Wednesday 31 October 2012


Free... As In Doughnuts



I know a guy who spends hours looking for illegal MP3s to avoid paying $.99

on iTunes. Some people are likely to prefer watching ads to paying for content

despite all the drawbacks. The point is not that advertising is

bad for everyone in every situation. But it is unfortunate that advertising is

so often seen as the best or only way to make money from digital wares.

It's worth remembering that ad-financed television came to the fore at a time

when no alternative would have been feasible. The technical challenges of the

day involved getting a decent picture on a 17" CRT without standing next to the set holding the antenna all evening. Subscription or pay-per-view models were not in the cards. Now we have the technology to meter and charge for content in many new ways, but we've gotten into the habit of expecting TV shows to be free.

One of the quirks of human psychology is that, once we get used to free doughnuts, we are enraged

by the idea that we might have to pay for them.

If we succumb willingly to disfigured television shows, psychological

manipulation and higher prices on SUVs and shampoo so that we can avoid paying a

few dollars for entertainment and internet services, we have no one to blame but

ourselves. When the most frightening hoax imaginable is that Facebook

will start charging users, we can hardly blame them for slathering more and

more lucrative ads onto their website. It would be fantastic if creative types

were to look for less intrusive ways of financing their work. But that is

unlikely to happen until consumers start to realize that free is sometimes the

most expensive price of all. And best told by interactive communication!

Tuesday 30 October 2012

If you're in the business of selling stuff,



according to one big-time research firm social media marketing is a waste of your time and money.

Forrester Research has released a report recently that concludes...

"Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers".

While the hype around social networks as a driver of influence in eCommerce

continues to capture the attention of online executives, the truth is that

social continues to struggle and registers as a barely negligible source of

sales for either new or repeat buyers. In fact, fewer than 1% of transactions

for both new and repeat shoppers could be traced back to trackable social

links. Now think about this for a minute. This study is about

the influence of social media on sales. If the influence on sales is "barely negligible" can you

imagine the influence on retail sales (which account for about 94% of

everything sold?) What's below barely negligible? Strongly negligible?

The study goes on to say...

The reality is that even the most popular social image-sharing sites (like Pinterest) have failed to

move the needle with respect to sales for most retail sites. To tell you the truth, even I

was a little shocked reading about this study. There aren't too many people in

the ad world who are more skeptical about the magical power of social media

marketing than I am. But I thought the truth probably fell somewhere between

"magic" and "barely negligible." !! However there is one technique that continues to move the

needle dramatically and that is Interactive Marketing Communication...properly executed for

course!

Monday 29 October 2012

The techno-crowd in both the education and advertising industry have a lot in common.


They are very strong in their assertions, and very weak on proof.

They continue to inflate the hysterical threat-of-not-accepting-their-solution language, despite

contradictory data.

They think anecdotes are evidence.

When data does not support their position, they jump to false goals -- like the dubious fashionable-

yet-bankrupt "engagement" argument.There is a lesson to be learned here. Whether you are selling

cheeseburgers, trying to lift the educational achievement of children, or

operating in any other field of endeavor, technology has so far proven to be no

substitute for strategy. Interactive Marketing Communication...the ONLY way to make digital

work effectively for you!! Contact Paul Ashby on (UK) 01934 620047 or paulashby40@yahoo.com

Sunday 28 October 2012

Dead Air More Effective Than Facebook Ads

The broadcast industry has a term called "dead air." It occurs when there's a
mistake or a technical glitch that results in no audio on radio, or no picture
on a TV screen. A blank TV screen is "dead air." In an absolutely
astounding experiment, the banner advertising equivalent of dead air -- a blank
display ad -- performed better than the average Facebook ad; twice as good as
the average "branding" display ad; and only one click in ten thousand worse than
the average of all display ads. Here are the details. AdAge
this week has a piece called How Blank Display Ads Managed to Tot Up Some Impressive Numbers.
The article was written by Ted McConnell, exec VP-digital for the Advertising
Research Foundation. Ted and a few friends (an astrophysicist from an
online analytics firm, a measurement expert from the Advertising Research
Foundation, and an ad-platform wizard from a buying and optimization company)
decided to do an experiment. The experiment was designed to discover how much
clicking of banner advertising was actual engagement with the ad, and how much
was just noise -- people clicking for no reason. To do this they created
a unique ad -- an ad with no message. A blank. According to McConnell...
"We created six blank ads in three IAB standard sizes, and two colors, white and orange. We
trafficked the ads via a demand-side platform (DSP) with a low bid. We started with run of
exchange, and in another phase trafficked to "named publishers" that would accept unaudited
copy." Here are the results:

The click-through rate on the blank ads was .08%. According to published
reports, the click-through rate on the average Facebook ad is about .05%. The
blank ad performed 60% better.
The click through rate for the blank ad was about double the average
click-through rate for a "branding" display ad (an ad without an offer.)
The click-through rate on the average banner ad is .09%. This means the
blank ad drew one click in ten thousand fewer than an average banner ad.
About .04% of the clicks were mistakes. Since the average click-through rate
for display ads is .09%, this indicates that it is possible that as much as 44%
of banner ad clicks are mistakes. The astounding thing is that with all
the data Facebook is collecting, all the geniuses we have analyzing display ad
results, all the space-age targeting we are constantly being beaten over the
head with, and all the young creative prodigies lecturing us on the magic of
online advertising, empty ads outperformed our online geniuses.
You simply cannot make this shit up.

Saturday 27 October 2012

More from the "Marketers rate below politicians..." research study.


The study's findings suggest that the ads that are more traditional -- and less able to track for

engagement using digital tools -- are actually the ones consumers say they prefer. The study found

that people prefer to view advertising in their favorite print magazine (45%) or while

watching their favorite TV show (23%). Only 2% stated that they prefer to view

ads via social media and 0% said they like ads in an app.

Companies investing in branded social-media sites should also pay attention

to this finding: Just 2% of respondents believe information about a brand from a

company's social-media site is credible

.

"Make no mistake, creativity will always be our calling card," Ms. Lewnes

said. "But digital has given marketers an opportunity to rewrite their roles.

Marketers today have access to technology that gives them critical data and

insights about their customers ... insights we can turn into more relevant,

high-impact marketing. People want messages and marketing that's more customized

to their needs. And businesses want to be able to measure the impact of their

marketing dollars. Digital gives you both. As an industry, we need to accelerate

the move to digital. Only then will we be able to get the respect and

credibility we deserve."

Considering the participants of this study aren't merely a cross-section of

average consumers but also include 250 top marketing professionals, it seems

imperative that the industry needs to start from within. How can you expect

folks to respect you if you don't respect yourself?

According to the study, the majority of consumers --53%-- stated that most

marketing is "a bunch of B.S." That's compelling evidence of a big reputational

challenge the industry must tackle, and fast.

Friday 26 October 2012

Talentless Advertising

The advertising management's silence over the constantly emerging evidence
that advertising does not work speaks far too loudly.
Glaciers are melting more speedily than the ability of advertising to become
accountable. What is surprising is that a global commercial organization such
as advertising can operate like this. Advertising agencies act as if it has
no need to answer to their Clients! Advertising Management has been tested and
found wanting. What all this is showing is that the Senior Management, those at
the top of the Agencies, are not working. There is a communications and
management failure within advertising agencies.
Everyone is saying it (or, to be more accurate, whining about it). The
advertising business is in a state of upheaval. Everyone is blaming it on
technology and the rapid rate of change it is causing. Hello -- it isn't the
technology, folks. The technological change is simply making it easier to
diagnose the real challenge. The one that has been around since the dawn of our
industry but that, thankfully, we've been able to side step.
The decline of moral responsibility 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 as have be
practiced up to now. Advertising agencies need to change their behavior, they
need to re-establish relations with their Clients and gain a better
understanding of the communication process...by using Interactive Marketing Communication,
properly executed!

Thursday 25 October 2012

Go for an arresting Claim

Remember the Wizard of Oz? When the great curtains of the Emerald City

were finally pulled back, Dorothy and her friends found...nothing. Just a small

anxious figure who had until then been able to project a big confident illusion.

Well, advertising people have been hiding a dreadful secret, they have nothing

to hide, nothing to propose, and, worse still, nothing to support their

bombastic illusions! Listen to an ad man speak and you would not gain the

impression of a master strategist, towering intellect, communications colossus

and business titan whom we underestimate at our peril. Advertising

agencies have, for years, been past masters of making an arresting claim

whenever they are hazy about facts or logic, which happens to be most of the

time! The world, the media and our own country have for too long indulged

advertising by never responding to their abstractions that advertising works and

that has suited advertising beautifully. Now as more and more evidence of the

failure of advertising emerges one is forced to admit that advertising is a

total business disaster and has been so for many a year!

There is a niggling, small-scale dishonesty in the way they use words facts and

figures. There is, in advertising people, a paralyzing failure of intellectual

confidence together with a yawning absence of true creativity. Take for

example the intellectual nonsense of accountant turned ad man, Sir Martin

Sorrell. He recently said London and New York are

no longer the creative centers of the world. Absolute stuff and nonsense, if

he, accountant turned ad man Sorrell knew anything about the process of

communication he would appreciate the fact that creativity is no longer, if it

ever has been, the sole criterion for the success or otherwise of an advertising

campaign!He goes on to talk about the most financially efficient advertising

again, complete stuff and nonsense there is no such thing as accountability in

advertising so nobody knows a dam thing about financially efficient

advertising. See what I mean about niggling small-scale dishonesty in the

way they use words?

Wednesday 24 October 2012

People Respect Bankers And Politicians More Than Marketers !



According to a study by Adobe and Edelman Berland, people think

both politicians and bankers are more respectable than marketers. Only 13 percent of

consumers think that marketing benefits society. In fact, only 35 percent of respondents who

work in marketing think that their profession is valuable.

But when asked if marketing benefits society, only 13% of consumers agreed.

And compared to other professions, the results were grim. Teachers -- despite

how little they are often compensated -- were valued at the top of the list,

followed by scientists and engineers. That's somewhat to be expected. But what

was more surprising was that advertising and marketing ranked below nearly every

other profession, including bankers (32%), lawyers (34%) and even politicians

(18%). Marketing and advertising was tied with the job of an actor or actress in

terms of its value.

There was only one profession that ranked lower in the survey, and even that

one is just a part of the marketing ecosystem: PR professionals. Only 11% said

PR is a valuable job. Meanwhile, the results weren't much better among

marketers; only 35% of people who were marketers themselves deemed it a valuable

profession in responding to the survey!

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Consumers are Fed Up with Corporate Advertising and Manipulation

 




Recently, the New York Times reported on a new poll showing that a majority

of Americans are fed up with the hailstorm of advertising we all

suffer through. According to theYankelovich Partners poll:

* 65 percent said they believed that they "are constantly bombarded with

too much" advertising; * 61 percent agreed that the amount of advertising

and marketing to which they are exposed "is out of control"; * 60 percent

said their opinion of advertising "is much more negative than just a few

years ago"; * 54 percent of the survey respondents said they "avoid buying

products that overwhelm them with advertising and marketing";* 69 percent

said they "are interested in products and services that would help them skip

or block marketing;"





The Times story is below.

As the kingpins of Madison Avenue gather for a major annual meeting,

there is further evidence of the growing challenge they confront in seeking

to break through the cacophony of advertising that surrounds - and

increasingly annoys - consumers.

At the management conference of the American Association of

Advertising Agencies, which begins today in Miami, senior executives will

learn the results of a survey of consumers conducted on behalf of the

organization by Yankelovich Partners, the market research company. The

survey, to be presented tomorrow at the opening general session of the

conference, shows that the effectiveness of campaigns that agencies produce

for marketers is deteriorating, said J. Walker Smith, president at

Yankelovich, because:

The survey findings are significant because industry executives

are frantically searching for ways to forge more emotional connections

with fractious, and fractionated, consumers that differ from conventional

methods like running 30-second television commercials and print

advertisements.

The risk posed by some of the new approaches, like placing sponsored

brand messages or products in the entertainment content of programs

or publications, is that consumers will consider such selling strategies

even more obnoxious.

"People have a love-hate relationship with advertising," said Mr. Smith,

who offered a preview of the survey in an interview before the conference

began. "But a far greater percentage are saying they have concerns,

primarily related to its growing obtrusiveness."

For instance, Mr. Smith said, 54 percent of the survey respondents said

they "avoid buying products that overwhelm them with advertising and

marketing"; 60 percent said their opinion of advertising "is much more

negative than just a few years ago"; 61 percent said they agreed that the

amount of advertising and marketing to which they are exposed "is out of

control."

Also, 65 percent said they believed that they "are constantly bombarded

with too much" advertising; and 69 percent said they "are interested in

products and services that would help them skip or block marketing."

How to market an antimarketing product to people surfeited with

marketing? Ah, there's the rub.

Even when fewer than a majority of the survey respondents agreed with

a statement, Mr. Smith said, the results offered little solace for

agencies. For example, what he called a "fairly significant" 45 percent of

respondents said the amount of advertising and marketing they were exposed to

"detracts from the experience of everyday life," while 33 percent said they

"would be willing to have a slightly lower standard of living to live in a

society without marketing and advertising."

The results also offer some suggestions, Mr. Smith said, to help narrow

what he described as "the growing gap between how consumers want to

be communicated with and the way advertisers communicate with them."

However if you use Interactive Marketing Communication, properly executed, all these problems

disappear, customers want to interact with your information, they do want to express opinions to

you. The trouble is, most people in advertising/marketing don't really understand communication,

and they certainly don't understand real interaction.

It would appear that advertising and marketing is losing its legitimacy

... and is regarded as certainly undignified. Having worked around the world over many years you cannot help
wondering if society is changing in ways that are more than economic. It would
appear that advertising and marketing is losing its legitimacy .
The myopic search for profit and short term advantages has created a
corporate oligarchy whose interests are largely inimical to the average
consumer. Smoke and mirrors have, for too long, been a substitute for good old
fashioned marketing. All the while the mythology of marketing and
advertising, as institutions of enterprise, of meritocracy and opportunity, as
somewhere that didn't work like anywhere else is being compromised. Meanwhile
we seem to be forgetting the convictions that made Marketing and Advertising
great.
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. Ehrenberg's uncompromising insistence on staying only with the facts is probably why his work was so studiously ignored by so many sections of the marketing community. The consequences of this has been far more lasting than any recession could ever be.
Be brutally honest, do you have any idea how advertising works? How
advertising got itself into its present mess. No? Perhaps you console yourself
with the thought that it doesn't matter that you don't have a clue because there
are plenty of smart marketing people out there who do. Well, here's the tricky
part. Yes, those smart marketing people do indeed have a shrewd prescription on
how to steer the world out of marketing chaos. The bad news is, they're not
all the same prescription. In fact they are different prescriptions. Very
different.

Monday 22 October 2012

Finally, The True Value Of A Facebook Fan!


 

 

Finally, The True Value Of A

Facebook Fan

In days of yore, people were consumed by questions about the existence of God,

or the nature of the universe, or the fate of mankind. Today, however, we face a

problem that is apparently even more vexing: What the heck is the value of a

Facebook fan? Based on the alarming amount of literature on the topic,

this seems to be very nettlesome to today's highly sensitive marketing

professionals. I've been studying the methods of our industry's new

oracles -- the data analysts -- and trying to apply their methods and their

logic to the problem. And, good news. I think I've got the answer!

Here's what I've done. I've used real-world numbers, based on a real-world

case history and come up with what I believe is an unassailable value for a

Facebook fan. I have tried to keep this mainstream by using one of the

most famous brands in the world, and a very famous Facebook initiative to derive

my value. The formula I've used is a simple one highly favored by our

data wizards. I've taken the total change in dollar sales since the Facebook

program in question began, and I've divided it by the total number of Facebook

fans that were acquired. That should give us a dollar value for each Facebook

fan. The case history I'm going to use is the Pepsi

Refresh Project. According to Pepsi's marketing director " the

success has been overwhelming" so no one can accuse me of skewing the

data. The Pepsi Facebook page has acquired about 3.5 million fans as a

result of the Refresh project. In the most recent year, during which the Refresh

Project was ongoing, Pepsi sales dropped by about 350 million dollars.

Doing the math, we find that each Pepsi Facebook fan was worth about 100

dollars.

To Coke.

Talentless Advertising...


The advertising management's silence over the constantly emerging evidence

that advertising does not work speaks far too loudly.

Glaciers are melting more speedily than the ability of advertising to become

accountable. What is surprising is that a global commercial organization such

as advertising can operate like this. Advertising agencies act as if it has

no need to answer to their Clients! Advertising Management has been tested and

found wanting. What all this is showing is that the Senior Management, those at

the top of the Agencies, are not working. There is a communications and

management failure within advertising agencies.

Everyone is saying it (or, to be more accurate, whining about it). The

advertising business is in a state of upheaval. Everyone is blaming it on

technology and the rapid rate of change it is causing. Hello -- it isn't the

technology, folks. The technological change is simply making it easier to

diagnose the real challenge. The one that has been around since the dawn of our

industry but that, thankfully, we've been able to side step.

The decline of moral responsibility 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 as have be

practiced up to now. Advertising agencies need to change their behavior, they

need to re-establish relations with their Clients and gain a better

understanding of the communication process...by using Interactive Marketing Communication,

properly executed!

Sunday 21 October 2012

We live in a world of broken advertising and marketing models

 
. To understand why advertising and marketing leaders cannot easily fix the sputtering advertising and marketing systems , you have to realize that the economic models on which the United States, Europe and China relied are collapsing. The models differ, but the breakdowns are occurring simultaneously and feed on each other. The result is that the advertising and marketing recovery flags, while pessimism and uncertainty mount.

However you can solve most of your marketing and advertising needs by turning to interactive communication, properly executed, then, in one flash you can be highly successful again! Contact: Paul Ashby on (UK) 01934 620047 or paulashby40@yahoo.com

 Web Litter: Now It's Content!


 


The dismal record of online advertising has caused a minor crisis among the

thousands of agencies who make a living creating the stuff. It is getting

difficult for them to convince anyone that blogs or podcasts or YouTube videos

or "user generated content" or banners are the marketing miracles they were once

purported to be. No one is that stupid anymore. I mean, except the odd CMO.

So the folks who create all this web clutter have had to look for some new

magic to sell to today's ultra-cutting edge marketing prodigies. That miracle is

called content.Content isn't a new thing. But it is enjoying a new

life. You see, all the things that the web promoters promised us

would be magic have flopped. So they've resurrected "content" because it is

non-specific -- no one knows what the hell it is. And if you don't know

what it is, how can you criticize it? Like most people, when you hear

some geekazoid yapping about "content" you probably pretend to know what he's

talking about. But you don't. And here's the really cool thing -- neither does

he! What exactly is content, you ask? Well, it seems that as long

as you can upload it, and it's not an ad, it's "content." So all that

online detritus that no one pays any attention to -- the blogs and podcasts and

YouTube videos and Facebook pages and corporate manifestos -- have a new life.

They are now content. Previously they were just litter blowing unnoticed

through the dark, dusty corridors of the web. But now that they have been

promoted to "content" they are once again awesome.!!!

Using Interactive Communication, properly executed, is the real marketing miracle, anybody can use

it...with great success, contact Paul Ashby on (UK) 01934 620047 or paulashby40@yahoo.com

Saturday 20 October 2012

The techno-crowd in both education and advertising....

The techno-crowd in both the education and advertising industry have a lot in

common.

They are very strong in their assertions, and very weak on proof.

They continue to inflate the hysterical threat-of-not-accepting-their-solution language, despite

contradictory data.

They think anecdotes are evidence.

When data does not support their position, they jump to false goals -- like the dubious fashionable-yet

-bankrupt "engagement" argument.There is a lesson to be learned here. Whether you are selling

cheeseburgers, trying to lift the educational achievement of children, or

operating in any other field of endeavor, technology has so far proven to be no

substitute for strategy.

Dead Air More Effective Than Facebook Ads

Dead Air More Effective Than Facebook Ads

The broadcast industry has a term called "dead air." It occurs when there's a

mistake or a technical glitch that results in no audio on radio, or no picture

on a TV screen. A blank TV screen is "dead air." In an absolutely

astounding experiment, the banner advertising equivalent of dead air -- a blank

display ad -- performed better than the average Facebook ad; twice as good as

the average "branding" display ad; and only one click in ten thousand worse than

the average of all display ads. Here are the details. AdAge this week has a piece called How Blank

 Display Ads Managed to Tot Up Some Impressive Numbers The article was written by Ted

 McConnell, exec VP-digital for the Advertising Research Foundation. Ted and a few friends (an

astrophysicist from an online analytics firm, a measurement expert from the Advertising Research

Foundation, and an ad-platform wizard from a buying and optimization company)

decided to do an experiment. The experiment was designed to discover how much

clicking of banner advertising was actual engagement with the ad, and how much

was just noise -- people clicking for no reason. To do this they created

a unique ad -- an ad with no message. A blank. According to McConnell...

"We created six blank ads in three IAB standard sizes, and two colors, white and orange. We

trafficked the ads via a demand-side platform (DSP) with a low bid. We started with run of

exchange, and in another phase trafficked to "named publishers" that would accept unaudited

copy." Here are the results:

The click-through rate on the blank ads was .08%. According to published

reports, the click-through rate on the average Facebook ad is about .05%. The

blank ad performed 60% better.

The click through rate for the blank ad was about double the average

click-through rate for a "branding" display ad (an ad without an offer.)

The click-through rate on the average banner ad is .09%. This means the

blank ad drew one click in ten thousand fewer than an average banner ad.

About .04% of the clicks were mistakes. Since the average click-through rate

for display ads is .09%, this indicates that it is possible that as much as 44%

of banner ad clicks are mistakes. The astounding thing is that with all

the data Facebook is collecting, all the geniuses we have analyzing display ad

results, all the space-age targeting we are constantly being beaten over the

head with, and all the young creative prodigies lecturing us on the magic of

online advertising, empty ads outperformed our online geniuses.

You simply cannot make this shit up.

Free... As In Doughnuts



I know a guy who spends hours looking for illegal MP3s to avoid paying $.99

on iTunes. Some people are likely to prefer watching ads to paying for content

despite all the drawbacks. The point is not that advertising is

bad for everyone in every situation. But it is unfortunate that advertising is

so often seen as the best or only way to make money from digital wares.

It's worth remembering that ad-financed television came to the fore at a time

when no alternative would have been feasible. The technical challenges of the

day involved getting a decent picture on a 17" CRT without standing next to the set holding the

 antenna all evening. Subscription or pay-per-view models were not in the cards. Now we have the

technology to meter and charge for content in many new ways, but we've gotten into the habit of

 expecting TV shows to be free.

One of the quirks of human psychology is that, once we get used to free doughnuts, we are enraged

by the idea that we might have to pay for them.

If we succumb willingly to disfigured television shows, psychological

manipulation and higher prices on SUVs and shampoo so that we can avoid paying a

few dollars for entertainment and internet services, we have no one to blame but

ourselves. When the most frightening hoax imaginable is that Facebook

will start charging users, we can hardly blame them for slathering more and

more lucrative ads onto their website. It would be fantastic if creative types

were to look for less intrusive ways of financing their work. But that is

unlikely to happen until consumers start to realize that free is sometimes the

most expensive price of all. And best told by interactive communication!

Friday 19 October 2012

Advertising will fail for three reasons:



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

online:

Consumers do not trust advertising.

Dan Ariely has demonstrated that messages attributed to a commercial source have much lower

credibility and much lower impact on the perception of product quality than the same message

attributed to a rating service. Forrester Research has completed studies that show that

advertising and company sponsored blogs are the least-trusted source of

information on products and services, while recommendations from friends and

online reviews from customers are the highest.

Consumers do not want to view advertising. Think of watching network TV news and remember that

the commercials on all the major networks are as closely synchronized as possible.

Why? If network executives believed we all wanted to see the ads they would be staggered, so that

users could channel surf to view the ads; ads are synchronized so that users cannot

channel surf to avoid the ads. Consumers do not need advertising.

My own research suggests that consumers behave as if they

get much of their information about product offerings from the internet, through

independent professional rating sites or community content rating services like


www.ratebeer.com/" http://www.tripadvisor.com/"

We must dismiss the meaningless word Subliminal"

Can we please dismiss the meaningless word "Subliminal" from our advertising

jargon!

There was -- and still is -- little proof that these efforts to engineer action

through manipulation of the unconscious led to any behavioral changes

favorable to specific marketers. As for James Vicary's experiment in

subliminal advertising -- it was a hoax: Vicary later admitted that he

hadn't done what he'd claimed. Several subsequent studies of the

effectiveness of embedded messages have shown it to be virtually

impossible to use them to produce specific, predictable responses.

Still, faith in the power of the media to induce millions of people to

act contrary to their better judgment or conscious desires remains

profound. More than three quarters of the U.S. population currently

believes that marketers use subliminal messages to sell products or

services, according to the Journal of Advertising Research; consumers

themselves spend some $50 million annually on subliminal self-help

products, such as audiotapes that are supposed to teach one a foreign

language in one's sleep.

There is only one form of effective, accountable advertising and that is Interactive Marketing

Communication.

Thursday 18 October 2012

The web has turned us all into liars.



We pretend the web has opened up huge new advertising opportunities when we secretly know

that it has mostly been a dismal failure as an advertising medium. We cling to the few big successes

and argue from the extreme. We pretend we know how to "do it all", but we don't. We

pretend to be "media neutral" but secretly are either broadcast-centric, print-centric or web-centric.

When will we discover the real meaning of the word "communication" and start practicing real

interactive communication? Because that's what it's all about!

It is refreshing to hear more discussion around the shortcomings of social media...

... rather than the constant proselytizing of a still baby-fresh and

misunderstood communication channel. However, possibly a more constructive way

of thinking about those shortcomings is to consider the growing gap in

expectations of what social media can and should achieve for a brand.

The IBM Institute of Business Value just published a study

comparing the differing perceptions of business leaders and consumers regarding

social sites. The most interesting find from the study was the ironic business

misperception that consumer's would rank discounts and purchase opportunities at

the bottom of their list of reasons to engage with a company's social site. It

actually ranks at the top of their list.

Companies need to design experiences that deliver tangible value in return

for customers' time, attention, endorsement and data. -IBM Institute of

Business Value.

Time and attention really are the currencies of our customers. Those expenses

are precious for them and they want something in return for it. Simply providing

conversation's will never be enough. No brand is interesting enough to entice

just by being available. Although the social space is cheaper, quicker, and

ever-present, a brand still needs to provide those nuggets of material value to

drive significant engagement.

And Interactive Communication does all that...and more!

Monday 15 October 2012

Consumers attitudes to digital advertising - a decline in response rates!



A new YouGov survey into the attitudes of consumers to digital advertising

has revealed some alarming trends around how the explosion of digital marketing

has jaded many consumers, and hinted that a shift in approach may be required by

digital marketers.

Marketing Tech contributor Marco Veremis is president at

UpStream, the digital response specialist that commissioned

the research, and a front runner in mobile and digital advertising for over a

decade. Speaking to him at the Mobile World Congress recently, we questioned him about the

interesting and alarming shift that's taken place over the last five years as

the numbers of digital ads being served every year rocketed from 150bn in 1996,

to a staggering five trillion today.

The effect, as one might expect, has been general desensitisation and a

decline in response rates. This is the worrying part,says Veremis.

Response used to be a healthy 7%, but today it's below 0.1%. And the

reaction of advertisers over the last five years has been, "well, my response

rates are declining, let's do more, more, more"

But more, more, more can be a risky strategy; not just because of the general

apathy and ad-blindness it lays on the average consumer. As fast as response

rates are declining, the number of consumers staying with a brand and not

actively opting out of communications is on the decline also.

Perhaps more worryingly, disgruntled consumers have the power to wreak havoc

and brand damage like never before. "If you asked asked people 40 years ago whether

they were getting too much advertising, the answer may well have been the same

as today, says Veremis. ,But today they have the ability to go online and be

vocally negative about that brand. So the negative impact is there, there is

such a thing as negative brand awareness.

On the face of it, running less advertising in a more targeted way would seem

the logical solution. A lot of companies have caught wind of this, but many

have fallen into another pitfall, personal data, says Veremis. How are you

targeting?

It's a pitfall elegantly demonstrated by the oft-cited case of the US teenage

girl, secretly searching Google for abortion information, whose family then

learns of her pregnancy through targeted pregnancy ads.

On the one hand you've got invasion of privacy, trying to be more targeted

and advertising less, says Veremis. On the other hand you've got massive

volume. Whereas the middle ground?

The interesting thing here is that none of these are traditional marketing

segmentation metrics that companies use.

Privacy has become more of an issue as people become more protective and

more vocal when it is violated, concludes Veremis. Targeting criteria should

change; one should look for the types of data that are perceived to be

non-intrusive.

However when you use interactive communication, properly executed, all your marketing becomes

totally unobtrusive and, at the same time, totally effective and accountable.

Sunday 14 October 2012

Consumers Are Fed Up with Corporate Advertising & Manipulation

Consumers Are Fed Up with Corporate Advertising & Manipulation

Today, the New York Times reports on a new poll showing that a majority

of Americans are fed up with the hailstorm of advertising we all

suffer through. According to theYankelovich Partners poll:

* 65 percent said they believed that they "are constantly bombarded with

too much" advertising; * 61 percent agreed that the amount of advertising

and marketing to which they are exposed "is out of control"; * 60 percent

said their opinion of advertising "is much more negative than just a few

years ago"; * 54 percent of the survey respondents said they "avoid buying

products that overwhelm them with advertising and marketing";* 69 percent

said they "are interested in products and services that would help them skip

or block marketing;"





The Times story is below.

As the kingpins of Madison Avenue gather for a major annual meeting,

there is further evidence of the growing challenge they confront in seeking

to break through the cacophony of advertising that surrounds - and

increasingly annoys - consumers.

At the 2004 management conference of the American Association of

Advertising Agencies, which begins today in Miami, senior executives will

learn the results of a survey of consumers conducted on behalf of the

organization by Yankelovich Partners, the market research company. The

survey, to be presented tomorrow at the opening general session of the

conference, shows that the effectiveness of campaigns that agencies produce

for marketers is deteriorating, said J. Walker Smith, president at

Yankelovich, because

The survey findings are significant because industry executives

are frantically searching for ways to forge more emotional connections

with fractious, and fractionated, consumers that differ from conventional

methods like running 30-second television commercials and print

advertisements.

The risk posed by some of the new approaches, like placing sponsored

brand messages or products in the entertainment content of programs

or publications, is that consumers will consider such selling strategies

even more obnoxious.

"People have a love-hate relationship with advertising," said Mr. Smith,

who offered a preview of the survey in an interview before the conference

began. "But a far greater percentage are saying they have concerns,

primarily related to its growing obtrusiveness."

For instance, Mr. Smith said, 54 percent of the survey respondents said

they "avoid buying products that overwhelm them with advertising and

marketing"; 60 percent said their opinion of advertising "is much more

negative than just a few years ago"; 61 percent said they agreed that the

amount of advertising and marketing to which they are exposed "is out of

control."

Also, 65 percent said they believed that they "are constantly bombarded

with too much" advertising; and 69 percent said they "are interested in

products and services that would help them skip or block marketing."

How to market an antimarketing product to people surfeited with

marketing? Ah, there's the rub.

Even when fewer than a majority of the survey respondents agreed with

a statement, Mr. Smith said, the results offered little solace for

agencies. For example, what he called a "fairly significant" 45 percent of

respondents said the amount of advertising and marketing they were exposed to

"detracts from the experience of everyday life," while 33 percent said they

"would be willing to have a slightly lower standard of living to live in a

society without marketing and advertising."

The results also offer some suggestions, Mr. Smith said, to help narrow

what he described as "the growing gap between how consumers want to

be communicated with and the way advertisers communicate with them."

For example, respondents said "there's an opportunity for advertising to

become a source of competitive advantage for a brand," Mr. Smith said, "if

it's focused on product features and services." "The marketing itself has

become part of how consumers view a brand," Mr. Smith said, "so if you have

two brands at parity with each other, more and more the one people are likely

to do business with is the one that does a better job in reaching them with

its advertising."

The association, which represents 1,196 agencies that place an estimated

75 percent of all national advertising, recognizes it must address

the consumers' changing attitudes, if some other topics on the conference

agenda are any indication.

Among the subjects to be discussed at the conference, which

continues through Friday at the Ritz-Carlton South Beach hotel, are

"advertising in the age of obesity," the title of a speech by Tommy G.

Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, and how agencies can

develop more effective campaigns, to be covered by August A. Busch IV,

president of Anheuser-Busch.

Other topics are how agencies can create campaigns consumers will like

more, or at least dislike less, to be discussed by Linda Kaplan Thaler,

chief executive and chief creative officer at the Kaplan Thaler Group in New

York, part of the Publicis Groupe, and how perceptions of the agency business

need to be improved, to be addressed by Ron Berger, elected last month as

the chairman of the association for 2004-6.

"Our industry must do a better job of talking about the tremendous value

we create for clients and the economy," said Mr. Berger, who is also

chief executive and chief creative officer at Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners in

New York, part of the Euro RSCG Worldwide division of Havas.

Although "the last few years for the industry have not been great

ones," said Mr. Berger, who offered a preview of his remarks in a recent

interview, "I just don't think other industries beat themselves up the way we

do."

Even if, as has been widely discussed, the traditional 30-second spot

has devolved into a much less effective way to sell goods and services,

Mr.
Berger said, "so what?"

"The great agencies don't say, The 30-second commercial is dead, so

we're dead. They understand that, and embrace that, and will reinvent

themselves and what they do to market brands and products."

"The idea that TiVo, remote controls, any technology, is fatal to

our business I find absurd," he said. "The opportunities of technology and

what it enables us to do are more exciting than at any time in our

history."

Mr. Berger's enthusiasm may be contagious, if judged by the

advance registration for the conference, typically a good gauge of how

optimistic or pessimistic agency executives are about prospects for the

industry.

Almost 330 people have registered ahead of the conference, said O.

Burtch Drake, president and chief executive of the association, known as the

Four A's, compared with the 257 who attended the 2003 conference and the 293

at the 2002 conference.

Although the anticipated attendance is lower than for the boom year of

2000, when 450 people attended, Mr. Drake said, "we're going to have the

largest member attendance since 1990," which is attendees minus

speakers, representatives of media companies and other organizations like

the Association of National Advertisers, spouses and reporters.

"I'm feeling really good about the meeting," Mr. Drake said, "finally."

Saturday 13 October 2012

Social Media's Massive Failure

For several years there has been consensus among a very vocal and highly placed group of marketing executives and commentators that fundamental changes have taken place in our culture and in technology which render traditional modes of marketing communication no longer relevant or effective.

The thinking behind the hypothesis goes like this:
Marketing is a "conversation."
People are no longer willing to accept the "interruption" model of advertising.
The objective of marketing communication is for a brand to create "engagement" with consumers.
Traditional forms of advertising do not create engagement and have substantially outlived their usefulness.
The Internet has created an environment in which consumer control of his/her purchasing behavior is unprecedented.
Consumers are quickly moving away from brands that are obviously out to sell them something in favor of brands that seek to engage with them and have conversations.
Social media represents the most effective medium for engaging with consumers and having these conversations.

Among mainstream brands that have adopted this new marketing paradigm, none has been more zealous than Pepsi-Cola.

Last year, Pepsi substantially abandoned its long-standing commitment to traditional advertising in favor of social media. It canceled its annual Super Bowl advertising. It diverted tens of millions of dollars from traditional advertising to create the "Pepsi Refresh Project." Pepsi Refresh was an online social media initiative in which Pepsi gave out 20 million dollars. They also spent many millions more in support of this initiative.

I am pretty certain Refresh is the largest social media initiative ever undertaken. Never before, to my knowledge, has a brand taken so much of its traditional advertising money and energy and re-directed it into social media.

Most major brands have some kind of social media program. But never before, to my knowledge, has a major consumer brand made a social media program the centerpiece of its advertising and marketing.
"We took the divergent path," explained Frank Cooper, chief consumer engagement officer for Pepsi. "We wanted to explore how a brand could be integrated into the digital space."
The idea behind the program was that you, the consumer, got to engage with Pepsi by voting for the "Refresh" projects you deemed most worthy. There were also other opportunities to engage through an enormous online effort -- Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, website, blogs. Millions of dollars were also spent in what might be called "traditional advertising in support of social media."

Skeptics (such as yours truly) have been eagerly awaiting a report card on this initiative as it is the first real test case for a major brand implementing a massive transfer of marketing resources from traditional advertising to social media.

The results are now in. It has been a disaster.
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Pepsi-Cola and Diet Pepsi had each lost about 5% of their market share in the past year.
If my calculations are correct, for the Pepsi-Cola brand alone this represents a loss of over $350 million. For both brands, the loss is probably something in the neighborhood of 400 million to half-a-billion dollars.
For the first time ever Pepsi-Cola has dropped from its traditional position as the number two soft drink in America to number three (behind Diet Coke.)
In 2010, Pepsi's market share erosion accelerated by 8 times compared to the previous year.

The Refresh Project accomplished everything a social media program is expected to: Over 80 million votes were registered; almost 3.5 million "likes" on the Pepsi Facebook page; almost 60,000 Twitter followers. The only thing it failed to do was sell Pepsi.

It achieved all the false goals and failed to achieve the only legitimate one.

In reaction to this disaster, Massimo d'Amore, chief executive of PepsiCo Beverages Americas had this to say...
"When my ancestors went from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, they blew up the place, so that's what we are doing."
He also said...
"We need television to make the big, bold statement...
Social media has taken a huge hit. Only zealots and fools will continue to bow down to the gods of social media.

Guess who said this? "The advertising business is going down the drain...

Guess who said this? "The advertising business is going down the drain...

...It's being pulled down by the people who create it, who don't know how to sell anything, who have never sold anything in their lives , who despise selling, whose mission in life is to be clever show-offs and con clients into giving them money to display originality and genius."


Believe it or not, that quote comes from advertising icon David Ogilvy. And

that was before the World Wide Web was invented.

But remember, he wasn't talking about Interactive Communication!

Friday 12 October 2012

˜Advertising is failure,"

˜Advertising is failure," says Jeff Jarvis, and he thinks' media only get in

the way of customer relationships. And indeed, how will you make more friends

at a party? Showing up with a big banner around your neck that says "I am a

great friend" or engaging in a handful of conversations with strangers,

listening to their stories and detecting affinities whilst accomplishing a sense

of privacy that gradually becomes intimate? Right. In the end, that's what we

should be doing as marketers to build real, sustainable brand equity creating

publicity through intimacy, loyalty through decency.

William McEwen, authour of "Married to the Brand" and "Inside the Mind of the

Chinese Consumer", writes: "Agencies must recognize that advertising is neither

the outcome nor the objective. Advertising's job is to set the stage for an

actual customer experience. Then, the company's performance, the quality and

consistency of its products, and its human brand ambassadors will determine the

company's sustainable growth and enduring success. There is absolutely no value

in making a brand promise, however memorable it might be, if a company cannot or

will not keep it.

If ad agencies want to regain their position as valued contributors to a

company's success, then they must also help their clients focus on promise

delivery. If agencies only care about making the promise and not about helping

ensure that the promise will be kept, then they are shirking their

brand-building job. It is, after all, the synergy between promise and

performance that represents ultimate success and that's true for the agency

and the client.

So is advertising dead/dying, or merely having temporary breathing problems?

Interested to hear what readers think.

Paul Ashby @ paulashby40@yahoo.com

Saturday 6 October 2012

Somewhere. there is a new, Post-Modern, British Advertising Agency struggling to emerge!

 

Struggling to emerge from the wreckage left by the crisis. It will be a differently shaped advertising agency than the pre-crisis unaccountable model: Indeed it has to be. And it is not likely to be a "back to the future" communications model. But based upon a sound understanding of what "communications" really means The new advertising may take a while to emerge. But it is not too soon to sketch out the main lines and ensure that Clients, across the board, are supportive. These have to be a complete understanding of Interactive Communication, involvement, learning, decision making. Based upon the fact that the advertising process is a learning process, and the more effective and easy you can make the learning process the more effective becomes the marketing of Clients' Products and Services.