1. the internet is starving for content; advertising no longer needs to buy expensive media to reach its target.
2. the more advertising costs, the better it sells. However, the reverse is true for PR: the more you spend, the more likely the consumer is to react negatively.
3. the advertising agency creates the strategy for the brand and works directly with top management. the PR agency doesn’t.
4. new insights into the human mind and the mechanics of tribes are easier to apply to advertising than PR. PR is a one night stand in a world where people are looking for lasting relationships with their brands.
5. old school push advertising is being replaced by pull – good advertising is becoming as important as the brand itself.
6. When the sender of the message is clear, it is easier to reach today’s smart consumers with advertising. this makes it easier for companies to develop the next iPhone, google or Harley-davidson.
7. the advertising industry has a solid framework and its long history is full of lessons learned.
8. in our digital world, advertising reaches more consumers faster than ever.
9. advertising has become part of the entertainment industry.
Consumers are getting more sophisticated. Well-conceived, honest ads can have impact like never before.
10. there’s an old saying that half of all advertising is wasted, but we don’t know which half. today, half the value of advertising is getting smart consumers to spread the word, extending the reach of the advertising into niche groups.
Just as it is getting harder to lie in PR, it is also getting harder for com-panies to hide the fact that they are offering products and services that just aren’t good enough. once marketing was one large megaphone that spoke to the masses; now everyone has a megaphone and is eager to use it. it is now harder for bigger companies to stifle smaller ones. Moving fast is taking on increasing importance in the world of innovation. Busi-ness is evolving and it’s time to take that evolution to advertising. it’s time to make the customer’s participation and enthusiasm part of the picture because these things have become more valuable than the cus-tomer’s money. Reaching into consumer tribes is for many brands the only way of making an impact. inspired consumers can create, move and develop brands that will generate consumption. the key is inter-action and respect from the sender of the message, a new development in marketing.
“Buying a good megaphone is a lot harder than it used to be…”
Micael dahlén, Professor, Centre for Consumer Marketing, stockholm school of economics
now that traditional advertising channels to consumers are being closed and media time has become so expensive, traditional ways of working are no longer economically viable for many brands. this has opened the way for the PR industry to offer inexpensive media exposure. as the PR becomes easier to spot, however, the offer becomes less attractive. For the first time in history, the lie has become more expensive than the truth.
in these times of social media such as Facebook, advertising must change with the times. advertising can become successful if it becomes more interactive and creates a relationship with the consumer. the in-dustry that, in many ways, is leading the way is pharmaceuticals. due to advertising restrictions, pharmaceutical companies have been among the first to seek direct contact with their customers. Companies such as Pfiz-er are looking at how to create their own social media such as Facebook.
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“When paid advertising is prohibited, social media become the only channel straight to the consumer. This is how Pfizer reasons...”
internetworld, 2008.
But, wouldn’t it have been better to find a direct channel of communi-cation with the customer before the conventional channels were closed off? no, because it was not dictated by the competition until increased pharmaceutical copying began forcing the industry to get closer to the patient. the relationship with the patient will also be affected by fu-ture regulation. the prognosis for the advertising industry does not look good:
Advertising today
this could just as well have been about PR. today’s toilets know more about consumers than today’s advertising.
Brands were created to protect originality. today, it’s the other way around: brands are often used to hide the original’s low quality. Pro-ducing the actual product is no longer especially difficult; many brands even produce their own low-priced copies to cope with pirating. the consumer gets the exact same product for two different prices in the same retail outlet. Many companies are seeing that the original creates a demand for cheap copies that often strengthens the original brand. the bottom line is that changing advertising is not just about new tricks. it’s time to involve the consumer instead of hounding him. the history of advertising reflects the history of business; the future of advertising is to create the future of business. advertising will not ask the question,
“Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” it will fertilize the egg while marketing it!
“Advertising no longer works as cosmetics. You can no longer disguise a product…”
Pia grahn Brikell, President, advertising association of sweden
one reason that advertising has had a tendency to exaggerate is that the service or product doesn’t have anything unique to offer. the challenge is then to build a brand. so far, so good. Yet, good advertising cannot im-prove a bad offer, nor does it do anything to motivate company manage-ment. often, people are more enthusiastic about buying the advertising than they are about buying the product.
”Only a campaign that makes a genuine human connection with the audience can invite the consumer to participate in your message.”
Pat Fallon & Fred senn, Juicing the Orange
the customer must see himself in your message; after all, who buys a mir-ror that you can’t see yourself in? Much of my research shows that
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panies who make mistakes, but then learn from their customers, often create much stronger relationships with them than they would have if they had done everything right from the beginning. this has been the case with both apple and iKea, who made many mistakes and have learned from them. Who hasn’t? But the ones who learn from it grow into big corporations. this interaction with customers rejuvenates the brand and helps consumers see themselves in it, creating real fans. some of the worst products in history have the most enthusiastic fans. Rumour has it that motorcycle gangs were formed because the Harley-davidson motorcycles they rode were of such terrible quality that wherever you went, you needed a friend and lots of spare parts. Classic english sports cars have a similar following. and even if a Japanese car or motorcycle costs half as much and are twice as dependable – who needs a vehicle that doesn’t need you? How many people would have pets if they knew the pets didn’t need them? in romantic relationships it’s often the vulnerabil-ity that forms the basis for strong emotions. so why don’t more brands show their vulnerability?
Harley-davidson, apple, iKea – they’ve all shown that the advertis-ing of the future must affect the sender as much as the receiver.
“Blogs, forums and communities allow us to benefit from the views of millions of others. People form opinions not by watching TV, but by discussing issues. They should discuss your brand and be free to play with it… to ‘own’ it by creating their own interpretation of it and to be associated with it in a “personal” way. That’s where brand equity will be established.”
indiatimes.com
iPod iPhone
Apple Inc
Apple Computer Inc
out of the box in business life is about making the box bigger growing the market. apple Computer inc. moved their
business from computers into new markets with itunes, iPod, iPhones, television and media. today, they are a company with
a bigger market position than just computers and have even renamed themselves apple inc.
over the years, apple has done a lot of cool advertising, but with modern interactive communication in all media channels they could have learned faster and moved from computers to today’s successes in less than half the time. By letting the “brand box” grow together with consumers and top management, apple has begun to let passionate fans into the company as can be witnessed by the company’s decision to let developers develop programs for the iPhone. the company should use this approach to their advertising as well – let the fans into the company. the choice is between having the customer working for the company or against it.
naturally, the best situation is when company and customer both work together. the advantage is not just a more pleasant working atmosphere, but more money budgeted for advertising as advertising has been proven to be essential to the success of the business. Money rules the game of advertising, but only if it’s played well.
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the game industry is thriving and has long since passed the movie business in sales. Production budgets can be bigger than for a Holly-wood production and there are game companies that even have their own tv stations. the game industry has long been open for develop-ment help from consumers who contribute their modifications or mods.
the hit game Counter-strike, actually started out as a mod for Half-life (Hjelmtorp, 2008). the same thing could apply to advertising, that is, letting the consumer develop new variations that are released virally, sometimes creating more of an impact than the original. Forget your ego and let in the customer. even if you don’t let the customer in, chances are he will still post something on Youtube. the difference is that by working with the consumer, chances are greater that you’ll create a new best-seller.