Marketing and The End Of The World

One of the unpleasant effects of the age of marketing is that politicians have learned the lessons of marketing all too well.

They have learned that it is important to reduce a message to its simplest possible form, e.g. "pro-life" or "change".

This is fine when you're selling peanut butter, but not such a good idea when critical issues of public policy are at stake.

In the debate concerning what to do about climate change, everyone is being simplistic and disingenuous.

There are two important issues about which no one is certain. First, is the Earth warming at a rate that is uncharacteristic and out of proportion to the normal planetary cycle of warming and cooling? Second, if unusual warming is occurring, is it the result of human activity or of natural phenomena?

Climate change advocates are pretending they know all the answers (remember, 30 years ago they were warning us about global cooling.) On the other hand, climate change skeptics want to ignore the  array of scientists who are aligned on this, and instead blame a worldwide left-wing conspiracy.

The problem is that we have to make some very big, very critical decisions and very few politicians are giving us the whole truth - instead they're giving us marketing-style answers.

If the climate change advocates are correct, we are screwed unless we make big changes fast. But the politicians on this side want to promise us everything. They want us to believe that we can make the necessary changes without making big economic sacrifices. This is bullshit. They need to come clean on this.

On the other side, the climate change skeptics have to get over their paranoid fantasies. They have to admit that there are some very serious, very smart people who are pretty convincing about this and it's not just a left-wing political conspiracy.

Then we, the public, have to make some decisions. And these decisions are not going to be easy.

Here's a much simpler version of the same dilemma.

Here in North America, bees are responsible for pollinating an estimated 30% of our food. The scary thing is that bee populations have been collapsing at an alarming rate.

Some serious scientists believe that this is being caused by cell phone usage. The short version of the theory is that the electro-magnetic radiation from cell phone usage is interfering with the bees' famous ability to navigate. Whether this is true or not, I certainly don't know.

But let's assume for a moment that scientists can demonstrate that there is a 90% chance that this is true. Would the American public stand for the government banning their precious cell phones? Will the economy be able to withstand the shutting down of a huge industry that directly and indirectly employs millions of people? Will the unthinkable consequence of losing 30% of our food supply be ignored?

The climate change issue is far more complex and even more perilous.

It's time for politicians on all sides to quit marketing and start talking straight.

The Midweek Philosopher

* Department of You Can't Make This Shit Up

In Piedmont, CA police found the dead, mummified body of Patricia Bostrom sitting in a comfy chair in her living room. Police say the last time Bostrom had been seen alive was 6 years ago when she was 82 years old. Bostrom's daughter, Sunny, regularly picked up mail at the house, planted flowers in the yard and paid the utility bills. She claims she thought her mother had gone traveling to Scotland. Sunny Bostrom is now running for City Council in Piedmont. Her platform?  Helping seniors and crime prevention.

* Dave Trott on losing at snooker to his art director, Dave Christensen: 

"The difference was, Dave was playing like a creative director and I was just playing like a creative. He was seeing the big picture: winning the game. All I was looking at was the individual shot."

* From my good friend Cary Lemkowitz:  

"Writing a blog is like joining a gym. You start out like a house on fire, but before you know it, you're putting on weight and your membership has lapsed."

* The great Grumpy Brit has nominated the first candidate for the 2010 Bully Awards. It's a piece that appeared in Marketing Magazine’s 2010: Industry Expert Predictions and was written by a guy named Andy Krupski. It's a wonderful start to the 2010 bullshit season.

"People will continue to buy and pay more for reliable brand reputations that enrich the depth and breadth of their own identity. The future belongs to any product that can give users a unique identity and place, be it real or virtual. 2010 will be about combining an engaging story with an immersive experience so that the brand becomes an avatar and the communications investment becomes an extension of the brand experience. Communications technology is now the enabler, source and subject matter of human entertainment as a result the concept of the “Avatar” has crossed the chasm into mainstream culture and branding."

* Unbelievable. From Sharon Krinsky:

85% of all brand purchases are made by women. 3% of advertising agency creative directors are women.

* Web metrics: A cruel joke.

In the past few weeks this blog has achieved its highest number of subscribers ever (by the way, thanks.) During the same period of time it has dropped in the Ad Age Power 150 (which actually measures over 1,000 blogs) from #112 to # 344. Meanwhile in another listing of advertising blog popularity it's #45.

* The inevitable disillusionment in every agency person's life occurs when they discover that advertising is so much more interesting than advertisers.

* You think our politicians are nuts? Check this out.

Mircea Geoana recently lost the presidential election in Romania. He is now claiming that the reason he lost was that before a key debate against his rival for the presidency, he was the target of negative energy waves. He claims that his rival, President Traian Basescu, hired a  parapsychologist to put a Romanian voodoo on him.

* Great piece about web vs TV by Paul Carr here. Thanks to Thomas Cleret for this.

* And most important of all -- three weeks until spring training.

The Planning Controversy Continues

As I expected, I got a lot of push-back yesterday on my post about account planning. It seems to have come mostly from planners, which is also to be expected.

The comments seemed to fall into 5 primary areas. I'll sum up the crux of the criticism, then give a sample from a comment, then respond.

1. As a "creative chauvanist," how can I criticize account planning for being based on opinions...when this is exactly how creatives operate? An example from a commenter:

"... if we take out opinion-as-fact then really we negate the whole idea of creativity in advertising, which after all is about a creative's opinion on what is best, their opinion on what will work, their opinion on what people will like, the CD's opinion on what work is best."

I have no problem with opinions. I have big problems with opinions-masquerading-as-facts. Creativity doesn't pretend to be science. Planning does.

Nobody claims a creative execution is anything other than what it is. When it comes to planning, however, there is a lot of conjecture, interpretation, and speculation pretending to be facts.

2. How can I criticize planning for not having principles, when there are no principles for creativity? An example from a commenter:

"What are the principles of creative work? I think it's the most elusive thing in the world. You won't find two creatives that will give you exact principles as well."

There most certainly are principles for creativity in advertising. While every agency may have its own individual ideas, most creatives will agree that good creative work exhibits 1) simplicity 2) clarity 3) consistency.

Additionally, I believe that the underpinnings of successful advertising are most often found in these three principles. They are not principles for creating ads, but they are principles for creating ad strategy. What principles do planners use in developing strategy? I'd like to know.

3. How can I criticize planners when most creatives are idiots? As one planner put it:

"...who needs creatives - I could come up with better creative than countless campaigns I've seen..."

Yeah, right. Try it, dude. I'll give you 6 months and I'll bet you a thousand bucks you can't get a job as an agency creative. Put up or shut up.

4. How can I claim that creatives would be better off without a strategic foundation to what they are doing? Or as one commenter wrote:

"Show me creative directors that deliver positive results in a void from strategy and I'll gladly reconsider my career in strategy/planning."

These comments come from either low reading comprehension or willful twisting of my meaning. My post argues for better strategy not absence of it. As I said in my post: "Do we need research and data? Absolutely. Do we need reliable information about consumer behavior? Absolutely. Do we need people who can synthesize insightful strategies? Absolutely. Do we need amateur anthropo-psycho-sociologists? No thank you."

I'm tired of all the sidewalk psychology and brand babble that planners are stuck on.  I want strategies that focus on understanding behavior and how we can use persuasion to change it. Like it or not, that's the business we're in.

5.Finally, how can I criticize planning when I'm a fucking idiot? Okay, on this one you may have a point.

Just one more thing...
A few thousand people read my post yesterday. Not one was able to send us evidence that advertising created with the use of planning is any more effective than advertising produced without it. After 20+ years of planning, shouldn't there be some evidence that it works? If a car dealer told you that his special additive made your car get better gas mileage, how long would you continue to pay for it until you asked "how do I know this stuff works?"