Blair Witch, Zappos, Oreo, & Ice Bucket

Social media has had some notable marketing successes. For example...

The Blair Witch Project taught us that you don't need tens of millions of dollars to promote a feature film.

From Zappos we learned that a large, successful retail brand can be built on Twitter alone.

Oreo demonstrated the power of real-time marketing.

And the Ice Bucket Challenge showed us how to motivate charitable giving in the age of social media.

Except they didn't.

Despite the hundreds of Powerpoint presentations created to explain the "Five Lessons Of The Oreo Tweet" (like here, here, here) or "What You Should Learn From The Ice Bucket Challenge," (here, here, here, here, here, ad nauseam) the simple fact is that not one of these big successes has been reproduced by anyone else. In fact, it turns out that each of them was an anomaly that had very little, if anything, to teach us.

During their 15-minutes of fame, each of these super-hyped social media success stories was trotted out at every marketing conference and trumpeted to us as the "future" of something. And each has quickly receded into the past.

The social media industry loves nothing more than a miracle. And each miracle becomes the poster child for whatever hustle the promoters happen to be running that year.

We have become exceptional at convincing ourselves that every singularity is a trend and every one-off is a movement.

Although thousands of companies have tried to implement the "lessons" of Blair Witch, Zappos, Oreo, and Ice Bucket, nobody has even come close.

But the parade of Powerpoint propaganda never ends.

The Error Of Intent

I walk into a crowded party.

"Can I have everyone's attention, please. I just want you all to know that I am the handsomest man in America."

What I have said is that I am an amazingly good looking guy. But what I have communicated is that I am a giant, flaming asshole.

What we say and what we communicate are two very different things.

This is a distinction that is lost on a certain type of tone-deaf marketer.

They create advertising that says, "we have world-class service" or "we make dreams come true" or "the world is a better place because of us." But what they are communicating is "we are clueless buffoons."

They think the closer the language of an ad is to the language of the brief, the better it communicates the strategy. They believe that the more an ad adheres to the wording of the brief, the better it conveys the intent of the strategy. They believe that an ad is a brief re-imagined.

It is no such thing. A best ad is a metaphor for a strategy, not a summary of it.

I could have left this post at...

"What we say and what we communicate are two very different things."

...and you would have shrugged your shoulders and said, yeah, I guess so.

But by giving you the story of "the handsomest man in America" I gave you a metaphor for the point of the piece that you will remember. This is what great advertising does.

It doesn't matter how brilliant or noble your strategy is. If your ad is just a re-stating of the strategy and does not communicate something interesting and memorable you will have wasted your money -- regardless of your intent.

The Day Nobody Waits For

As regular readers know, once a quarter I make you pay for the glorious privilege of reading this thing by filling it full of brazen, unrepentant self-promotion (we all gotta make a living, right?)

Bad news. Today's that day.

So first, for the purpose of convincing you that the conference, convention, sales meeting, or,  god forbid, "summit" you're planning doesn't have to be a suicide inducing cliché-fest, first up is a short reel of excerpts from a few of my talks:

Next up are some actual quotes from Amazon reviews of Marketers Are From Mars, Consumers Are From New Jersey.

"...I laughed, shook my head and wept for the industry that I have spent my career in..."

"...How much do I like this book? I refer to it almost daily for comic relief, brutal honesty, and "inspiration." This should be required reading at every advertising school in the country."

"...Hilarious and true! This is a book all marketers should read."

"...Bob Hoffman is my new hero! "

"...I'm ordering several MORE copies of this book as gifts for my clients."

"...Buy Bob's book. Read Bob's book. Lose 10 pounds of bulls***. Immediately."

"...This is the best book about marketing since - ever! Funny, entertaining, and the truth."

"...This will shake you out of your jargon induced coma."    

So, now you have two assignments:

1. Book me for your next conference.
2. Buy the book.

See, that wasn't so hard.