advertising, agencies, and failure

Lately I've been savvy to considering the problems inherent to advertising, as I'm becoming more and more frustrated by deep-rooted fallacies that have been part-and-parcel of the industry.

(disclaimer: these fallacies are applicable in varying degrees to varying organizations. I very much admire some outstandingly innovative thinking that exists out there.)

I'm using "advertising" to describe what can essentially boil down to "push messaging" specifically, which is of course a different beast from the more general idea of "marketing." The issue I take with advertising is that in approaching advertising as a marketing strategy, one immediately turns away from product and service and becomes blindingly consumed by message and medium. The fundamental goal of message advertising is to wrap a product in shiny paper, with the only regard for the stuff inside being to identify the limits and constraints the message can work within.

...well, that and "awareness." (To be fair, I'm kind of torn on the nature and function of awareness so I'll save some thoughts on that for later. Perhaps you have some on the matter?)

So timely enough, today I ran into Jeff Jarvis' very smart thoughts on the nature of advertising, and how he's happened upon the notion of advertising as failure. I'm an easy sell.

Jarvis - "This, then, is about the impact on the ad agency as a middleman:"

brand convictions, promises kept, and strategy shelf life

A quick conversation I had yesterday re: the true value of marketing strategy, and how value can exist in unchanging brand convictions (more importantly: promises kept), despite the inevitable mortal lifespan of even the inspired marketing strategies. Some great links, to include the Snowden-Tatarski blog and Ideasaurus.

kylecameron: On the lifespan of marketing strategy, and our natural tendency to linger in the nostalgic past. http://bit.ly/6sgQ9 (expand) thx @jeffsnowden about 22 hours ago from bit.ly · Reply · View Tweet

jeffsnowden: @kylecameron The key is finding the enduring promise of the brand beyond current offerings. Apple is more than computers. It's liberation. about 9 hours later from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet

kylecameron: @jeffsnowden another thought on enduring: Brand Conviction as a most basic philosophy, etched in stone and unchanging http://bit.ly/13obD0 (expand) about 5 hours ago from twhirl · Reply · View Tweet  Show Conversat

jeffsnowden: @kylecameron I think value is the most basic philosophy. People want to know and trust they'll get the function or feeling they are seeking about. 5 hours later from TweetDeck · ReplyView Tweet ·

jeffsnowden: @kylecameron Everything else is just window dressing. We should stop simply adding veneer and have companies live up to their promises. less than a minute later from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet

Some of the best advice Seth has had to offer can be summed up entirely with "make promises and keep them."

ditching powerpoint, the cloud, and demonstrating digital savvy

 metaphor via SexyMama

If you're looking to escape Powerpoint hell, consider ditching .ppt in favor of presenting from the cloud instead. When presenting strategy for client review not too long ago, we demonstrated our own digital savvy and our integration with the audiences' digital engagement as well, by pulling together our strategy and insights with a variety of cloud/social platforms. The one rule was "nothing stored locally," and it helped open client expectations in our favor. Check out a brief overview of the project here.

Wargames, Rush, and a simple strategic equation

I got to remembering today about Warhammer 40K. Feel a bit proud if you don't know this, 40K and the other Warhammer games were basically turn-based war strategy games played on tabletops with die-cast miniatures and model scenery. Typically Rush or some less-than-popular Guns and Roses plays in the background.

That's a bit in the embarrassing past, but back then I loved 40K (and I still kind of love Rush haha). Few things beat outwitting an intelligent opponent, and I was proud to be the jr. high kid beating all of his older brother's college-age friends in war strategy, competing in tournament conventions against the 34 year old comic book store veterans.

What reminded me of the whole thing was a few thoughts on strategy, while trying to pin down what strategy really is. I mean sure I knew how to maneuver troops and squads in chess-like three-turn anticipation, predicting opponent decisions with calculating accuracy, but all these things are based at their core on the simple rules of the game.

And so it is with so much strategic thinking.

   Knowing (read: exploiting) the rules
+ Knowing and truly understanding the other party well enough to recognize decision-making patterns thus anticipating actual decisions

= strategy.  

It's why I'm so drawn to this planning world - these two applications are a planner's core responsibilities. For the planner, no knowledge is too insignificant. It's all important; see: the HTBA intro and explanation. Every insight makes up the rules we're playing by. Combine that with a deep drive to really get to know the people we're having brand conversations with, and you're well on your way to strategic thinking.

And you don't even have to paint any miniatures.