Being direct... AdVantage Aug 2004
Making claims or opening up interactivity…
…Is it not time to redefine Marketing's Media?
Are the inmates going to take over the asylum? Is marketing 'control' really under threat from consumers!
For the past 3 years during June, I have had the good fortune to be able to make a weeklong pilgrimage to the little town of Potsdam in Germany in order to attend an international distributors conference for a company whose interests we represent here in Southern Africa. The reason I mention this is to offer some background as to how I come to talk this month about technology, marketing communication and the world of media.
As simple good taste requires that I do not gain commercial benefit through the writing of these columns, I will refrain from discussing the detail of the specific technology to which I refer, save to say that it is in the area of mobile communications - where new radio technology is making sizeable inroads into how businesses interact with staff, suppliers and customers. When I see the future direction for 3G mobile devices for example, and grasp the capability of these devices to do all manner of things - wirelessly, the mind literally 'boggles' at the future being mapped out, for anyone who just wants to stay in business!
Secondly, I have written in the past about the issue of 'control' of marketing communications, and have even been vilified by some people for suggesting that the wonderfully simple (and very convenient) model of marketing which says that 'control' is most properly kept in the hands of the marketer, who (after all) has the primary task of promoting the features and benefits of his product or service, and as such needs to plan and execute his or her 'controlled' strategy, without interference - is flawed. God forbid that suppliers or media owners (or even worse) customers, should try and wrest away the 'control' of any marketing communication process that may have an affect on them in some way.
The third part of this particular discussion pot-pouri, is a paper already written some 18 months ago by international media planning & buying guru - John Billett, in which he suggested that 'media-neutral planning is being superseded by new concepts of media'. John is an old-friend of ours in South Africa, having visited here on a number of different occasions, and from as long ago as 1975. On my way back from Germany this time, I was invited to spend the weekend with the Billetts at their country home in Norfolk, and John and I used some of the hours to chat about how the world of marketing and advertising will never again be what it once was, and also to chew over some of the reasons why.
John's paper begins with the words: '…the media planning challenge has changed its spots forever. Things just aren't what they used to be, and never will be again…the very concept of advertising has moved, at first imperceptibly, but now with frightening acceleration!'
He goes on: 'The focus of all current industry efforts (as an example) is on media research, mostly funded by sponsoring media owners and designed to quantify and understand the consumption of their media. It's an understandable approach, but unfortunately completely out of touch with the changing realities, and advertiser demands. We need to replace media research with people research…there needs to be a revolution in the approach to researching the consumer's contact with the media…' This very valid comment raises another vital question for me: What about the consumer's contact with other communication channels (interactive, or otherwise) ?
When we accept that marketing communication is changing from not only being that which marketers are prepared to allow (about their branded products or services), to a 'connected world' where ordinary people can spread good AND bad information about brands faster (and indeed considerably cheaper) than marketers can even begin to afford to do - then we have to accept that the pure form of marketing 'control' is lost. When one adds to this that newer technologies are placing new forms of such 'control' directly (and literally) into the hands of the marketplace, then we marketers have to accept that the old model may well be in its death-throws. The name of the game in future will be: opening all forms of access to all forms of information, rather than merely deciding which media it is that marketers will choose to bless with their controlled advertising business! I personally feel that we are somewhere in the grey area between the old way and the new way right now. I also have absolutely no doubt that the public out there are beginning to display the kind of negative attitude towards all forms of advertising 'spam' that will see them firmly grasp the opportunity to take control of halting any feelings of bombardment.
There are undoubtedly those marketers too, who are yet to fully understand this 'connected' paradigm shift, and who actually add to their difficulties by using these new channels merely to deliver old style targeted-messages. They must give up their perceived 'control' and open up and integrate any/all channels of interaction - to the people whose business they sincerely desire.