Supposedly we live in an age when it is easier to communicate

than ever before. The sad fact is that due to the fact that we live in an over informed society, we

are now turning away from the downpour of information that is vainly trying to

attract our attention. The problem is so huge, so vast, that it is

difficult to know where to start. However, let's look at just one small area, an area that affects us all,

Customer Services. When it comes to complaining you

must first bypass "Customer Services" - a service which is actually a cunning

modern day ploy NOT to serve customers! Nowadays if you have the

audacity to attempt 'phone contact with almost

any organisation, you will, undoubtedly, be put through to the hell of "Customer

Services". New technology, new legislation, together with new

management styles, are the weapons in this new age of

customer alienation. I wonder what on earth they are teaching these days

at the Business Management

Schools The new age of alienation is practised most effectively

by the larger organisations - banks, utility companies, Local Councils and etc.

To me all this new technology, even in this great age of easier

communication, allows those who couldn't really be bothered an easier opportunity to be just

that, not really be bothered with you, the customer! And most of what

passes for marketing looks as if the practitioners of advertising really couldn't be bothered -

advertising has run out of inspiration. And this is despite the fact that

advertising is the main cause of all that information

clutter out there! Advertising has always had a bad name, nowadays it

appears to be getting worse.It has been brought lower and lower by the

execrable standards of television, especially "reality" TV, and by liars, the

'phone scams and hucksters parading across our T.V screens. Perhaps,

just perhaps, you might think that this is too strong a condemnation, well then

please consider this. It embarrassing to have to say this however the Government

is being urged to repay VAT earned from phone-in scandals. That just how low the

hucksters of TV have brought the TV Industry!

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

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.

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! To discover more contact:

Paul Ashby on (UK) 01934 620047 or paulashby40@yahoo.com. Cell 'phone 07586259605.

Showing the results of just one exposure to an interactive "Event" against the reach and frequency model of traditional advertiing.




Client: Reckitt & Colman.

Brand: Setamol 500

Category: Analgesic.

Research: AGB

"Findings from this Post Event Survey shows 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: Warner Lambert.

Brand: Listerine.

Product Category: Mouthwash

Research: Market Intelligence Corporation.

　

"Gains in all key measurements were recorded among consumers exposed to the newspaper interactive event, versus those not exposed. These gains were: Unaided Awareness 39%, Aided 11%, Past-Four-Week-Purchase 55% and Next-Purchase 97%. This translates in total market gain of 8% for Unaided-Awareness; 2% gain in Aided-Awareness; 11% increase in Past-Four-Weeks-Purchase and 19% in Brand-Next-Purchase."

　

　

Client: Warner Lambert.

Brand: Listerine.

In-Store Sampling Programme.

Research: Market Intelligence Corporation.

Research Protocol: Interactive Sampling was conducted in 6 stores with other 6 matched stores used as a control group where sampling was conducted without the interactive elements. Additionally, other stores that had no sampling programme at all were monitored. Purchase behaviour was monitored for three months. Actual inventory and cases sold were monitored.

"For the month of November (time of sampling and commencement of survey) an increase of 129% in actual purchase was obtained in those stores where the interactive sampling programme took place versus those (control) stores where the interactive sampling did not take place.

The average for the three month programme, November, December, January was a gain of 36% in purchase, versus those stores where the interactive programme was not held."

　

Client: Nestle.

Brand: Nescafe Excella Coffee.

Product: Instant Coffee.

Research: Market Intelligence Corporation.

"Substantial gains in all key measurements were recorded among those readers who were exposed to the interactive event versus those who were not. Unaided Awareness of the brand increased 19%; Aided-Awareness increased 10%; Past-Four-Week-Purchase increased 33% and Brand-Next-Likely increased 31%. In the total market these increases translated to a 4% increase in Unaided-Awareness; 2% increase in Aided-Awareness; 8% increase in Past-Four-Week Purchase and 8% increase in Future Purchase-Intent.

Follow-up programme in same publications seven months after above programme.

As a result of the feedback from the above programme, the creative was strengthened to focus on a secondary feature of the above. OpinionGram responses from this programme event suggested this repositioning.

"Increases in all key measurements were recorded: Unaided-Awareness + 60%; Aided-Awareness +8%; Past-Four-Week-Purchase +70% and Next-Brand-Purchase +54%.

The effect on the total market among those exposed versus not exposed was in the magnitude of: Unaided-Awareness +12%; Aided-Awareness +2%; Past-Four-Week-Purchase +15% and Brand-Will-Buy-Next =11%."

Showing the results of just one exposure to an interactive "Event" against the reach and frequency model of traditional advertiing.




Client: Reckitt & Colman.

Brand: Setamol 500

Category: Analgesic.

Research: AGB

"Findings from this Post Event Survey shows 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: Warner Lambert.

Brand: Listerine.

Product Category: Mouthwash

Research: Market Intelligence Corporation.

　

"Gains in all key measurements were recorded among consumers exposed to the newspaper interactive event, versus those not exposed. These gains were: Unaided Awareness 39%, Aided 11%, Past-Four-Week-Purchase 55% and Next-Purchase 97%. This translates in total market gain of 8% for Unaided-Awareness; 2% gain in Aided-Awareness; 11% increase in Past-Four-Weeks-Purchase and 19% in Brand-Next-Purchase."

　

　

Client: Warner Lambert.

Brand: Listerine.

In-Store Sampling Programme.

Research: Market Intelligence Corporation.

Research Protocol: Interactive Sampling was conducted in 6 stores with other 6 matched stores used as a control group where sampling was conducted without the interactive elements. Additionally, other stores that had no sampling programme at all were monitored. Purchase behaviour was monitored for three months. Actual inventory and cases sold were monitored.

"For the month of November (time of sampling and commencement of survey) an increase of 129% in actual purchase was obtained in those stores where the interactive sampling programme took place versus those (control) stores where the interactive sampling did not take place.

The average for the three month programme, November, December, January was a gain of 36% in purchase, versus those stores where the interactive programme was not held."

　

Client: Nestle.

Brand: Nescafe Excella Coffee.

Product: Instant Coffee.

Research: Market Intelligence Corporation.

"Substantial gains in all key measurements were recorded among those readers who were exposed to the interactive event versus those who were not. Unaided Awareness of the brand increased 19%; Aided-Awareness increased 10%; Past-Four-Week-Purchase increased 33% and Brand-Next-Likely increased 31%. In the total market these increases translated to a 4% increase in Unaided-Awareness; 2% increase in Aided-Awareness; 8% increase in Past-Four-Week Purchase and 8% increase in Future Purchase-Intent.

Follow-up programme in same publications seven months after above programme.

As a result of the feedback from the above programme, the creative was strengthened to focus on a secondary feature of the above. OpinionGram responses from this programme event suggested this repositioning.

"Increases in all key measurements were recorded: Unaided-Awareness + 60%; Aided-Awareness +8%; Past-Four-Week-Purchase +70% and Next-Brand-Purchase +54%.

The effect on the total market among those exposed versus not exposed was in the magnitude of: Unaided-Awareness +12%; Aided-Awareness +2%; Past-Four-Week-Purchase +15% and Brand-Will-Buy-Next =11%."

Marketing can baffle the most intelligent people,

which is most understandable, for a start, making large marketing investments accountable is a

very inexact science. They rely, to a unnerving degree on assumptions that may

or may not be accurate.

Trust, or the absence of it, deepens marketing's lack of ability to reassure

customers that what they are saying is honest and accurate. Marketing success

and wealth creation is not given to corporations as of right. It must be

earned!

Those marketing people whose decisions have led to the economic collapse

reveal to us how profoundly lacking in vision they were. These were never

people of vision. They make decisions in the marketing sphere. But just how do

these decisions relate to the wider world was never part of their make-up.

This is a great flaw and one for which we are paying the price for now.

Commerce is a natural part of human life but is has become increasingly

unnatural over the intervening centuries, gradually divorcing itself from the

very people on whom it depends, whether workers or customers. The result has

been to create a huge chasm between buyers and sellers.

Advertising's failure!


Conventional advertising has failed the natural human need for social

interaction. We have created a media society during the last 30 or 40 years

where there is an extraordinary reduction in interaction because of the one-way

and more passive form of information that exists. We need to restore interactive communication

between your customers and your product, and reduce your huge marketing busgets.

The desperate need to restructure advertising and marketing.

Only interactive marketing communication will provide clients with the

necessary communication 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 P&L 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.

And Interactive Communication must lead the way in all your marketing communications

 

More accountability. Measuring the effectiveness of just one exposure to an interactive event versus "frequency and reach" of traditional advertising amongst category users.

Client: Kellogg’s

Brand: All Bran

Category: Breakfast Cereals

Research by: AGB

"Grocery buyers involved in the interactive programme showed a higher propensity to purchase and a high intention to purchase than those not involved. There was a 30% increase in purchase and a 10% increase in Intention to Purchase"

　

　

Client: Kellogg’s

Brand: Rice Bubbles

Category: Breakfast Cereals

Research by: AGB

"Among all main grocery buyers the following increases were achieved among those who saw the programme over those who did not. Prompted-Brand-Awareness + 8.8%; Past-4 week-purchase +41.7% and Next-Four-Weeks-Purchase +42.1%."

　

　

　

　

Client: Kellogg’s

Brand: Sultana Bran, Sustain, Special K, Just Right, All Bran.

Category: Breakfast Cereals.

Research by: AGB

"All participating products showed positive growth (between 2.2% and 10.8%) among all main grocery buyers and buyers of breakfast cereals who had seen the Event. Growth rates in Past-Four-Week-Purchase was noted with +138.9% for Sustain; 84.7% for Special K; 74.6% for Sultana Bran. No product’s growth in sales among those seeing the Event fell below +41%. Increase in advertising awareness also occurred; Just Right +24.5%; Sultana Bran +111.2%; Special K +69.8%"

　

　

　

Client: Quaker Trading

Brand: Quick & Hearty

Category: Hot breakfast Cereals

Research by: NOP

　

North West England

Of those who only saw the television commercial 1% claimed to have purchased Quick and Hearty in the past 4 weeks, whilst those who had seen the interactive programmed 9% claimed to have purchased, an increase in +800%.

In London

There was no television advertising for Quick and Hearty the purchase of Quick & Hearty in the control area was 0% whilst in the interactive test area last 4 weeks purchase was 4% and increase of +700%

In both regions the IMG interactive programme generated a 9% positive intention to purchase. This was twice the level generated in the North West & Midlands, and over three times that of the non advertising area in London. It is therefore a reasonable conclusion that the booklet led to an enhanced interest in purchasing Quick & Hearty when next buying a breakfast cereal.

　

　

Client: British Airways.

Brand: British Airways.

Category: Airline Flight.

Research: City Insights.

Airline Last Used has increased from 67% to 77%. Always choose to fly with BA and recommend to friend and colleagues’ increases from 24% to 31%. Increase in those saying BA has the best Frequent Flyer programme increases from 47% to 58%.

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!

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

The biggest piece of empirical research ever conducted on consumers’

The biggest piece of empirical research ever conducted on consumers’ digital behaviour and their attitudes to social media from the world’s biggest market research company, you would have thought, would create quite a lot of buzz. After all, 72,000 consumers interviewed across 60 countries is quite a sample. Yet coverage of the report and its key findings was almost non-existent. Blink and you missed it.

One look inside the Digital Life report, however, explains the lack of attention. Unlike the overly optimistic and wildly out of touch proclamations of the social media industry and those that cover it, the TNS study was based on empirical data. And as a result, it presented a much more even-handed and objective view of the digital landscape than most marketers are comfortable accepting or forwarding to their peers.

For example, the report concludes that the majority of consumers in developed markets do not want to engage with brands via social media. In the UK, that proportion was at its highest with 61% of consumers stating they do not see social media as a place they want to interact with brands. That’s a bummer for every brand manager who spouts the usual crap about "having a conversation with the consumer", because almost two-thirds of their consumers aren’t interested in talking to them.



But these facts were probably not communicated to you because they do not fit the ideology that the marketing industry is attempting to propagate when it comes to social media. - the hegemonic forces of marketing prefer to tell a story of new apps and bold Facebook strategies rather than a more fair approach. But what also emerged from the data was clear evidence of the lack of credibility or engagement that most brands can expect from their forays into social media. A spokesman for TNS said "Many brands have recognised the vast potential audiences available to them on social networks; however, they are failing to understand that these spaces belong to the consumer and brand presence needs to be proportionate and justified."

Wise is the marketer who uses data to assess the situation. In all the hullabaloo, has anyone considered that the term social media has no place for brands within its definition? ’Social media’ literally means the communication channels that exist between people. Not between brands.

But like every medium before it, brands try to invade that space anyway. And social media, like every other medium before it, is already suffering from clutter as a result. As more brands attempt to grab attention and start social media conversations with disinterested consumers, more of them will switch off.