Do you agree that Today, the ad industry is being overrun with people who have no idea what is universal and what is transient in our business?

?

They are not being taught principles, they are being taught tactics.To them,

Bernbach, Ogilvy and Riney are just names of old dead guys. They never heard

of Ally and Gargano or Scali, McCabe, Sloves. They have no idea what these

people and organizations did, or stood for, or taught us about advertising.

It's our own fault.

No one is willing to take the time to learn the history so he, or she, can

teach it. Our own industry organizations - particularly the I.P.A - are

prime culprits. By desperately trying to remain "relevant" they have sounded a

constant drumbeat about "digital changing everything" that is not only false, it

undermines the importance of young peoples' need to learn the history and

principles of our trade.

　

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

Your complete and utter lack of understanding of the word "communication"



together with a lack of appreciation as to what can, and does, stifle effective communication.

All advertising is a form of learning whereby the advertiser is asking people to change their behavior after learning the benefits of the products or services on offer. However, we all tend to filter out information, which we do not want to hear. This clearly alters the effectiveness of conventional advertising in quite a dramatic way.

The final purchase decision is invariably a compromise and this leads to a certain amount of anxiety; the worry that perhaps the decision was not the best or the right one. In order to minimise this anxiety the purchaser seeks to reinforce their choice and begins to take more notice of their chosen product's marketing communications.

Due to a lack of understanding of the communication process we have created a media society during the past 40 or 50 years, where the whole process has been de-humanized.

There is now an extraordinary reduction in interaction because conventional advertising and marketing have become a one-way practice whereby information is disseminated in a passive form.

So what are you going to do about this?

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.

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.

　

Talentless Advertising

The advertising management's silence over the constantly emerging evidence

that advertising does not work speaks far too loudly.

Glaciers are melting more speedily than the ability of advertising to become

accountable. What is surprising is that a global commercial organization such

as advertising can operate like this. Advertising agencies act as if it has

no need to answer to their Clients! Advertising Management has been tested and

found wanting. What all this is showing is that the Senior Management, those at

the top of the Agencies, are not working. There is a communications and

management failure within advertising agencies.

Everyone is saying it (or, to be more accurate, whining about it). The

advertising business is in a state of upheaval. Everyone is blaming it on

technology and the rapid rate of change it is causing. Hello -- it isn't the

technology, folks. The technological change is simply making it easier to

diagnose the real challenge. The one that has been around since the dawn of our

industry but that, thankfully, we've been able to side step.

The decline of moral responsibility 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 as have be

practiced up to now. Advertising agencies need to change their behavior, they

need to re-establish relations with their Clients and gain a better

understanding of the communication process...by using Interactive Marketing Communication,

properly executed!

There is an old advertising joke which goes like this:

a man dies and while he stands at St. Peter's doors an angel takes him on a small

tour of both Heaven and Hell to help him decide where he'd choose to go. Heaven

was all peace and quiet while Hell was full of nightclubs, loud music, beautiful

women and alcohol. The man decides he'll spend eternity in Hell but once he

passed Lucifer's door he saw a completely different place; screaming, suffering,

mutilated bodies, pain and hellfire. He tells Lucifer that wasn't what he saw

and signed up for and Lucifer answers:

"Yesterday, you were a prospect. Today, you are a client"

It is not a good joke but it is very characteristic of where the advertising industry stands right now.

Advertising, in all its possible formats, is in the middle of a major identity crisis. Huge amounts of

money are being spent every day on TV ad slots, online banners, mobile push

notifications, search results but believe me, no one knows what they are doing.

Brands dedicate a big ad budget every year because this is what every competitor

is also doing, ad and media agencies are trying to deliver good results on this

budget but no one can really say what the ROI is and consumers are caught up in

the middle of this, having lost all trust in advertising.

A vivid example of how people act towards advertising nowadays is the emergence of software

technologies, which enable users to block not only online display banners but all

TV advertising as well. The industry, instead of decoding the clear signs that consumers are sending,

condemns these kinds of technologies. But when you use Interactive Communication, properly

executed, things change, substantially. for the better!

Consumers Are Fed Up with Corporate Advertising & Manipulation

Consumers Are Fed Up with Corporate Advertising & Manipulation

Today, the New York Times reports on a new poll showing that a majority

of Americans are fed up with the hailstorm of advertising we all

suffer through. According to theYankelovich Partners poll:

* 65 percent said they believed that they "are constantly bombarded with

too much" advertising; * 61 percent agreed that the amount of advertising

and marketing to which they are exposed "is out of control"; * 60 percent

said their opinion of advertising "is much more negative than just a few

years ago"; * 54 percent of the survey respondents said they "avoid buying

products that overwhelm them with advertising and marketing";* 69 percent

said they "are interested in products and services that would help them skip

or block marketing;"





The Times story is below.

As the kingpins of Madison Avenue gather for a major annual meeting,

there is further evidence of the growing challenge they confront in seeking

to break through the cacophony of advertising that surrounds - and

increasingly annoys - consumers.

At the 2004 management conference of the American Association of

Advertising Agencies, which begins today in Miami, senior executives will

learn the results of a survey of consumers conducted on behalf of the

organization by Yankelovich Partners, the market research company. The

survey, to be presented tomorrow at the opening general session of the

conference, shows that the effectiveness of campaigns that agencies produce

for marketers is deteriorating, said J. Walker Smith, president at

Yankelovich, because

The survey findings are significant because industry executives

are frantically searching for ways to forge more emotional connections

with fractious, and fractionated, consumers that differ from conventional

methods like running 30-second television commercials and print

advertisements.

The risk posed by some of the new approaches, like placing sponsored

brand messages or products in the entertainment content of programs

or publications, is that consumers will consider such selling strategies

even more obnoxious.

"People have a love-hate relationship with advertising," said Mr. Smith,

who offered a preview of the survey in an interview before the conference

began. "But a far greater percentage are saying they have concerns,

primarily related to its growing obtrusiveness."

For instance, Mr. Smith said, 54 percent of the survey respondents said

they "avoid buying products that overwhelm them with advertising and

marketing"; 60 percent said their opinion of advertising "is much more

negative than just a few years ago"; 61 percent said they agreed that the

amount of advertising and marketing to which they are exposed "is out of

control."

Also, 65 percent said they believed that they "are constantly bombarded

with too much" advertising; and 69 percent said they "are interested in

products and services that would help them skip or block marketing."

How to market an antimarketing product to people surfeited with

marketing? Ah, there's the rub.

Even when fewer than a majority of the survey respondents agreed with

a statement, Mr. Smith said, the results offered little solace for

agencies. For example, what he called a "fairly significant" 45 percent of

respondents said the amount of advertising and marketing they were exposed to

"detracts from the experience of everyday life," while 33 percent said they

"would be willing to have a slightly lower standard of living to live in a

society without marketing and advertising."

The results also offer some suggestions, Mr. Smith said, to help narrow

what he described as "the growing gap between how consumers want to

be communicated with and the way advertisers communicate with them."

For example, respondents said "there's an opportunity for advertising to

become a source of competitive advantage for a brand," Mr. Smith said, "if

it's focused on product features and services." "The marketing itself has

become part of how consumers view a brand," Mr. Smith said, "so if you have

two brands at parity with each other, more and more the one people are likely

to do business with is the one that does a better job in reaching them with

its advertising."

The association, which represents 1,196 agencies that place an estimated

75 percent of all national advertising, recognizes it must address

the consumers' changing attitudes, if some other topics on the conference

agenda are any indication.

Among the subjects to be discussed at the conference, which

continues through Friday at the Ritz-Carlton South Beach hotel, are

"advertising in the age of obesity," the title of a speech by Tommy G.

Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, and how agencies can

develop more effective campaigns, to be covered by August A. Busch IV,

president of Anheuser-Busch.

Other topics are how agencies can create campaigns consumers will like

more, or at least dislike less, to be discussed by Linda Kaplan Thaler,

chief executive and chief creative officer at the Kaplan Thaler Group in New

York, part of the Publicis Groupe, and how perceptions of the agency business

need to be improved, to be addressed by Ron Berger, elected last month as

the chairman of the association for 2004-6.

"Our industry must do a better job of talking about the tremendous value

we create for clients and the economy," said Mr. Berger, who is also

chief executive and chief creative officer at Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners in

New York, part of the Euro RSCG Worldwide division of Havas.

Although "the last few years for the industry have not been great

ones," said Mr. Berger, who offered a preview of his remarks in a recent

interview, "I just don't think other industries beat themselves up the way we

do."

Even if, as has been widely discussed, the traditional 30-second spot

has devolved into a much less effective way to sell goods and services,

Mr.
Berger said, "so what?"

"The great agencies don't say, The 30-second commercial is dead, so

we're dead. They understand that, and embrace that, and will reinvent

themselves and what they do to market brands and products."

"The idea that TiVo, remote controls, any technology, is fatal to

our business I find absurd," he said. "The opportunities of technology and

what it enables us to do are more exciting than at any time in our

history."

Mr. Berger's enthusiasm may be contagious, if judged by the

advance registration for the conference, typically a good gauge of how

optimistic or pessimistic agency executives are about prospects for the

industry.

Almost 330 people have registered ahead of the conference, said O.

Burtch Drake, president and chief executive of the association, known as the

Four A's, compared with the 257 who attended the 2003 conference and the 293

at the 2002 conference.

Although the anticipated attendance is lower than for the boom year of

2000, when 450 people attended, Mr. Drake said, "we're going to have the

largest member attendance since 1990," which is attendees minus

speakers, representatives of media companies and other organizations like

the Association of National Advertisers, spouses and reporters.

"I'm feeling really good about the meeting," Mr. Drake said, "finally."

Somewhere. there is a new, Post-Modern, British Advertising Agency struggling to emerge!

Struggling to emerge from the wreckage left by the crisis. It will be a differently shaped advertising agency than the pre-crisis unaccountable model: Indeed it has to be. And it is not likely to be a "back to the future" communications model. But based upon a sound understanding of what "communications" really means The new advertising may take a while to emerge. But it is not too soon to sketch out the main lines and ensure that Clients, across the board, are supportive. These have to be a complete understanding of Interactive Communication, involvement, learning, decision making. Based upon the fact that the advertising process is a learning process, and the more effective and easy you can make the learning process the more effective becomes the marketing of Clients' Products and Services.

Brands ・wasting time and money on misguided digital strategies, study

UK social media users are among the most resistant consumers in the world towards brands invading their personal space, according to a new study, which reflects how businesses are wasting time and money trying to reach people online who, in all likelihood, probably aren・t listening.


Data revealed by TNS Digital Life　 found that 61% of UK consumers do not want to engage with brands in their social networks, a figure that is slightly above average (57%) from other developed markets studied.In stark contrast, fast-growing markets, mainly across Asia, South America and Africa, are much more open to brands online. About 60% of consumers there see social networks as a good place to learn about brands.

In Europe, however,  the numbers seem bleak in comparison TNS suggests that misguided digital strategies are generating ・mountains of digital waste,・ from friendless Facebook accounts to blogs no one reads.

This is being combined with ever-increasing content produced by consumers ・ the study shows 47% of digital consumers now comment about brands online.

The result is huge volumes of noise, which is polluting the digital world and making it harder for brands to be heard ・ presenting a major challenge for businesses trying to enter into dialogue with consumers online.

The study also sheds some light on why people do engage with brands online. More often than not, motivations of online commentators can be self-serving. 61% of consumers are driven to engage with brands online by a promotion or special offer.

About 46% of consumers motivated to post comments on companies do so for the simple desire to impart advice, while more people like to praise than complain online (13% v 10%).

According to marketing consultant, Richard Hillgrove the problem for many brands is the message.

・People in the UK don・t want obvious messages. It・s the same way Britain has largely rejected product placement on television. We don・t like things ・in our face・ ・ the Americans don・t seem to mind.・To achieve success online please use Interactive Marketing Communication @ Paul Ashby (UK) 01934-520047 or paulashby40@yahoo.com

How to create an effective mobile, social campaign

Mobile and social inherently complement each other and marketers are increasingly marrying the two to deepen their relationship with consumers. However, simply linking to a Facebook or Twitter page is no longer enough. With the proliferation of new social sharing sites such as Pinterest and Instagram, marketers are constantly looking at new ways to better reach and engage consumers. Nowadays, there is rarely a mobile campaign that does not include a social component. And, without a doubt, says Interactive Marketing Guru,Paul Ashby, Interactive Media like Shopper's Voice, is the best place possible to complement and enhance all your mobile and social campaigns. According to Ashby,it's estimated that by the year 2016, more than a billion people will access their favorite social media Web sites by using a mobile device,

Marketing campaigns should pay attention to this fundamental shift towards Inveractive Communication.

Definition of Diversity

 
The meaning of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect.
It recognises that each of us is unique, as well as recognising our individual differences. These can be the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs,
political beliefs, or other ideologies. It is the exploration
of these differences in a safe, positive, and supporting environment.
It is also about understanding each other and moving beyond
simple tolerance by embracing and celebrating the
rich dimensions of diversity contained within us all.





Diversity is a huge topic. To comprehend that each of the 7 billion or so people is unique is almost impossible. To be useful we need to have some understanding of the different ways that people are different, in order to be effective at understand and managing diversity.

There are several frameworks available to us when it comes to understanding those differences. Here are a few that might be helpful:
Developmental differences
Cultural Differences
Regilious Differences
Values Differences
Personality Differences
Representational systems
Gender differences
　
What does it mean to live in a diverse community?
Diversity is a group of many different things; gender, race, religion, and ethnicity. So if a community had a variety of all those different things, it would be a very colorful place. I believe that living in a diverse place with people living together harmoniously as a community is something we should strive for

Living in a diverse community also means that different people can see and learn about our different cultures. Then they will understand the cultures and see why certain people do certain things. Also, we will live peacefully as a community.

Barriers to Great Advertising

Advertising testing could provide a reliable feedback loop and lead to much better advertising, but many obstacles stand in the way. The first great barrier to better advertising is self-delusion. Most of us believe, in our heart-of-hearts, that we know what good advertising is and that there is no need for any kind of independent, objective evaluation. Agencies and clients alike often think that they know how to create and judge good advertising. Besides, once agencies and clients start to fall in love with the new creative, they quickly lose interest in any objective evaluation. No need for advertising testing. Case closed.

Strangely, after 40 years of testing advertising, we cannot tell you if a commercial is any good or not, just by viewing it. Sure, we have opinions, but they are almost always wrong. In our experience, advertising agencies and their clients are just as inept at judging advertising as we are. It seems that none of us is smart enough to see advertising through the eyes of the target audience, based purely on our own judgment.

A second barrier to better advertising is the belief that sales performance will tell if the advertising is working. Unless the sales response to the advertising is immediate and overwhelming, it is almost impossible to use sales data to judge the effectiveness of the advertising. So many variables are beyond our control, as noted, that it’s impossible to isolate the effects of media advertising alone. Moreover, some advertising works in a few weeks, while other advertising might take many months to show positive effects, and this delayed response can confound our efforts to read the sales data. Also, advertising often has short-term effects that sales data might reflect, and long-term (years later) effects that most of us might easily overlook in subsequent sales data. Because of these limitations, sales data tends to be confusing and unreliable as an indicator of advertising effectiveness.

Interactive Communication...

"Interactive Communication, properly executed, is the foundation for improving marketing,

building business performance, enhancing productivity and streamlining critical processes. That is why the drive to embed accountability as a core marketing discipline will only increase.

With it will come enhanced marketing ROI."

And only with Interactive Communication!

"Return on investment...

"Return on investment—ROI—is the

hottest buzz word in advertising and

media; it has been for at least two

years and will continue to be for

another decade."

And only Interactive Communication gives you complete ROI!

Who's running your Organization?

Your customers, that’s who!

　

Or should be!

　

So don’t you think that you ought to start a regular dialogue with him or

her, as the case may be?

　

The word empowerment is a very overused word. However in the near future the primary strategic marketing communications battle will be to see who goes furthest in empowering their customers.

To empower your customers you will have to:
1. Provide them with far more information than you currently do.
2. Allow them to make decisions about you and your company together with your resources.
3. Give them plenty of choice.
4. Give them the perception of control!
5. Allow them to feel that they are running your organisation!

Because anything that tightens your relationships with an existing customer increases the revenue you get from your customer.

And the only form of communication that can do all the above so that you do tighten your grip on your customer is….interactive communication!

Because interactive communication allows you to have an ongoing debate with your customers and your prospects, make regular interactive conversations available where they can debate not only about your products and services but the very soul of your company. Because that will be much more powerful than just putting your advertisement on television (or wherever) or I’m going to sell my goods in Tesco (or wherever).

Then, when you get asked, "Who’s running your business?" you can honestly reply, "My customers through genuine interactive programmes!" and earn major brownie points!

The All Powerful Marketiing Guru is Just a Myth!

The all powerful Marketing Guru is based upon the complete fallacy that only he knows how to market products/services...and that advertising works.

And that amazinglngly patronising idea is based upon the fact that the public are dupes who digest all advertising...and than act upon it! This is not true now and never has been.

The foundation myth of marketing potency is the silly claim, attributed to many people, that "half my advertising works, I don't know which half"

The claim is both tasteless and factually wrong.

The idea that advertising works (together with Marketing) is only believed by people who work for advertising/marketing agencies, people active in corporations, and people who work in all forms of media, and now digital media, Facebook et al.

You can see this silliness incarnate in magazines like Campaign and Marketing week after week.

Most consumers resent the insinuation that they, along with all the rest of us, are mere puppets.

It is now time to accept that the end of Marketing and Advertising is here and that there are far more effective solutions to marketing, programmes. Programmes that will be totally transparent and will also allow Clients to half their current bloated marketing budgets and be twice (or more) as effective. For example, Interactive Marketing Communicatiom.

Facebook Unconcerned That Advertisers pay for Thousands of Fake "Likes"

Facebook has previously admitted that 5-6% of its 90 million accounts are fake. But this is the first time evidence has emerged that spam accounts are rooking advertisers who pay for campaigns on Facebook that reach no one "real."

The BBC reports:

Michael Tinmouth, a social media marketing consultant, ran Facebook advertising campaigns for a number of small businesses, including a luxury goods firm and an executive coach, they became concerned after looking at who had clicked on the adverts.

While they had been targeting Facebook users around the world, all their "likes" appeared to be coming from countries such as the Philippines and Egypt." Mr Tinmouth asked Facebook to investigate the issue of questionable profiles after one of his clients refused to pay for his adverts on the basis they had not reached "real people".

Tinmouth then created a fake business, "Virtual Bagel," And found that it too gathered Likes from fake accounts. Facebook told the BBC it was not a big deal: We've not seen evidence of a significant problem," said a spokesman.All of these companies have access to Facebook's analytics which allow them to see the identities of people who have liked their pages, yet this has not been flagged as an issue.

Use Interactive Communication, properly executed, and overcome all these problems immediately...and for ever!

MARKETERS LOSE CONFIDENCE IN TV ADVERTISING

Yes, the sky is falling, Major brand advertisers responsible for $20 billion in ad spending are losing confidence in the effectiveness of TV advertising. More than three out of four advertisers -- 78% to be exact -- said they have less confidence today in the effectiveness of TV advertising than they did two years ago, according to a survey released at today's Association of National Advertisers TV Ad Forum. Almost 70% of advertisers believe DVRs and VOD will reduce or destroy the effectiveness of traditional 30-second commercials. Instead, they are looking at alternatives such as branded entertainment within TV programs (61%), TV program sponsorships (55%), interactive advertising during TV programs (48%), online video ads (45%) and product placement (44%). Additionally, 80% will spend more of their advertising budgets on Web advertising and 68% are looking into search engine marketing.
Use Shoppers Voice and solve all your problems in one fell swoop!