Do you agree that As More Power Shifts to Consumers the Need Grows For 'Renaissance Marketers'?

　

Together with a deeper understanding of Interactive Marketing

Communication.

Interactive marketing communications isn't new, but it's gaining momentum as

power shifts from the marketer to the consumer and as marketers recognize the

power and efficiency of taking a integrated approach to engaging consumers.

Several studies indicate that achieving effective Interactive Marketing

Communication campaigns is marketers' primary concern, one research study

indicated that, properly executed, interactive marketing is considerably more

effective allowing a Client to half his current advertising budget and be, at

least, 50% more effective.

"COST EFFECTIVENESS: Professor E.L. Roberto, PhD, Coca-Cola

Foundation Professor of International Marketing reviewed the £5 million of

independent research conducted on behalf of Interactive communication and

provided this summary as to the techniques cost efficiency:

"The Interactive "Event(s)" participating brands 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 Client revealed that for its participating brand, its quarter

television expenditure was $5.7 million as compared to its interactive budget

of $0.5 million. This 1:10 ratio has been obtained in Interactive experience

in other countries."

However there is considerable uncertainty about how to staff, design, manage

and measure the success of such programs.

For too long, marketing functions have been vertically organized by media

type. This approach is mirrored on the agency side, with class 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 organization. This transformation must be led by holistic

professionals who are system thinkers, customer-centric believers, innovators

and dreamers.

These individuals should be cross-trained to understand the entire marketing

spectrum and learn discipline-specific skill sets. And to specifically

understand the real meaning of the word "communication" Increasingly, these

leaders will need strong quantitative skills -- in order to analyze the

data-rich resources and leverage mathematical tools now available, especially

if they are to drive cross-disciplinary approaches that fuse disparate

consumer-engagement channels. Above all, they need to be superior team

leaders who have the insights, talent and passion to take marketing integration

to new heights.

Engaging in conversations with relevant markets (Interacting) will become an

important source of knowledge and innovation, the quality of this market

intelligence has already (and will do so more in the future) proven to be more

accurate than research and will determine market share.

Without interactive communication your efforts to create new products and

markets will be taking place in a vacuum.

　

　

Do you agree that the function of effective interactive communication is to accurately convey a particular message?

that is clear and comprehended by the receiver. Communication is used to express emotion, transfer information or provide direction. The function of effective interactive communication can be best seen in the business world. If a company is able to effectively communicate with its workers, the workers will feel empowered, informed and appreciated.

Interactive communication is divided into two forms: verbal and nonverbal. Verbal and nonverbal communication must agree or else it can lead to confusion or misunderstanding. For example, if a boss verbally communicates you're doing a good job and then fires you the next day, there's an obvious breakdown in the communication. Nonverbal communication is gestures, vocal tone and facial expressions.

The effects of effective interactive communication are understanding, education, empowerment and respect. Effective communication provides people with information they need to become educated and enlightened.

When people feel like they are in the know, they feel respected and empowered, and are motivated to perform at their best level of productivity and performance. The role that effective communication plays can have a positive or negative affect. For example, in politics if a politician doesn't explain himself or herself clearly, there can be a lot of room The primary misconception about effective interactive communication is that it is simply saying what a person feels.

Simply expressing ideas, thoughts and emotions does not make communication effective. Effective interactive communication can only be considered effective when the listener accurately understands the message the individual is attempting to communicate. The role of effective communication is commonly seen only as the messages being sent, while it is both the sending and receiving that matter.

The benefits of effective interactive communication are successful business, rich relationships and the ability to accurately and comprehensively express thoughts, feelings and ideas. Effective communication is at the foundation of every successful action. A great example of how the role of effective communication benefits people in interpersonal relationship is marriage. A marriage that possesses effective interactive communication fosters love, trust and respect.

What is effective communication?

Communication is best summarized as the transmission of a message from a

sender to a receiver in an understandable manner. The importance of effective

communication is immeasurable in the world of business and in personal life.



From a business perspective, effective communication is an absolute must, it

commonly accounts for the difference between success and failure.

It has become clear that effective business communication is

critical to the successful operation of modern enterprise. Every business person

needs to understand the fundamentals of effective communication.

Poor communication reduces quality, weakens productivity, and eventually

leads to anger and a lack of trust among individuals within the organization.

The communication process is made up of four key components. These

components include encoding, medium of transmission, decoding, and

feedback

. There are also two other factors in the process, and those two factors

are present in the form of the sender and the receiver. The communication

process begins with the sender and ends with the receiver. Successfull

communication takes place when the receiver correctly interprets (and then

interacts) with the sender's message.

The extent to which a person comprehends the message will depend

on a number of factors, which include the following: how much the individual

or individuals know about the topic, their receptivity to the message, and the

relationship and trust that exists between sender and receiver. All

interpretations by the receiver are influenced by their experiences, attitudes,

knowledge, skills, perceptions, and culture. It is similar to the sender's

relationship with encoding.

Feedback is the final link in the chain of the communication process. After

receiving a message, the receiver responds in some way and signals that

response to the sender. The signal may take the form of a spoken comment, a

long sigh, a written message, a smile, or some other action.

Without feedback, the sender cannot effectively communication.



Feedback is a key component in the communication process because it allows

the sender to evaluate the effectiveness of the message. "Feedback plays an

important role by indicating significant communication barriers: differences in

background, different nterpretations of words, and differing emotional

reactions"


When followed properly, communication can usually assure that

the sender's message will be understood. Certain barriers

present themselves throughout the process. Those barriers are factors that have

a negative impact on the communication process. Some common barriers

include the use of an inappropriate medium (channel), incorrect grammar,

inflammatory words,words that conflict with body language, and technical

jargon. Noise is also another common barrier. Noise can occur during any stage

of the process.

Noise essentially is anything that distorts a message by interfering with the

communication process. Noise can take many forms, including a radio playing

in the background, another person trying to enter your conversation, multiple

other distractions!

Does Marketing Have a Heart of Darkness?

　


The orthodox advertising model takes no account of reality, hopefully the Financial Crisis should bring back some sanity One of the few benign consequences of last years financial crisis was the exposure of modern marketing as an emperor with no clothes. Now it is a fact that modern marketing/advertising has to be urgently reinvented.

This could lead to a flowering of original thinking in a profession whose creativity has been stifled by the intellectual monopoly of orthodox advertising and marketing bodies. The dirty little secret of modern advertising is that the models created by media and advertising agencies said almost nothing about accountability.

The defunct advertising and marketing bodies today are the people who took control of the subject in the 1960s, with theories about the effectiveness of advertising.

These theories, never really tested with reality, had a major flaw, if reality contradicts these theories it was reality that marketing & advertising professionals wanted to change. It is not surprising that the whole marketing edifice has come crashing down. To-days approach prevented marketing professionals from thinking about a world that is, by its very nature, unpredictable and inconsistent.

Why did Marketing fail to predict the crisis. It is said they failed because they all had a flawed view about markets! To gain some genuine understanding of unpredictable communications marketing and advertising people will, first of all, have to understand the real meaning of the word "communications." Perhaps they don't really want to!

The formula of reach and frequency is a thoroughly dishonest formula, based upon the need to rip as much money off Clients with complete disregard to accountability. There have been far more effective methods of marketing, however because these achieved startling results with a substantial reduction in advertising budgets they were dammed by faint praise and shuffled off out of sight before Clients could be woken up to the fact that they were being, simply put, ripped off!

Advertising has encouraged the growth of the sick & degrading culture of celebrity in the quite erroneous understanding that circulation is one of the key elements within the charade called advertising. In an article "Admen to tackle mistrust" the Advertising Association is to urge members to fight back against waning consumer trust in advertising, which is another example of the complete lack of understanding on the part of the Advertising Industry of the communications process and individuals complete lack of interest in advertising.

In a survey it was established that only 15% of adults "generally trust advertising" Frankly I am surprised that it is so high.

Consider this, the strength of newspapers to markedly affect the outcome of elections is severely doubted, if editorial strength support cannot markedly affect political outcome just how can we expect advertising to have any effect! Especially if adults "don't trust advertising", add to that fact that right now they also don't trust politicians and surely we could find a better way to spent the vast sums invested in political advertising!The fact is that in all walks of life the "system", despite the original intention and rules, always becomes corrupted by its users and lazy administrators, advertising has become so corrupted and is in the process of corrupting the New Media as they have corrupted the Old Media!

Of course there is a tacit agreement to keep the current inefficient system going for as long as possible. The vast sums of money spent on advertising go towards making a few people very rich indeed, in the past, Media Barons created media to gain power, nowadays the reason for creating new media, in whatever form, is no longer a route to power, it has become a route to vast riches and never mind the quality of media hence the "dumbing down of all media" in recent years.

Don't agree with what I'm saying? Well then consider this little shard of information. As much as 60% of all tracked advertising expenditure world-wide during 2008 failed to deliver results expected by marketers and can be considered wasted. $70bn alone is spent in the USA on advertising extrapolate that out to world-wide and that becomes a hell of a huge waste of money.

Do you agree that

The public is paying dearly for our cult of the worthless and personality?

It has become clear for many years that what one sees with advertising and media clutter is expressly not what one gets. And the fact of the matter, certainly with the case of Advertising and Marketing, is that generally there is just too much of it out there for anybody's good. We suppose that in our society commercial information (preferably truthful) is essential But since so much of what the advertising and marketing people tell us is only half the truth or, at times, none of the truth, some of us do start to wonder why we bother with it all. Hence the huge and growing waste...of money, after all huge sums of money are spent on totally meaningless advertising/marketing programmes! Waste of Media...so much so that we now live in an over-informed society surrounded by a glut of commercial clutter.

Unaccountable Marketing and Advertising is starting to smell like the banks who have bought us to rack and ruin by deceiving the public. And our countries are hanging on to solvency by their fingernails, and our country-folk, after the epic of deceit that was the Politicians and the Banks, at least they see now through these attempts at manipulation! They are tired of the whole wretched mess that our business people have created - they want simply to have effective corporations without all the unnecessary BS.

The injudiciousness of the Marketing world by still proceeding to produce all this utter banal advertising and marketing programmes at a time of stringency is unbelievable!

None of this utterly useless Advertising and Marketing leads to us to being any better off! It does not promote growth or recovery. It does not educate our children, in fact quite the contrary!

It has been clear for many years that what one sees with Corporations is expressly not what one gets! With their smooth grained advertising people together with their smooth grained spivs, the PR people, they do not help people live with any more dignity in fact they do not add one iota to the improvement of life because this pursuit of the superficial, these cynical acts of waste and charlatanry, nauseates the average customer more than almost anything else imaginable. They most certainly see the shallowness together with the worthlessness of the whole international Marketing and Advertising scene!

With their failure to work as evidenced by the very recent Financial Crisis shows that Marketing has no sense of convection about it at all.

It is time that the Advertising Agencies reinvented themselves, they must stop producing evidence that all they are self-regarding incompetents embarked upon huge and wasteful acts of profligacy - and with no accountability!

Yes, our countries are in a mess, they still are and all this Advertising, Marketing, Spin and Celebrity will not get us out of this mess.

　

Interactive Marketing Communication

allows you to explore the multi-dimensional benefits of understanding customer needs in a digital era.

Customer loyalty is seeing several trends rapidly overtaking existing

understanding. Platforms of the future will record every interaction - they will

understand consumer preferences and pre-empt evolving needs.

Interactive Communication, properly executed, includes the next generation of

loyalty schemes. Embracing the fourth dimension of loyalty Interactive Communication comprises

every aspect of digital advertising and is totally accountable!

　

　

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. Trust is a must have asset. You now must harness

interactive communication to get the trust, and results, because if you don't

somebody else will and they, in turn, will drive you out of business. Trust based relationship

lies between the extremes of command and control and empowerment in business.

Interactive marketing communication, using existing media, is a practical way of reaching

out and building up a powerful relationship, and trust, with every single person you need to

make your business successful...

　

　

　

Game Playing and Marketing Games Offer you a Unique Way to Entertain...

-- and sell at the same time!

Whilst experimenting with social networks, user-generated content and on line video,

marketers appear content to view games as little more than another

class advertising platform. The untapped potential of game

playing lies in their ability to tell stories, thereby more closely linking

brand benefits with game play and blurring the lines between brand and

entertainment. Games, properly structured, fundamentally alter the customers

perception to the presentation and content of your marketing messages thus

making the advertisements themselves a source of meaningful information. Games allow Brands to

become engaging, and entertaining -- thereby providing something of value in exchange for

attention.

Brands such as Persil, Birds Eye and Quaker Oats have relied on game playing to create

narratives that consumers want to be a part of. In the process, they've done

more than just break through the clutter, or better position themselves in

consumer's minds. Games remain one of the biggest untapped

opportunities for marketers, for the simple fact that they are, indeed, engaging

interactive and entertaining. Well-conceived games require users' active

attention and enable them to drive the story line as they experience a world

that can be entirely of a brand's making. Games represent a unique opportunity

for brands to be the entertainment rather than just sponsor it.

So what do original games get you? If you're Quaker Oats,

you get year-over-year double-digit sales growth, as well as a

marketing program that has generated significant

revenue. So what does this mean for marketers? It

demonstrates that there's a burgeoning mainstream audience increasingly

receptive to branded entertainment in the form of original episodic games and

willing to grant brands their attention in exchange for enjoyable

experiences. Games need to be implemented strategically.

As with any marketing approach, objectives and performance expectations for

game-based marketing need to be considered upfront. Here are some things to keep

in mind: A game tends to work best as a component of an integrated campaign

rather than an afterthought. Original episodic games can

counteract this imbalance by delivering a high level of play and replay value to

consumers while putting the brand at the center of the experience.

So does a brand need to be interesting or provocative in order to make a

good game? Absolutely not. All our examples show that basic games deployed and

used well were effective at making a low-involvement category more interesting

and engaging. And implemented properly, games could address many of the

challenges facing financial-services companies -- building involvement,

generating a prospect , creating a sense of community, even delivering a positive brand halo.

　

We’re off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of ...




...Interaction.

However, before we do, let us review something recently written by 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.

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.

Like our handyman, each fails to diagnose the problem correctly and opts to

solve all their clients' communications issues with one tool.

Ask WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell. He recently bemoaned the fact

that most agencies 'redefine every problem in terms of their proposed solution.'

　

As Sir Martin knows, different communications tools have different

strengths.This has two implications. First, a company must completely diagnose

the communications challenge before it assigns the communications tools to be

used in its strategy.

An integrated strategy that spreads its budget across a combination of PR,

direct marketing and events marketing is guaranteed to have a greater impact

than a campaign that opts to spend the total budget on just one of them.

The ideal model is obvious: a handyman with a variety of tools, who first

studies the problem, then selects a combination of tools to solve the

problem.

But this model has proved impossible to replicate in marketing

communications terms. Despite owning an impressive list of different

organisations that represent every major communications tools, WPP, for

example, has consistently failed to get its organisations to work together for

their clients' common good.

Turf wars, egos and a lack of common systems and understanding means

agencies will remain segregated. The only potential site of integration resides

on the demand side with the client. It is up to clients to diagnose their

problems, select and motivate these groups to work in a single strategic agenda.

Unfortunately, clients with these skills, power and confidence to achieve

this are thin on the ground. For now, integration will remain the Holy Grail of

marketing.

In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense, "We have it in our power to

begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present hath not

happened since the days of Noah until now. In that same year the American

Revolution and the building of that New World was underway.

On the threshold of a new millennium, Interactive Communication has given

us, the power to build a New World. But as in Thomas Paine's time, most have

yet to grasp how different the newly forming world will be from the world that

is passing. And many that are aware are afraid to embrace it, being so steeped

in the status quo. and used to working only with hammers!

In 2003, we stand wide-eyed at the portal of another New World. Some of us,

fearful of what is to be, look backward, pining for a simplicity that in reality

we probably never experienced. Others may be more like Dorothy who, after

being cyclonically blown away from the greyness of Kansas, suddenly found

herself standing in wide-eyed wonderment amid the colourful splendour and

magic of Oz.

We may be tentative as Dorothy was; not quite sure of the meaning of all we

see in this New World, but we are ready to move on. We want to see what the

Wizard of Interaction has in store for us.

There is plenty of evidence available to us now as to the Interactive Wonders

available to us right now.

Discovering Interactive Television

　

　


This form of interactive communication dramatically alters the way the viewers perceive the commercials, instead of being seen as an interruption the commercials now become a meaningful source of information (a form of programming) and thus are watched in a totally different way.

Presenting advertising within this format allows the most dramatic evolution of advertising itself. This renaissance in this period of the ongoing history of advertising will be know as advertising by true, accurate, more predictable, instant and measurable results.

Clients will pay only by results. The interactive nature of the new technology will allow InteractiveTV to measure the results and present these results as a post-evaluation of their participation. Clients will then pay for participation based upon these evaluations.

　

Yes....or No?

Marketing…it's All a Question of Trust!

　

With the many billions spent annually on Marketing Communications, the TV programme

fakery together with the phone in scandals means that most of this colossal expenditure is

wasted because of a very serious issue, a declining lack of trust on behalf of your

customers!

And all the advertising in the world can't help you if you don't have trust.

The BBC and the commercial networks are not the only

organisations that have suffered a breakdown in trust recently.

Northern Rock, GMTV, Mattel, Bernard Matthews and Cadbury Schweppes have all,

recently, be weighed in the balance and found wanting. Levels of trust

in the West are in long-term decline, authority is something to be

challenged. So how have we come to this state? Perhaps it all started

as stores and communities grew larger and the personal bonds of trust and

loyalty that used to be enjoyed by the local trader who knew his customers wants

and needs, disappeared. 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.

Research published recently by Beyond Philosophy, a UK company specialising in

customer attitudes, claims 82 per cent of people never believe their experience

of an organisation will match the image promoted by television advertising.

Beyond Philosophy concludes that television advertising may actually be harming,

rather than enhancing, companies' relationships with their customers.

Similarly, research by the Henley Centre has shown that while nine out of ten

people will trust their spouse or partner and eight out of ten their children,

fewer than a third (27%) trust retailers or manufacturers, while just 14% trust

either the government or advertisers! Marketing appears to have

cottoned on to the fact that apparent intimacy enhances trustworthiness. There's no

denying that for business, being seen to be your trusted intimate pays.

There has been a loosening of emotional ties between business and society.

Indeed with the growth of new technology most transactions with consumers are

with faceless entities be it banking, our grocer or our car insurer.

In the past we did business with people you knew,

so trust was given in the interactions. In to day's world you have to

assume you can trust your bank it counts on a leap of faith that wasn't there

before. Only one form of communication can help overcome this lack of

trust that of interactive communication. Current conventional mass

media are weak conductors of knowledge and comprehension. This is because of a

number of factors, however the main reason is; they are non-interactive

communications vehicles, in other words conversations' cannot take place.

Interaction can be defined simply as straightforward

communication between two parties. Presently we are in danger of losing the real

meaning of interaction, as we tend to focus discussions on the emerging

technologies and neglect the communication process itself. With an understanding

of the real meaning of Interactive Communication, existing media can be made

interactive, and subsequently far more cost effective. Communication

research shows that interaction raises a communication's learning

effectiveness. Interactive communication, properly executed has none of

the woolly theorising that lies behind the arguments about various forms of

so-called interactive communication using direct

and electronic media (most of which involves at best the

minimum of true interactivity). It is also practical, down-to-earth,

and uses a readily comprehensible and verified mechanism to expand the relevance

and salience of advertising and other forms of marketing communications. It can

be applied to all major media and to various other forms of communication,

including new media. Trust absolutely sells, hence the urgent need to

understand and then implement interactive programmes. With interactive

communication you can go a long way to creating, and maintaining, a trusting

customer. Remember, trust is an end product, it is the consequence of other

things you cannot mandate it, you have to earn it and you earn it with a

rigorous understanding of, and then implementation, of interactive communication

Understanding Interactive Marketing

Communication.

Defining Interactive Marketing.

Interaction can be defined simply as straightforward communication between two parties. Presently we are in danger of losing the real meaning of interaction, as we tend to focus discussions on the emerging technologies and neglect the communication process itself. With an understanding of the real meaning of Interactive Communication, existing media can be made interactive, and subsequently far more cost effective.

Goodbye to the halcyon days of the TV advertisement of old?


A new wave of technology is promising to transform the obsolete analogue technology of television into a two-way medium which allows the viewer to determine what is to be watched, and when.

This could well create a situation where the consumers solicit information from the advertiser, rather than the advertiser soliciting the attention of the consumer.

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 too many the remote control is a fairly recent development, 44% habitually use it to avoid advertisements.

Television is an advertising medium, not a communications medium and, as television declines in the face of competition from the new media, conventional advertising will decline with it.

In many ways, ‘advertising’ is an outmoded concept, since media advertising is simply one means of communication with customers. In an environment in which the balance of power is shifting in favour of the consumer rather than the advertiser, manufacturers and service providers need to look at ways of replacing the monologue of advertising with a dialogue which can utilise a range of different ‘relationship’ marketing techniques.

Advertising has to modernise & change.


The market place has changed. Newspapers and television have lost their exclusive hold on the advertiser, the number of print and electronic advertising channels has substantially increased, such as pre-printed booklets pushed through letterboxes, or hung on doorknobs, local cable TV and Direct Mail.

Recent events have given advertising a permanently diminished role in the selling of goods and services. At the same time cynical consumers are wearying of the constant barrage of marketing messages. They’re becoming less receptive of the blandishments of advertisements, and their loyalties to brands erode as they see more products as commodities distinguished only by price.

Advertising ignores communication theory.


As the mass media have matured, the behavioural dynamics of perception and interaction, which were not address by Advertising Agencies in the 70s and 80s, during the explosive growth of advertising have become critical to the redefinition of media and its role in marketing communication. With passive, one way, forms of advertising such as media displays or television advertising, there is a certainty of a degree of non-response.

Lack of communication competence.


Most Advertising Agencies lack the skills of communication, advertising messages are more carefully prepared than interpersonal communication and yet ‘message’ comprehension tends to be lower.

Advertisements are more carefully prepared because gatekeepers (those who prepare and send out messages) are more cautious about what they say to large audiences than they are to audiences of one or a few, they check their facts more carefully and they prepare their syntax and vocabulary more precisely. And yet, because their audience contributes much less feedback, the source cannot correct for any lapse or understanding, so people are more likely to misinterpret what they hear or read over the mass media.

It is also important to note, of course that just because mediated messages are more carefully prepared, they are not necessarily more accurate. Gatekeepers have a way of looking at the world based on personal beliefs or motivations. This ‘world view’ sometimes tends to make media messages inaccurate.

Interactive Communication leads to a commitment to participate.


However, with interactive marketing communication, there is a commitment to participate, which in turn leads to a set of possibilities, which are significantly different in how they affect the communication process, itself.

The need for product information.


Image advertising doesn’t give the information needed to buy knowledge-driven products. Moreover communication results from an interaction in which two parties expect to give and take. Audience members must be able to give feedback. Media practitioners must be sensitive to the information contained in the feedback. This give and take can result on real understanding or real feedback.

The need for Interactive Marketing Communication.


Put simply, because there is a human desire for interaction. We have created a media society during the past 40 or 50 years where there is an extraordinary reduction in interaction because of the one-way and more passive form of information retrieval that exists.

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).

Consumers tend to filter out information they do not want to hear and this alters the effectiveness of advertising in quite a dramatic way. The purchaser’s decision is invariably a compromise and this leads to a certain amount of anxiety. The worry that perhaps the purchase decision was not the best or right one. In order to minimise this anxiety the purchaser seeks to reinforce his choice and begins to take more notice of his chosen product’s advertising. And, at the same time, the purchaser deliberately suppresses data, which might challenge his decision by ignoring the advertising of competitive brands.

People are often loyal to a brand simply because they do not want to readdress a decision. The opportunity to screen out undesired data always exists when media advertisements have to stand on their own and fight for attention.

Interactive Communication takes the consumer through the barrier of not wanting to address change; and this is the ultimate market the advertiser is after – the people who use his competitors’ products.

Now the consumer can say ‘Yes, I will change my behaviour and I have a very good reason or series of reasons why", and have a well-informed opinion or image in mind.

If someone goes into a product purchase decision with a very specific image of the product and its reason to exist and why they have decided those reasons are worth its purchase, the test in reality, the use of the product, will tend to confirm that premise, and therefore conversion will be enormously enhanced.

Interactive Marketing Communication turns passive advertising into active advertising and actually alters behaviour during the communication and learning process.

Interactive Marketing Communication increases sale.


And there’s more!

It enhances relationships and dramatically improves consumer knowledge, understanding and loyalty.
1. Strong Company or Brand Values.

To be effective communication has to be single minded in choosing a specific proposition which by definition cannot appeal to all. Yet every product, service or retail outlet can offer several attractive benefits and in some cases these can be numerous. Interactive Communication presents consumers with a ‘menu’ of powerful benefits, both rational and emotional, and asks them to choose the one which they find most relevant and appealing to them.

This allows them: -

a) Personalise their relationship with the communicator.

b. To absorb and retain the majority – or even all – of those extra benefits while making their choice.

c.
Not one, but several, good reasons for buying the product or service.

Equally it puts these benefits into context, educating consumers to understand just how important those benefits are to them, and positions the product or service as unique in satisfying all those needs.
2. The emotional relationship.

By asking consumers for their opinions rather than telling them, the company makes them feel special and involved in an unprecedented way. A company prepared to listen! This disarms consumers and produces a feeling of trust and thereby an emotional commitment to the company and its products, which cannot be, generated any other way.

That emotional commitment enhances the more rational understanding of the Company or Brand Values discussed above and establishes an unprecedented, personal, relationship with the manufacturer/brand/retailer – even amongst those who may have had no previous experience.

3. Consumer Feedback.

Allowing consumers to interact with the brand by offering their opinions and views does more than create an emotional commitment; it allows large numbers of real people to express ideas in a way they have not had the facility to do before, to a company evidently prepared to listen and act.

Consumers are seduced and this generates genuinely expressed observations on the strengths of the company – as well as areas of opportunity for improvement or exploitation. It is, in effect, an enormous piece of qualitative research, but without consumers’ ability to vouchsafe real opinions being inhibited or guided by a researcher.

Thus the combination of all these elements produces a deep understanding of the company and its brands – and its role and value to the consumer; a greater level of involvement in an emotional commitment to the brand and an enhanced desire to buy it.

Understanding Interactive Marketing Communication.


With a better understanding of the nature of Interaction allows us then to give a more precise definition of the process, that is:

"With Interactive Marketing Communicationthe reader/viewer is actively encouraged to take careful note of what is being taught him,

The Author pioneered interactive communication to the advertising and marketing communities some twenty-five years ago. The communication issues he addresses have been neglected during the explosive grown of advertising in the 60s, 70s and 80s, these are Cognitive Dissonance, Selective Retention and Selective Exposure.

Would you like to discover the incredible results to be attained by using interactive communication? Well these are revealed for FREE at http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com or contact Paul directly on paulashby40@yahoo.com

　

　

　

　

The Future of Advertising is Interactive.

During all our research one constant shone through, that is that marketing is

conversations.

Current conventional mass media are weak conductors of knowledge and

comprehension. This is because of a number of factors, however the main reason

is; they are non-interactive communications vehicles, in other words

conversations cannot take place.

Communication research shows that interaction raises a communication

effectiveness.The one problem facing interactive advertising is the fact that it has become

a clich in recent years, without any very clear or consistent definition of

what the word means or how it is supposed to be executed, it has none of the woolly

theorising that lies behind the arguments about various forms of so-called interactive

communication using directmarketing and electronic media (most of which involves at best

the minimum of true interactivity).

It is also practical, down-to-earth, and uses a readily comprehensible and

verified mechanism to expand the relevance and salience of advertising and other

forms of marketing communications. It can be applied to all major media and to

various other forms of communication, including new media. There is no

theoretical reason why it should not also be applied to packaging designs or

product literature.

The basic elements of interactive communication are very simple, as all

communication should be. The target audience or any part of them are

provided with a Game, comprising a Quiz together with multiple choice answers.

This take the reader/viewer through the detail of a commercial or

advertisement (or both) and focuses their interest and attention on the product's selling

points. The questionnaire is (usually) presented as an exercise

in getting the public's opinions about the products. The effect is to combine

the techniques of programmed learning and game playing to

fix the advertising message in consumers minds, with startling results!

HOW MUCH MORE 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 Interactive "Events" and provided this summary as to the techniques cost efficiency:


"The "Event" 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 Interactive 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.

　

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.

　

You probably missed the 'Digital Life’

report from TNS .

Despite a major PR push from its authors, it barely made a dent in the Twittersphere or across traditional marketing and media channels. Which is odd when you consider that even the slightest news about social media usually garners a huge response in the marketing world. A small company launches a new app and headlines start flashing. A senior marketer announces a major investment in Facebook and 5,000 tweets are launched.

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

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

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

The research also reveals that just a quarter of consumers in developed markets see social networks as a place to buy products. Again, that’s a blow both to those who have boldly predicted the commercialisation of social media as a retail space and to the likes of Facebook and Twitter, whose long-term business projections partly depend on monetising their impact on consumers.

But these facts and many more were probably not communicated to you because they do not fit the ideology that the marketing industry is attempting to propagate when it comes to social media. Like the Chinese government - which steadfastly refuses to describe Tibet as anything other than a part of China and which rarely covers any of the public outrages that take place there - the hegemonic forces of marketing prefer to tell a story of new apps and bold Facebook strategies rather than a more fair approach.


To the credit of TNS, it did just that in its report , and there was much to celebrate about the potential of digital as a vitally important medium for the people of the 21st century. But what also emerged from the data was clear evidence of the lack of credibility or engagement that most brands can expect from their forays into social media. As TNS chief development officer Matthew Froggatt put it: "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."€

Bravo Mr Froggatt! Wise is the marketer who uses data to assess the situation. And he has a point, does he not? In all the hullabaloo, has anyone considered that the term social media has no place for brands within its definition? ’€Social media’€literally means the communication channels that exist between people. Not between brands.

But like every medium before it, brands try to invade that space anyway. And social media, like every other medium before it, is already suffering from clutter as a result. As more brands attempt to grab attention and start social media conversations with disinterested consumers, more of them will switch off. That’s probably why the sample in developing countries in the TNS research were more positive about brands on social media those in developed markets - they have yet to be switched off.

And clutter - as marketers should know from experience - does not eventually subside. The response of marketers to a cluttered media is to produce more clutter. As TNS notes: "Misguided digital strategies are generating mountains of digital waste, from friendless Facebook accounts to blogs no one reads"€・ The stark message from the TNS data is clear: it’s already hard to communicate with consumers via social media and it will only get harder as time goes on and more brands pile in.

The overall message from the TNS report is not one of complete hopelessness but of practical reality. Digital communications, and social media within it, is a genuinely world-changing development. But for those marketers who ’rank the Kool-Aid’€and spent all their money and attention on using it as their main communications focus, there’ a disappointing denouement ahead.

　

　

So Many Clicks, So Few Sales

Pay-per-click advertising seems like a dream. But up to 35% of

all the clicks you pay for may be fraudulent.

It didn't make any sense. Kevin Steele, co-owner of Karaoke Star, a Phoenix

retailer of karaoke equipment, noticed that the number of people clicking on his

paid search-engine ads had shot from 200 to 800 a day. But despite the apparent

jump in traffic, sales hadn't budged. Steele and his partner, Diana Frerick, had

built their business on Internet advertising, and more clicks almost always

meant more revenueâ€"which the pair had invested in a new office, more inventory, and a call center to field technical questions.

Steele thought he had pay-per-click advertising down to a science. Karaoke

Star spent about $2,000 a day on search-engine ads at Google and Overture, a

subsidiary of Yahoo focusing on keywords like "karaoke","karaoke player,"

"karaoke song"to generate about $6,000 a day in sales. Suddenly, it had to

budget the same amount just to get $3,000. With each keyword costing

anywhere between 40 cents and $3 a click, Karaoke Star found itself being

nickel-and-dimed to death. "One day we were doing great, says Steele, "and

the next it was as if someone had turned off the lights."

The problem was click fraud, which occurs when people click on paid search

ads with no intention of buying anything. In some cases, the clicker is a

competitor that wants to force a rival to burn through cash. Other times it's

someone from an affiliate site that hosts search-engine ads and receives a small

commission for every click. It could be a team of users clicking repeatedly on

an ad. Or, most commonly, the fraudulent clicks are automated by "hitbot"

software.

Experts estimate that 20% to 35% of all ad clicks may be bogus. Whatever the

number, it's as if thousands of people are charging you for window-shopping.

Steele says the fraudulent clicking has cost Karaoke Star nearly $400,000 over

the past two and a half years.

The paid search ad market is essentially a grand auction. Advertisers bid on

specific keywords; the terms with the highest demand fetch the highest prices,

and the advertisers that pay the most get the highest placement on the search

engine's webpage. Because affiliate sites earn commissions based on how many

clicks the ads receive, there's a lot of incentive to claim as many clicks as

possible. Paid online search is a nearly $3 billion business and it's easy to

see why. Popular keywords can get very expensive very fast.

The major search engines all acknowledge that click fraud is a problem. In a

recent SEC filing, for example, Google warned investors that "if fraudulent

clicks are not detected, the affected advertisers may experience a reduced

return on their investment which could lead to loss of advertisers and

revenue.

What's an advertiser to do? If you think you've been charged for bogus

clicks, you might be able to convince a search engine to credit your account.

The problem is, getting a search engine to hand over a record of your

advertising activity is no easy feat. Search engines treat such data as

proprietary and are loath to share it. Karaoke Star's Steele and Frerick, for

example, expressed their suspicions to Overture and were given some "token

refunds, Steele says. But Overture steadfastly refused to tell them who was

behind the bogus clicks. Nor would it give Karaoke Star the data it needed to

figure it out itself.

Fortunately, Karaoke Star as well as a number of other online karaoke

stores received an anonymous e-mail tip from someone claiming to be a former

employee of Ace Karaoke, a competitor in City of Industry, Calif. Attached to

the e-mail, according to Steele, was a video that showed an automated click

fraud program employed by Ace Karaoke to target the stores. Frerick and Steele

retained a lawyer who has contacted Ace Karaoke, as well as Google and Overture,

and informed them of his intention to sue. Why target the search engines?

"Because Google and Overture make the most money from click fraud and have

the least amount of incentive for taking simple precautions to prevent the fraud,

says C. Tab Turner, a plaintiffs' attorney in North Little Rock, Ark., who

represents Karaoke Star. Overture and Google declined to comment on the matter.

Ace Karaoke's owner, David Su, denies the charges. "At this stage, there is

no way for advertisers to prevent fraudulent clicks from being billed to their

accounts.

Unlike Karaoke Star, many advertisers are reluctant to complain out of fear

that the search engines, which provide most of their traffic, could blacklist

them. "At this stage, there is no way for advertisers to prevent fraudulent

clicks from being billed to their accounts,says Jessie Stricchiola, president

of Alchemist Media, a click fraud auditing firm in Hollywood.

Fortunately, there are alternatives to taking legal action. There are a

number of click fraud auditing tools available including Click Lab, Click

Defense, and Click Detective that are designed to alert you to suspicious

clicks. The cost can range from $29.95 to several thousand dollars a month,

depending on the amount of traffic your site receives. Or you could hire a

consultant like Stricchiola to analyze your traffic and broker a deal with the

search engines. But Stricchiola, who charges between $250 and $450 an hour,

warns that it often costs more in time and money to identify the problem than is

actually lost to click fraud. There are also alternative search engines, such as

Brooklyn-based BlowSearch, which guarantees that its advertisers will not

receive any automated clicks on their ads or they'll get their money back. Of

course, BlowSearch gets only a tiny fraction of the traffic of the big search

engines and offers less bang for the advertising buck.

In the end, you may have little option but to accept fraudulent clicks as a

cost of doing business and recalculate your expected advertising ROI

accordingly. That's what Karaoke Star is doing. Of course, it's also reserving

the right to sue.

Unequivocal Proof That No One Has Ever Clicked On A Web Ad

We sometimes enjoy role playing. Not the French maid kind of role playing, the business kind. Not that we have anything against French maids...Today, I am going to role play. I am going to pretend I am a web data analyst and use the mathematics and logic of web analysis to prove to you that no one has ever clicked on a web ad intentionally. Sound like fun? Here we go. Recently, several trade publications reported on a study by Webtrends that claims that click-through rates on Facebook ads have dropped to .05%. To those of you who were not math majors, this means that for every 10,000 ads served on Facebook, 5 get clicked on.

This is described by Adweek "abysmal." It is worse than abysmal. It is mind-blowingly, incomprehensibly, abysmally abysmal. But that's not the end of it. According to a Facebook insider, the 5-clicks-in-10,000 number is actually a gross exaggeration. This person says that the true number is actually less than half that -- 2 clicks per 10,000.  You're probably not as unstable as I am, but maybe you've noticed something. Every now and then, as you're wasting your life away on the web, you accidentally click on something that you didn't intend to click on. I call this Unintended Click Syndrome. In my case, at least half the time I find myself facing a display ad, I had no intention of clicking on it. I got there as the result of being a victim of Unintended Click Syndrome.

According to Google,  the number of these invalid clicks" may be as high as 10% of all clicks (they define "invalid" clicks as those that are either unintended or fraudulent.)Let's be generous here and say that only 5% of clicks are unintended. Now let's do a little math.

If the Facebook click-through rate is 5 in 10,000 (let's be generous again and use Webtrend's number) , and the invalid click rate is 5%, then of 500 clicks in 10,000 are invalid. It is, therefore, quite possible that all  the clicks on Facebook ads are invalid and the actual click-through rate for Facebook ads is zero. But this is not just true of Facebook. The  click-through rate for all web ads is 1 in a thousand. If the rate of  unintended clicks is 50 in a thousand (5%) then, once again, it is possible that the rate of intended clicks on all web ads is zero.My conclusion -- no one has ever intentionally clicked on a web ad.

I have been criticized by some as being a one-trick pony

- that I constantly espouse Interactive Marketing Communication and that's it. Plus I have been called "a Cassandra" and a "scold" Meanwhile, what I am trying to do is predict a far larger change in advertising and marketing entirely.

My forecasts are not meant to paint a rosy picture and that leads to many of you giving me less credibilty. For obvious reasons you would prefer to listen to a more bullish outlook. After all "nobody likes a bear, especially when they are right"!

The old ways of marketing and advertising are becoming increasingly ineffective and, even dangerous.

Conventional wisdom has become out-of-date and inaccurate! Despite all the recognition that my writing as acquired our basic message is still falling mostly on deaf ears, or, perhaps "denying minds". Most people do not want to wake up and fully face the truth of what is really happening. Marketing is evolving. We are not going back to how it was before. We are going forward to something new.

I understand how wishful thinking is so tempting. People hope that the bad dream is over and all is on the upswing. That outlook is not realistic in the long term.

The key to correctly judging` the future of marketing is to recognise that the future will be significantly different from the past. Rather than face decline or even the demise of advertising and marketing people still want to believe in the mythical "advertising works" to bring us back to what they had before!

　

　

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 ridged 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.

Marketing can baffle the most intelligent people. That is most

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

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

may or may not be, accurate!

And Shout-as-Loud-as-you-can advertising is proven less effective every day,

Clients are looking for ways to get closer to their customers and prospects.

Brands want to deliver engaging, entertaining and educational messages in

environments they create, not in spaces they rent.

Without a doubt Marketing and Advertising management is dying under the

weight of its own contradictions! The old world of simplistic marketing

strategies no longer works. Certainly the easy certainties of the past are

over.

　

　

　

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%

　

　

Are we at all surprised that the current advertising crisis has come this far?

Let's be honest: the warning voices have been around for a long time, the fact

that these warnings were consistently ignored has now brought about the near

collapse of the system.

We live in a schizophrenic world and we will be held

accountable for our sins.The reasons why the writing on the wall was ignored

has to do with the denying of inconvenient truths and also because nobody really

felt responsible or capable of action.The advertising/marketing bodies

either lacked the authority or the competency to deal with the challenges of a

global advertising system that has gone horribly wrong!

Furthermore, individual advertising agencies have not shown the initiative to address a

fundamentally flawed and restrictive process of communication together with a

total lack of accountability. Additionally none of the advertising agencies

and the media have shown any evidence of long term vision. Additionally the

regulatory functions, such as they are have been abused by many within the

industry, consciously or unconsciously to the great detriment of Clients and

their Customers. The professional role of Marketing and Advertising

Management has been undermined by the total lack of true accountability and

other problems that link this management to the short-term interests of the

advertising agencies themselves.

Maximum profit seeking has increasingly taken precedence over long-term accountability

together with a complete misunderstanding, and implementation, of the communications process!

Markets work best when consumers are well informed about the products they are

purchasing and companies are genuinely incentivised to compete for new business

on the basis of transparent products that perform in the marketplace. Sadly,

this hasn't been the case with the current Marketing and Advertising available

because of a number of factors, clutter, lack of interaction, no accountability,

no exchange of information etc etc. Radical reforms are needed to build an

accountable commercial commercial programme with consumers interests at its very

heart. The bubbles that always exist in every market. One of the most

famous bubbles in the advertising world is the Saatchi & Saatchi bubble

which nearly convinced every one that they, and they alone, were responsible for

the election win of Margaret Thatcher, they were not. Nevertheless they had

Clients flocking to them in the quite mistaken belief that they, the Saatchi

brothers, could increase their sales. Now, along comes another bubble, The

Martin Lindstrom bubble. Lindstrom is the so called guru of Neuro-marketing

which makes the whole process of selling sound so simple. Utter rubbish yet

more Clients will be persuaded to part with millions of dollars before they too

will see this as nothing but another bubble. His very existence proves yet

again that our current methods of marketing are inaccurate and very very

questionable. The article on Lindstrom is headlined "Now the buyer must

beware". The sad fact is that "the buyer" has always been aware, they are

turning away from the clutter, and meaningless chatter of current advertising in

their millions, a very similar bubble occurred a few years ago, this particular

bubble was called "subliminal advertising" and was a complete farce and hoax!

Neuro-marketing is an even bigger bubble and hoax.