More accountability: Being the results of one exposure to an interactive programme vs traditional (frequency and reach) advertising.





　


Client: S.J. Johnson & Sons.

Brand: Raid Cockroach Control System.

Research: AGB.

"The rate of increase in the level of awareness of Raid Cockroach Control System was dramatic (61.8%) among those who saw the Event. Seeing the Raid page within the Event dramatically increased scores for Past-Four-Week-Purchase (100%), scores among people who claimed to see the page increased Future-Purchase-Intent (DWB) by 60%. Advertising Awareness increased 83.4% among main grocery buyers."

　

Client: Reckitt & Colman.

Brand: Setamol 500 analgesic.

Research: AGB.

"Findings from this Post Event Survey show impressive increases in scores for those who saw the Event in comparison for those who did not. Results are consistently superior in all three key market measures; Prompted-Brand-Awareness +92.6%, Past-Four-Week-Purchase +47% and Definitely-Will-Buy +47%."

　

Client: Duracell.

Brand: Duracell Batteries.

Research: Martyn Research.

"Unaided-Awareness (Brand-First-Mentioned) of Duracell increased by 50% for readers who saw the interactive Event. Advertising-Awareness increased 200%, correct recognition of advertising message increased 19% and purchase increased 29%."

　

Client: Roche.

Brand: Rennie Duo.

Research: City Insights.

City Insights report "A very large increase in spontaneous awareness – Control 0%, Test 10%. They also report that "Rennie Duo is a small brand BUT it has encouraging purchasing in both % Last bought & % Most often brand bought, in both cases 4% for Test & 0% for Control, additionally there was an increase in intention to definitely buy – from 0% to 6%.

　

Client: Pfizer.

Brand: Plax Dental Rinse.

Research: AGB.

"Post-Event Survey results shows that the results of Pfizer’s participation with its PLAX Dental Rinse product has raised scores on key measurements of Awareness and Purchase for the brand ranging from 73+% to 200+%."

　

Client: Colgate Palmolive.

Brand: CP Anti-Dandruff Shampoo.

Research: AGB.

"The value of the Interactive Technique has again been evidenced in the findings of this Post-Event Survey.

Substantial increases in scores for the product on key market measurements of Prompted-Brand-Awareness, Past-Four-Weeks-Purchase and Future-Purchase-Intent (DWB) have been achieved amongst main grocery buyers with ranges from 42.6% for Brand-Awareness; 200+% for Past-Four-Weeks-Purchase and DWB 600+%."

　

Client: Kraft Foods.

Brand: Philadelphia Cream Cheese.

Research: AGB.

"The Pre-Event scores on this measure (Prompted-Brand-Awareness) remained static amongst those who who did not see the Event at around 82%. This percentage rose by 12.2% to reach 92.6% amongst main grocery buyers who saw the event, additionally there was a substantial rise of 69.3% on Past-Four-Week-Purchase and 42.9% increase in Future-Purchase-Intention (DWB)."

　

Client: Leggo’s.

Brand: Plumrose Leg Ham (Canned).

Research: Martyn Research.

"Unpromted-Brand-Awareness increased +14% amongst main grocery buyers who saw the Event, Bought Plumrose Leg Ham-In-Past-28 Days increased 60%, and Future-Purchase-Intent increased 64% (DWB). Among those who saw the Event Advertising Awareness increased by 400%."

　

Client: Stuart Alexander.

Brand: Moccona Coffee.

Research: AGB.

"Prompted-Brand-Product-Awareness among all main grocery buyers for Moccona Espresso’s was increased by 36% as a result of participation within the Interactive Technique Event. A net growth of 14.3% on the Past-Four-Week-Purchase – and Next-Four-Week-Purchase-Intent was also recorded. Further, the main claim made for the brand has shown to be more persuasive to potential purchase when it is presented in the Interactive format."

　

Client: Bush’s.

Brand: Bush’s Dog Food (Canned).

Research: AGB.

"Amongst those who saw the Bush’s presentation in this latest Event, growth over those who did not see the Event was in the order of 47% for all main grocery buyers. Once again, as following previous participation by Bush’s Dog Food, there was significant growth in Past-Four-Week-Purchase +22% and growth of 25% was recorded for Next-Purchase-Intent (DWB)."

　

Client: P&O Stena.

Brand: Cross Channel Ferries.

Research: City Insights.

"City Insights report a 21% increase in the spontaneous awareness of P&O Stena. Additionally there has been a positive shift in the usage of P&O Stena +12%. Additionally there was a substantial increase in preferance for P&O Stena from 37% to 67%. There was a positive uplift in intention to use P&O Stena in the future (DNT) from 32% to 67%."

.

Advertising has dehumanised and depersonalised the whole

process of communication,

 

  there just never was a mass market! They are also sick to death at the rampant corporate dishonesty

 

all around them, again more evidence of Management being totally unaware of the real world and the

communication process. Evidence of their ability to dehumanise and depersonalise

the process of marketing. It would appear that customers cannot trust

anything or anybody these days. There was a time, for example, when we trusted

our banks to look after our best interests and play fair with their charges. If

so these days are long gone. The bond of trust has been broken, not only in

banking, and people are rightly suspicious. However Interactive Marketing Communication could be

a positive start to resolving all theproblems facing advertising and marketing.

Interaction can be defined simply as straightforward communication between two

parties. Presently we are in danger of losing the real meaning of

interaction, as we tend to focus discussions on the emerging technologies and

neglect the communication process itself. With an understanding of the real

meaning of Interactive Communication, existing media can be made interactive,

and subsequently far more cost effective. Interactive Marketing

Communication turns passive advertising into active advertising and actually

alters behaviour during the communication and learning process.And all the advertising in the world

cannot help you solvethat problem!

Brands need to take notice of the amazing opportunities available to them




right now, opportunities that have laid dormant because of the strangle hold

ad agencies have had on the marketing communications process until very recently.

All advertising is a form of learning, education and game playing should

become the new promotion.

Consumers have a huge desire for brand knowledge and learning, and far prefer

facts and storytelling, this mean more to them than a celebrity spokesperson or

a catchy tag line.

This allows your customer to exercise their own "personal discovery" on their

chosen brand.

Another problem facing Brands is the fact that marketers tend to overestimate

the value of what they already have and have, as a result, become loss averse,

this makes them overestimate the value of what they have and support the status

quo together with stability! So marketers need to sharpen their act, check their

egos, open their minds and embrace new ways of marketing communication it will

be well worthwhile.

Internet Advertising will rapidly lose its value and its impact, for easily understood reasons. Pushing

a message at a potential customer when it has not been requested and when the customer is in

the middle of something else on the Net, will never work as a major source of revenue for most

internet sites.

The Internet is participatory, like exchanging stories around a camp fire.

The problem is not the medium, the problem is the message and the fact that

it is not trusted, not wanted, and not needed. There are vast amounts of

literature to support this.

Customers do not trust advertising. Research has shown that messages

attributed to a commercial source have a much lower impact. Research has also

show that advertising is the least-trusted source of information on products and

services. The fact is consumers do not want to view advertising, and mostly

consumers do not need advertising.

The internet is all about freedom. A free population will not be held captive

and forced to watch ads. Marketing must take its share of blame for the economic

crisis. Management's greatest concern should be what a company stands for, not

adding more services to sell to consumers.

Why are so many of our major industries in trouble, beyond the current

economic meltdown? And why is marketing not being blamed for its share of the

problem.

If you read the business press, you probably noticed the absence of any

discussion of marketing and marketing strategy as it relates to the economic crisis.

INTERACTIVE SOLVES ROI CONCERNS!


A survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers found that digital marketers' main concern is ROI. In fact, 62 percent said that their main concern is the inability to prove ROI. The survey also listed which media platforms have increased the most among marketers, like YouTube and other forms of digital growth

However when you use Interactive Marketing Communication, properly executed, you can easily prove ROI!

　

　

Lets Face it. There is no answer to the Advertising and Marketing Crisis!






Both Clients and advertising agencies are deluding themselves. Marketing has

to accept there is no way out of its decline.For one blood-curdling moment it

seemed that the marketing world had woken up to the fact that their preposterous

industry had finally been caught in the act.

Pepsi ,the world's leader in advocating and implementing new-age marketing

nonsense, and now paying the price for its foolish belief in the three-headed

marketing monsters: "branding," "engagement," and "conversation." (Here's a tip

for anyone left alive in the Pespi marketing department. There is one thing, and

one thing only, that advertising is about -- persuasion. All the rest is word

games and chit chat. Got it?

Last week it was reported that after years of fighting Coke for first place

in the soft drink category, Pepsi-Cola had fallen to third place.The L.A. Times

called it "...a stunning fall from grace."

Pepsi saw their U.S. sales volumes in 2010 fall sharply, by 4.8% and 5.2%, respectively... The

U.S. soft drink market is about 74 billion dollars. Therefore a 5% drop in Pepsi

market share (which is about 10%0 cost them well over $350 million on the Pepsi

brand alone!

The goal of advertising is to create a clear awareness of your company and

its Unique Selling Proposition. Unfortunately, most advertisers evaluate their

ads by the comments they hear from the people around them. The slickest,

clearest, funniest, most creative and most different ads are the ones most

likely to generate these comments. See the problem? When we confuse "response"

with "results" we create "attention getting ads" which say absolutely

nothing.

The business owner is uniquely unqualified to see his company or his product

objectively.He is on the inside, looking out, trying to describe himself to a

person on the outside looking in. It's hard to read the label when you're inside

the bottle. Too much product nowledge causes the business owner to answer

questions that no one is asking. This makes for extremely ineffective

advertising.

Marketing has to accept there is no way out of its decline. The rot began

when we chose never to take heed of Professor Ehrenberg's statements on

advertising effectiveness! Because nothing has changed despite all the ballyhoo about Social Media,

Facebook et al. Wherever ads appear, especially on Social Media, Ehrenberg's resolute focus on the

facts what data actually tells us led him to challenge many a marketing bandwagon

such as loyalty'. You may wish to improve the brand's performance by improving

customer retention', he observed, but without a higher market penetration it

just won't happen. His work on advertising effectiveness was equally

challenging. He argued convincingly that there was no evidence that advertising

persuades anybody to do anything; advertising can only ever be a weak' force

that improves brand recognition and/or jogs consumers'

memories.

Your complete and utter lack of understanding of the word "communication"




together with a lack of appreciation as to what can, and does, stifle effective communication.

All advertising is a form of learning whereby the advertiser is asking people to change their behavior after learning the benefits of the products or services on offer. However, we all tend to filter out information, which we do not want to hear. This clearly alters the effectiveness of conventional advertising in quite a dramatic way.

The final purchase decision is invariably a compromise and this leads to a certain amount of anxiety; the worry that perhaps the decision was not the best or the right one. In order to minimise this anxiety the purchaser seeks to reinforce their choice and begins to take more notice of their chosen product's marketing communications.

Due to a lack of understanding of the communication process we have created a media society during the past 40 or 50 years, where the whole process has been de-humanized.

There is now an extraordinary reduction in interaction because conventional advertising and marketing have become a one-way practice whereby information is disseminated in a passive form.

So what are you going to do about this?

　

　

　

Game Playing and Marketing Games Offer you a Unique Way to Entertain...




-- and sell at the same time!

Whilst experimenting with social networks, user-generated content and on line video,

marketers appear content to view games as little more than another

class advertising platform. The untapped potential of game

playing lies in their ability to tell stories, thereby more closely linking

brand benefits with game play and blurring the lines between brand and

entertainment. Games, properly structured, fundamentally alter the customers

perception to the presentation and content of your marketing messages thus

making the advertisements themselves a

source of meaningful information. Games allow Brands to become

engaging, and entertaining -- thereby providing something of value in exchange for attention.

Brands such as Persil, Birds Eye and Quaker Oats have relied on game playing to create

narratives that consumers want to be a part of. In the process, they've done

more than just break through the clutter, or better position themselves in

consumer's minds. Games remain one of the biggest untapped

opportunities for marketers, for the simple fact that they are, indeed, engaging

interactive and entertaining. Well-conceived games require users' active

attention and enable them to drive the story line as they experience a world

that can be entirely of a brand's making. Games represent a unique opportunity

for brands to be the entertainment rather than just sponsor it.

So what do original games get you? If you're Quaker Oats,

you get year-over-year double-digit sales growth, as well as a

marketing program that has generated significant

revenue. So what does this mean for marketers? It

demonstrates that there's a burgeoning mainstream audience increasingly

receptive to branded entertainment in the form of original episodic games and

willing to grant brands their attention in exchange for enjoyable

experiences. Games need to be implemented strategically.

As with any marketing approach, objectives and performance expectations for

game-based marketing need to be considered upfront. Here are some things to keep

in mind: A game tends to work best as a component of an integrated campaign

rather than an afterthought. Original episodic games can

counteract this imbalance by delivering a high level of play and replay value to

consumers while putting the brand at the center of the experience.

So does a brand need to be interesting or provocative in order to make a

good game? Absolutely not. All our examples show that basic games deployed and

used well were effective at making a low-involvement category more interesting

and engaging. And implemented properly, games could address many of the

challenges facing financial-services companies -- building involvement,

generating a prospect , creating a sense of community, even delivering a positive brand halo.

ACCOUNTABILITY

　

　

Professor E.L. Roberto, PhD, Coca-Cola, foundation professor of International Marketing, reviewed the £A15 million of independent research conducted on behalf of Shopper’s Voice and provided this summary as to the technique’s 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 his participating brand, his quarter television expenditure was $US5.7 million as compared to its Shopper’s Voice budget of $US0.5 million. This 1:10 ratio has been obtained in Shopper’s Voice experience in other countries."

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

HERE'S HOW TO INCREASE YOUR MARKETING

R.O.I.

BY AS MUCH AS 50%

　

　

　

Interactive Marketing Communication wants to help you save up to as much as 50% of your marketing budget. We specialise in creating successful, accountable interactive advertising "Events".

As the founders and pioneers of interactive marketing communications we have developed "Products" to help you create totally accountable advertising. We have an extensive range of interactive products to meet all of your marketing communications requirements

Visit us online @ http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com. There you will find research testimonials and much more. If you want to learn more about Interactive communicaion please check out our website.

Http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com

Our programmes are media neutral and highly effective, with over £5 million invested in independent research. All we want is half-an-hour of your time to demonstrate how Interactive Marketing Communication can work effectively for you.

The desperate need to restructure advertising and marketing

Only interactive marketing communication will provide clients with the

necessary communicaion and feedback necessary for effective marketing to take place.

For too long, marketing functions have been vertically organised by media

type. This approach is mirrored on the agency side, with rewards based on

discipline-specific models. These must be torn down.

On the client-side Marketing and Brand Managers must involve and lead a

team of colleagues who have the responsibility, vision, understanding and

commitment to engage in a media-agnostic planning process. And this team of

enlightened marketers must be willing to let strategic goals -- not historic

patterns -- drive budget allocations.

Achieving strategic integration requires a top-to-bottom reinvention of the

marketing organisation. Holistic professionals who are system thinkers,

customer-centric believers, innovators and dreamers must lead this

transformation.

These individuals should be cross-trained to understand the entire marketing

spectrum and learn discipline-specific skill sets. And to specifically

understand the real meaning of the word "communication" Increasingly, these

leaders will need strong quantitative skills -- in order to analyse the

data-rich resources and leverage mathematical tools now available, especially if

they are to drive cross-disciplinary approaches that fuse disparate

consumer-engagement channels. Above all, they need to be superior team

leaders who have the insights, talent and passion to take marketing integration

to new heights.

Engaging in conversations with relevant markets (Interacting) will become an

important source of knowledge and innovation, the quality of this market

intelligence has already (and will do so more in the future) proven to be more

accurate than research and will determine market share.

　

　

The 60s! Ah that was a glittering time, advertising people ruled the business world...





 nobody was being at all difficult about their profession, nobody was

questioning the fact that advertising works, or does not, as the case may be.

There was a sense that the men were brilliant. The problem was that these

men of action wanted to act, but certainly they did not want to tell the Client

that the advertising job could not be done.

Men of action want to act. They are paid very generously to act, they have

entered advertising to act. But they couldn't tell anyone how difficult things

were, that advertising was not as simple as it appeared. So doubts were, and

still are, excluded, and the facts were altered to suit the theory.

Advertising men don't just become prisoners of their Clients. They also become

prisoners of their errors. Advertising and Marketing people never questioned

the fact that advertising and marketing never worked they just chased the

illusion that creativity was the answer to all their problems and just followed

one expensive creative person with another as logic took over from common

sense.

Make the buying of media more important; Make the production of TV

commercials more expensive; hire the current "hot" Hollywood Director; and

so it goes on.

Now the lunacy has spread to The Internet, and so it goes on. Never once

admitting that we have all been led up a one way street of no accountability.

And however independent the men may have started off, soon these men

became owners of an error they cannot admit to, advertising doesn't work. And

now even years later they cannot even in a fairly limited way admit to that.

Enhancing the theory that advertising works requires staggering amounts of

research with staggeringamounts of money, the life of the current advertising

world suggests that that is easier wished for than achieved. Because of the

failure of advertising to understand the process of communication they have

damaged a totally good "old media" whilst, at the same time, rushing onto the

Internet not understanding at all that the Internet is most certainly not an

advertising medium at all! And now Agencies are rushing onto Social Media

ignoring thefact that, as in the past, people don't want their advertising in

whatever form.

The difference here is that they can easily move away from advertising, you

have only to look at the experience of Second Life, that was to be advertising's

salvation. That's why the early adopters have moved on! And be warned, they

still don't know how to monitize the Internet..but we do!

Interactive Communication finally allows the revolution

to commence.

The revolution against one-size fits all advertising; the bland all-knowing corporate voice, the lack

lustre politicians busily furnishing their own nests from our money. The fact of the matter is your

customers, you, me and everybody else, do not trust business. We find it highly insulting to

be treated this way and we mistrust you in numbers far greater than you or your

advertising/marketing people allow for. Dialogue, two-way conversations,

would start to change these hostile attitudes. You really do need to commence

interactive events - right now. And you can do so in existing media.

Before I go on, I must emphasise that on no account let your Advertising

Agency tempt you into spending big bucks on the Web. Already the

Advertising-as-Usual crowd is pouring billions into the Web, however be warned,

as they said in the "Cluetrain Manifesto", "So you advertise on the Internet¦so

what"? If you think you are wasting money on Advertising-as-Usual be very

careful. The Internet, possibly is a bigger waste of money than

Advertising-as-Usual, and, as we all know, right now that is one Mother of a

huge waste of money! "Why?" you may ask "has it all changed from the

safe secure way of marketing in the past". Simply put,

Advertising-as-Usual, together with its handmaiden Broadcasting-as-Usual have

treated us with too much contempt. According to a recent article in the

Times, TV executives commonly think of viewers' phone revenue as "moron tax".

And this attitude of utter contempt pervades the executives of advertising and

Broadcast-as-Usual, and expresses itself in all the offerings of a rip-off

culture, from government to TV companies. And bear in mind that

Advertising-as-Usual and Broadcast-as-Usual hold Clients in great contempt as

well. They rejoice in removing large chunks of your Marketing Budgets, to then

waste them in rip-off ventures that only worsen the publics' contempt for you,so

in effect they are spending your money to get you into a ever worsening

situation. Trust is a must have asset. You now must harness

interactive communication to get the trust, and results, because if you don't

somebody else will and they, in turn, will drive you out of business. Trust based relationship

lies between the extremes of command and control and empowerment in business.

Interactive marketing communication, using existing media, is a practical way of reaching

out and building up a powerful relationship, and trust, with every single person you need to

make your business successful...

What on Earth are they teaching these days at our Business

 

Schools?

Because it certainly does not include honesty! It can be said with certainty that

the current global financial crisis was created by the utter dishonesty of the

banks. The reputations of the largest corporations in the world are being

questioned more and more as a tsunami of evidence emerges as to the utter

indifference of Top-down-Management to their customers needs and

expectations. And the weasel words used by Marketing and Advertising

agencies to justify spending (and thus wasting) more

and more ineffectual advertising on new and old media are examples of

creatively brilliant lying! Traditional TV advertising is under further threat as

the take-up of personal video recorders (PVRS) soars, and still they

recommend advertising on TV, where no research evidence has ever emerged

as to its efficiency and accountability.

Just how dishonest is the Advertising Industry? For thirty years at least there

has been a well researched, well documented communications technique that

proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that interactive communication, properly

executed, is far more cost effective than traditional advertising. However given

the method of remuneration enjoyed by the Advertising Agencies/Media

Agencies they have chosen to ignore this far superior method of

communication. Here in England, the Home Office has admitted spending tens

of millions of pounds on TV advertising. £20 million was spent on TV adverts

rather than the hiring of more police! A spokesperson said "People will be

appalled that so many millions are being wasted on spin at a time of economic

hardship. People want more police on the streets, not more PR on the TV. It is,

to say the least disgraceful , that at a time of economic hardship, the Home

Office chooses to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers money on

propaganda."

Interactive Marketing Communicatiom

allows you to explore the multi-dimensional benefits of understanding customer needs in a digital era.

Customer loyalty is seeing several trends rapidly overtaking existing

understanding. Platforms of the future will record every interaction - they will

understand consumer preferences and pre-empt evolving needs.

Interactive Communication, properly executed, includes the next generation of

loyalty schemes. Embracing the fourth dimension of loyalty Interactive Communication comprises

every aspect of digital advertising and is totally accountable!

　

　

As your products come to reflect the information provided by the genuine conversations of interactive communication,
instead of the ballyhoo and adversarial marketing tactics that poses as

marketing today, companies will be far better served, and so will their

customers.

Oddly enough with Interactive Communication, companies can have everything

they've always wanted. Greater market share, customer loyalty etc. etc. All the

empty promises that advertising has been promising their clients but failed to

deliver!

To day, big business, with their handmaidens, advertising & marketing

have created mass media.

And the biggest mass medium is broadcast. And that is command and control

management, complementing big business thoroughly. Both are all about

imposing control top-down and both are driven by ratings, research and cost

per thousand.

Sad for them people are turning away from 'broadcast' in their millions

because of a number of reasons, they have acquired other interests and concerns

which broadcast cannot provide. Plus the fact that people are heartily sick of

the sterile pronouncements of corporations and broadcast media. And especially

of advertisements!

I close by making the observertation that we live in surreal times when we

are asked "online Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing, which is more

effective"?

Well neither of them are even proven as effective. Eric Clemons, Professir of

Operations & Information Management @ The Wharton School of the

University of Pennsylvania, argues that the Internet shatters all forms of

advertising.

The problem is not the medium, the problem is the message and the fact that it

is not trusted, not wanted and not needed.

There are three problems with advertising in any form, whether broadcast or

online. 1) Consumers do not trust advertising,2) Consumers do not want to

view advertising and most important 3) Consumers do not need advertising!

The advertising industry is facing unprecedented challenges to its dominance in the marketing communications sector:




new media, data-driven approaches and consumer-generated networks all vie for the attention and budgets of the brand marketer.

In America the AANA claims "Marketing accountability is still often an activity trapped within the silo of the marketing function," judges a report published Wednesday by America's Association of National Advertisers.

Prepared by the ANA's Marketing Accountability Task Force - comprising twenty leading companies from diverse industries - the report notes that while marketing accountability requires a precise process involving multi-functional teams, only small proportions of marketers use such a method.

The task force's findings underscore last summer's Marketing Accountability Survey [WARC News:], in which 60% of respondents reported no cross-functional involvement whatever within their company during the development and management of their marketing accountability programs.

Says Bob Liodice, ANA president/C.E.O.: "These findings clearly demonstrate that there is still much work to be done to accomplish total accountability and we are pleased to provide concrete steps to help our members achieve that.

The task force report lists Ten Commandments for "total accountability" . . .

Create a multi-functional internal accountability team.


Agree on the expectations that the management team has for marketing.


Choose metrics that align with expectations.


Select predominantly leading indicator metrics capable of driving a causal model.


Create a robust voice of the customer so you understand the target customer.


Demand an explicit plan to build brand equity.


Develop measurable objectives for 90% of marketing expenditures.


Use a rigorous process to build integrated marketing plans.


Analyse 90% of marketing expenditures using a who, what, how framework.


Create an accountability budget sufficient to measure 90% of marketing expenditures.

"Creating multi-functional accountability teams within an organisation will enable marketing accountability to reach the level that today's marketing landscape necessitates," concludes Liodice.

ANA members can request the full 2006 ANA Marketing Accountability Task Force In Admap's report on ad avoidance, Roderick White examines the research evidence both in the UK and US that people are increasingly trying to avoid advertisements. He looks at TV, Direct mail, Press and Internet advertising, before moving on to consider what can be done to overcome the problem.

　


Marketing - The Bad Seed

We, as yet, have no evidence that things are changing for the better.
Amoral marketing departments of Corporations will continue to put profits before people. We, as yet, have no voice to challenge those vast Corporations yet their marketing departments continue to demonstrate that they have not learned one thing from the crisis.
Unless marketing thinking can change, dramatically, we will sink slowly beneath the weight of our problems and the impotency of our remedies.
Finally we must recognised the true meaning of the word "communication" and to stop the useless and highly wasteful expenditure on marketing, especially advertising.
It could be said that Interactive Communication is the key method that will kindle a wave of creative destruction and increased wealth that will match the industrial revolution!
It will reduce the stress on our overcrowded media system, it will re-vitalize neglected sections of our marketing infrastructure and it will place key tools in place to amplify and distribute valuable feedback. And, more importantly, it is available right now!
So why do we have to change Marketing?
Even now many deny the magnitude of the problems facing our economy, of which marketing supposedly plays a large role in the development. People are expecting a resumption of growth however the crisis has exposed not only flaws in the prevailing economic model but also flaws in our society. Too many people have taken advantage of others. Almost every day has bought forth stories of bad behaviour by those in the marketing sector.
We should take this opportunity to reflect about what kind of marketing we would like to have. Certainly we can no longer follow a society in which materialism dominates moral commitment, in which rapid growth that we have achieved is not sustainable environmentally or socially. Rugged individualism and market fundamentalism have eroded any sense of community and have led to the rampant exploitation of unwary and unprotected individuals and to an increasing social divide.
Reality bites, the Bad Seed - Advertising - has run smack into reality. Nobody believes any more that you can keep on spending the huge sums of money on advertising without any kind of meaningful accountability.
Worse still advertising expenditures are simply unsustainable, they are associated with clutter and lower growth outcomes! Seldom do countries simply "advertise" their way out of deep debt burdens! Advertising has created a corporate culture in which doubts and criticisms were not allowed. We are surely right to think that advertising, along with its handmaiden, marketing, has become one of the most damaging things in modern business!
The positive thinking about advertising seems to be part of the human condition, there will always be people who will buy into the effectiveness of marketing & advertising. Just consider the ever appealing slogan "Advertising Works"! The problem with the positive thinking about advertising is that it is making inroads into the serious world of academic business thinking. Quite different is interactive communication in that Interactive communications invites the consumer to respond to or comment to your brand and the brand message
It is a very effective means of mass communication. It is not media dependent- can work in press, TV, internet, radio and outdoor. It utilises programmed learning techniques.
What does it do? It changes behaviour
Because of the effectiveness of communication it changes peoples behaviour- for example
they could switch brands, they could buy more, they might change the way they vote.
But above all else it understands the human need for involvement and COMMUNICATION!

More accountability: Being the results of one exposure to an interactive programme vs traditional (frequency and reach) advertising.

Client: Unilever

Brand: Birds Eye Fish Fingers

Research: Nielsen & City Insights.

Nielsen recorded an actual uplift in sales for this brand of 3.2%. City Insights registered a +9% uplift in Definitely/Probably Will Buy. City Insights again established that the technique lifts awareness of advertising, +11%.

　

Client: Unilever.

Brand: Persil.

Research: Nielsen & City Insights.

Neilsen recorded an actual uplift in sales for this brand of 4.4%. City Insights registered a +2% increase in last week purchase & a +4% increase in Definitely/Probably Buy. There was a 4% increase in Advertising Awareness.

　

Client: Unilever.

Brand: P G Tips.

Research: Nielsen & City Insights.

Neilsen recorded an actual uplift in sales of 3.1% for this brand and City Insights recorded a +5% uplift in ‘Last Week’ purchase and a +7% increase in Definitely/Probably Will buy. Additionally City Insights recorded an uplift of 8% increase in advertising awareness.

　

Client: Unilever.

Brand: Birds Eye Frozen Peas.

Research: Nielsen & City Insights.

Nielsen recorded an actual increase in purchase of 2.6%. Whilst City Insights recorded a +2% increase in purchase ‘Last Week’ and a 5% uplift in sales Definitely/Probably Will buy. City Insights again recorded an uplift in advertising awareness of 5%.

　

Client: Unilever.

Brand: Sunsilk Shampoo.

Research: BLM division NOP.

"Substantial (even dramatic) gains were recorded in Advertising Awareness, averaging +45%. The comparison between "Seeing-The-Event" and those "Not-Seeing-The-Event" shows a healthy performance improvement. An increase in Spontaneous-Awareness of 53% was recorded for Sunsilk Shampoo and for Purchase and increase of 35% was noted."

　

Client: Gillette.

Brand: Silkience Shampoo.

Research: Martyn Research.

"Unprompted-Awareness of Silkience Shampoo, Brand-First-Mentioned increased 300%, whilst Total-Mentions increased 30% among people exposed to the interactive event. Similar increases were recorded for Purchase +40% and Advertising-Awareness 233% were recorded."

　

Client: Colgate Palmolive.

Brand: Dry Solid Anti-Perspirant.

Research: AGB.

"Seeing the product within the interactive Event has increased the level of awareness at a rate of 34.6%. An increase of 23.1% was recorded for Past-Four-Week-Purchase. Additionally participation in Future-Purchase-Intent (DWB) was increased by 100%. Recognition of the main product claim was increased by 50.5%.

　

　


　

Advertising will fail:



The internet is the most liberating of all mass media developed to date. It is participatory, like swapping stories around a campfire or attending a renaissance fair. It is not meant solely to push content, in one direction, to a captive audience, the way movies or traditional network television did. It provides the greatest array of entertainment and information, on any subject, with any degree of formality, on demand. And it is the best and the most trusted source of commercial product information on cost, selection, availability, and suitability, using community content, professional reviews and peer reviews.

The No 1 task for Business: Reinvent Marketing & Advertising.

Hopefully lessons will been learnt from the crisis, do not try to rebuild business on the principle that Marketing & Advertising are always right!

The words "60% of all advertising, globally is wasted" were splashed recently across the marketing papers. This kind of unanimity in the trade press is not coincidental — "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" the advertising community do-nothing mentality was taken to its logical extreme by the preparation of $3 million ads for the Super Bowl by advertising agencies apparantly totally unaware that they are all well past their sell by date.

To have any hope of repairing the damage left behind by the highly dishonest and incompetent banks, big business must first convince the majority of the population that they are really capable of fixing the problems.. Not only are we trapped in the worst recession in living memory. but behind all this lurks a horror even more shocking; the entire marketing/advertising-economic model of free enterprise, rugged individualism, creative advertising and marketing is broken beyond all hope of repair.
Marketing/Advertising on which the Western world built its seeming success seems to have completly broken down. How else can one describe a situation in which all of the country's main financial institutions and many of its biggest industrial companies are effectively bankrupt and on government life-support?

Well TAG is the way forward because it makes your customer the very centre of your business

Barriers to Great Advertising

Advertising testing could provide a reliable feedback loop and lead to much better advertising, but many obstacles stand in the way. The first great barrier to better advertising is self-delusion. Most of us believe, in our heart-of-hearts, that we know what good advertising is and that there is no need for any kind of independent, objective evaluation. Agencies and clients alike often think that they know how to create and judge good advertising. Besides, once agencies and clients start to fall in love with the new creative, they quickly lose interest in any objective evaluation. No need for advertising testing. Case closed.

Strangely, after 40 years of testing advertising, we cannot tell you if a commercial is any good or not, just by viewing it. Sure, we have opinions, but they are almost always wrong. In our experience, advertising agencies and their clients are just as inept at judging advertising as we are. It seems that none of us is smart enough to see advertising through the eyes of the target audience, based purely on our own judgment.

A second barrier to better advertising is the belief that sales performance will tell if the advertising is working. Unless the sales response to the advertising is immediate and overwhelming, it is almost impossible to use sales data to judge the effectiveness of the advertising. So many variables are beyond our control, as noted, that it’s impossible to isolate the effects of media advertising alone. Moreover, some advertising works in a few weeks, while other advertising might take many months to show positive effects, and this delayed response can confound our efforts to read the sales data. Also, advertising often has short-term effects that sales data might reflect, and long-term (years later) effects that most of us might easily overlook in subsequent sales data. Because of these limitations, sales data tends to be confusing and unreliable as an indicator of advertising effectiveness.

Do you think that Advertising is Dead?

　

However it sure seems that way, at least in my life as a consumer. I rarely click on a Web page banner, I assiduously avoid ads in most consumer publications. I most certainly do other things during the TV commercial break.

Newspapers, magazines and television are also facing the assault from technology.

The gist of all this is simple, persuasive and unavoidable. Interactivity, the hallmark of computing technology, fundamentally calls into question the viability of a model based on being able to force people to watch, listen, and read, advertising.

The real problem I think is that our entire system for valuing advertising is completely wrong. In almost every major medium the basic measurement for value is the cost per thousand as measured by an acceptable accounting company.

Maybe that is because it is virtually impossible to generate any interest for payment by results, because there is no clear way to make such measurements i.e. establishing any sales increase is as a result, exclusively, of advertising.

The supposedly reliable benchmarks of "Old Media" were actually just mutually agreed upon illusions. No one really expected that by paying £35 for each thousand viewers/readers that it would actually get all those people to read/view its ad.

So perhaps, after all advertising isn’t dead, but the way we measure its true value is going to be radically different in the future.

Additionally many people in the industry think that the net effect of all the changes occurring is that "it will be all to easy to avoid advertising". But because TV is such a powerful medium, we will find ways to cut through, to persuade people that it’s worth seeing the commercials, maybe even paying them to do so!

Some people within the industry think that the customer (which after all is king/queen) is heartily sick of having completely non-interactive ads shoved down their throats.

However in the digital age content will still be king and competition for major programming rights are bound to escalate.

Additionally digital TV is bound to affect viewing figures, and therefor advertising communication (one-way communication?) is the big question. There are certain incontrovertible facts: viewing will fragment, and it will become more expensive to reach mass audiences.

As a result of all this, inevitably the quality of programming on certain channels will decline, but viewers will simply vote with their remote controls.

There appear to be certain advantages to interactivity, other than the obvious of enhancing the communication process, for a number of Clients interactive TV offers an opportunity to break the strangle hold of the major retailers. The feeling is among several of them: "We have a range of goods and shopping opportunities, and want to appeal over the heads of the retailers who are wedded to everyday low prices."

Obviously your customers will continue to buy chewing gum or socks, for example, as an impulse purchase however when it comes to high ticket consumer durables they will buy when they have properly processed the information they need, and that is when interactive communication will really come into its own.

Because Interactive Communication, properly executed, will add tangible value for the reader/viewer/advertiser!

There is, and has been for some years,

a very simple solution to the ills that beset the marketing and advertising industries. In the past the advertising agencies have shunned the solution because it does not rely upon creativity, reach and frequency, the current model so beloved by the advertising industry.

It is interactive marketing communication, in one fell swoop Clients could solve all their problems and assist existing media to solve theirs at the same time.

Interactive advertising is richer than all other forms of marketing communication, and it is becoming increasingly clear that it is only a matter of time before Clients embrace the business saving life force of interaction!

Choose your own commercials anyone? Interactive TV will immediately halt the interruption model on which television is based, that is interactive marketing properly executed will make advertising on terrestrial TV become richer because of the very nature of Interactive Marketing Communication.
Existing terrestrial television need no new technology imposed upon it to create immediately highly successful, totally accountable advertising "Events"

More accountability: Being the results of one exposure to an interactive programme vs traditional (frequency and reach) advertising.

Client: Chesebrough-Pond’s.
Brand: Intensive Care Hand & Nail Lotion.

Research: Burke Market Research.

"Readers of the Event were significantly more likely than non-readers to recall all four copy points, additionally readers were significantly more likely than non-readers to have tried the lotion, to have repeated buying it and to have purchased the brand recently.

　

Client: Rexona (Unilever).
Brand: Vaseline Intensive Care.

Research: AGB.

"Prompted-Brand-Product-Awareness increased at the rate of 31.5% among people seeing the Event, similarly and increase in Past-Four-Week-Purchase +90% and in increase of 81.8% Definitely-Will-Buy was recorded."

　

Client: Carter Wallace.
Brand: Dencorub & Dencorub Ice (Muscle Pain Relief).

Research: AGB.

"Quite dramatic increases in Prompted-Brand-Awareness and in the Past-Four-Week-Purchase and Next-Four-Week-Purchase-Intention (DWB) occurred amongst main grocery buyers. These range from 55.6% to 120%."

　

Client: Carter Wallace.
Brand: Nair Hair Remover.

Research: AGB.

　

"Research again indicates that those who saw the Event had greater levels of Brand-Advertising-Awareness +161.1%; Past-Purchase-Behaviour +100% and also Future-Purchase-Behaviour +60% over people not exposed."

　

Client: Carter Wallace.
Brand: Arrid Deodorant.

Research: AGB.

"Arrid’s participation within this Interactive Event again demonstrates the effectiveness of the Technique. All key measurements show positive improvements for those exposed versus people not exposed. Brand-Advertising-Awareness +200%; Past-Four-Week-Purchase +100% and Future-Purchase-Intent +66.6%.

　

Client: Carter Wallace.
Brand: Sun-In Hair Colour.

Research: AGB.

"Sun-In Hair Color benefits from exposure within the Interactive Event. Brand-Advertising-Awareness was increased by 366.6%; Purchase-in-Past-Four-Weeks +100%; and Future-Purchase-Intent +100%."

　

Client: Pork Promotion Council.
Brand: New Fashioned Pork.

Research: AGB.

"Grocery Buyers exposed to the Interactive Event showed higher Awareness +12.3%; higher Advertising Awareness +45.16%. They also had higher Past-Purchase patterns, 80% and higher figures for Purchase-Intent +36.3%.



Client: Sara Lee.
Brand: Hearty Fruit Muffins. (Frozen Bakery Goods).

Research: AGB.

"Grocery buyers who remembered seeing the Interactive Event showed a higher than average awareness of the product +30.9%, a high awareness of advertising at +83.3% and 100% increase in Future-Purchase-Intent.

　

Client: Unilever.
Brand: Streets Log Ice Cream Deserts.

Research: Martyn Research.

"Unprompted Brand-Awareness increased +8% amongst main grocery buyers who saw the Interactive Event and Purchase increased +80%; Advertising-Awareness increased 100% over people who had not see the Event."

　
　

Professor Eric Clemons said What?
Pushing a message at a potential customer when it has not been requested and when the consumer is in the midst of something else on the net, will fail as a major revenue source for most internet sites. This is particularly true when the consumer knows that the sponsor of the ad has paid to have this information, which was verified by no one, thrust at him. The net will find monetization models and these will be different from the advertising models used by mass media, just as the models used by mass media were different from the monetization models of theater and sporting events before them. Indeed, there has to be some way to create websites that do other than provide free access to content, some of it proprietary, some of it licensed, and some of it stolen, and funded by advertising.

Hey we have already been there – done that – and we have over $10m of independent research which proves how much more accountable Interactive Marketing Communication is...want to see some research? Then Call Paul Ashby on 01934 620047 or email: paulashby40@yahoo.com

Name of the Game is no longer Simply Advertising!

It is the home truth that branded manufacturers dread to hear, consumers are much less faithful than you think.

The increasingly promiscuous behaviour of shoppers is chipping away at the notion of brand loyalty and the traditional marketing campaigns that underpin it, according to a study by Bain and Company and Kantar Worldpanel.

Supermarket own labels are encroaching on territories dominated by brands, such as alcohlic drinks and household products. Shoppers ae also trading down.

But the most successful brands are fighting back by switching their focus away from advertising- historically the most important tool in their arsenal- towards a subtler approach.

(Extracted from The Times of London 26/11/2012)

Simply use Interactive Marketing and put your sales up by 50% and subtantially reduce your marketing/advertising budget by 50%.

Just what are the problems with Social Media?



Once "The Ad Man" gatecrashes the party and corporate marketers are inevitably a long way down the adoption curve - the kudos rapidly evaporates.

This explains why the assumed valuations of Social Media Companies are often built on greater financial chicanery than Bernie Madoff's tax return.

In to-day's market whatever supposed "next big thing" our digital culture favours in any moment faces an ever more accelerated journey to obilivion!

CREATE YOUR OWN SOCIAL MEDIA THEN MAKE IT DELIVER SEAMLESSLY USING A COMBINATION OF OLD & NEWMEDIA.

Interaction and The Outdated Idea of Mass Marketing

Advertising together with Broadcast Media, finally bite the dust!

Because no longer is the Marketing message, "We want your money". To day the Marketing message has to be "We want your opinions".

Because the moment you put that into real practice you can have everything you've always wanted, sales, customer relationships and also Brand loyalty.

However replacing research with interaction changes all the opportunities to successful marketing. "Yes", you can say," "Interactive Events will create my new products"

However at the moment Big Business is not making the correct decisions regarding interaction. Maybe some people within these organisations know and understand what's happening out there in consumer land. But the dreadful fact is that giving their voice to such statements would, more probably, seriously damage their career growth!

These days I search everywhere for the headline "Interactive Communication is a winning combination for all…The Client…The Media…and last but by no means least…your customer"!

It never appears.

Interactive Communication finally allows the revolution to commence. The revolution against one-size fits all advertising; the bland all-knowing corporate voice, the lack lustre politicians busily furnishing their own nests…from our money.

The fact of the matter is your customers, you, me and everybody else, do not trust business. We find it highly insulting to be treated this way and we mistrust you in numbers far greater than you or your advertising/marketing people allow for.

Dialogue, two-way conversations, would start to change these hostile attitudes. You really do need to commence interactive events - right now. And you can do so in existing media.

Before I go on, I must emphasise that on no account let your Advertising Agency tempt you into spending big bucks on the Web. Already the Advertising-as-Usual crowd is pouring billions into the Web, however be warned, as they said in the "Cluetrain Manifesto", "So you advertise on the Internet…so what"? If you think you are wasting money on Advertising-as-Usual be very careful. The Internet, possibly is a bigger waste of money than Advertising-as-Usual, and, as we all know, right now that is one Mother of a huge waste of money!

"Why?" you may ask "has it all changed from the safe secure way of marketing in the past".

Simply put, Advertising-as-Usual, together with its handmaiden Broadcasting-as-Usual have treated us with too much contempt. According to a recent article in the Times, TV executives commonly think of viewers' phone revenue as "moron tax". And this attitude of utter contempt pervades the executives of advertising and Broadcast-as-Usual, and expresses itself in all the offerings of a rip-off culture, from government to TV companies.

And bear in mind that Advertising-as-Usual and Broadcast-as-Usual hold Clients in great contempt as well. They rejoice in removing large chunks of your Marketing Budgets, to then waste them in rip-off ventures that only worsen the publics' contempt for you…so in effect they are spending your money to get you into a ever worsening situation.

The suits come to Social Media. Now that’s the kiss of death!

Advertising Agencies, having all but destroyed a perfectly good Old Media are set to do the same with Social Media!
In the fickle world of online chatter, yesterday’s achingly fashionable meeting points are rapidly acquiring the appearance of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s’ headquarters.
Already Twitter, becoming bogged down with fake PR tweets as well as fake advertising tweets, so much so that already the kids dismiss it as tired! And are moving on.
As soon as the buzz of innovation starts to fade the "cool" but influential people move on quicker than you can send a tweet.
As witness by the Old Media experience, essentially Commercial Television, Advertising Agencies are loath to change a medium that was to them, a money-spinner. Despite the fact that it was non-accountable. Now they are deserting terrestrial TV without even realizing that they could have made it far more effective & accountable, but they didn't understand the word "communication".
And now Agencies are rushing onto Social Media ignoring the fact that, as in the past, people don’t want their advertising in whatever form. The difference here is that they can easily move away from advertising in whatever guise, you have only to look at the experience of Second Life, that was to be advertising’s salvation. That’s why the early adopters have moved on!

CHECK OUT THE AGENCY CREDENTIALS & MAKE SURE THAT THEY REALLY UNDERSTAND THE WORD "COMMUNICATION

The current advertising market is in meltdown...


　

The advertising boom of yesteryear will forever be associated with the credit boom. Just as the values of that economic system are now discredited, so to will be the values of the marketing and advertising boom that went with it.

... with audiences disappearing, TV rates plummeting and clients cutting already slender budgets. Perhaps we should be rejoicing that the days of hype and excess are finally over.
The advertising boom of yesteryear will forever be associated with the credit boom. Just as the values of that economic system are now discredited, so to will be the values of the marketing and advertising boom that went with it.
In the future we will no longer have high regard of advertising/marketing that is mass-produced. We will be amazed that Clients, like Guinness, will have paid 15 million pounds for the production of a TV commercial.
Marketing is everything a company does to acquire customers and maintain a relationship with them. Even the small tasks like writing thank-you letters, playing golf with a prospective client, returning calls promptly and meeting with a past client for coffee can be thought of as marketing.
The all-embracing concept of marketing has been lost on a lot of companies, resulting in a poisoning of the well, a deeply ingrained lack of trust that, now has become an enormous obstacle to overcome:
Marketers have spammed, lied, deceived, cluttered and ripped us off for so long, we’re sick of it.
Which means that even if you have a really good reason, no, you can’t call me on the phone. Which means that even if it’s really important, no, I’m not going to read the instructions. Which means that god forbid you try to email me something I didn’t ask for… you’re trashed. It’s so fashionable to be sceptical now that no one believes you if you attempt to do something for the right reasons.
Like all those packaged-up bundles of bad debt, contemporary advertising had no fundamental value. It was misplaced faith in future economic growth that drove up the values of 30-second TV commercials!
The Clients spent so much money on advertising because they believed that they were living in the best of times and that it was all just a one way street - upwards! We all now know all this wasn't true.
In the years to come this advertising will be seen as the ultimate symbol of the economic fairyland we have been living through in the past five years, an era in which the world lost touch with its sense of value. These were not masterpieces of advertising

, they were the icons of idiocy.

　

　

Advertising Now Has to Start "Telling" and "Listening"



　

Advertising now has to go beyond "telling" people about products using mass media, and advanced upon "listening" to customers through Interactive Marketing Communication programmes together with loyalty schemes and market research.

Advertising is now moving towards the third generation of true customer engagement, characterised by 'talking', by engaging in open-ended dialogue with customers. Through interactive programmes we can understand customers preferences and passions, we can identify consumers across brands and experiences. For marketing and advertising to be truly effective, operators need to have customer information that enables interactive targeted and relevant communications. Giving customers the choice to opt in or out of campaigns enables them to be user specific and ultimately provide more value. The widespread use of interactive communication messaging creates a far-reaching and significant marketing opportunity for brands.

By putting a reliable interactive communications infrastructure in place, and a means of controlling and measuring campaigns, Clients can deliver some of the most highly effective marketing initiatives through well structured and relevant interactive programmes. Lets face it, without improving the understanding and content of advertising and marketing all business must remain understandably concerned that advertisings' inflexibility inherent in the concept of creativity will act as a barrier to economic growth. It is also regrettable that these barriers come accompanied by rhetoric that still sounds as though agencies still believe the words "Advertising Works" because it doesn't! For advertising to enter 2011 the message must be sent that Advertising has demonstrably improved and that only the best and the brightest will not merely be tolerated, but are actively desired. Advertising people suffer from self-esteem enhanced but talent-deprived capabilities and, sad to say, advertising suffers from an inexhaustible supply of untalented people actively encouraged by indulgent clients who appear unable to criticise them

The Worst Possible Cure!

Every day you're exposed to more than four hours of media. Most of it is optimized to interrupt what you're doing. And it's getting increasingly harder and harder to find a little peace and quiet. The ironic thing is that marketers

have responded to this problem with the single worst cure possible. To deal with the clutter and the diminished effectiveness of Interruption Marketing, they're interrupting us even more!

Use Interactive Marketing Communication and solve all your communications problems in one go...plus becoming totally accountable and cut clutter - immediately!

Tell a lie often enough & they’ll believe you!




The lie?

"Advertising works."

The biggest lie in the history of business, it makes Enron and all else pale into insignificance.

In the 80s the respected Advertising Journal in the USA, Advertising Age, called in two Professors of Marketing from the Wharton School of Business.

The brief, within a reasonable budget, would they go away and conclusively prove that advertising works. They would have a time frame of roughly six months to work within.

"Piece of cake" they said.

At the end of six months they returned to the offices of Advertising Age and were reluctantly forced to admit, "there was not one shred of evidence available to establish the fact that advertising exclusively increased sales". However that was not the end of it, they also had to admit to the fact that their research efforts indicated that "the effect of advertising appeared to be in the opposite direction!"

In England, in the 70s, I recall a study produced by a major advertising agency, still in existence today and under the same name, that showed that, far from television advertising giving the biggest reach their research showed the opposite!

They found that of any given TV audience 50% were not watching the commercial break at all, a further 10% went out of the room, 15% talked, read, knitted or whatever, 5% switched channels, 10% made a cup of tea and only 5% claimed to watch commercials!

In the 80s the Newspaper Society produced a study on the viewing of the commercial channels, they conducted this research by building in miniature TV cameras into the TV set and filming what the audience did when the commercial break was shown. The results replicated the study mentioned above but included 5% of the audience used the commercial break as an opportunity to make love…someone showed some sense!

Despite all this evidence, and a multitude of other research studies which Advertising Agencies totally ignored , they did not recommend that their Clients spend their marketing pounds on more cost efficient media.

Customers said they would feel closer to your brand...

...if you listened to their opinions and responded to questions or comments.

Yours brands should throw out ideas or topics amongst customers in which

they can start their own discussions, which don't necessarily have to be about

your brand, and could involve negative comments.

Negative comments need to be answered, not ignored, and

comments kept up, not removed, as an exercise in transparency. Your

conversation with consumers has to be of interest to them, such as giving them

something to engage with, rather than directly asking for feedback on a project.

Your brand, by listening to friends or fans points of view and concerns,

and accepting criticism while giving users honest information, allows a deeper

relationship to be formed, thus increasing brand loyalty, and especially

increasing sales Further findings reveal that social network users become

largely irritated and tend to ignore promotions from brands and a

majority of users would not remain a fan, or friend of a brand, that regularly

sent them promotions.

Better Marketing Without Reform? - Forget it

The current state of Marketing is such that the need for change and "New Models" are desperately needed.

The trouble is the "New Models" will not prove to be financially sustainable without substantially changing the way advertising and media services are organised. The first thing we must do to start to tackle the problem is to embrace our lack of knowledge about the process of communication. We must allow outside organisations to question the fundamental ideas that shape current advertising. We must allow them to innovate and keep the money saved through innovation. That way there is a chance that advertising and marketing will keep improving without costing more. One thing is for sure. We can't carry on as we are.

Pretending that without reform our money will go further. This is definitely the time for creative innovation in Marketing, not the ridgid belief that Marketing and Advertising can still show us all the answers to our problems – it never has and it never will.

Our only hope lies in a fundamental re-examination of the Marketing values we have lived by in the past 30 years. Our future depends not on whether we get through this, but how deeply and truthfully we examine its causes.

So just when are we going to prick our bubble of denial?

Because the Advertising and Marketing world is living in a world of denial. They use rhetoric that blurs their perceptions and have become addicted to the world view it represents
At the same time reinforcing themselves by a stream of cheery models engaged in consumption and leisure, they shuttle from workstation to mall, increasingly insulated by a media consensus that leaves out the rest of the world. We have had a band of denial built around ourselves, thus this belief cost us the capacity to self-correct.

Thus this delusional self-image is finally catching up with us. And make no mistake marketing will benefit hugely when reality breaks through.

　

　

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. Consumers need 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). 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. 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 your advertising becomes a pleasurable and meaningful source of

information. There is a substantial increase in the reading/viewing figures and

it readily counters zapping.

The lack of accountability has damaged the advertising...
...and marketing industry, it is the real flaw behind the advertising crisis. There has to be a complete change of thinking and regulation of the world’s marketing industry. Certainly Clients cannot risk again the degree of unaccountability that have been practised up to now. Advertising agencies need to change their behaviour, they need to re-establish relations with their Clients and gain a better understanding of the communication process.

In the past British advertising was based on protecting and looking after the client’s interests as well as their own. Advertising agencies should not be ashamed to return to these principals.

I am amazed at the spinelessness of British advertising people in defending the lack of accountability, the gross commercial clutter. They appear as parties to a conspiracy to fleece monies from marketing budgets under the futile guise of creativity.

There have been few outspoken admen, those that do speak out as to the inefficiencies of advertising are mocked and reviled never receiving a satisfactory response to their, valid, criticisms.

However Interactive Communication, properly structured, will allow advertising to return to more honest, accountable marketing!

　

Consumers are deaf to the babble of the advertising class.

It is true to say that all the advertising in the world won't bring the customers back!

Spending a huge fortune on TV advertising?

Rest assured these days your advertising slipped into the huge gulf of

mistrust, disbelief and total lack of interest that now separates the

Advertising Class from everybody else. This gulf is so full of disbelieved

advertising and ignored blogs,sales promotion gimmicks,direct marketing and

irrelevant banners/radio commercials.

The cynicism about advertising is so pervasive that it embraces almost all

marketing activity. Use a statistic? It's a lie. This cynicism extends to

the media, all advertising is seen as fiction inside an untruth wrapped in a piece

of spin! Most advertising proceeds as if there was still a reasonable degree

of trust. As if the message was still getting through, still be listened to,

still being weighed up. It must be hard to be in Advertising and to carry on if

the truth were faced.

For example, the rubbish that the food industry has fed people for decades,

along with its (literally) toxic products and the lies and omissions that it has

disseminated, well now is the time to challenge this concerted project of

misinformation, corruption and silence together with the programme to keep

people as ignorant as possible about factory farming. Myths trotted out

regularly.

The incredible plethora of choices consumers now possess has a downside, and

it's called exhaustion. An overwhelming number of possibilities complicates

every buying decision. Add to that all the other more baroque aspects of modern

life, such as two-income households, frequent divorce.

and remarriage and blending of increasing traffic,

shortening news cycles, and 100 channels of cable television, and you wind up

with a consumer group that feels very over loaded and harassed.

Stand back. Stop thinking like the operator and start thinking like a

customer. Better, talk to real customers. Or, better still, to real

non-customers. What do they want? What is missing for them? Customer focus is

important all the time, and is one of the main advantages that small firms enjoy

over their apparently stronger and more profitable larger rivals. In good

economic times, it's almost inevitable that, for big companies, the needs of

customers will drop down the list of corporate priorities, to some degree. This

creates an opportunity for small firms with a distinctive customer offering to

move in and clean up.