Now here's a true story you will find very interesting!

When we started Interactive Marketing we were introduced to Alvin Toffler who, when hearing of what we were doing simply said "Persevere but remember vested interests will be against you".

Was he ever right!

We were confident that what we were proposing would be more effective and we would be giving clients the very communication programme they needed, that we borrowed three and a half million dollars from venture capitalists.

Our pitch to Clients was beguiling and had never been heard before: "you pay nothing to come into the programme. However, you agree to accept the findings of a stringent purchase study, to be conducted by the independent Market Research Corporation of America.

Based on those findings would you then pay us a fifteen per cent commission on the incremental increases in sales produced."

The Clients fell about laughing, they had never had such an offer from any of their advertising agencies. "Where do we sign?"

We mail delivered nineteen million copies of Shopper’s Voice. Because it was mail delivered we could have Test and Control cells as next door neighbours, thus allowing us to measure changes in behaviour and actual purchase amongst those who had received the program – Test and those who had not – Control.

Obviously Control was exposed to everything else the featured brands were involved in. MRCA are on record as saying, "It was the (then) most precise purchase study ever carried out by us."

To get a perspective, no advertising campaign had ever had such a high degree of accountability put behind it after just one exposure and to this day still hasn’t.

To cut a long story short, when we presented the increase in sales figures to Colgate Palmolive, we said that the results indicated a fee of seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars based upon the agreed MRCA formulae. All Colgate could say to us as they handed us the cheque, "Could we redefine the rules of this game please?"

The figure arrived at was due to the results gained from a double page interactive spread inside our Shopper’s Voice Magazine. But interactive in our terms is where the communication process became two way not based upon any electronic gizmo! The recipients were, for the first time in any advertising context, given the opportunity to be involved with the brands and be part of the communication process.

Colgate had never experienced such a result from all their billions of dollars invested in conventional advertising and they directed us to their advertising agency.

In hindsight, it is amusing to recall the many, many excuses they made not to use us and they stifled the idea. And in those days if the agency said no, very often the client accepted their judgement.

Why did they bring down the portcullis? Well you can draw your own conclusions but in our mind it was a fear that here was an idea better and more cost effective than anything they were capable of doing. It was outside of their control and, God forbid, it would make their contribution ACCOUNTABLE!

Every day you're exposed to more than four hours of media.

Every day you're exposed to more than four hours of media. Most of it is

optimized to interrupt what you're doing. And it's getting increasingly harder

and harder to find a little peace and quiet. The ironic thing is that marketers

have responded to this problem with the single worst cure possible. To deal with

the clutter and the diminished effectiveness of Interruption Marketing, they're

interrupting us even more!

Interactive Communication, properly executed, changes all that, just one exposure to an Interactive "Event" is more effective and accountable that "Frequency" in Advertising terms!

Negative consumer attitudes toward advertising...

 ... "remain the single biggest barrier to improving return on investment for marketing spending. Until we get better at engaging consumers, they're going to continue to push back and resist what advertisers are trying to deliver to them.

CONSUMERS AND ADVERTISING!

Consumers are quite aware that advertising is propaganda, and compensate for

that fact when assimilating its messages -- just as they compensate for the

perceived biases of the media to which they attend. The great socioeconomic

transformations of recent years -- the acceptance of Japanese cars, the advent

of the personal computer, the rise of VCRs -- were accomplished with little

advertising support. "Time and time again," James Norris wrote, nearly half a

century after Borden, "advertising has proven powerless to instigate, to sustain

or to reverse trends in public opinion or fashions of consumption."

Broken advertising and marketing!

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!

CONGRATULATIONS! YOUR BRAND IS ABOUT TO BECOME OBSOLETE

Blockbuster had it all figured out. Kodak was America's favorite company. Tower Records was the

 place to be. Cunard was the fastest way to travel. Alas, no more. Each of these companies were

blindsided by innovation. In the blink of an eye, their entire reason for being disappeared into thin air.

Every day companies new and old, small and large, start down the path to obsolescence. Some have

no idea that they are in trouble, others are fully aware and are begging for help. It's a challenge that

can only be addressed by changing culture and behavior, and by a mix of traditional and Interactive

thinking.

1)Identify the opportunity (brand, consumer, behavior, competition)

2)Convince the right people that they have a problem (get thee to

the CEO)

3)Build things for consumers and internal audiences (useful things)

Interactive Communication, properly executed will train people to think differently about how they

approach problems, to look at fixing the big picture instead of tactical problems, and to

see the opportunity in change

Want to discover more? Contact paulashby40@yahoo.com

The Marketing Industry...

　
.... is currently whistling past the graveyard and largely

ignoring signs of massive, fundamental changes in how the business of mass

marketing will be conducted in the near future. The broadcast TV model is

working less well each year and will eventually cave in on itself as it reaches

ever-fewer viewers with a fare of low-quality programming and mind-numbing

clutter. Marketers will increasingly abandon it.

Want to communicate in this new world?
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com and discover the most cost effective communication tool EVER!

YOU CALL THIS WORKING?

Why Traditional Interruption-Based Advertising Doesn't Work Anymore!

Traditional advertising doesn't work well anymore for a

very simple reason - there's too much of it. There are too many companies

interrupting consumers to try and sell them something. There's so much ad

clutter and noise today that the latest studies show the majority of consumers

ignore companies that bother them with too much advertising. In addition, techonolgy provides

consumers with every manner of ad blockers, including TiVo, VCRs and DVD recorders, to

cable and satellite TV, to MP3 players and downloadable music, and now satellite

radio. Consumers are paying billions to AVOID ADVERTISING, which is why they

like it even less if you actually manage to break through and interrupt what

they are doing.

But we can change all that and, at the same time save you heaps on your highly expensive marketing budget.
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com

Why Advertising Doesn't work on the Web!

Many Marketing and Advertising people only understand the mass-media business model, exemplified by TV. The problem? The old media perspective is also characteristic of the many so-called New Media analysts who take an unbelievable non-strategic view of the Web and analyze it purely in terms of "eyeballs"!

We can solve ALL your communication problems and, at the same time reduce your highly expensive marketing budget. Contact Paul Ashby @ paulashby40@yahoo.com

What does advertising do and how well does it do it?

Aside from comforting purchasers by assuring them that they made the right choice,

aside from comforting CEOs and employees that their work is important, aside from certain

unpredictable, short term increases in consumption, most advertising does not perform as advertised!

Take away the tax deductions that corporations get from advertising, and most expenditures would dry up overnight!

Although elaborate proofs...

Although elaborate proofs of advertising's impotence are available, the

simple fact is that you cannot put a meter on the relationship between increased

advertising and increased sales. If you could, (ad) agencies would charge by how

much they have increased sales, not by how much media space they have

purchased.

FOUR OUT OF FIVE FACEBOOK USERS...

Have never been enticed to make a purchase of  a product or service due to advertisements or user comments on the site!
Additionally 34% of Facebookers said they were spending less time on the site compared to six months ago.
Of the people who were spending less time on the site the biggest reason they cited for visiting less was that the site is "boring," "not relevant," or "not useful."
Source: Reuters/IPOS.

Marketing has to listen to dissidents

. Existing loyality to Advertising and Marketing preserves failed organisations and traditions whilst stupidy following it like a shadow.

And boy are we living in stupid times.

Allied to which is the corruption. Now there is no question that our current media, expecially the press, is corrupt, that has been proven time and time again recently.

The corrupt media just love the inefficiency of the current marketing and advertising world, that's why you will never, repeat, never, read an article within the press about the inefficiency of advertising, the lack of accountability and above all else the clutter, why media just love clutter, they make heaps of money on highly ineffecient clutter, so you will not be reading anything against the inefficiency of advertising and marketing in the media, rule number one, don't bite the hand that feeds you!

The prevailing belief in " the market" has just sent us all off a cliff. Advertising people, together with marketing, have a capicity for folly together with a weakness for enfolding myths (Advertising Works|) that shield us from the pain of doubt and uncertainty; and economic theory comes a close second to Marketing and Advertising in the exultant claims it makes for itself.

The belief in the ascendant at the moment is the mystical conviction that "Social Media" and the Internet, left to itself will operate with immaculate precision to maximise human happiness and prosperity. That's the doctrine that has just sent us charging over a cliff into an unpredictable future.

The Facebook debacle, together with General Motors denial as to the effectiveness of Facebook to sell products hopefully will put paid to that little myth.

Because we are flawed and complex creatures all our Marketing and Advertising instutions partake, intrinsically and permanently, of these same flaws.