Being direct... AdVantage Oct 2003
'It Should be All About Trust - But Sadly, it Isn't…!!!'
A couple of months ago, Fast Company's website featured an essay by Seth Godin of 'Permission Marketing' fame, that was called 'In Praise of the Purple Cow'. The basic idea behind his commentary was: In a sea of brown cows, the purple cow is unique and easily stands out. Seth's message was not only about striving to be remarkable or different in business, but in the summation, he also posed a very very interesting question: 'What would happen if you simply told the truth inside your company, and to your customers?'
In my considered opinion, the clash of interest between 'standing out' and 'telling the truth', are probably at the root of the dilemma that has perhaps always faced the advertising business, and indeed has probably contributed most to the position that the business of advertising finds itself in today.
Often, hyperbole and exaggeration leave the audience with some serious credibility issues anyway - and there is no doubt that advertising's creators sometimes allow their desire for 'memorability' and 'awareness' to influence the claims that they make, and the 'facts' they portend.
This can be exacerbated by the fact that advertisers themselves only want to describe the 'best' things about their product or service, and somehow believe that mentioning any warts at all would scare away potential buyers. A rock and a hard place indeed…damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Another factor influencing my thoughts on the lack of trust crisis that appears to be surfacing in marketing communication - is the reading of a relatively new work by the father and daughter team of Al and Laura Ries. These are the authors of the best selling book: 'The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding', and their latest offering is called 'The Fall of Advertising - The Rise of PR'. It will no doubt be one hell of a contentious book for many, but at the same time - is one that its authors have filled with innumerable case studies demonstrating the slow but steady decline of advertising credibility.
Two specific points in their book hit a nerve with me, mainly because I have covered both of them before in these columns. The first implies that a key factor contributing to the decrease in advertising credibility - is the issue of perceived control. Advertising content is controlled; the timing is controlled; the visual appearance is controlled. It doesn't take a rocket-scientist to work out that in this era of 'rights above all else', human beings do not respond very well to the idea that they could be or should be controlled!
The second point is made by the authors through quoting another of my very favourite marketing strategists - Regis McKenna; whom Ries and Ries cite as follows: 'We are witnessing the obsolescence of advertising…First advertising overkill has started to ricochet back on advertising itself…The second development of advertising's decline is an outgrowth of the first …as advertising has proliferated and become more obnoxiously insistent, consumers have gotten fed up. The more advertising seeks to intrude, the more people try to shut it out!'
Having said this however, the authors also go on to make the following also very valid argument: 'The most reported brand in the world is Microsoft…it is only 27 years old, yet it is the second most valuable brand in the world, just behind Coca-Cola…according to Interbrand, the Microsoft brand is worth $65billion. A marketing mantra, repeated endlessly by advertising mullahs, is that advertising builds brands. Did advertising build the Microsoft brand? No, a thousand times, no…massive amounts of publicity built the Microsoft brand…in building brands, advertising has become irrelevant. What builds brands? Media messages. The more messages, the more favourable the messages, the stronger the brand'.
So, why are media messages considered so vital, and yet advertising messages seem to be getting it in the neck from every quarter? The Answer: TRUST. Customers are more inclined to trust other people; the editorial they read or see in the news media; and the advice of shopkeepers; than they are (as pointed out by Regis McKenna) to trust the content of advertising that - displaying a huge degree of self-interest - seeks to bombard them at every quarter!
Some years ago, I predicted that advertising (as source of information) would slowly become abandoned - the more it came across as completely self-serving. I suggested that it would eventually have to go through some kind of 'de-commercialisation' process in order to remain of any value to customers. This was said instinctively, and at the time I had no idea of how it would ultimately pan out. I still don't. But, today I am more convinced than ever that as advertising falls out of favour with the very people that it purports to serve - if it is to survive at all, it will need to re-establish credibility by somehow rebuilding TRUST with it's audience - or it WILL simply be ignored.