Archives 9/1/2006 |
Blog 10/2/2006 3:54pm - Please Tell Me You Are Kidding? I keep wiping my eyes, but again and again it reads the same. I guess I can relate the current world of advertising to physicians. Try to question a physician and he'll either abruptly cancel the limited time you waited 40 minutes to spend with him, or he'll breath down your back like a dragon, shaming you for being born and daring to question his expertise. Try to tell someone in one of the 'big agencies" that an ad they produced does little for you and probably little for the product, and even that they might be out of touch with advertising, and you'll find the same result. I know I do it to friends in agencies all the time. Just today I was talking to a CD from one of the "big" agencies. I asked her how things are. She said she was "busy working on branding for a big company, you know". It wasn't what she said as much as how she said it. As if she had all the answers. Yes, it seems like the huge head that the advertising got somewhere in the early eighties is so big as to be out of control. Advertising lost its way back then when someone came up with the notion that it's not really about the client, but about "creativity", or so they thought. We even have a trade magazine which spends many pages a month oozing with praise for 'creativity'. It usually contains some hip picture of a 30 something with spikish hair, some cool color behind them, "downtown" cloths, and a rather strange look on the subjects face as if saying "Yea, that's me. I'm creative! ". And wouldn't you know it, that trade magazine is called "Creativity". Once you change your attitude and worry about creativity, it means little things like selling the product or service and even doing something to further your clients business go out the door. Why? How can you have any time for a client when all you are worried about is making the latest, greatest spot. A spot that folks will all remember. The greatest commercial of all time! Of course they will remember the spot, but not the product you are trying to sell. Oh they'll remember the sock puppet, or the cute animated frogs, and the German Dr. who sells cars, or the screaming Puerto Rican men drunk on your beer, but 40 seconds after seeing it, they will not remember the most important thing, something you got paid to convey. It's as if some sort of subliminal frequency was put in the audio portion of the spot that blocks the viewers recollection of what you are trying to sell, they will not remember much else. And why should they? The conglomerate companies that we still call ad agencies have shifted their focus to winning awards and getting peer recognition, and from a business perspective, getting accounts not return on the investment. It's like some Greek tragedy about narcissism gone wild. Today I saw an article on the Ad Age website. It's a story about how Walmart is going after the Hispanic market. And on that web page the word 'award' appeared no less than 16 times. It had nothing to do with the article. It was links to everything you needed to know about awards for creativity below the article. Check this out. There were links to "What the Hispanic Ad Awards Say About the Market", "Awards Photo Page Two", "Awards Photo Page One- Cocktails at Miami's Gusman", "Multimedia Awards", "Out of Home Awards", "Direct Marketing Awards", "Hispanic Creative Advertising Award Winners 2006", "Meet The Judges of this Years Awards", "Photos From the Awards Judging Sessions", "TV Gold Awards", "Non Traditional Awards"," Interactive Awards", "Newspaper Awards", "Radio Awards", "TV Bronze Awards", oh yea, and a link for "Report From the Hispanic Awards Ceremony". They added that last story because the earlier links; "What the Hispanic Ad Awards Say About the Market", and "Hispanic Creative Advertising Award Winners", couldn't write enough about the Hispanic awards. Anything with the term "Hispanic" these days translates to meaning, 'it's the future', because someone started a Hispanic steamroll by writing an article once that said the Spanish market was undeserved so they cover it all even more than they should. There are a bunch of these guys and gals out there; "marketing/ad experts" who write the fodder that is fiction but somehow becomes fact. I can think of a well known name who writes for one of the trades. His articles always have two elements, first some concocted conclusion about the future of advertising or marketing that never ends up true, and a pitch as to how he and his company are the only ones to help you figure it all out. And folks listen to these people, falling for the same marketing methods that I thought they would see, understand, and be able to rise above. Wow imagine, one page on Ad Ages site with 16 references to the awards you too could win with a 3/4 inch videotape and $ to enter. And strangely I would have thought more Ad Age articles would be about successful campaigns. I know, someone told you that winning an award means you have a successful campaign. And there my friend you have the core of the ills that face the advertising industry. I think the best analogy to the big heads in advertising is the traditional Advertising weeks close where they march a motorcade of brand icons through Times Square. I love how Ad Age states it gives "throngs of camera-toting tourists an unexpected treat" as if it is some sort of amazing branding parade. No, it's just a bunch of hot air balloons, a perfect synopsis of the ad industry as a whole and a reflection os what most advertising is these days, old icons, with little idea of what made them icons or how to recreate that brand successfully today. It's not Ad Ages fault. Ad Age and all the other industry trades are reflections of the industry. But they sure do reveal how dysfunctional the industry is as a whole. No, not everyone and every company is a candidate for an advertising industry reality program. There are some great things out there. But watch TV one evening and you will not use up the fingers on one hand counting what is effective. Fix it? No, it's easier to say that other forms of entertainment are the problem. Or diffuse the situation because now your clients want accountability. Or say that TIVO is at fault. Sorry folks, it ain't TIVO (in avery small portion of US homes) and it ain't other forms of media stealing your steam. Your sounding like the newspaper industry that is blaming the same things for the decline in newspaper readership. They did it to themselves to and that started in 1970! But let's see some more ad industry hot air. How about Advertising Week 2006? What a program! Start off with a lot of hot air coming out of an accidental billionaire named Mark Cuban who suffers from Donald Trump Syndrome, defined as thinking you are something you are not and convincing everyone else that you are. He speaks at lots of things (like Trump), in all sorts of fields from advertising to gaming, to filmmaking but has little real knowledge of any of it, just an opinion like you or I. Oh and he's got a billion dollars he accidentally earned which automatically gives him some sort of credence in the mind of the masses. And somehow folks believe he actually has something to say that affects them or means anything. Money will do that to you. In addition to Cuban, sprinkle in an interview with Harvey Weinstein where he blows more air about how he didn't make that extra million dollars in his gazzilion deals. Then if it isn't exciting enough, add that "rare" candid interview with John Wren. And what success did he speak about? His life growing up and life leading up to Omnicom, where success is measured in how many clients you can obtain and how much growth your company can muster each year. Add to that Mr. Doug Dobie, who is looking for more ad revenue for his mobile phone company and who pleaded for more episodic television to show on his little one inch screens. Yep, someone actually believes real television viewing is headed to your cell phone too. But if you owned a cell phone company, you'd think that too. I remember a few years back when all the "experts" said that the web was coming to your phone. I see the other day ESPN folded up their cell phone service , the same one the "experts" said was going to shape the future of mobile sports. It was "surefire hit". And how could we forget one of the highlights of Adweek, the 'waffle off' with Martha Stewart against the head of BBDO which played more like one of those very poorly produced corporate videos we've all had to watch. What a setting they had the event in. It looked like a sample display case in Color Tile. Best of all Mr. Robertson admitted that his waffle had a lot of hot air in it. Hot air? I'm not kidding. He actually said "my waffle has a lot of hot air in it". Is he admitting something about the industry and using a waffle as a symbol for that problem? Interesting! I think they should change the name for Ad Week to "I Week" because the ad industry as a whole is lost in its own sputum. Or using the waffle analogy, the ad industry is like one of those frozen waffles. You take it out of the freezer and toast it. Then you pour that sweet sugary maple syrup on it. It sure looks good. But one taste and you know what it's like to lick the walls of your freezer. Next time I will tell you what needs to be done to correct the ills of the advertising industry.
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