In observance of "Worldwide No Blogging Week" The Ad Contrarian is -- you guessed it -- not blogging this week. Instead we'll be posting oldies. Here's one.
December 28, 2004 NEW YORK (New York Times) -- Jim Nail, principal analyst at Forrester Research, said, “You’re seeing the end of the era of mass marketing.”
October 30, 2007 NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- ...ad time for the Super Bowl is nearly sold out... A person familiar with the situation said Fox has sold more than 90% of its ad time for the game..."it's just weird to even consider that if you want to be in there, you've got to act in November," said Jeff Gagne, VP-account director at Havas's MPG....Given the demand, the network could seek more than full price for the remaining ad roosts.
Researchers enjoy a unique position in the marketing world. Because they blind us with numbers, they are taken very seriously. The fact that their analyses of these numbers are so often wrong is the dirty little secret no one mentions. Rarely are they held accountable for the idiotic nonsense they spout (e.g., the "end of...mass marketing.")
Collecting data is easy. You don't need to be smart to do it. Analyzing data -- understanding what it means and what should be done -- is hard. That's the part you need to be smart for. And that's the part that most researchers are awful at.
Remember, a researcher is nothing more than another guy with an opinion. Like you and me.
For more on this, see "Baloney Sandwich" and "Nailed"
August 27, 2008
August 26, 2008
You've Got A Brand Problem!
In observance of "Worldwide No Blogging Week" The Ad Contrarian is -- you guessed it -- not blogging this week. Instead we'll be posting some oldies. Here's one.
There was a time in America when every problem was a "communications" problem.
If you couldn't get along with your husband, you probably weren't "speaking the same language." If your kid was incorrigible, you just couldn't "get through" to him. If your boss didn't like you, you "weren't on the same wavelength." There were no problems of substance, just problems of communication.
Of course, sometimes your husband is just a pain in the ass, and your kid is a nasty little shit, and your boss is an overfed bozo. And all the communication in the world won't help.
Today we have the business equivalent of this. However, instead of communication, the problem now is always "the brand." So if your product is crappy, or your stores are dirty, or your service is lousy, or your business strategy is stupid you, my friend, have a brand problem!
Call in the branding consultants. Pay them a few hundred thou and let them study your brand for a few months.
They'll give you a big fat report, filled with charts and graphs and the latest up-to-the-minute buzzwords and bullshit.
It won't make your product any more appealing, or your stores any cleaner, or your service any better, or your business strategy any smarter. But if someone upstairs asks what you're doing you can make a nice little PowerPoint presentation.
Babbling about the brand is so much more fun than solving the problems.
There was a time in America when every problem was a "communications" problem.
If you couldn't get along with your husband, you probably weren't "speaking the same language." If your kid was incorrigible, you just couldn't "get through" to him. If your boss didn't like you, you "weren't on the same wavelength." There were no problems of substance, just problems of communication.
Of course, sometimes your husband is just a pain in the ass, and your kid is a nasty little shit, and your boss is an overfed bozo. And all the communication in the world won't help.
Today we have the business equivalent of this. However, instead of communication, the problem now is always "the brand." So if your product is crappy, or your stores are dirty, or your service is lousy, or your business strategy is stupid you, my friend, have a brand problem!
Call in the branding consultants. Pay them a few hundred thou and let them study your brand for a few months.
They'll give you a big fat report, filled with charts and graphs and the latest up-to-the-minute buzzwords and bullshit.
It won't make your product any more appealing, or your stores any cleaner, or your service any better, or your business strategy any smarter. But if someone upstairs asks what you're doing you can make a nice little PowerPoint presentation.
Babbling about the brand is so much more fun than solving the problems.
August 25, 2008
The Yellow And Brown Process
In observance of "Worldwide No Blogging Week" The Ad Contrarian is -- you guessed it -- not blogging this week. Instead we'll be posting some oldies. Here's one.
Prospective advertising clients want to believe that there is a method to the madness.
More and more, success in winning new business is not about what you do (the effectiveness of the advertising you have created), but about how you do it (how clever you are at reverse engineering a convincing process behind your creative endeavors.)
There are processes for doing just about everything an agency does, but when it comes to creating ideas, sorry, there ain't no process. I once asked marketing legend Jack Trout how much of his success was due to his process and how much to inspiration. He said 95% inspiration.
Don't get me wrong, we all pretend there's a process (see Precision Guessing.) We have to. Clients insist. We sometimes even give it a name...oops, sorry...I mean, we brand it.
At a new business pitch a prospective client once asked me what process I had used to create an ad he particularly liked. I told him I used the Yellow and Brown process. He seemed excited, "Really? What's the Yellow and Brown process?"
"I took a legal pad with me to the bathroom."
We didn't get the account.
Prospective advertising clients want to believe that there is a method to the madness.
More and more, success in winning new business is not about what you do (the effectiveness of the advertising you have created), but about how you do it (how clever you are at reverse engineering a convincing process behind your creative endeavors.)
There are processes for doing just about everything an agency does, but when it comes to creating ideas, sorry, there ain't no process. I once asked marketing legend Jack Trout how much of his success was due to his process and how much to inspiration. He said 95% inspiration.
Don't get me wrong, we all pretend there's a process (see Precision Guessing.) We have to. Clients insist. We sometimes even give it a name...oops, sorry...I mean, we brand it.
At a new business pitch a prospective client once asked me what process I had used to create an ad he particularly liked. I told him I used the Yellow and Brown process. He seemed excited, "Really? What's the Yellow and Brown process?"
"I took a legal pad with me to the bathroom."
We didn't get the account.
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