Festival Of Flagrant Self-Promotion

One upon a time -- a long, long time ago -- when Twitter was only 1 year old, I wrote a book called The Ad Contrarian.

Since then it has been downloaded thousands of times. It has even been cited by several (thoroughly greased) sources as among the best of the recent advertising books. It has been used as a university text -- but don't let that frighten you. It's good anyway.

The third edition is now available. I have added a few pieces, removed a few of the stinky ones, given it a very green cover with my annoying upside-down "contrarian" logo, but mostly left it alone.

It is now available in Kindle format at Amazon. If you're an Apple person, just calm down. All you have to do is download the free Kindle app and you can read it on any Apple device.

I will try to make it available at the iBookstore but, frankly, I have had nothing but aggravation dealing with those freaks.

A print version should also be available soon.

Because I am amazingly generous, and I don't make shit on these things anyway, I am offering the eBook edition of The Ad Contrarian temporarily at 99¢, and also temporarily lowering the price of the 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising eBook to 99¢ as well.

So forget your back-to-school shopping and buy these things instead. They're cheaper than school books and you might actually learn something useful.

PS: If you write a nice review on Amazon I will buy you a brand new Lexus or a beer. Whichever is less.

In Other News: A good friend is looking to hire 2 talented marketing people for his marketing department. It's in the telecom category. If you're interested and are in the Bay Area or willing to move, send me an email with your creds at adcontrarian@gmail.com

Marketing's New Fundamentalists

It is depressing being involved in marketing these days.

Marketing has always been a magnet for clowns and con men. But these days the clowns and con men aren't just lurking in the weeds. They are the grand marshals of the parade. They puff themselves up, put on their pretty uniforms, and march down Main Street with hordes of baton twirling followers in lock step.

It doesn't matter that everything they have hectored and lectured us about has been wrong. It doesn't matter that...

• Consumers have shown no interest whatsoever in interacting with advertising

• TV advertising is more pervasive than ever 

• The DVR has not had a significantly negative effect on TV advertising or any effect at all on consumer buying behavior 

• The TV and the PC have not converged

• Last year was not the "year of mobile." Nor was the year before, nor was the year before that. Nor will next year be.

• The Facebook disaster and concomitant melt down of most social media equities has given us a pretty good idea of what the real world thinks of our social media marketing delusions.

None of this matters.

These dimwit evangelists live in a world of their own creation where anecdotes substitute for facts, where all they do is read each others' blogs and attend each others' revival meetings... I mean, conferences.

They have created a world of hype and baloney in which they sell miracle cures to credulous goobers. In this infantile culture, everything that does not fit is "dead."

The latest slice of rancid baloney in this genre appeared last week on the Harvard Business Review website. It is called, of course, Marketing Is Dead. The author of this pathetic nonsense is some consultant who is no doubt selling this tired old snake oil to gullible CMOs everywhere.

His evidence for the death of marketing? Three things which have nothing to do with his hypothesis.

First, a study that shows about 75% of CEOs think CMOs are knuckleheads. Well, guess what? They're wrong -- 90% of CMOs are knuckleheads.

What I'd like to know is, how is this evidence that marketing is dead? If 75% of restaurant owners think chefs are knuckleheads, does this mean eating is dead?

Second he trots out all the dreary, dreadful assertions about "communities" and "social capital" which we have read 100 times before by equally deluded zealots. These cliches sound like they were lifted directly from the Pepsi Refresh Project powerpoint pitch.

Finally, he gives us some anecdotes about social media successes. 

In their arrogance and myopia, the digital theocrats cannot accept a successful social media marketing program without asserting that it is proof that everything else is dead.

These people are the marketing equivalent of religious fundamentalists. They cannot stand the idea that there is any truth other than their own. For their god to live all others must die.

Apple Goes a-Branding , Part 2

A year ago I wrote a post called Advertising And the Future Of Apple. The theme of the piece was that one of the early indications that clumsy hands were at the wheel at Apple might show up in the advertising.

Since then I've been watching their advertising fairly closely. I haven't written anything about it until this week because I didn't want to rush to judgment. But I think it's time to say it's getting to be a mess.

Since Jobs' unfortunate passing I have been aware of 3 major campaigns for Apple: The new iPad intro, Siri (iPhone), and the "Genius" campaign.

There is nothing that these efforts have in common other than the logo. The more they are doing, the farther away they are getting from the traditional Apple sensibility.

The iPad TV spots were typical Apple demo spots. The billboards for the new iPad also followed the typical Apple template, but were strangely confusing. The Siri campaign is uninspired, unconvincing, and rests on the borrowed interest of celebrities. The "Genius" campaign, while not as bad as some critics would have you believe, has the smell of formulaic advertising thinking. 

In last year's post I suggested there were 5 danger signals to look for in the advertising after Jobs left. Here's what I said at the time:

1. Creeping Brandism: The Apple brand was built bottom-up. That is, the products defined the brand. Virtually every Apple ad was about a product, not  the brand (okay, there was "Think Different" but that didn't last.) Keep an eye out for the erosion of this discipline.

2. Agency change: Vapid marketing people relegated to the background all these years by Jobs' dominance may suddenly start flexing. They wouldn't dare contradict Jobs' legacy, but they could accomplish the same thing by undermining the agency.

3. The Tortured Logic of Account Planning: Look for ads about you the consumer instead of Apple products. Look for moronic online "engagement" gimmicks. Or look for social media pandering.

4. Complications: Part of the brilliance of Apple advertising has been its simplicity.  Keep an eye out for complicated ideas or ads with more than one product.

5. Media: Apple has used online media sparingly. The preponderance of its advertising has been conducted in traditional media -- TV, print, and outdoor. Watch to see if Apple suddenly starts going all trendy and new age in its media choices.

Already I am sensing the appearance of 3 of these 5 warning signs. The "Genius" campaign is archetypal "branding." As far as I can tell, it is about nothing in particular. People I have spoken to are unclear on what the campaign is about. People think it is about a) the retail stores, b) software, c) the iMac d) "service." This is the antithesis of Apple's traditional advertising which was always clearly about a product or a benefit.

I am also sensing the logic of account planning at work. Where did the idea come from that the "Genius" was an iconic representation of the Apple brand? My money is on a planning "insight."

I am definitely seeing complicated messages. Below you will find an example of an email I recently received from Apple. It looks like Apple, but it doesn't sound like them. It is about two different things: Their new operating system, and their laptops. And even worse, it is not about a laptop, it is about their line of laptops. This is not Apple.

I am not surprised that the creative work has suffered. As I said at the time, genius is non-transferable. But I am surprised that whoever is calling the ad shots now at Apple seems not to understand the principles that Jobs operated under.

Apple has two important advertising tasks ahead of it. In the long run, they need to get back to doing great advertising. This is not easy.

But first, they need to do something very much simpler. They need to start sounding like Apple again.


Apple Goes a-Branding, Part 1 can be found here.