Make Marketing History

The views of a marketing deviant.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Madison Avenue RIP.

“We never know where the consumer is going to be at any point in time, so we have to find a way to be everywhere. Ubiquity is the new exclusivity.”

“No one wants to annoy the consumer. However, there are many annoying ads that sell products, and it’s very difficult to tell what annoys one consumer and what pleases another.”

“We’re always looking for new mediums and places that have not been used before — it’s an effort to get over the clutter, But, I guess we end up creating more clutter.”

About half the 4,110 people surveyed last spring by Yankelovich said they thought marketing and advertising today was out of control.

Four quotes from a New York Times article that illustrates what's wrong with marketing.

2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

john
nice nuggets from the original NYT article. but are advertising and marketing guys alone to blame?

society itself is caught up in the cause and effect promotion of
1. More is better/ greed is good
2. Buy things and buy happiness, comfort, love. Buy!
3. The notion that people are buyers, that loyalty can be bought, that awareness can be thrust/ will lead to positive feelings
4. There is nothing wrong with intrusion of private/ public space
5. Relentless competition is a good/ great thing!

Media is often more intrusive, annoying, blatant, trivial than commercial/ advertising messages.

But media often gets less flak because they are able to clothe their messages with news, reportage and analysis!

Dunno what's the way out.
Maybe
1. Be the first to use a new medium but not to duplicate.
Step out before it is clutter
2. Try never to annoy
3. Be authentic,not pushy
4. Appeal to the intelligence of the consumer and not treat them only as eyeballs
5. Always respect who the brand is and what the context is. What worked for Adidas did not work for that Bank in the NYT article...
some of the thots...that i had...

9:51 PM, January 16, 2007  
Blogger john dodds said...

Good points Manish but I'm not sure that any of your suggestions can be achieved via the interruptive efforts highlighted in the article - moreover I question whether they genuinely have a positive impact.

As for the societal traits that you listed - yes they certainly exist but it is suggested that there is a backlash against this (see John Grant's idea of spiritual revolution). This may be the result of marketing overload or perhaps in the west, at least, a result of the boomers (with different brain chemistry) becoming the majority population.

much food for thought here.

3:10 AM, January 17, 2007  

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