Lets take a look at to-days papers and see what, if anything, they have to say about advertising….
Yup, here’s something that appears to support my position.
“In a world that’s full of bull and kipple, it’s time we were told the simple truth.
…Branding for example, often you see two brands of toothpaste or two brands of paracetamols, or anything like that, just buy the cheapest. It’s all exactly the same stuff!”
“Kipple is the word the writer Philip K Dick coined to describe the ever-growing tide of mental rubbish that clutters the world. Kipple is, in a word, rubbish.
What is kipple? Where is it to be found? Kipple is everywhere.
Kipple is the advert that tells you a fizzy drink is a statement about yourself. It is the cold caller saying you have won a competition you never entered, the friendly bacteria, the meaningless graphic in the shampoo ad, the “clinically proven” miracle face cream….”
AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM I KEEP RETURNING TO – THEY DON’T TRUST ADVERTISING OUT THERE!
Would you like to learn more?
Then simply visit: http://effectivetelevisionor effectivetv.blogspot.com
Wednesday 17 January 2007
Monday 15 January 2007
SUBSTANTIALLY MORE EFFECTIVE!
Client: Quaker Trading
Brand: Quick & Hearty
Category: Hot breakfast Cereals
Research by: NOP
North West England
Of those who only saw the television commercial only:
1% claimed to have purchased Quick and Hearty in the past 4 weeks.
Those who had seen the interactive programme 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%.
In the interactive test area last 4 weeks purchase was 4% and increase of +700%
In both regions the 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 interactive booklet led to an enhanced interest in purchasing Quick & Hearty when next buying a breakfast cereal.
Do you need more information on the effectiveness of interactive communication?
Please visit: http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com
http://www.quickregister.net
Brand: Quick & Hearty
Category: Hot breakfast Cereals
Research by: NOP
North West England
Of those who only saw the television commercial only:
1% claimed to have purchased Quick and Hearty in the past 4 weeks.
Those who had seen the interactive programme 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%.
In the interactive test area last 4 weeks purchase was 4% and increase of +700%
In both regions the 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 interactive booklet led to an enhanced interest in purchasing Quick & Hearty when next buying a breakfast cereal.
Do you need more information on the effectiveness of interactive communication?
Please visit: http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com
http://www.quickregister.net
They NEVER trusted advertising
In today’s marketplace, time, attention and trust seem to have become the scarcest resources and companies that fail to recognise this fact are bound to suffer problems.
As a result it is becoming more and more important to ensure that there is a strong ‘what’s in it for me’ appeal to the consumer. With so many demands on their time they will only spend quality time with those products and services that are clearly offering them something of direct personal relevance and value.
Another contributor to the loss of trust and belief has been the acceptance of the ‘mass market’. Anyone with any understanding of communication and human behaviour will understand that there has never been such a thing as a mass market!
Buying habits are as individual as fingerprints so the surest way to identify products and services of greatest appeal is not through traditional market segmentation and then advertising but by a means of involving the customer in the process whereby a true two-way dialogue can be entered into.
Are you seeking more information?
Please visit http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com
http://www.trafficswarm.com/cgi-bin/swarm.cgi?626584&ac5ce2d6cb7d54c30fbf3f9975f057ca
As a result it is becoming more and more important to ensure that there is a strong ‘what’s in it for me’ appeal to the consumer. With so many demands on their time they will only spend quality time with those products and services that are clearly offering them something of direct personal relevance and value.
Another contributor to the loss of trust and belief has been the acceptance of the ‘mass market’. Anyone with any understanding of communication and human behaviour will understand that there has never been such a thing as a mass market!
Buying habits are as individual as fingerprints so the surest way to identify products and services of greatest appeal is not through traditional market segmentation and then advertising but by a means of involving the customer in the process whereby a true two-way dialogue can be entered into.
Are you seeking more information?
Please visit http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com
http://www.trafficswarm.com/cgi-bin/swarm.cgi?626584&ac5ce2d6cb7d54c30fbf3f9975f057ca
Thursday 11 January 2007
The philosophy of Interactive communication
"Tell me & I'll forget,
Show me & I may remember
Involve me & I'll understand"
Old Chinese Proverb
It’s about time Clients shut up and listened!
The fact of the matter is that media are no longer in control of the message.
People have taken control and are starting to connect to each other directly.
In the past Marketing/Advertising has been about telling people what to buy.
Interactive communication, properly executed liberates Clients from this restraint and also allows them a unique opportunity to listen!
The most vital part of any communication!
People have taken control and are starting to connect to each other directly.
In the past Marketing/Advertising has been about telling people what to buy.
Interactive communication, properly executed liberates Clients from this restraint and also allows them a unique opportunity to listen!
The most vital part of any communication!
Wednesday 10 January 2007
Just how much more cost effective is interactive communication?
Professor E.L. Roberto, PhD, Coca-Cola Foundation Professor of International Marketing reviewed the £5 million of independent research conducted on behalf of Shopper’s Voice and provided this summary as to the techniques cost efficiency:
"The Shopper’s Voice participating advertisements generated recall scores that are more than 50% productive than normal advertising. The effect on purchase intention is just as impressive if not much more.
All these productivity increments are attainable at a reasonably inexpensive budget. One Shopper’s Voice Client revealed that for its participating brand, its quarter television expenditure was $5.7 million as compared to its Shopper’s Voice budget of $0.5 million.
This 1:10 ratio has been obtained in Shopper’s Voice experience in other countries."
Source: AGB: Gallup: Martyn Research: Bourke: NOP. City Insights & more.
"The Shopper’s Voice participating advertisements generated recall scores that are more than 50% productive than normal advertising. The effect on purchase intention is just as impressive if not much more.
All these productivity increments are attainable at a reasonably inexpensive budget. One Shopper’s Voice Client revealed that for its participating brand, its quarter television expenditure was $5.7 million as compared to its Shopper’s Voice budget of $0.5 million.
This 1:10 ratio has been obtained in Shopper’s Voice experience in other countries."
Source: AGB: Gallup: Martyn Research: Bourke: NOP. City Insights & more.
Communication in a changing world
The Advertising, Marketing and Broadcast community currently reside in a tramline society, a society that has got used to its ruts and its blinkers and prefers its own ways, however dreary, to untrodden paths and new ways of looking at things.
An analogous story is of the Peruvian Indians who, seeing the sails of their Spanish invaders on the horizon simply put it down to a freak in the weather and went on about their business having no concept of sailing ships in their limited experience.
Likewise Advertising Agencies have absolutely no understanding of the communication process. Similarly they pay only lip service to the much-needed concept of accountability!
The huge changes about to engulf this community need not be painful, however these changes are inevitable because the old ways of marketing and advertising have gone…for ever.
They have been exposed as having failed the needs the whole community.
Marketing applies advertising to the selling of goods or services, so, what is advertising? It is nothing more than a form of learning, the advertiser is saying to his audience, learn about my product/service and then please change or modify your behaviour."
Well then, what is learning?
Most educationalists today say that real learning is about answering a question or solving a problem. The questions can range from the immense to the trivial, however when we have no questions we need no answers. Apply questions and an understanding of human behaviour to the marketing of products, then you start to have real communication taking place.
The questions do not have to be some kind of examination question, more often it is a sort of reaching for, an exploration. Learning is a discovery and people do want to learn about and discover products.
As we said earlier on, you cannot expect the consciousness that created the problem to then solve the problem.
Advertising & Marketing people spent hours and hours at conferences discussing the latest whiz in marketing and indulging in Group Think. A most dangerous pastime because like-minded groups have like-minded ideas and find it hard amongst themselves to project change in their profession, any meaningful change that is!
Study the English Marketing Trade Press, one would think that all was safe and calm within their industry, they constantly discuss the latest multi-million dollar advertising (waste of money) and how it fares creatively.
The current account changes and, all the while, never giving any indication that theirs is a profession undergoing critical examination and that the verdict is almost upon them…death of a thousand cuts!
An analogous story is of the Peruvian Indians who, seeing the sails of their Spanish invaders on the horizon simply put it down to a freak in the weather and went on about their business having no concept of sailing ships in their limited experience.
Likewise Advertising Agencies have absolutely no understanding of the communication process. Similarly they pay only lip service to the much-needed concept of accountability!
The huge changes about to engulf this community need not be painful, however these changes are inevitable because the old ways of marketing and advertising have gone…for ever.
They have been exposed as having failed the needs the whole community.
Marketing applies advertising to the selling of goods or services, so, what is advertising? It is nothing more than a form of learning, the advertiser is saying to his audience, learn about my product/service and then please change or modify your behaviour."
Well then, what is learning?
Most educationalists today say that real learning is about answering a question or solving a problem. The questions can range from the immense to the trivial, however when we have no questions we need no answers. Apply questions and an understanding of human behaviour to the marketing of products, then you start to have real communication taking place.
The questions do not have to be some kind of examination question, more often it is a sort of reaching for, an exploration. Learning is a discovery and people do want to learn about and discover products.
As we said earlier on, you cannot expect the consciousness that created the problem to then solve the problem.
Advertising & Marketing people spent hours and hours at conferences discussing the latest whiz in marketing and indulging in Group Think. A most dangerous pastime because like-minded groups have like-minded ideas and find it hard amongst themselves to project change in their profession, any meaningful change that is!
Study the English Marketing Trade Press, one would think that all was safe and calm within their industry, they constantly discuss the latest multi-million dollar advertising (waste of money) and how it fares creatively.
The current account changes and, all the while, never giving any indication that theirs is a profession undergoing critical examination and that the verdict is almost upon them…death of a thousand cuts!
Interactive Communication... a win win scenario!
Interactive Communication, properly executed, provides a win-win-win scenario for all participating parties.
For the first time in the history of commercial communication, participating parties can expect to benefit from appearing in interactive communications "Events".
For communication to be successful mutual self- interest has to be satisfied.
The need for product information.
Communication results from an interaction in which two parties expect to give and take. Audience members must be able to give feedback. Media practitioners and their Clients must be sensitive to the information contained in the feedback. This give and take can result on real understanding or real feedback.
1. The Consumers need for Interactive Communication.
People desire to be taken account of, to affect change, learn and personalise their relationships with their environment. There are a phenomenal number of reasons, which cause people to interact, which go far beyond just giving them things.
When people participate in interactive marketing communication they are told that their efforts and feedback are of positive help to the advertisers. Moreover, by participating, they then learn and understand the message from the advertiser, personalise their relationship with the advertiser and their products (or services).
2. The benefits for participating advertisers.
For the first time manufacturers advertising becomes totally accountable with payment by results only. Interactive communication provides intelligent sales through feedback and involvement. Thus allowing the building of intelligent databanks.
It allows the brands to differentiate themselves from their competition. Substantially reduce their heavy marketing investments. Additional benefits will allow the analysis of the feedback through a mass focus group allowing brand development. Whatever the consumer & manufacturer deem appropriate.
3. The Medium becomes accountable and more effective.
By the very nature of interactive "Events" the audience are captivated by the technique. Interaction alters the way viewers/readers perceive advertising, instead of being viewed as interruption advertising becomes a pleasurable and meaningful source of information. There is a substantial increase in the reading/viewing figures and it readily counters zapping.
It also allows the medium to provide evidence as to the effectiveness of the medium in terms of sales, awareness. message comprehension thus proving that TV advertising is effective (as well as magazine advertising).
For the first time in the history of commercial communication, participating parties can expect to benefit from appearing in interactive communications "Events".
For communication to be successful mutual self- interest has to be satisfied.
The need for product information.
Communication results from an interaction in which two parties expect to give and take. Audience members must be able to give feedback. Media practitioners and their Clients must be sensitive to the information contained in the feedback. This give and take can result on real understanding or real feedback.
1. The Consumers need for Interactive Communication.
People desire to be taken account of, to affect change, learn and personalise their relationships with their environment. There are a phenomenal number of reasons, which cause people to interact, which go far beyond just giving them things.
When people participate in interactive marketing communication they are told that their efforts and feedback are of positive help to the advertisers. Moreover, by participating, they then learn and understand the message from the advertiser, personalise their relationship with the advertiser and their products (or services).
2. The benefits for participating advertisers.
For the first time manufacturers advertising becomes totally accountable with payment by results only. Interactive communication provides intelligent sales through feedback and involvement. Thus allowing the building of intelligent databanks.
It allows the brands to differentiate themselves from their competition. Substantially reduce their heavy marketing investments. Additional benefits will allow the analysis of the feedback through a mass focus group allowing brand development. Whatever the consumer & manufacturer deem appropriate.
3. The Medium becomes accountable and more effective.
By the very nature of interactive "Events" the audience are captivated by the technique. Interaction alters the way viewers/readers perceive advertising, instead of being viewed as interruption advertising becomes a pleasurable and meaningful source of information. There is a substantial increase in the reading/viewing figures and it readily counters zapping.
It also allows the medium to provide evidence as to the effectiveness of the medium in terms of sales, awareness. message comprehension thus proving that TV advertising is effective (as well as magazine advertising).
One trick advertising agencies!
Let us review something written and published in Marketing Magazine, the author is Marc Ritson, Assistant Professor of Marketing at the London Business School.
"A pipe bursts in your house. When the local handyman arrives, he is carrying a large toolbox. Without even looking at the pipe, he opens the box to reveal only one tool: a hammer. He takes it out and brings it crashing down on the broken pipe - for an hour. With the pipe destroyed, he asks for £100 and leaves.
I heard it put a little differently the other day, a potential new Client walked into the presentation room of a large agency, the Client Director said, "The answer is a 30 second TV commercial, now what’s your question?"
This provides an accurate analogy for the state of the marketing communications industry. The fanfare that greeted the emergence of integrated marketing communications in the early 90s has died away, leaving the industry uncomfortably aware that it still represents a series of one-trick ponies.
Advertising agencies still espouse solutions that centre on advertising. PR agencies always suggest PR; direct agencies suggest direct marketing and so on.
What of the advertising agencies? In terms of numbers, the laid back attitude of many agencies seems at first glance to be justifiable. Despite the huge proliferation of new interactive services and products in the past few years, the economics of the advertising business have barely been affected.
The vast majority of advertising revenue is spent on traditional media and, the growth of direct mail notwithstanding; the advertising agencies still control the transactions that take place between the advertiser and the media owner.
Yet as traditional spot and display advertising becomes less dominant, and as expenditure on commercials gives way to targeted selling using interactive technology. Giving the consumer the opportunity to respond directly to the advertiser, the role of agencies as an interface between the advertiser and the customer will decline and a new productive age will have dawned.
"A pipe bursts in your house. When the local handyman arrives, he is carrying a large toolbox. Without even looking at the pipe, he opens the box to reveal only one tool: a hammer. He takes it out and brings it crashing down on the broken pipe - for an hour. With the pipe destroyed, he asks for £100 and leaves.
I heard it put a little differently the other day, a potential new Client walked into the presentation room of a large agency, the Client Director said, "The answer is a 30 second TV commercial, now what’s your question?"
This provides an accurate analogy for the state of the marketing communications industry. The fanfare that greeted the emergence of integrated marketing communications in the early 90s has died away, leaving the industry uncomfortably aware that it still represents a series of one-trick ponies.
Advertising agencies still espouse solutions that centre on advertising. PR agencies always suggest PR; direct agencies suggest direct marketing and so on.
What of the advertising agencies? In terms of numbers, the laid back attitude of many agencies seems at first glance to be justifiable. Despite the huge proliferation of new interactive services and products in the past few years, the economics of the advertising business have barely been affected.
The vast majority of advertising revenue is spent on traditional media and, the growth of direct mail notwithstanding; the advertising agencies still control the transactions that take place between the advertiser and the media owner.
Yet as traditional spot and display advertising becomes less dominant, and as expenditure on commercials gives way to targeted selling using interactive technology. Giving the consumer the opportunity to respond directly to the advertiser, the role of agencies as an interface between the advertiser and the customer will decline and a new productive age will have dawned.
Tuesday 9 January 2007
The attraction of interactive communication is...
The attraction of interactive communication is that it is a return
to the prehistoric human fascination with telling tales!
Since the beginnings of any civilised society the market place was the hub of civilisation, a place to which traders returned from remote lands with exotic spices, silks, monkeys, parrots, jewels - and fabulous stories.
Interactive Communication, properly executed, more resembles an ancient bazaar than fits the business models companies try and impose upon it. People respond to interactive opportunities because it seems to offer some intangible quality long ‘missing in action’ from modern life. In sharp contrast to the alienation wrought by homogenised broadcast media, interactive opportunities provide a space in which the human voice would be rapidly rediscovered.
Unlike the lockstep conformity imposed by television, advertising, and corporate propaganda, interactive communication gives new legitimacy – and free rein – to play.
People long for more connection between what we do for a living and what we genuinely care about. We long for release from anonymity, to be seen as who we feel ourselves to be rather than the sum of abstract metrics and parameters. We long to be part of a world that makes sense rather than accept the accidental alienation imposed by market forces too large to grasp; to even contemplate.
Remember the market place, of old. Caravans arrived across burning deserts bringing dates and figs, snakes and parrots, monkeys, strange music and stranger tales. The market place was the heart of the city, the kernel, the hub. Like the past and the future it stood at the crossroads. People worked early and went there for coffee and vegetables, eggs and wine, for pots and carpets. They went there to look and listen and to marvel, to buy and to be amused. But mostly they went to meet each other…to talk and interact!
Markets are conversations.
to the prehistoric human fascination with telling tales!
Since the beginnings of any civilised society the market place was the hub of civilisation, a place to which traders returned from remote lands with exotic spices, silks, monkeys, parrots, jewels - and fabulous stories.
Interactive Communication, properly executed, more resembles an ancient bazaar than fits the business models companies try and impose upon it. People respond to interactive opportunities because it seems to offer some intangible quality long ‘missing in action’ from modern life. In sharp contrast to the alienation wrought by homogenised broadcast media, interactive opportunities provide a space in which the human voice would be rapidly rediscovered.
Unlike the lockstep conformity imposed by television, advertising, and corporate propaganda, interactive communication gives new legitimacy – and free rein – to play.
People long for more connection between what we do for a living and what we genuinely care about. We long for release from anonymity, to be seen as who we feel ourselves to be rather than the sum of abstract metrics and parameters. We long to be part of a world that makes sense rather than accept the accidental alienation imposed by market forces too large to grasp; to even contemplate.
Remember the market place, of old. Caravans arrived across burning deserts bringing dates and figs, snakes and parrots, monkeys, strange music and stranger tales. The market place was the heart of the city, the kernel, the hub. Like the past and the future it stood at the crossroads. People worked early and went there for coffee and vegetables, eggs and wine, for pots and carpets. They went there to look and listen and to marvel, to buy and to be amused. But mostly they went to meet each other…to talk and interact!
Markets are conversations.
My, My…we are regressing…image advertising is a total waste of time, nobody, but nobody, buys image anymore…if they ever did!
1. The belief of advertising’s enormous power and the almost inevitable effectiveness of image advertising grew as mass advertising followed mass manufacturing in the 50s’ and ‘60s. Mass manufacturing led to one-size-fits-all products.
2. Now, advertising’s declining effectiveness is due, in part, to an earlier perception that over-estimated advertising’s power.
3. In earlier days there was a faith than when there was little objective difference among products, an emotion-laden image is always used as a motivator.
4. The technological revolution in manufacturing has made every vendor customise his product line.
5. Taking the place of undifferentiated brand products are various related lines of different choices for a consumer to select among. In this situation, our ability to sell everything under the umbrella of a single brand image has become limited and suspect.
6. How much can an ad lacking information really accomplish? Brand image is no longer the be-all and end-all of marketing.
7. With this vast differentiation, especially with high-ticket items and durable goods, buyers are looking for more than brand rhetoric. Whilst consumers still buy candy bars or sweat socks casually, as we should, without great forethought or analysis. Consumers buy important expensive durables only after they have properly processed the information they need.
8. One of the major sources of that information is – or should be – advertising. Here’s the problem: Image advertising doesn’t give us the information needed to buy knowledge-driven products. Since it doesn’t help us, we have long since acquired the habit of tuning it out.
2. Now, advertising’s declining effectiveness is due, in part, to an earlier perception that over-estimated advertising’s power.
3. In earlier days there was a faith than when there was little objective difference among products, an emotion-laden image is always used as a motivator.
4. The technological revolution in manufacturing has made every vendor customise his product line.
5. Taking the place of undifferentiated brand products are various related lines of different choices for a consumer to select among. In this situation, our ability to sell everything under the umbrella of a single brand image has become limited and suspect.
6. How much can an ad lacking information really accomplish? Brand image is no longer the be-all and end-all of marketing.
7. With this vast differentiation, especially with high-ticket items and durable goods, buyers are looking for more than brand rhetoric. Whilst consumers still buy candy bars or sweat socks casually, as we should, without great forethought or analysis. Consumers buy important expensive durables only after they have properly processed the information they need.
8. One of the major sources of that information is – or should be – advertising. Here’s the problem: Image advertising doesn’t give us the information needed to buy knowledge-driven products. Since it doesn’t help us, we have long since acquired the habit of tuning it out.
Am I on another Planet?
I have been overseas for a few months, a colleague of mine kept back the trade press for me to review upon my return.
I am amazed, whilst I know that “American & England, two countries separated by a common language,” I didn’t realise just how much separation existed.
Certain elements of the British Trade Press appear to be either unaware of the cataclysm about to hit the advertising industry or reluctant to discuss it!
In American all is doom and gloom!
Newsweek carried an article “New Ways to Drive Home the Message”, which, in essence said the new technologies that give the viewers more control over how they watch TV could spell the end of the classic 30-second commercial…”
The Holy Grail of American Advertising, Advertising Age had this to say recently, “Transparency makes it clear: Advertising a thing of the past.”
USA Today said in a major review of the deficiencies of advertising, “Advertisers forced to think way outside the box. TV used to be tops.”
Meanwhile former Chief Marketing Officer, The Coca-Cola Company, Sergio Zyman has written a book “The End of Advertising as We Know It.” He contends that advertisers have lost sight of their primary goal-to sell product. Fortunes are wasted on hip, award-winning commercials that often fail to even communicate the brand!
Meanwhile back in the UK all slumbers on as if nothing is happening, and anyway that’s America and we all know what the Americans are like.
Well all these problems, and more, are already here, however who is going to have the courage to admit them and then do something about it?
I am amazed, whilst I know that “American & England, two countries separated by a common language,” I didn’t realise just how much separation existed.
Certain elements of the British Trade Press appear to be either unaware of the cataclysm about to hit the advertising industry or reluctant to discuss it!
In American all is doom and gloom!
Newsweek carried an article “New Ways to Drive Home the Message”, which, in essence said the new technologies that give the viewers more control over how they watch TV could spell the end of the classic 30-second commercial…”
The Holy Grail of American Advertising, Advertising Age had this to say recently, “Transparency makes it clear: Advertising a thing of the past.”
USA Today said in a major review of the deficiencies of advertising, “Advertisers forced to think way outside the box. TV used to be tops.”
Meanwhile former Chief Marketing Officer, The Coca-Cola Company, Sergio Zyman has written a book “The End of Advertising as We Know It.” He contends that advertisers have lost sight of their primary goal-to sell product. Fortunes are wasted on hip, award-winning commercials that often fail to even communicate the brand!
Meanwhile back in the UK all slumbers on as if nothing is happening, and anyway that’s America and we all know what the Americans are like.
Well all these problems, and more, are already here, however who is going to have the courage to admit them and then do something about it?
Monday 8 January 2007
The prehistoric human fascination with telling tales!
The attraction of interactive communication is that it is a return
to the prehistoric human fascination with telling tales!
Since the beginnings of any civilised society the market place was the hub of civilisation, a place to which traders returned from remote lands with exotic spices, silks, monkeys, parrots, jewels - and fabulous stories.
Interactive Communication, properly executed, more resembles an ancient bazaar than it fits the business models companies try and impose upon it.
People respond to interactive opportunities because it seems to offer some intangible quality long ‘missing in action’ from modern life. In sharp contrast to the alienation wrought by homogenised broadcast media, interactive opportunities provide a space in which the human voice would be rapidly rediscovered.
Unlike the lockstep conformity imposed by television, advertising, and corporate propaganda, interactive communication gives new legitimacy – and free rein – to play.
People long for more connection between what we do for a living and what we genuinely care about. We long for release from anonymity, to be seen as who we feel ourselves to be rather than the sum of abstract metrics and parameters. We long to be part of a world that makes sense rather than accept the accidental alienation imposed by market forces too large to grasp; to even contemplate.
Remember the market place, of old. Caravans arrived across burning deserts bringing dates and figs, snakes and parrots, monkeys, strange music and stranger tales. The market place was the heart of the city, the kernel, the hub. Like the past and the future it stood at the crossroads. People worked early and went there for coffee and vegetables, eggs and wine, for pots and carpets. They went there to look and listen and to marvel, to buy and to be amused. But mostly they went to meet each other…to talk and interact!
Markets are conversations.
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. People desire to be taken account of, to affect change, learn and personalise their relationships with their environment. These psychological and sociological factors are part of the incentive to interact with advertising. However, these tend to be minimised in the incentive direct response field, there are a phenomenal number of reasons which cause people to interact which go beyond just giving them things
to the prehistoric human fascination with telling tales!
Since the beginnings of any civilised society the market place was the hub of civilisation, a place to which traders returned from remote lands with exotic spices, silks, monkeys, parrots, jewels - and fabulous stories.
Interactive Communication, properly executed, more resembles an ancient bazaar than it fits the business models companies try and impose upon it.
People respond to interactive opportunities because it seems to offer some intangible quality long ‘missing in action’ from modern life. In sharp contrast to the alienation wrought by homogenised broadcast media, interactive opportunities provide a space in which the human voice would be rapidly rediscovered.
Unlike the lockstep conformity imposed by television, advertising, and corporate propaganda, interactive communication gives new legitimacy – and free rein – to play.
People long for more connection between what we do for a living and what we genuinely care about. We long for release from anonymity, to be seen as who we feel ourselves to be rather than the sum of abstract metrics and parameters. We long to be part of a world that makes sense rather than accept the accidental alienation imposed by market forces too large to grasp; to even contemplate.
Remember the market place, of old. Caravans arrived across burning deserts bringing dates and figs, snakes and parrots, monkeys, strange music and stranger tales. The market place was the heart of the city, the kernel, the hub. Like the past and the future it stood at the crossroads. People worked early and went there for coffee and vegetables, eggs and wine, for pots and carpets. They went there to look and listen and to marvel, to buy and to be amused. But mostly they went to meet each other…to talk and interact!
Markets are conversations.
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. People desire to be taken account of, to affect change, learn and personalise their relationships with their environment. These psychological and sociological factors are part of the incentive to interact with advertising. However, these tend to be minimised in the incentive direct response field, there are a phenomenal number of reasons which cause people to interact which go beyond just giving them things
Goodbye to the passive TV ad of yesteryear
Viewers are becoming impatient with television’s linear flow and are increasingly using the limited opportunities available to them to avoid the intentions of advertisers and programme makers. Even though to many the remote control is a fairly recent development, 44% habitually use it to dodge ads. And 14% to watch two programmes at the same time.
Too much advertising is focused on a market place that is gone. Manufacturing has changed. Marketing has changed. Advertising has not, and it is no wonder that clients are losing faith in it.
This decline in confidence has been going on for several years, and the recent recession has brought it to the crisis level. Advertising’s share of promotional expenditures for packaged goods has gone from 43% to 25% since 1981.
This sense of declining effectiveness is due, in part, to an earlier perception that over-estimated advertising’s power. In the industry’s days of dominance, people believed it could change the ways consumers think and behave, not just influence them to favour one brand in a category they were already considering.
In earlier days there was a faith than when there was little objective difference among products, and emotion-laden image is always used as a motivator.
Much of this sense of advertising’s enormous power and the almost inevitable effectiveness of image advertising grew as mass advertising followed mass manufacturing in the 50s’ and ‘60s. Mass manufacturing led to one-size-fits-all products. Local, individualised, and speciality products disappeared, and the mass consumerism was achieved via mass advertising.
Now, customised products are coming back. Modern manufacturing has attained the ability to replicate, in its own way, the old world of choice.
Products are modified to meet many different consumer needs, including diet, health, ecology and economy among others. This technological revolution in manufacturing has made every vendor customise his product line.
Too much advertising is focused on a market place that is gone. Manufacturing has changed. Marketing has changed. Advertising has not, and it is no wonder that clients are losing faith in it.
This decline in confidence has been going on for several years, and the recent recession has brought it to the crisis level. Advertising’s share of promotional expenditures for packaged goods has gone from 43% to 25% since 1981.
This sense of declining effectiveness is due, in part, to an earlier perception that over-estimated advertising’s power. In the industry’s days of dominance, people believed it could change the ways consumers think and behave, not just influence them to favour one brand in a category they were already considering.
In earlier days there was a faith than when there was little objective difference among products, and emotion-laden image is always used as a motivator.
Much of this sense of advertising’s enormous power and the almost inevitable effectiveness of image advertising grew as mass advertising followed mass manufacturing in the 50s’ and ‘60s. Mass manufacturing led to one-size-fits-all products. Local, individualised, and speciality products disappeared, and the mass consumerism was achieved via mass advertising.
Now, customised products are coming back. Modern manufacturing has attained the ability to replicate, in its own way, the old world of choice.
Products are modified to meet many different consumer needs, including diet, health, ecology and economy among others. This technological revolution in manufacturing has made every vendor customise his product line.
Huge changes are occurring
The business formally known as advertising…
Huge changes are occurring, corporations are having to do a complete about face. A very large proportion of media functions will no longer be delivered top-down, as in the broadcast model but will be coming bottom-up from the very customers most corporations are trying to ‘order’ to buy their product right now.
Business created mass markets through broadcast advertising, the same bossy voice of command-and-control it used on workers, however in this instance, applied in the market place. "Just do what you’re told" is not that very much different than "Buy our products." And you could effectively tell people to keep quiet, because that element of a conversation was banned in broadcast media – there was never a way to ask questions. A 30-second TV commercial was never an invitation to converse!
Advertising Agencies have led us up the wrong path, that’s because they never understood the communication process,
Huge changes are occurring, corporations are having to do a complete about face. A very large proportion of media functions will no longer be delivered top-down, as in the broadcast model but will be coming bottom-up from the very customers most corporations are trying to ‘order’ to buy their product right now.
Business created mass markets through broadcast advertising, the same bossy voice of command-and-control it used on workers, however in this instance, applied in the market place. "Just do what you’re told" is not that very much different than "Buy our products." And you could effectively tell people to keep quiet, because that element of a conversation was banned in broadcast media – there was never a way to ask questions. A 30-second TV commercial was never an invitation to converse!
Advertising Agencies have led us up the wrong path, that’s because they never understood the communication process,
Sunday 7 January 2007
You never learn in advertising agencies
One thing they NEVER taught you whilst working in an advertising
agency…or a marketing department for that matter…
And that’s the human desire for interaction,
If this had been taught and the lesson put into everyday practise then billions of pounds and dollars would never have been poured down the black hole of television advertising!
So let’s review that desire in terms of the marketing of products and, at the same time, hope that those people working in or with advertising agencies read this simple lesson and learn a little of what they should have already known and been doing on behalf of their clients and in turn, their customers.
All advertising is a form of learning whereby the advertiser is asking people to change their behaviour after learning the benefits of the products or services on offer. However, we all tend to filter out information, which we do not want to hear. This clearly alters the effectiveness of conventional advertising in quite a dramatic way.
agency…or a marketing department for that matter…
And that’s the human desire for interaction,
If this had been taught and the lesson put into everyday practise then billions of pounds and dollars would never have been poured down the black hole of television advertising!
So let’s review that desire in terms of the marketing of products and, at the same time, hope that those people working in or with advertising agencies read this simple lesson and learn a little of what they should have already known and been doing on behalf of their clients and in turn, their customers.
All advertising is a form of learning whereby the advertiser is asking people to change their behaviour after learning the benefits of the products or services on offer. However, we all tend to filter out information, which we do not want to hear. This clearly alters the effectiveness of conventional advertising in quite a dramatic way.
Friday 5 January 2007
What is communication?
After a little thought, most people come up with a definition that is about transmitting and receiving information. A little more thought might produce the word exchange. This is more satisfactory, but still assumes that communication is about moving something about conveying, or sending, or delivering, some commodity called ‘information’.
In fact, the word has quite a different root meaning. It derives from the Latin communis, meaning ‘common’. or ‘shared’. It belongs to the family of words that includes communion, communism and community. Untill you have shared information with another person, you haven’t communicated it. And until they have understood it, the way you understand it, you haven’t shared it with them.
Communication is the process of creating shared understanding.
In fact, the word has quite a different root meaning. It derives from the Latin communis, meaning ‘common’. or ‘shared’. It belongs to the family of words that includes communion, communism and community. Untill you have shared information with another person, you haven’t communicated it. And until they have understood it, the way you understand it, you haven’t shared it with them.
Communication is the process of creating shared understanding.
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