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.