˜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

"The incredible plethora of choices consumers now possess has a downside

"The incredible plethora of choices consumers now possess has a downside, and it's called exhaustion. An overwhelming number of possibilities complicates every buying decision. Add to that all the other more baroque aspects of modern life, such as two-income households, frequent divorce and remarriage and blending of families, increasing traffic, shortening news cycles, and 100 channels of cable television, and you wind up with a consumer group that feels very over loaded and harassed.



"It's a paradox: The more brands consumers have to choose from, the more they need to cling to one good brand.



"Good brands do three highly significant things for stressed-out consumers:

1. They save time.

2. They project the right message

3. They provide an identity.



David F. D'Alessandro, CEO John Hancock

Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. page 18.





"The per-capita consumption of advertising in America today (1996) is $376.62 a year. (That compares with $16.87 in the rest of the world.)



"If you spend $1 million a year on advertising, you are bombarding the average consumer with less than a half cent of advertising, spread over 365 days to a consumer already exposed to $376.61 ½ worth of other advertising.



Al Ries and Jack Trout

Positioning, the Battle for Your Mind. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981. page 6.

Your problems are all be solved once you start using Interactive Marketing Communication

Why? Simply put they were not concerned with solving their Clients problems they simply wanted to maximise their profits!

This communication technique reduced frequency, thus less clutter, enhanced awareness of TV commercials, used existing media, and was totally accountable – just one exposure was far more effective than reach and frequency. And they didn't like that one bit!

Now here they are, having nearly ruined one perfectly good media establishment madly going off to then disenchant clients as to the efficacy
or otherwise of the Internet, a medium totally hostile to the concept of advertising.

And so Advertising Agencies, in their ignorance, go on wasting billions of dollars on ineffective advertising!

Now please visit://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com