There is, and has been for some years,

a very simple solution to the ills that beset the marketing and advertising industries. In the past the advertising agencies have shunned the solution because it does not rely upon creativity, reach and frequency, the current model so beloved by the advertising industry.

It is interactive marketing communication, in one fell swoop Clients could solve all their problems and assist existing media to solve theirs at the same time.

Interactive advertising is richer than all other forms of marketing communication, and it is becoming increasingly clear that it is only a matter of time before Clients embrace the business saving life force of interaction!

Choose your own commercials anyone? Interactive TV will immediately halt the interruption model on which television is based, that is interactive marketing properly executed will make advertising on terrestrial TV become richer because of the very nature of Interactive Marketing Communication.
Existing terrestrial television need no new technology imposed upon it to create immediately highly successful, totally accountable advertising "Events"

More accountability: Being the results of one exposure to an interactive programme vs traditional (frequency and reach) advertising.

Client: Chesebrough-Pond’s.


Brand: Intensive Care Hand & Nail Lotion.

Research: Burke Market Research.

"Readers of the Event were significantly more likely than non-readers to recall all four copy points, additionally readers were significantly more likely than non-readers to have tried the lotion, to have repeated buying it and to have purchased the brand recently.

　

Client: Rexona (Unilever).


Brand: Vaseline Intensive Care.

Research: AGB.

"Prompted-Brand-Product-Awareness increased at the rate of 31.5% among people seeing the Event, similarly and increase in Past-Four-Week-Purchase +90% and in increase of 81.8% Definitely-Will-Buy was recorded."

　

Client: Carter Wallace.


Brand: Dencorub & Dencorub Ice (Muscle Pain Relief).

Research: AGB.

"Quite dramatic increases in Prompted-Brand-Awareness and in the Past-Four-Week-Purchase and Next-Four-Week-Purchase-Intention (DWB) occurred amongst main grocery buyers. These range from 55.6% to 120%."

　

Client: Carter Wallace.


Brand: Nair Hair Remover.

Research: AGB.

　

"Research again indicates that those who saw the Event had greater levels of Brand-Advertising-Awareness +161.1%; Past-Purchase-Behaviour +100% and also Future-Purchase-Behaviour +60% over people not exposed."

　

Client: Carter Wallace.


Brand: Arrid Deodorant.

Research: AGB.

"Arrid’s participation within this Interactive Event again demonstrates the effectiveness of the Technique. All key measurements show positive improvements for those exposed versus people not exposed. Brand-Advertising-Awareness +200%; Past-Four-Week-Purchase +100% and Future-Purchase-Intent +66.6%.

　

Client: Carter Wallace.


Brand: Sun-In Hair Colour.

Research: AGB.

"Sun-In Hair Color benefits from exposure within the Interactive Event. Brand-Advertising-Awareness was increased by 366.6%; Purchase-in-Past-Four-Weeks +100%; and Future-Purchase-Intent +100%."

　

Client: Pork Promotion Council.


Brand: New Fashioned Pork.

Research: AGB.

"Grocery Buyers exposed to the Interactive Event showed higher Awareness +12.3%; higher Advertising Awareness +45.16%. They also had higher Past-Purchase patterns, 80% and higher figures for Purchase-Intent +36.3%.



Client: Sara Lee.


Brand: Hearty Fruit Muffins. (Frozen Bakery Goods).

Research: AGB.

"Grocery buyers who remembered seeing the Interactive Event showed a higher than average awareness of the product +30.9%, a high awareness of advertising at +83.3% and 100% increase in Future-Purchase-Intent.

　

Client: Unilever.


Brand: Streets Log Ice Cream Deserts.

Research: Martyn Research.

"Unprompted Brand-Awareness increased +8% amongst main grocery buyers who saw the Interactive Event and Purchase increased +80%; Advertising-Awareness increased 100% over people who had not see the Event."

　


　

Professor Eric Clemons said What?


Pushing a message at a potential customer when it has not been requested and when the consumer is in the midst of something else on the net, will fail as a major revenue source for most internet sites. This is particularly true when the consumer knows that the sponsor of the ad has paid to have this information, which was verified by no one, thrust at him. The net will find monetization models and these will be different from the advertising models used by mass media, just as the models used by mass media were different from the monetization models of theater and sporting events before them. Indeed, there has to be some way to create websites that do other than provide free access to content, some of it proprietary, some of it licensed, and some of it stolen, and funded by advertising.

Hey we have already been there – done that – and we have over $10m of independent research which proves how much more accountable Interactive Marketing Communication is...want to see some research? Then Call Paul Ashby on 01934 620047 or email: paulashby40@yahoo.com

Name of the Game is no longer Simply Advertising!

It is the home truth that branded manufacturers dread to hear, consumers are much less faithful than you think.

The increasingly promiscuous behaviour of shoppers is chipping away at the notion of brand loyalty and the traditional marketing campaigns that underpin it, according to a study by Bain and Company and Kantar Worldpanel.

Supermarket own labels are encroaching on territories dominated by brands, such as alcohlic drinks and household products. Shoppers ae also trading down.

But the most successful brands are fighting back by switching their focus away from advertising- historically the most important tool in their arsenal- towards a subtler approach.

(Extracted from The Times of London 26/11/2012)

Simply use Interactive Marketing and put your sales up by 50% and subtantially reduce your marketing/advertising budget by 50%.

Just what are the problems with Social Media?


Once "The Ad Man" gatecrashes the party and corporate marketers are inevitably a long way down the adoption curve - the kudos rapidly evaporates.

This explains why the assumed valuations of Social Media Companies are often built on greater financial chicanery than Bernie Madoff's tax return.

In to-day's market whatever supposed "next big thing" our digital culture favours in any moment faces an ever more accelerated journey to obilivion!

CREATE YOUR OWN SOCIAL MEDIA THEN MAKE IT DELIVER SEAMLESSLY USING A COMBINATION OF OLD & NEWMEDIA.

Interaction and The Outdated Idea of Mass Marketing

Advertising together with Broadcast Media, finally bite the dust!

Because no longer is the Marketing message, "We want your money". To day the Marketing message has to be "We want your opinions".

Because the moment you put that into real practice you can have everything you've always wanted, sales, customer relationships and also Brand loyalty.

However replacing research with interaction changes all the opportunities to successful marketing. "Yes", you can say," "Interactive Events will create my new products"

However at the moment Big Business is not making the correct decisions regarding interaction. Maybe some people within these organisations know and understand what's happening out there in consumer land. But the dreadful fact is that giving their voice to such statements would, more probably, seriously damage their career growth!

These days I search everywhere for the headline "Interactive Communication is a winning combination for all…The Client…The Media…and last but by no means least…your customer"!

It never appears.

Interactive Communication finally allows the revolution to commence. The revolution against one-size fits all advertising; the bland all-knowing corporate voice, the lack lustre politicians busily furnishing their own nests…from our money.

The fact of the matter is your customers, you, me and everybody else, do not trust business. We find it highly insulting to be treated this way and we mistrust you in numbers far greater than you or your advertising/marketing people allow for.

Dialogue, two-way conversations, would start to change these hostile attitudes. You really do need to commence interactive events - right now. And you can do so in existing media.

Before I go on, I must emphasise that on no account let your Advertising Agency tempt you into spending big bucks on the Web. Already the Advertising-as-Usual crowd is pouring billions into the Web, however be warned, as they said in the "Cluetrain Manifesto", "So you advertise on the Internet…so what"? If you think you are wasting money on Advertising-as-Usual be very careful. The Internet, possibly is a bigger waste of money than Advertising-as-Usual, and, as we all know, right now that is one Mother of a huge waste of money!

"Why?" you may ask "has it all changed from the safe secure way of marketing in the past".

Simply put, Advertising-as-Usual, together with its handmaiden Broadcasting-as-Usual have treated us with too much contempt. According to a recent article in the Times, TV executives commonly think of viewers' phone revenue as "moron tax". And this attitude of utter contempt pervades the executives of advertising and Broadcast-as-Usual, and expresses itself in all the offerings of a rip-off culture, from government to TV companies.

And bear in mind that Advertising-as-Usual and Broadcast-as-Usual hold Clients in great contempt as well. They rejoice in removing large chunks of your Marketing Budgets, to then waste them in rip-off ventures that only worsen the publics' contempt for you…so in effect they are spending your money to get you into a ever worsening situation.

　

The suits come to Social Media. Now that’s the kiss of death!


Advertising Agencies, having all but destroyed a perfectly good Old Media are set to do the same with Social Media!
In the fickle world of online chatter, yesterday’s achingly fashionable meeting points are rapidly acquiring the appearance of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s’ headquarters.
Already Twitter, becoming bogged down with fake PR tweets as well as fake advertising tweets, so much so that already the kids dismiss it as tired! And are moving on.
As soon as the buzz of innovation starts to fade the "cool" but influential people move on quicker than you can send a tweet.
As witness by the Old Media experience, essentially Commercial Television, Advertising Agencies are loath to change a medium that was to them, a money-spinner. Despite the fact that it was non-accountable. Now they are deserting terrestrial TV without even realizing that they could have made it far more effective & accountable, but they didn't understand the word "communication".
And now Agencies are rushing onto Social Media ignoring the fact that, as in the past, people don’t want their advertising in whatever form. The difference here is that they can easily move away from advertising in whatever guise, you have only to look at the experience of Second Life, that was to be advertising’s salvation. That’s why the early adopters have moved on!

CHECK OUT THE AGENCY CREDENTIALS & MAKE SURE THAT THEY REALLY UNDERSTAND THE WORD "COMMUNICATION

　

The current advertising market is in meltdown...



　

The advertising boom of yesteryear will forever be associated with the credit boom. Just as the values of that economic system are now discredited, so to will be the values of the marketing and advertising boom that went with it.

... with audiences disappearing, TV rates plummeting and clients cutting already slender budgets. Perhaps we should be rejoicing that the days of hype and excess are finally over.
The advertising boom of yesteryear will forever be associated with the credit boom. Just as the values of that economic system are now discredited, so to will be the values of the marketing and advertising boom that went with it.
In the future we will no longer have high regard of advertising/marketing that is mass-produced. We will be amazed that Clients, like Guinness, will have paid 15 million pounds for the production of a TV commercial.
Marketing is everything a company does to acquire customers and maintain a relationship with them. Even the small tasks like writing thank-you letters, playing golf with a prospective client, returning calls promptly and meeting with a past client for coffee can be thought of as marketing.
The all-embracing concept of marketing has been lost on a lot of companies, resulting in a poisoning of the well, a deeply ingrained lack of trust that, now has become an enormous obstacle to overcome:
Marketers have spammed, lied, deceived, cluttered and ripped us off for so long, we’re sick of it.
Which means that even if you have a really good reason, no, you can’t call me on the phone. Which means that even if it’s really important, no, I’m not going to read the instructions. Which means that god forbid you try to email me something I didn’t ask for… you’re trashed. It’s so fashionable to be sceptical now that no one believes you if you attempt to do something for the right reasons.
Like all those packaged-up bundles of bad debt, contemporary advertising had no fundamental value. It was misplaced faith in future economic growth that drove up the values of 30-second TV commercials!
The Clients spent so much money on advertising because they believed that they were living in the best of times and that it was all just a one way street - upwards! We all now know all this wasn't true.
In the years to come this advertising will be seen as the ultimate symbol of the economic fairyland we have been living through in the past five years, an era in which the world lost touch with its sense of value. These were not masterpieces of advertising

, they were the icons of idiocy.

Advertising Now Has to Start "Telling" and "Listening"


　

Advertising now has to go beyond "telling" people about products using mass media, and advanced upon "listening" to customers through Interactive Marketing Communication programmes together with loyalty schemes and market research.

Advertising is now moving towards the third generation of true customer engagement, characterised by 'talking', by engaging in open-ended dialogue with customers. Through interactive programmes we can understand customers preferences and passions, we can identify consumers across brands and experiences. For marketing and advertising to be truly effective, operators need to have customer information that enables interactive targeted and relevant communications. Giving customers the choice to opt in or out of campaigns enables them to be user specific and ultimately provide more value. The widespread use of interactive communication messaging creates a far-reaching and significant marketing opportunity for brands.

By putting a reliable interactive communications infrastructure in place, and a means of controlling and measuring campaigns, Clients can deliver some of the most highly effective marketing initiatives through well structured and relevant interactive programmes. Lets face it, without improving the understanding and content of advertising and marketing all business must remain understandably concerned that advertisings' inflexibility inherent in the concept of creativity will act as a barrier to economic growth. It is also regrettable that these barriers come accompanied by rhetoric that still sounds as though agencies still believe the words "Advertising Works" because it doesn't! For advertising to enter 2011 the message must be sent that Advertising has demonstrably improved and that only the best and the brightest will not merely be tolerated, but are actively desired. Advertising people suffer from self-esteem enhanced but talent-deprived capabilities and, sad to say, advertising suffers from an inexhaustible supply of untalented people actively encouraged by indulgent clients who appear unable to criticise them

The Worst Possible Cure!

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!

Use Interactive Marketing Communication and solve all your communications problems in one go...plus becoming totally accountable and cut clutter - immediately!

Tell a lie often enough & they’ll believe you!



The lie?

"Advertising works."

The biggest lie in the history of business, it makes Enron and all else pale into insignificance.

In the 80s the respected Advertising Journal in the USA, Advertising Age, called in two Professors of Marketing from the Wharton School of Business.

The brief, within a reasonable budget, would they go away and conclusively prove that advertising works. They would have a time frame of roughly six months to work within.

"Piece of cake" they said.

At the end of six months they returned to the offices of Advertising Age and were reluctantly forced to admit, "there was not one shred of evidence available to establish the fact that advertising exclusively increased sales". However that was not the end of it, they also had to admit to the fact that their research efforts indicated that "the effect of advertising appeared to be in the opposite direction!"

In England, in the 70s, I recall a study produced by a major advertising agency, still in existence today and under the same name, that showed that, far from television advertising giving the biggest reach their research showed the opposite!

They found that of any given TV audience 50% were not watching the commercial break at all, a further 10% went out of the room, 15% talked, read, knitted or whatever, 5% switched channels, 10% made a cup of tea and only 5% claimed to watch commercials!

In the 80s the Newspaper Society produced a study on the viewing of the commercial channels, they conducted this research by building in miniature TV cameras into the TV set and filming what the audience did when the commercial break was shown. The results replicated the study mentioned above but included 5% of the audience used the commercial break as an opportunity to make love…someone showed some sense!

Despite all this evidence, and a multitude of other research studies which Advertising Agencies totally ignored , they did not recommend that their Clients spend their marketing pounds on more cost efficient media.

Customers said they would feel closer to your brand...

...if you listened to their opinions and responded to questions or comments.

Yours brands should throw out ideas or topics amongst customers in which

they can start their own discussions, which don't necessarily have to be about

your brand, and could involve negative comments.

Negative comments need to be answered, not ignored, and

comments kept up, not removed, as an exercise in transparency. Your

conversation with consumers has to be of interest to them, such as giving them

something to engage with, rather than directly asking for feedback on a project.

Your brand, by listening to friends or fans points of view and concerns,

and accepting criticism while giving users honest information, allows a deeper

relationship to be formed, thus increasing brand loyalty, and especially

increasing sales Further findings reveal that social network users become

largely irritated and tend to ignore promotions from brands and a

majority of users would not remain a fan, or friend of a brand, that regularly

sent them promotions.

　

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.

　

　

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. Consumers need 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 "Events" 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). The

benefits for participating advertisers? For the first time 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. Thus the interactive

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 your advertising becomes a pleasurable and meaningful source of

information. There is a substantial increase in the reading/viewing figures and

it readily counters zapping.

The lack of accountability has damaged the advertising...
 ...and marketing industry, it is the real flaw behind the advertising crisis. There has to be a complete change of thinking and regulation of the world’s marketing industry. Certainly Clients cannot risk again the degree of unaccountability that have been practised up to now. Advertising agencies need to change their behaviour, they need to re-establish relations with their Clients and gain a better understanding of the communication process.

In the past British advertising was based on protecting and looking after the client’s interests as well as their own. Advertising agencies should not be ashamed to return to these principals.

I am amazed at the spinelessness of British advertising people in defending the lack of accountability, the gross commercial clutter. They appear as parties to a conspiracy to fleece monies from marketing budgets under the futile guise of creativity.

There have been few outspoken admen, those that do speak out as to the inefficiencies of advertising are mocked and reviled never receiving a satisfactory response to their, valid, criticisms.

However Interactive Communication, properly structured, will allow advertising to return to more honest, accountable marketing!

　

　

Consumers are deaf to the babble of the advertising class.

It is true to say that all the advertising in the world won't bring the customers back!

Spending a huge fortune on TV advertising?

Rest assured these days your advertising slipped into the huge gulf of

mistrust, disbelief and total lack of interest that now separates the

Advertising Class from everybody else. This gulf is so full of disbelieved

advertising and ignored blogs,sales promotion gimmicks,direct marketing and

irrelevant banners/radio commercials.

The cynicism about advertising is so pervasive that it embraces almost all

marketing activity. Use a statistic? It's a lie. This cynicism extends to

the media, all advertising is seen as fiction inside an untruth wrapped in a piece

of spin! Most advertising proceeds as if there was still a reasonable degree

of trust. As if the message was still getting through, still be listened to,

still being weighed up. It must be hard to be in Advertising and to carry on if

the truth were faced.

For example, the rubbish that the food industry has fed people for decades,

along with its (literally) toxic products and the lies and omissions that it has

disseminated, well now is the time to challenge this concerted project of

misinformation, corruption and silence together with the programme to keep

people as ignorant as possible about factory farming. Myths trotted out

regularly.

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 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.

Stand back. Stop thinking like the operator and start thinking like a

customer. Better, talk to real customers. Or, better still, to real

non-customers. What do they want? What is missing for them? Customer focus is

important all the time, and is one of the main advantages that small firms enjoy

over their apparently stronger and more profitable larger rivals. In good

economic times, it's almost inevitable that, for big companies, the needs of

customers will drop down the list of corporate priorities, to some degree. This

creates an opportunity for small firms with a distinctive customer offering to

move in and clean up.

　

　

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.

Just some of the benefits of using Interactive Communication

　

Produces measurable results.

Greater Product awareness.

Longer Product Recall.

Substantial Sales Uplift.

Better Customer Data.

Stronger customer interaction.

Less expensive than regular advertising.

Cuts thru commercial clutter.

Resolves selective perception & cognitive dissonance.

Gives greater response to your mainstream advertising.

Strengthens consumer purchase commitment.

Improves perceptions of your brand(s) benefits.

Raises Brand awareness & preference.

Maximises revenue.

Increases the communication value of your marketing activity.

And...Is Media Neutral.

What has emerged from the data available,

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."

However when you use Interactive Marketing Communication you get total

engagement and total credibility. Seeking more information on Interactive

MarketingCommunication?...contact Paul Ashby on (UK) 01934 620047 or

paulashby40@yahoo.com

Consumers are seeking out the views of others....



...and looking for two-way conversations before they decide to purchase a product or service. A new AIDA model is beginning to emerge that takes this two-way conversation into consideration –€・Awareness, Interaction, Dialogue and Action. But how can this model be interpreted into the highly regulated pharmaceutical world?

Only by using interactive marketing communication, proven to be highly effective and totally measurable. Contact Paul Ashby on (UK) 01934 620047 or paulashby40@yahoo.com

Advertising Agencies have treated consumers as a Ponzi scheme.



Success in marketing and advertising has been bought by promises with costs far in excess

of reality. We have hoped for a tomorrow in which record sales growth will yield

record levels of marketing expenditures to cover the promises when they come due

The problem?....tomorrow never comes!! Our legacy to our successors should

not be temporary austerity but a permant, massive reform of Marketing and

Advertising. We have to be unflinching and utterly practical in recognising the

scale of the challange.

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?

I'm very Interested in learning what readers think.

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.

　

Our marketing world balances on a sea of mediocrity!



There is a name for what advertising agencies do, " rubbish ", and our

predecessors appreciated much better than us its ultimate destination: ruin!

Almost all of what advertising agencies do is best summed up in one word

parasitical. By creating advertising out of thin air we have reduced the

purchasing power of more deserving members of society. What would happen if

everybody behaved just like advertising agencies?

Marketing and Advertising is a classic example of the term "the fallacy of

managerial expertise",an attempt by experts to blind us with science to

justify their overpaid existence.

The experts will tell us that the present advertising and marketing crisis

are simply the result of abuses and excesses in a system that is basically

sound. All that is required is for some faults to be corrected. Do not

believe them! The reality is that the problem is systemic and a little

tinkering here or there will achieve nothing in the long term.

What is needed is a root-and-branch re-evaluation of that most curious of

inventions, marketing and advertising, and how it can be used to serve the

interests of the community. To start with the experts must explain in the

simplest terms how advertising actually works together with supporting

evidence! The truth is that advertising and marketing have not suddenly

become useless but that they were never really useful in the first place!

Yet it is a fact that that the key to understanding how international

marketing and advertising operates and why the world is in such a mess is

discussed virtually nowhere in mainstream circles.

The picture has become a great deal more complicated, the huge problem of

clutter, otherwise known as meaningless noise. Together with the gibberish

that has become the new marketing speak, IT jargon...utterly meaningless and as

far away from communication than ever before. And still no one has produced

one iota of real evidence that advertising works at all!

The role of advertising has been diverted by new expertsto media buying,

sales promotion, computer speak, direct marketing but in essence they are mere

variations of the same basic three-card trick! With the advent of the PC all

sorts of marketing emerges, again devised by those same experts who did not

know what they were doing from the beginning. Moreover, the illusion becomes

self-reinforcing. Those involved in the process sitting behind their computer

screens, no longer control the beast they have created.

Advertising breeds more advertising and the only people who win, in fact the

only people who have ever won, are the media owners which is precisely why the

media owners desperately do not want the system to change! But the system

relies entirely, as do all Ponzi schemes, on two assumptions, 1) That

advertising works, and 2) the assumption of continued growth, hence its inherent

instability. Once that growth is threatened the whole edifice collapses.

Marketing...a very simple and devastatingly effective swindle, but largely

invisible because it has become so deeply embedded in our culture. The

consequences of that swindle, the desperate need for economic growth together

with the environmental and cultural despoliation it engenders require some

radical thinking that one encounters nowhere in any of our Business Schools...or

elsewhere for that matter!

OK, so some people have question my assumption (?) that advertising doesn't

work, fortunately there is enough evidence supporting my claims and I will

commence to detail that evidence in future articles. For example:June 2005

issue of Harvard Business Review reporting on the effectiveness of 500 various

consumer and B2B marketing programs: 84% resulted in less market share, not

more Most customer acquisition efforts did not break even Fewer than 10% of

new products succeeded Most sales promotions were unprofitable Advertising

ROI was below 4% Doubling advertising expenditures for established products

increased sales just 1% - 2%

The role of advertising has been diverted by new experts

to media buying, sales promotion, computer speak, direct marketing but in essence they are mere

variations of the same basic three-card trick! With the advent of the PC all

sorts of marketing emerges, again devised by those same experts who did not

know what they were doing from the beginning. Moreover, the illusion becomes

self-reinforcing. Those involved in the process sitting behind their computer

screens, no longer control the beast they have created.

Advertising breeds more advertising and the only people who win, in fact the

only people who have ever won, are the media owners which is precisely why the

media owners desperately do not want the system to change! But the system

relies entirely, as do all Ponzi schemes, on two assumptions, 1) That

advertising works, and 2) the assumption of continued growth, hence its inherent

instability. Once that growth is threatened the whole edifice collapses.

Marketing...a very simple and devastatingly effective swindle, but largely

invisible because it has become so deeply embedded in our culture. The

consequences of that swindle, the desperate need for economic growth together

with the environmental and cultural despoliation it engenders require some

radical thinking that one encounters nowhere in any of our Business Schools...or

elsewhere for that matter!

OK, so some people have question my assumption (?) that advertising doesn't

work, fortunately there is enough evidence supporting my claims and I will

commence to detail that evidence in future articles.For example:June 2005

issue of Harvard Business Review reporting on the effectiveness of 500 various

consumer and B2B marketing programs: 84% resulted in less market share, not

more Most customer acquisition efforts did not break even Fewer than 10% of

new products succeeded Most sales promotions were unprofitable Advertising

ROI was below 4% Doubling advertising expenditures for established products

increased sales just 1% - 2%

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 budgets.

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

In an effort to convince the marketing industry that it is a powerful ...

...advertising medium, Facebook has begun singing a new tune. Or maybe its an old

tune. According to Mashable, they made a big presentation recently:

"Facebook on Monday continued its mission to

convince the world's top marketers that the standard means of measuring an

online ad's performance, the click-through rate " doesn't

matter."

And what does Facebook now say is the true measure of advertising value?

Their Director of Pricing and Measurement...proposed that the industry rely on the two

measurements that have served TV well...reach and frequency." Back to the future!

Facebook is so lost in its quest to prove its advertising relevance that it has tortured the logic of

advertising value beyond comprehension. Their business model is now based on completely

contradictory principles:Their pricing structure is based on the value of clicks.

But their business philosophy is that clicks have no value. They better make up their mind pretty

quickly or this may go down as one of the all-time great business shambles.

The financial crisis has transformed the global marketing world...

and, at the same time, discredited many of the ideas regarding advertising,

marketing, consumers and society, that were taken for granted in the pre-crisis

decades. Here nobody appears to see the crisis as an opportunity to build a new

form of capitalism.

Nobody seems to see that the future can be, and most certainly should be,

better than the past. Without a doubt the institutions discredited by the

crisis can be replaced with something better, not merely patched up and

restored. Corporations see the crisis entirely as a threat to established ways

of life and modes of thinking. Nobody is presenting a vision, or even a credible

thought, about how the crisis could produce a better tomorrow. The best that

has been offered is a promise to clear up the mess created by previous

corporations. With the exception of interactive marketing

communication...simply the best ever!

Social Media Fantasies

Facebook applications are the best thing since...sliced bread...they're mushrooming by the day, as companies and individual developers alike catch

on to the potential of having their content splashed over( potentially) millions of Facebook profiles."

Along with so many other social media fantasies, marketers have found Facebook apps to be a pretty good way of pissing away barrels of money.

According to Adweek... Nike's "Ballers Network " the brand saw its mission ("as building community through applications") gets about 3,400 visitors a month.

FedEx touted its "Launch A Package" Facebook app as a big success, having

achieved 100,000 installations in its first three days. It now gets 1,500 visitors

a month.

For some perspective, this blog gets ten times that. Other marketers who have

flushed away good money on failed Facebook apps include Coca-Cola,

Champion, Ford and Microsoft. As we have said on many occasions, there is no

bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend.So Let's

Review...Advertising on Facebook is going nowhere. The apps

scheme is falling apart. Someone remind me... how are they going to make

money again?

The business of advertising is particularly rife with delusions

We think we know how advertising works. We think we know what will motivate people and what

will not. And yet, every day we unconsciously filter out compelling evidence

that what we think we know is terribly flawed. After months of "research"

and "testing" we create TV spots that have no effect. After hundreds of thousand

of dollars in development we launch websites and online campaigns that no one

ever sees. And yet we continue. We go into new business presentations and

make bold, cocksure statements about our own particular brand of delusional

advertising philosophy. And we never have the guts or self-assurance to tell the

truth -- that all our posturing is just an estimate of likelihoods and a

speculation on probabilities. Part of it is our fault. We are not

willfully deceitful. We just find it very hard to admit that we are devoting so

much of our energy and our soul to something about which we really understand so

little. Part of it is the environment. Our clients want results. They

don't want to hear that they are spending millions of dollars on likelihoods and

probabilities. Advertising is chock full of contingencies and unintended

effects. There are a multitude of critical steps in the development of strategy,

creative concepts, media plans, and spending alternatives. None of which assures

success. Every one of which can foreshadow failure. Something as routine

as the casting of a photo shoot or TV spot can have an enormous effect on the

success or failure of a campaign. And that is just one of a thousand equally

weighty variables. We cannot possibly assess all the variables in a methodical

way. So we fall back on our prejudices and our mathematical models of how

advertising works. In other words, we call forth our delusions. The

workings of the real world are impossibly complex and messy. And in advertising,

as in every other human endeavor, we "prefer to turn a blind eye to reality's

messiness."

What has emerged from the data available,

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."

However when you use Interactive Marketing Communication you get total engagement and total credibility. Seeking more information on Interactive

MarketingCommunication?...contact Paul Ashby on (UK) 01934 620047 or

paulashby40@yahoo.com

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%.