Is Advertising Dead?

Previously, we discussed the importance of creating real experiences for a consumer to better pierce their natural skepticism and apathy so they would then be more receptive to participate in our TAC (Transparency, Authenticity, & Community) loop. The question was - how do we create experience?  In the old days, marketeers generated interest through advertising. The logic being that ads would essentially flood the potential consumer with images and messages thereby gaining enough traction that they would more likely purchase product. The more money they had, the more media they would purchase - all showing the same images and messages. Ad agencies spent millions on market research, demographic studies, and psychoanalytics so they could create a perfect profile of their target consumer. This was great when media choices were limited, information on companies and products was scarce,  and consumers were far less sophisticated in the ways of marketing tactics. Today, according to many marketing pundits, advertising is dead. And in many respects, that is true. As a primary selling tool, unidirectional advertising is indeed dead. You can no longer present an image and a message without the ability for the consumer to interact with it and expect it to generate sales.  Many marketeers try to overcome this by releasing their ads on YouTube or Flickr and hope to create the ever elusive "viral" ad. While this approach still has some legs for well established brands - Coca Cola, Budweiser, IBM, etc., (one could posit that brands that are so well entrenched shouldn't even bother advertising/marketing outside of direct point of sale marketing - but that's a topic for another day), for smaller, newer companies, the old approaches are doomed to fail. Why? They're applying old rules to new media, a changing consumer demographic, and hoping it will work like it used to.

So what's a poor marketeer to do? The first commandment from the old model still holds true today: know thy consumer! The level of knowledge around who is your consumer, what do they like, dislike, where do they shop, what do they value, how do they speak, where do they go for leisure, what media do they consume for fun - all of this data creates an extremely valuable psychological profile. The more data you have, the better model you can construct and the more targeted you can be in the experiences you create to appeal to this person.  Secondly, you need to find a way to entertain your demographic. This is the critical element. If you take away one message from this blog it is this - entertain your public without strings and you will be a hero in their eyes! Your message is secondary - you need to provide your consumer with what they want - and that is to be entertained. Something that will make your target consumer stop, look, respond, and think about it. Then and only then should you add your corporate name - as a sponsor. That's it. No message, no sales pitch, no product information, nothing. You should never dilute the pure experience created by the piece you deliver.  Entertainment = experience =  entry to the TAC loop = sales.

One of the greatest examples of both how and how not to do this was Mentos. Many of you saw the video of the men dropping Mentos into bottles of Diet Coke in time to music. It was hilarious. Fascinating to watch and had 1,000s of people duplicating it. At first, Mentos was furious. They tried to have it pulled from the YouTube site. However, within a few weeks, they discovered a tremendous spike in people purchasing their product - all based on the strength of this video. As many of you know, Mentos ads are somewhat bizarre in the first place; originally created for German TV they change the voiceover to English and run them untouched in the US.  This video though was the best ad they'd never run! It was a prime example of experience selling product. It entertained and it created buzz without explicitly pushing product.

Now imagine if Mentos took the next step and created a video contest to have others duplicate the experiment and do even more outrageous set-ups. These would then be broadcast via the Mentos Website with comment areas for people to vote for their favorite or discuss them?  Imagine if they followed that up with live events in multiple cities where the winners could perform them? Have a band there, invite complimentary products from their parent corporation to exhibit there, etc.,  Make it a Mentos Lollapalooza! What do you think that would have done for their brand and their product sales? It could have been astronomical! Every piece of advertising, radio spots, PR, etc., would be aligned to support these events - that focus and that concentration of messaging would have truly broken through the clutter and could have created a massive success for them. This would not have been that expensive to do - given what they currently pay for prime-time TV they clearly have money -  and the publicity and the interactivity would have created a phenomenal community around their brand. But alas, they didn't. And so lost one of the greatest opportunities ever handed to a marketeer. That alignment of media all in the service of supporting the initial experience is what then creates the force to penetrate the clutter and effectively touch the consumer. You envelop the consumer in your messages after they've joined your TAC Loop and effectively freeze out your competition. This takes discipline, focus, and the willingness to take risks, but it works!

So is advertising dead? As a sole source of outbound messaging and communication it surely is. Ad budgets are way out of proportion to the amount of influence they generate. However, ads in support of interactive and experiential programs are a key tactic in the ongoing struggle for hearts and minds of the consumer! Marketeers need to seriously re-evaluate how and where they're spending their dollars and look to those programs that will deliver entertainment/experience first - message second. As they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. If your first impression is exciting, interesting, and entertaining, WITHOUT strings - you'll have many many opportunities to make that second, third, fourth, etc., impression!  It is a risky strategy - how many CEOs will sign a proposal for creative that barely mentions the product? Not many - but it's important to push the limits! Once you bring a consumer into your TAC Loop you effectively own them.  And by the way, this works just as well in B to B marketing as it does for B to C marketing - contrary to popular belief!  More to come on the importance of TAC Loops and Social media coming in the next post!