice experience in other countries."

Source: AGB: Gallup: Martyn Research: Bourke: NOP. City Insights & more.

Interactive Communication... a win win scenario!

Interactive Communication, properly executed, provides a win-win-win scenario for all participating parties.

For the first time in the history of commercial communication, participating parties can expect to benefit from appearing in interactive communications "Events".

For communication to be successful mutual self- interest has to be satisfied.

The need for product information.

Communication results from an interaction in which two parties expect to give and take.

Audience members must be able to give feedback. Media practitioners and their Clients must be sensitive to the information contained in the feedback. This give and take can result on real understanding or real feedback.

1. The Consumers need for Interactive Communication.
People desire to be taken account of, to affect change, learn and personalise their relationships with their environment. There are a phenomenal number of reasons, which cause people to interact, which go far beyond just giving them things.

When people participate in interactive marketing communication they are told that their efforts and feedback are of positive help to the advertisers. Moreover, by participating, they then learn and understand the message from the advertiser, personalise their relationship with the advertiser and their products (or services).

2. The benefits for participating advertisers.
For the first time manufacturers advertising becomes totally accountable with payment by results only. Interactive communication provides intelligent sales through feedback and involvement. Thus allowing the building of intelligent databanks.

It allows the brands to differentiate themselves from their competition. Substantially reduce their heavy marketing investments. Additional benefits will allow the analysis of the feedback through a mass focus group allowing brand development. Whatever the consumer & manufacturer deem appropriate.

3. The Medium becomes accountable and more effective.

By the very nature of interactive "Events" the audience are captivated by the technique. Interaction alters the way viewers/readers perceive advertising, instead of being viewed as interruption advertising becomes a pleasurable and meaningful source of information. There is a substantial increase in the reading/viewing figures and it readily counters zapping.
It also allows the medium to provide evidence as to the effectiveness of the medium in terms of sales, awareness. message comprehension thus proving that TV advertising is effective (as well as magazine advertising).

Please don't shoot the messenger!

Lets take a look at to-days papers and see what, if anything, they have to say about advertising….

Yup, here’s something that appears to support my position.

"In a world that’s full of bull and kipple, it’s time we were told the simple truth.

…Branding for example, often you see two brands of toothpaste or two brands of paracetamols, or anything like that, just buy the cheapest. It’s all exactly the same stuff!"

"Kipple is the word the writer Philip K Dick coined to describe the ever-growing tide of mental rubbish that clutters the world. Kipple is, in a word, rubbish.

What is kipple? Where is it to be found? Kipple is everywhere.

Kipple is the advert that tells you a fizzy drink is a statement about yourself. It is the cold caller saying you have won a competition you never entered, the friendly bacteria, the meaningless graphic in the shampoo ad, the "clinically proven" miracle face cream…."

AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM I KEEP RETURNING TO – THEY DON’T TRUST ADVERTISING OUT THERE!









Seek more information on Interactive Communication:
Please visit http://effectiveaccountablecommuication.blogspot.com

Terrible advertising clutter!

Consumers today encounter
from 3,500 to 5,000 marketing messages a day vs. 500 to 2,000 in the 1970s.

The result: There are so many ads out there today to an extent never before realised. No matter how many more ads out there, it’s not going to work…because it’s not registering!

Finally, finally, the whole dismal story is emerging, the biggest confidence trick in this or any other century is, finally, being exposed.

The confidence trick of Advertising!

Nowadays the problem is so bad that serious discussions about accountability never occur, advertising could never be totally accountable because it never worked to the extent believed – period.

The huge problem of clutter was never seriously addressed, as they had no answer for the problem. Meanwhile the swine lavishly ate at the Clients table and then laughed all the way to the bank.

The days are numbered for TV ads’ dominance. However and surprisingly, many marketers remain reluctant to look at new media alternatives, in part because they don’t know how to use them: They don’t know what to replace (TV) with.

Clients continue to spent a majority of money in a very dinosauristic medium perhaps they are hoping they can retire before (change) happens!

The marketing industry must adapt to a coming world where consumers enjoy total control and will no longer tolerate tedious commercials that hold them hostage to messages they care nothing about.

There are still a lot of people in the business that don’t accept what is about to happen. That is myopic. Perhaps it is time for the advertising and TV industries to get contact lenses, because the latest research suggests that trouble lie ahead.

Last month a long essay called "The Chaos Scenario" in the trade publication Ad Age worried that the industry might not be prepared for the collapse of the old advertising model. And a book to be published next month, "Life after the 30-Second Spot", surveys the formats that might replace the industry’s workhorse. Says author Joseph Jaffe, "Unfortunately nothing in this industry has changed except consumers, who don’t take commercials at face value any more."

In his book "The End of Advertising as we know it," Sergio Zyman, former Chief Marketing Officer, The Coca-Cola Company, argues that current advertising practices are dead.

He contends that advertisers have lost sight of their primary goal: to sell the product. Fortunes are wasted on hip, award-winning commercials that often fail to even communicate the brand. The reality of business demands that advertising answer to the bottom line!

Tuesday 9 January 2007

WHY INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING?

Because among consumers a major change is underway best summed up by “We are immune to advertising. Just forget it”
That was said a few years ago as part of the Cluetrain Manifesto, true then, even truer to day!

Elvis said it best: "We can't go on together with suspicious minds."

Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.
Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.

Up until a few years ago advertising was the province of a privileged few to the passive many. Now the ownership of moving images has passed into the hands of practically everybody and the articulation of moving images has passed into the hands of everybody with access to a phone, laptop or digital camera. We can now have our say."

In essence, the behaviour of the audience is moving from passive to active participation so that TV watching or listening to radio in the future will be a very different and less sedentary experience than it has been in the past 80 years.
Ultimate power isn’t with brand owners or even with broadcasters, and most certainly doesn’t exist with the Advertising Agencies at all! It's with the viewer. And it's the on/off switch.









Seek more information on just how effective interactive communication really is?
Visit: http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com

Monday 8 January 2007

Television advertising...who watches...who cares?

Television Advertising…so who watched…so who cares!


Interestingly, there is no demand for these advertising messages. Past research conducted by the Advertising Industry (and hastily suppressed I may add) showed that of any television station commercial break the vast majority of the “reach” (a nonsensical term again developed by the ad industry) were simply doing other things! Let’s face it, consumers don’t want to hear from business.

The message that gets broadcast to you, me and the rest of the population has nothing to do with me in particular. Consequently, it’s worse than noise. It’s an interruption in my life and like most people, I would rather do without it thank you very much. Just leave me to watch/listen to my program without any facile interruptions.


And that is the awful truth about marketing and advertising. It broadcasts messages to people who simply don’t want to listen or see it. Every advertisement, press release, publicity stunt and give-away designed by the Marketing Department, or Advertising Agency is coloured by the fact that all their hard work and planning is being presented to a public that doesn’t ask to hear or see it.







































































































































http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com

Consumers are very suspicious

Research published recently by Beyond Philosophy, a UK company specialising in customer attitudes, claims 82 per cent of people never believe their experience of an organisation will match the image promoted by television advertising. Beyond Philosophy concludes that television advertising may actually be harming, rather than enhancing, companies' relationships with their customers.

Similarly, research by the Henley Centre has shown that while nine out of ten people will trust their spouse or partner and eight out of ten their children, fewer than a third (27%) trust retailers or manufacturers, while just 14% trust either the government or advertisers!

And here is our Government, the largest advertiser by far, hiring advertising agencies to prepare information that the majority of the nation increasingly distrusts… shouldn’t someone be telling them that this is an unacceptable waste of taxpayer’s money?

As suggested, the Enron collapse and the circumstances behind it is nothing compared to the waste and misuse of monies that has been fostered by the advertising industry!





http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com

Friday 5 January 2007

Interactive Television or Interactive TV

Mass communications media enhanced industry’s ability to address even larger markets and mass marketing truly came into its own. With larger markets came higher rewards and these higher rewards had to be protected. More bureaucracy, more hierarchy and more command and control.

A new media age is here in which the old rules of salesmanship no longer apply. No one will sit still for numbing repetitions of intrusive jingles. To-day people can talk back to their television sets, and the question of just how advertising works – and whether it works at all – will be answered.

We represent the future, a group of like-minded people with many years of media experience and expertise. One of us actually pioneered the use of interactive communication to the marketing community over thirty ago.

Thus we have an extensive research portfolio demonstrating just how interactive communication (properly executed)works. We have produced interactive "Events" in the U.S.A. Australia, United Kingdom, Japan, we even produced the world’s first regularly broadcast hour long interactive TV Gameshow. Hence this blogg, we want your opinions, we want to share our knowledge and expertise with you all so as to ensure that the process of interactive communication is fully understood and executed.




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