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.

Are you looking to engage the voices of consumers with your brands?

　


Help your Clients Face the Challenge of Innovation



Clients need solutions that allow their brands to engage with their consumers

and get the results they need to move their marketing strategy forward.

Interactive marketing communication is the key to helping clients innovate.

A year after first asking the question above, the answer is still "No." Too

many agencies still are not making themselves an integral part of the new

reality. As the world becomes more digitally connected, we should celebrate the

fact that marketing and advertising ideas are coming from everywhere. For me,

it's inspiring to see the radical evolution of an industry and watch individuals

take control of a once-closed society made up of Mad Men. The new world can

be scary for people who still work in the old model. We get that. Change is

scary.

But it's also a reality.

Part of that reality is the fact that 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.

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.


　

Do You agree that Once Upon a Time…?

We had the likes of Leo Burnett, David Ogilvy et al. And they were the

keepers of the flame of advertising. Nowadays no aspect of advertising

is as badly served as advertising itself. Where to day are the advertising

voices that ring out as intelligent, passionate, current, and, more importantly,

critical of current advertising practices?

Can you, for one moment, even imagine David Ogilvy not giving sarcastic comment to some of what

passes for advertising these days , especially the use of the new technology?

Once upon a time we had an excellent heritage of critical

writing on advertising. Unfortunately to day no one speaks with any authority

either for or against advertising. In our current trade press the

lexicon of adjectives used by critics of advertising is zilch, nada,nothing!

Even worse, the banality of what passes for intelligent commentary on all

aspects of marketing/advertising is simply that , banal! The current

crop of writers have forgotten that their first calling is to write readable,

intelligent and amusing articles. Because like everything else advertising needs

strong criticism, it needs that to keep advertising strong and innovative. Bad

advertising, and there happens to be a lot of it around these days, drives out

good advertising unless there is someone there to stop it. The current

crop of writers and what they have to say about advertising is growing in

irrelevance. Sometimes I feel that, when reading the marketing/advertising press

that they have no idea who they are writing for. Sadly, a myopic tunnel vision

is bought to bear on the subject currently in vogue , in this instance Web

2.0. However what is really worrying is the fact that, in the instance

of Web 2.0, there is no debate as to the suitability of Web 2.0 as an

advertising medium, there is no debate as to the claims of it being accountable.

Which, by the way, it isn't, it is too susceptible to all types of fraud and

manipulation! And there is absolutely no discussion on the huge, and

growing, problem of clutter. Whether it's emerging digital platforms or the

nooks and crannies in an ever-increasing buyable physical world from

dry-cleaning bags, coffee cups, door hangers and even houses. The simple fact of the matter is that

clutter is leading to more clutter .

So if clutter is such a problem, why isn't there a clear, unified way of thinking out a way to reduce

it? And that perhaps is where a good debate and discussion within the Marketing and Media press

could contribute, but no, no critics within the trade have emerged to courageously

tackle this huge and growing problem! Added to which is the headlong,

unquestioning rush into all forms of new media. Like, for example cellphone

advertising. A much more critical stance would have questioned the very

thought of advertising on mobile telephones. Now the obvious has been

confirmed, marketers' new-found fondness for cellphone advertising is not an

enthusiasm universally shared by consumers. When 4,000 adults were

asked about different forms of mobile phone ads the overwhelming majority of respondents found

them "not acceptable at all"! "My new gizmo has gone up in smoke but I can't face

ringing yet another call centre" that was the headline in the Times of

London, as if in vindication of what I am trying to say here. "Customer

satisfaction plumbs the depths as a survey suggests that we are fed up with poor services"

states the Times. I can guarantee that there will be no

discussion/debate/criticism of that little article in the trade press!

Do You Think that Advertising is Really Effective?

Our 21st century lives have been bombarded, blurred and overkilled with

advertising on TV, movies, radio, internet, magazines, newspapers, airplanes,

and even on the elevators up to our offices. The myriad of mixed advertising

messages that have infiltrated and controlled our down time has given most

consumers a huge headache and a diminished belief system. So, does traditional

advertising work today? Here are some serious stats that we just can't deny.

Consumer skepticism and a resistance to advertising are apparent in todays

marketplace. According to Insight Express, consumer trust in advertising has

plunged 41% over the past three years and only 10% of consumers say they trust

ads today.

In the varied world of todays media, the consumer is increasingly in

control. A recent study by Yankelovich, Inc. revealed that nearly 70% of consumers

were actively looking for ways to block, opt-out, or eliminate advertising.

Media fragmentation is out of control the average household today has over

100 television choices.

Given these facts, the pressure is on to improve targeting to your interested

market to achieve advertising relevance and to minimize your waste of

advertising that misses the mark. Therefore, todays successful marketers are

held to new levels of accountability and they have to prove the advertising is

working.

As an advertising medium....

....the web is like communism. It's never very good right now, but it's always going to be great some day."

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!

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!

　

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

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.

Online advertising has of course become a multi-million...

,

...if not billion, dollar enterprise what with the entire world online at one point or another at any

given time of the day. Surely if you're a brand manager or brand marketer you

know the value of online advertising as part of an overall integrated

marketing campaign.

But what if the most powerful brand ambassadors in the world are not the

least bit interested in your online advertising? What would you do then?

Well you may want to go back to the proverbial drawing board Mr. & Mrs.

Brand Manager because based on a recent survey, the most powerful brand

ambassadors are indeed not the least bit interested in your online

advertising, at least a large majority of them.

And in just in case there were any doubts as to whom the most powerful brand

ambassadors are, when you factor in that women account for 85% of all consumer purchases

including everything from autos to health care, it only stands to reason that

the most powerful ambassador a brand can have is a woman.

As to the aforementioned survey, the folks at Ask Your Target Market or AYTM recently

surveyed consumers on their likes and dislikes when it came

to online advertising. Overall, the results showed that when asked how likely

they were to click on an online ad, 65% indicated they were either not very

likely or not likely at all to click on an online ad! Only Interactive Marketing Communication can

attract your target market to your advertising...and be effective as well!

The Attraction of Interactive Communication is that it is a return to the prehistoric human fascination with telling tales!

Since the beginnings of any civilized society the market place was the hub of civilization, a place to which traders returned from remote lands with exotic spices, silks, monkeys, parrots, jewels - and fabulous stories. Interactive Communication, properly executed, more resembles an ancient bazaar than fits the business models companies try and impose upon it. 

People respond to interactive  opportunities because it seems to offer some intangible quality  long missing in action from modern life.  In sharp contrast to the alienation wrought by homogenized broadcast media, interactive opportunities provide a space in which the human voice would be rapidly rediscovered. Unlike the lockstep conformity imposed by television, advertising, and  corporate propaganda, interactive communication gives new legitimacy  and free rein  to play. People long for more connection between what we do for a living and what we genuinely care about.   We long for release from anonymity, to be seen as who we feel ourselves to be rather than the sum of abstract metrics and parameters.    We long to be part of a world that makes sense rather than accept the  accidental alienation imposed by market forces too large to grasp; to even contemplate. Remember the market place, of old. Caravans arrived across burning deserts dates and figs, snakes and parrots, monkeys, strange music and stranger tales.  The market place was the heart of the city, the kernel, the hub.Like the  past and the future it stood at the crossroads.   People worked early and went there for coffee and vegetables, eggs and wine, for pots and carpets.  They went there to look and listen and to marvel, to buy and to be amused.  But mostly they went to meet each other to talk and interact!  Markets are conversations.   So what went so horribly wrong? From the perspective of corporations, many of which by the twentieth century had become bigger and more powerful than ancient city-states, nothing went wrong. Things did change however. Commerce is a natural part of human life but is has become increasingly unnatural over the intervening centuries, gradually divorcing itself from the very people on whom it depends, whether workers or customers. The result has been to create a huge chasm between buyers and sellers. Advertising's failure! Conventional advertising has failed the natural human need for social  interaction. We have created a media society during the last 30 or 40 years where there is an extraordinary reduction in interaction because of the one-way and more passive form of information that exists.   People desire to be taken account of, to affect change, learn and personalize their relationships with their environment. These psychological and sociological factors are part of the  incentive to interact with advertising.  However, these tend to be minimized in the incentive direct response field, there are a phenomenal number of reasons which cause people to interact which go beyond just giving them things.

　

Nobody In Advertising Appeared To Notice




When it was reported that 65% of all marketing spend had no effect on

consumers! Despite the fact that working in Advertising is not rocket

science, accountability is not a strong factor, creativity is! As more and

more evidence emerges as to the failure of advertising to do what it says it

does. Sell products/services, there are some errors that advertising people

commonly make. One is a complete failure to learn from experience. The other is

the advertising ego. Advertising people hate facing up to information like 65%

of all marketing spend had no effect because that forces us to acknowledge that

they aren't as clever as they make themselves out to be! These

unpalatable truths contribute to the increasing problems facing advertising,

like the meaningless noise syndrome. Together with a total lack of

understanding as to the true meaning of the word accountability, or, for that

matter communication. This declining effectiveness is due, in part, to

an earlier perception that over-estimated advertising's power. In the

industry's days of dominance, peopled believed it could change the ways

consumers think and behave, not just influence them to favour one brand in a

category they were already considering. In earlier days there was a

faith than when there was little objective difference among products, an

emotion-laden image is always used as a motivator. Much of this sense of

advertising's enormous power and the almost inevitable effectiveness of image

advertising grew as mass advertising followed mass manufacturing in the 50s'

and 60s. Mass manufacturing led to one-size-fits-all products. Local,

individualised, and speciality products disappeared, and mass consumerism was

achieved, yet strangely the recent statements on Advertising is a no win situation,

appears to trouble the Advertising Community not at all! Perhaps that is

because their bosses do not see through the fudges. The division of

labour that makes companies efficient in so far as they are is also a division

of knowledgeso why keep a dog and bark yourself? And who really wants (or

cares) to discover what communication really is? Frankly it shows us that

organisations can't always be run effectively, even when managed by highly

intelligent people. So why should advertising people pretend that that is not

also true of Advertising Agencies? The idea of advertising progress is

as enduring as any. Beyond the occasional doubt, advertising people do need to

believe that everything is all right in the world of make believe. So

the message of technological innovation, the computer, the Internet or Web 2.0,

the Mobile Telephone et al is received readily. Certainly with regard to

effective communication this perception of technological progress is mistaken.

The poor old customer, or in advertising speak, Consumer, does not want

to take delivery of even more messages, after all they do not appear to be

taking much notice of the messages that exist already! Perhaps we should

practice what Virgil preached, advertising should consist of always going

forward backwards!

　

　

Knowing your customers is especially useful at times of abrupt and unexpected change

- a recession, for example. Having a strong sense of why people buy from

you as well as what they buy can help you to avoid damaging knee-jerk responses.

Is everyone else in your sector rushing down-market in anticipation of a boom in

demand for cut-price 'value' offerings? If you stick it out at the top of the

market, you might be able to grab for yourself a big chunk of the tasty

high-margin business that remains.

Now, in future you must remember this, engaging your audience is key to your

future success< You should focus on "engagement", "relevance" and

"customization" to make an impact with consumers. Additionally the rise of

new media has ushered in the era of "performance marketing". Businesses

hoping to derive the maximum benefit from digital media must provide customers

with information tailored to their individual needs, be it

on the web, or analogue media. Communications should also take the form of a

two-way conversation, with consumers being able to customise the content they

receive in line with their personal preferences.

This means adopting a truly interactive communication mindset. The age of

push marketing is behind us. What counts now are dialogue, engagement and

relevance, Digital channels that can deliver consumers with established

interests can charge handsomely for that capability.

Customer focus is important, because it can help you to see beyond industry

orthodoxy and understand why people buy from you rather than go somewhere else.

It requires a different mindset and the ability to cast aside those cherished,

but often erroneous, shibboleths about what can and cannot be done, that all

businesses create for themselves.

It can be said with confidence that Interactive Communication,



properly executed, will emerge as the New Advertising and is proven to be far more effective. It allows Clients to save huge amounts of money, it will also allow Clients to make very accurate decisions upon where to position their brand(s) in fact it will allow Clients to emerge highly successful and arguably healthier than ever before!

Interactive is a bold call for a new Advertising. The phrase "In the Clients interest" so out of fashion for a long time has returned and Clients can only benefit from it!

It also frees the best marketing people to abandon their claim that "We have the best creativity" Interactive Communication proves to Clients the utter banality of that claim, Creativity has never been the sole criterion for the success, or otherwise, of marketing communication.

Advertising-as-usual is long on self-promotion and back stabbing and very short on talent & personal responsibility. Advertising-as-usual is so conservative that it lacks entrepreneurial talent and it will only be through new ideas and new companies that marketing will pull through from from their travails.

However that does not mean that you should rush onto Social Media - all things in moderation wont hurt you, Social Media, properly executed, belongs in the media mix! However the problem is that we are in this evolutionary period, nothing is factually based, it's all new with the sole exception of interactive communication!

Brands need to take notice of the amazing opportunities available to them
right now, opportunities that have laid dormant because of the strangle hold

ad agencies have had on the marketing communications process until very recently.

All advertising is a form of learning, education and game playing should

become the new promotion.

Consumers have a huge desire for brand knowledge and learning, and far prefer

facts and storytelling, this mean more to them than a celebrity spokesperson or

a catchy tag line.

This allows your customer to exercise their own "personal discovery" on their

chosen brand.

Another problem facing Brands is the fact that marketers tend to overestimate

the value of what they already have and have, as a result, become loss averse,

this makes them overestimate the value of what they have and support the status

quo together with stability! So marketers need to sharpen their act, check their

egos, open their minds and embrace new ways of marketing communication it will

be well worthwhile.

Internet Advertising will rapidly lose its value and its impact, for easily understood reasons. Pushing

a message at a potential customer when it has not been requested and when the customer is in

the middle of something else on the Net, will never work as a major source of revenue for most

internet sites.

The Internet is participatory, like exchanging stories around a camp fire.

The problem is not the medium, the problem is the message and the fact that

it is not trusted, not wanted, and not needed. There are vast amounts of

literature to support this.

Customers do not trust advertising. Research has shown that messages

attributed to a commercial source have a much lower impact. Research has also

show that advertising is the least-trusted source of information on products and

services. The fact is consumers do not want to view advertising, and mostly

consumers do not need advertising.

The internet is all about freedom. A free population will not be held captive

and forced to watch ads. Marketing must take its share of blame for the economic

crisis. Management's greatest concern should be what a company stands for, not

adding more services to sell to consumers.

Why are so many of our major industries in trouble, beyond the current

economic meltdown? And why is marketing not being blamed for its share of the

problem.

If you read the business press, you probably noticed the absence of any

discussion of marketing and marketing strategy as it relates to the economic crisis.

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?

　

　

　

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.

ACCOUNTABILITY

　

　

Professor E.L. Roberto, PhD, Coca-Cola, foundation professor of International Marketing, reviewed the £A15 million of independent research conducted on behalf of Shopper’s Voice and provided this summary as to the technique’s cost efficiency:

"The Shopper’s Voice 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 his participating brand, his quarter television expenditure was $US5.7 million as compared to its Shopper’s Voice budget of $US0.5 million. This 1:10 ratio has been obtained in Shopper’s Voice experience in other countries."

Sources: AGB, Gallup, Martyn Research, Bourke, NOP, City Insights & more.

　

　

The 60s! Ah that was a glittering time, advertising people ruled the business world...

 nobody was being at all difficult about their profession, nobody was

questioning the fact that advertising works, or does not, as the case may be.

There was a sense that the men were brilliant. The problem was that these

men of action wanted to act, but certainly they did not want to tell the Client

that the advertising job could not be done.

Men of action want to act. They are paid very generously to act, they have

entered advertising to act. But they couldn't tell anyone how difficult things

were, that advertising was not as simple as it appeared. So doubts were, and

still are, excluded, and the facts were altered to suit the theory.

Advertising men don't just become prisoners of their Clients. They also become

prisoners of their errors. Advertising and Marketing people never questioned

the fact thatadvertising and marketing never worked they just chased the

illusion that creativity was the answer to all their problems and just followed

one expensive creative person with another as logic took over from common

sense.

Make the buying of media more important; Make the production of TV

commercials more expensive; hire the current "hot" Hollywood Director; and

so it goes on.

Now the lunacy has spread to The Internet, and so it goes on. Never once

admitting that we have all been led up a one way street of no accountability.

And however independent the men may have started off, soon these men

became owners of an error they cannot admit to, advertising doesn't work. And

now even years later they cannot even in a fairly limited way admit to that.

Enhancing the theory that advertising works requires staggering amounts of

research with staggeringamounts of money, the life of the current advertising

world suggests that that is easier wished for than achieved. Because of the

failure of advertising to understand the process of communication they have

damaged a totally good "old media" whilst, at the same time, rushing onto the

Internet not understanding at all that the Internet is most certainly not an

advertising medium at all! And now Agencies are rushing onto Social Media

ignoring thefact that, as in the past, people don't want their advertising in

whatever form.

The difference here is that they can easily move away from advertising, you

have only to look at the experience of Second Life, that was to be advertising's

salvation. That's why the early adopters have moved on! And be warned, they

still don't know how to monitize the Internet..but we do!