How iAds will revolutionize advertising
Posted by: seanxc on: April 27, 2010
Check out my latest article on iMedia on iAds. “How iAds will revolutionize advertising,” which I actually wrote on my iPhone…. Wow, in retrospect that statement was seriously geek-lame. Like a “+5 Sword of Geek-Lameness,” lame. Oh well, viva iAds!
Top marketing innovation killers
Posted by: seanxc on: March 17, 2010
Barriers to marketing greatness
Our jobs shouldn’t be that hard, should they? This is not rocket science or brain surgery. This is advertising and marketing. But alas, in truth, much more is known about both rocket science and brain surgery than about marketing. Why? We, as people and consumers, are a completely unpredictable system of chaos. If we understood people to the depth we did rocket science, there would be little need for the entire profession of psychology.
Most of the brash arrogance that agencies spout at clients during the course of their ego-laden “I’m smarter than you” rants is based on opinion, gut instinct, historical reflection, and an over-reliance on metrics. In the end, we do not know what the consumer will do – we’re guessing. Hopefully it’s an educated guess. But even when we layer on reasoning after reasoning as to why someone did something, apply the greatest possible metrics to consumer behavior, and create quantum predictability models, in the end we are still blind. All of our advanced systems do little more than increase our ability to measure the effect of marketing, not determine what people are thinking and why they think it.
What makes one brand or campaign succeed while others fail? What makes one agency a success while others implode? Once again, it’s the people – the people behind the campaigns who have the creative insight to assemble their thoughts into a “multicultural critical theory interpreter.” Success relies on the ability of marketers to peer into the souls of the populace en masse and viscerally understand what will work. It is more art than science, and unfortunately that art has been nearly obliterated by the past two decades of measurement and analysis.
What follows are four of the reasons why marketing innovation gets destroyed, as well as solutions for overcoming these innovation blockers.
Trailblazing and the first-mover disadvantage
This first innovation blocker is easy to spot: An agency walks into a client’s office and pitches an “innovative” marketing program. It requires unproven technologies and an unproven strategy, but it is so “flashy” that the client gets excited and signs off on it. It is the ego of the client – not the needs of the business that the client works for – that often results in such a project being approved. The client wants to bask in the glory of its brilliance for recognizing opportunity; unfortunately, what the client is usually basking in is the glow from a blazing inferno of crap.
The problem is that the program, campaign, or product is often surrounded by massive delays and difficult implementations. By the time it launches, the final product is a pale reflection of the original idea. Inevitably the campaign launches with a fizzle, complete with angry consumers, frustrated clients, and ignorant agencies.
This is uniquely different from bringing innovative technology to bear on a problem. When you recognize innovative technological implementations that facilitate opening up the customers user base that is different. And a warranted use of innovation to get first mover advantage. What agencies tend to forget however, and the clients who mistakenly follow them is that often the agency is pitching a one-off idea, ala a “microsite” instead of a cohesive communication strategy. Be wary of the one-offs. They often sit lonely and abandoned after launch.
These types of failed campaigns are almost always the fault of a specific team within an agency. Often, the people involved in the ideation and pitching phases do not have the technical understanding of what is possible within a given platform, but their egos get the best of them. But knowledge and competency levels vary greatly among teams within a given agency, and too often clients hire based on the reputation of the agency as a whole – not the abilities of the team that it will be handling its campaigns.
Unfortunately, if our industry is to move forward and innovate, a version of this death cycle is necessary. Our industry is too new. Only through failure do we learn what doesn’t work. However, failure is not necessarily the problem. It’s how we fail. When we experiment recklessly and subsequently fail, we wind up with clients that are so burned by the experience that they will never approve another “innovative” program again.
The solution
It is no longer about one big program – so stop brainstorming them, pitching them, and creating them. All you do is suck money out of the client, launch mediocre campaigns that you represented as brilliance, and ensure that digital marketing is viewed on the client side as a crapshoot for effectively reaching the consumer.
Rather, create a framework. A technical communication strategy. Design smaller ideas that launch off the same basic platform so that initiatives are more nimble and adjustable. It’s not 100% customization anymore, and it’s not one solution sits all, so why are you structured that way?
Be efficient with the client’s money. Act like it’s your own personal money. Build failure into the system, and set client expectations. A relationship is built on trust, not trying to bilk you client on a custom solution that will sit as an albatross form almost the day it was created. When ideas do gain traction, use the learnings to feed the flames and expand the success.
The myth of historical reflection as truth
Each client is unique. And although you can apply lessons from one client’s programs to another’s, you can rarely duplicate success. Unfortunately, marketers attempt to wholly replicate successful programs all too often. Instead, they should be taking what they learned and adapting it for their new clients.
When an agency pitches, it demonstrates how a given strategy or tactic worked for another client. The new potential client gets excited because it likes the look of the program and would love those kind of results. The problem is this: The results and goals that the agency presents to its new client, based on a past program success, are not the results and goals that the program was originally created to achieve. In other words, only with 20/20 hindsight was the agency able to surmise why the original campaign was surprisingly successful. Its original client did not set out with lofty expectations.
In short, don’t set the client up for expectations you can’t meet. Be honest.
The solution
As I explained to one agency I was working with, “I want to be the best follower in the world, but I want to follow ideas that are adapted – not replicated – for me.” In other words, I do not want to have an agency use my company’s money to learn big things; I want to learn and adapt small things. Revolution is a painful process, but innovation builds on what has worked before.
Break down what has worked in the past and plug it into a toolbox of options. But always start by asking the question, “What does success look like?” Seek to answer that question. Look outward first in terms of what will help achieve success, and then look inward and dig into your toolbox to see what you already have.
Too often, agencies turn first to their toolboxes to see what has already been done. It makes sense. It’s easier. But as a result, marketers often tack irrelevant elements onto online projects — they fall back on the “send to a friend” link instead of looking into something innovative like Tynt.com.
An ignorant client (or worse an ignorant “you”)
When you see a great campaign and are jealous that you didn’t come up with the idea first, don’t be amazed by it – be amazed that some client approved it. There is a substantial knowledge gap on the client-end in terms of what constitutes innovative marketing. It is an offshoot of the first-mover disadvantage. A client, due to its lack of knowledge regarding available technologies, might be amazed and approve something. Or, more likely, the client will force you to jump through so many hoops that the proposed program is no longer cost effective. Immediacy is the problem – the need to have results now! But in many cases, corporate structures have grown into massively risk-averse entities. The client does not get a raise or promotion for doing something great – rewards are only doled out for not doing anything bad.
This has resulted in a cult of client-side aversion to risk.
The solution
Once again, stop going after the big short-term idea. Throw a long ball that’s adaptable. Educate the client on what’s possible. Make your client a subject matter expert. Your client contacts know their business way better than any agency ever will – they just don’t know what media or strategy will most effectively reach their consumers. Set up education seminars at your agency on at least a monthly basis. Bring in vendors, technologists, and visionaries, and share information with the client. If you create an internal advocate, it’s much more likely that your riskier but long-term benefit ideas will get approved as they move up the food chain.
Start small. Build on small successes, and you will create a relationship where innovation is possible.
Also, request that your client create the same type of opportunities for you to learn its business. Trust me, the scope of what you do not know about your client’s business and how it operates would stun a herd of buffalo.
Ideation by committee
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” – George Orwell, “Animal Farm”
A truer statement could not have been written when it comes to innovation as a result of “ideation by committee.” During the last two decades of political correctness, we have reduced corporate culture to one in which everyone has a voice in the decision-making process.
Unfortunately, some people are smarter, some are stronger, and some are infinitely more creative, innovative and strategic than others. However, companies across the country pile people into rooms and say, “We’re going to come up with a great idea.” Seldom have these sessions done anything more than create a feeling of inclusion – a sense that everyone’s voice is being heard.
Some people have the natural ability – or have been taught – to think differently. Unfortunately, we are suffering the effects of two decades of higher-eductaion programs that didn’t teach people how to think. But luckily, that trend is shifting. According to a great article in The New York Times, we’re seeing a move toward multicultural critical theory.
The current system of communal happiness works against innovation. Change is a violent and disturbing act, and you need people who think that way. What we have now is the system that, through focus groups, ended up with the Ford Edsel. The client, the vendor, and everyone else, down to the receptionist, gets involved in coming up with the next innovative idea. But you see, when everyone’s voice is heard – even the banal ones who don’t understand the nuances of need-states of consumers, media distribution and formats, and word-of-mouth transference – you end up with mediocrity.
The solution
There are ways to engage a client’s staff in ways that do not help them contribute to you making a bad product. Their are many forums, seminars other executive programs that can help your staff change the way they think, and the way they approach everything from problem solving, to inter-personal relationships.
If you want to innovate online, take the smartest people you know (yes, even the ones that piss you off) and send them off in pairs, much like Noah’s ark. Create a competition for the best idea, campaign, or product. And then designate a “change agent” – a person who has the ability to pick ideas that really work. That’s the person who selects the best idea to present to the client.
Oh no, wait – that’s how traditional advertising worked for years. And it did work. But somewhere in the new age of the internet, that culture was lost – and internet advertising has suffered as a result. Not everything in traditional advertising can be applied to digital, but this system did work and still does.
Time for a change
I could go on to list additional marketing innovation blockers. I could rail against focus groups and group-think, which result in Ads that “offend” no one, and products designed “for everyone.” An Ad that does not offend anyone, impacts no one. And a product designed for everyone, is rarely useful to anyone. Rather, we wind up with watered down versions of brilliance that crash and disappear without even a whimper.
But regardless, in the end, overcoming all of these innovation blockers requires a focus on mitigated risk. Not no risk. The key to innovation is setting up a system in your company that encourages small teams to go off and ideate by themselves – without layers upon layers of corporate mediocrity screaming, “We can’t do that!”
If we want to start innovating in this industry again, we have to restore those who think to the top. Seriously, if I have to see another droll banner ad, click-here piece of creative crap, or homepage takeover that has no relevance to the product I’m looking, I’m going to become a lawyer. At least they’re on the right side 50% of the time.
5 reasons why clients are so dysfunctional
Posted by: seanxc on: March 3, 2010
I have been a vocal critic of the way most agencies are structured. However, many of the structural problems agencies face are a direct result of clients. Agencies have struggled for years to change the agency/client dynamic. They have actively experimented with ways to bring the client what they need, while still producing work that serves a higher purpose.
Chiat/Day and Crispin Porter + Bogusky have been changing the agency landscape structure for years by innovating, experimenting, tinkering, and attempting to produce the best work in a flawed environment. Unfortunately, most agencies are not that bold, and many of those ideas and structural changes have failed. This failure isn’t because they weren’t innovative, but like the nimbleness of an oil tanker, the clients’ inability to change — or the glacial pace at which they do change – has forced many agencies to survive in a structure that produces neither the best work nor the most profit.
Such is the issue with service-based industries; they are only as good as who they service. In the end, it is the clients’ fault. Here’s why. There is a fundamental, structural, endemic issue that clients have that creates a system that prohibits change, how employees are rewarded, and how they are valued.
It is a system that serves to entrench mediocrity.
What most ad agencies do not realize — because they routinely promote talent over personality and politics — is that the way most people rise up on the client side is by being adverse to risk. Now, some clients reading this will protest, but I have watched and personally experienced this fact. The client is the equivalent of a scared 10-year-old boy who is worried that no one likes him. Don’t dare make fun of that child, don’t pick on that child, and whatever you do, do not question that child. Debate must happen in a “child safe” environment organized by the company.
For the client, from a myopic perspective, this keeps the company safe, and in a world of investors and public companies, safety and predictability rule over nimbleness and experimentation. However, there has been a profound societal shift over the last 10 years. The financial markets didn’t understand that shift and it nearly destroyed them, and the old rules of organizational structure — valid for decades — have broken down.
I would posit — and a number of economists would support it — that the internet was one of the key fundamental shifts that changed the corporate model. True globalization was enabled by technology, accelerated by it, and created the system whereby those old structural models could be put to their fullest test. The result? It shattered them.
Look at the financial industry. The strongest people still standing are the technologists, the algorithm makers, the electronic automated trade creators, with multimillion dollar salaries. The game now is technology.
The company and client structure, which served the previous model so well for close to a century, no longer applies. But like that oil tanker, how do you turn it around? Very, very slowly. In fact, most companies would benefit from a whole-scale dismantling and reassembling.
I was amazingly dismayed that we did not allow General Motors to perish under its own weight. It is a model that cannot survive in the new structure. I would have been giddy to see GM implode completely. The amount of innovation that its collapse would have spawned would have ushered in a new era of transportation. But alas, we did not have the fortitude to do it.
In the end, there are five fundamental employee archetypes, and the interplay among them dictates the structure and function of a company — and the way that agencies are forced to interact with clients. Org charts just provide a framework for structure, but it’s the way that any given corporate culture responds to the various archetypes that dictates how a company really works. All five archetypes are needed for a company to be dynamic and grow, but unfortunately, two of these major archetypes are eviscerated by most corporate structures on the client side — to their detriment.
- The Leader
- The Acquiescer
- The Follower
- The Saboteur
- The Control Problem
The Leader is the person whom employees follow. This is not “the boss” (although this often can be the case), but rather it’s the person whom individuals rally behind. It’s the person who holds the compass for the individual, who gives that employee something to believe in.
Unfortunately, many people are leaderless. In the lack of such leadership, a large number of employees view their “leader” in an entirely different light: their paycheck. In larger client structures, that attitude is often tolerated. Those employees become The Acquiescers. The acquiescer will just go along with whatever someone wants because their heart is not in it. They are leaderless, because they don’t really care who their leader is. Their job is their job, and not much more. They are the shy kid who often lights up when you invite them out to lunch. They are just happy to be included in the group. They don’t care where you are going to eat. They don’t really care about the project they are working on, either. They are just happy to have a project. It doesn’t matter if they don’t believe in it, they’ll just do it. It’s either all about the money, or about being included. You know them in your company.
But remember, your company needs them. Like worker bees, you get to point them in a direction and tell them “go,” and then tell them “go” again, and again, and again. The problem is that you have to know where to point them and constantly monitor and correct them. They are a time-suck and do not produce great work, but they eventually get stuff done.
On the agency side, fewer people willingly work the crazy hours, cope with the insane work pressure, or put up with the abuse they get constantly without believing in someone they are following. Those who do survive the furnace of agency work are usually The Followers. The follower is actively engaged in the leader’s direction, helps support their goals, helps reign in other employees, and moves the company forward. This is one of the reasons why agencies churn through new people who have this “idea” of what it’s like to work in advertising: glamourous and fun. They quickly become disillusioned and drop out of the system. But the follower sticks with it. In this way, the agency system is vastly superior to that of the client. Agencies keep the top talent, and the detritus gets discarded. But it also means that there is a high turnover required to keep the ship moving. The disillusioned acquiescers need to constantly be replaced. Thank god for interns.
The client has an entirely different issue. On the client side, many of the systems are designed to support the employee, keep the employee, understand their concerns, help them grow. That’s all nice and good, but when the employee views their leader as just the source of a paycheck, all the company is doing is keeping dead weight, and many companies over the years have been so stripped of actual talent that they are left with employees who are still there simply because they can’t get a job at another company. On the client side, the follower is a more dangerous type, the “yes-man.” The danger with “yes-man” followers is that they will often follow blindly.
The first three archetypes, Leader, Acquiescer, and Follower are easy to deal with. They are predictable, and clients love predictable. The client tends to tolerate the acquiescer, and promote the “yes-man” followers, while not fully understanding the interpersonal dynamics of their true leaders. What happens in that system is that the company becomes entrenched in “group-think” behavior. The reason for this is the evisceration of the other two archetypes.
The Saboteur attempts to co-opt the leader’s position and take their followers in a new direction — but change is often seen as a violent process within companies. If the saboteur is successful, he/she become the leader, but it is often this type of conflict that pushes companies to adapt to a new paradigm. The leader’s ego is threatened, and the ego is a very powerful force that will do anything to ensure its own survival. Hence, saboteurs are usually the most vilified and celebrated people in the business world — who often rescue companies from the brink. But if understood correctly, your saboteurs are also those who provide your safety net. They prevent waste and inefficiency from driving you down the wrong path for too long. Unfortunately, the saboteur is seen as a disruptive influence and dangerous in the workplace.
And then there is The Control Problem. The control problem is one of your most valuable assets, but clients rarely understand how to utilize them correctly. The agency world is filled with control problems — those individuals who are not afraid to speak their mind. In truth, what they are actually doing — and often don’t realize it — is they are speaking the thing that is on the top of everyone else’s mind, but that others do not have the courage to voice. Most clients do not understand this, and they view their control problems as malcontents or rogue agents. But they are the people who point out the elephant in the room that everyone can see. They look at it, look at the group, look at the elephant again, and are confused as to why no one is saying anything.
The control problem is your ideation source. Sometimes their ideation makes them believe that all the ideas are theirs, and it feeds their ego. But if you can work with the control problems, and find a home for them, they become your barometer for good work, good business, and good deals. The control problems are those who envisioned the internet and left corporate America for start-ups because the system wasn’t structured to handle them.
The control problem rarely gets promoted at the client side for one simple reason: negativity during reviews. And hence, this is why the promotion process on the client side is at the core of the issue.
Let me explain why.
Your control problem has often had several successful projects, and a few problematic ones, as well. Or they have issues that “upset” some people. When managers and directors get together during reviews, and they put forward a promotion for an employee, most employees believe they get the promotion for all the great work they did. What actually transpires is that unless someone in the meeting has an objection, the promotion goes through. Some of your best and brightest on the client side get sidelined due to a manager’s personal ego. So what happens is that the “yes-man” followers — who are not as bright or as skilled — rise up through the corporate ranks. This is client politics at its finest. It is not about the positive aspects of someone’s work, just the lack of anything negative. Thus, client-side entrenched mediocrity feeds on itself.
On the agency side, it is often the employee who develops the best ideas and creates the most value, regardless of how much of a colossal pain in the ass they are to deal with. And those of us who have worked on both the client and agency side understand the scope of that difference.
So that’s the structural problem of why your client is broken and not able to adapt to the new mode of business that agencies are trying to push forward. The agency side rewards talent, the client-side rewards safety. So for the clients out there who believe they would love to work on the agency side, just ask yourselves: “When was the last time I was willing to risk losing my job to fix something that was wrong?”
That’s OK, the world needs “yes-men” too. But try and give your agencies a break. The reason they push back is not because they don’t respect you, but because the agency world is filled with control problems who are honestly only trying to create the best work they can for you.
5 reasons you no longer need an ad agency
Posted by: seanxc on: February 20, 2010
The current agency model is broken. I know it, agencies know it, but luckily for all of us, clients haven’t realized it yet.
After more than a decade of working for an agency and an additional six years on the client-side, I have come to several conclusions, none of which are pretty pictures for agencies unless they change. You see, agencies need clients more than clients need agencies, and there has been a fundamental shift in how technology has both enabled and altered that dynamic. It has exacerbated the problem with the explosion of new media channels, and it has also provided the solutions.
We have built an interweaving production process that is designed to produce media the old way, not the new way, and agencies and clients seem to be stuck in this model.
Agencies over the last 20 years have morphed into advanced communication production shops. The offline agencies have desperately been pursuing online projects with their clients, and the online agencies have been trying to do more offline work. What they both have not done, however, is change the process of production. They have been too busy chasing the money.
But agencies used to be so much more than that. They were the creative powerhouses. The ideation shops. The meme creators for their brands across society. Some still are, but is meme creation needed anymore?
The explosion of communication methods to reach the consumer has had a natural dilution effect. As the playing field got wider, it gave something to consumers they didn’t have before: instantaneous access to desire fulfillment and an ability to access information about a product, not just from the company and the agency’s perceived lens, but through other consumers and competitors. There have been three profound effects on the technological expansion of media: a wider communication platform for all, the persistence of data on that platform, and a plethora of spawned agency models.
So how is this all related to no longer needing an ad agency? SEM, SEO, interactive, offline, online, media, social media — the breadth of these elements has made clients’ heads spin, and the rapid pace has left many core agencies scrambling.
No longer does the client feel that one shop can handle all their needs, because in reality, no single shop can. But there is something being lost by all of the expansion: message and brand cohesion. Since your “main” agency is no longer the idea shop, and since that message has inherent problems cascading throughout so many communication channels, why have one?
I am about to commit sacrilege.
Reason 1: “The Big Idea”
What we no longer need is “The Big Idea,” or at least not in the way most agencies still view it. Agencies used to exist because of that concept, but many lost their way. The communication cascade has been so profoundly altered that it is no longer The Big Idea but many smaller ones. The argument goes that everything should sit under the umbrella of The Big Idea, but I challenge that assumption. The Big Idea was necessary to help seed an overall brand image in consumers’ minds and have it be harmonious and able to fit all of the little communication channels under it. That’s really its essence. The problem is that when integration is attempted by most clients — truly attempted — it dilutes the message in the communication medium that is being used because the mindset of the consumer is often overlooked.
Traditional media (TV, radio, print, outdoor) had a much narrower human “need-state” of consumption, so messages could cascade among them while keeping the message coherent, simple, and emotionally impactful. The important thing is the bounce-back from consumers. It is their opinion of you. And their opinion dwarfs yours.
The last 10 years started to completely throw off the machinery of communication messaging. And with the explosion of social media, it became bilateral. No longer is it a tree diagram and a linear cascade downward to consumers. The internet, texting, mobile devices, etc., have all created a persistent communication feedback loop that is impossible to control. You can no longer effectively hide who you are as a company, because your Big Idea must essentially fall out of something bigger: your corporate mission, your reason for being in business.
Yes, yes, all corporations are in business to make money, but underlying that fact is how the company actually functions. The age of corporate transparency has arrived.
My argument is that The Big Idea, the overarching communication “message,” should arise from the company itself because it is ultimately dictated back to you by your consumers. Unfortunately, too many companies are so mired in their own internal politics that they feel the need for the outside perspective of an agency. But agencies are often painfully unaware of the details of their clients’ businesses. If you are an agency, try to be more influential internally, and don’t limit yourself to engaging just with the marketing department. If you develop relationships at a higher level, the coordination between your proposed messaging and what will work for the company will be more harmonious.
Too many clients and agencies change direction so quickly that The Big Idea is never given time to cement itself, and they aren’t listening to the bounce-back messaging. They still believe they can control and dictate. How often do company taglines change now? Is that the agencies’ fault? No, but if The Big Idea is based on who you are as a brand, then it does not have to change with the wind. For The Big Idea to work, it must be BIG, but you don’t need an agency for it. As a brand, you first need to look internally. Understand who you are as a company, and listen to the messaging coming back at you. Don’t blame your agency; blame yourself for not listening.
Reason 2: Why build an Edsel?
Most external corporate web presences are over-designed monstrosities. I would argue that almost all businesses could easily survive with a more simplified, streamlined version that could be accomplished with most good blog software. Unless your business IS in business to sell products on the internet, and the website IS your brand, your website is overkill. This is where the consumer need-state comes into play. Your website is a conduit to the consumer’s desire, but not the desire itself. Why are you paying an agency so much money to handle it?
Most corporate websites are painful reflections of their internal structure. They spend millions on revamping and solving problems, but in reality, they do not address the core issue. The agency model preys on this behavior. It is as if you built a shack that has had room after room bolted onto it — kitchens, dining facilities, bathrooms, showers, etc. It may appear to be somewhat cohesive on the front end, but at what cost? This is not an agency problem but the client’s unwillingness to make substantive decisions for their external web presence.
When you decide to redesign that shack, all of the extra detritus comes along for the ride. You may discard items here and there, but feature-creep somehow always results in another monstrosity being built, and you end up building an Edsel.
I recently advised a client who had switched from a traditional website to a standard blog template system using WordPress. The company designed the template adhering to its color palette and design philosophy, and for $100,000, the company ended up accomplishing what its agency had estimated would cost $500,000 to build. The end-product did more than what the agency was pitching, and it shaved an additional $200,000 a year off maintenance costs for the company. It also allowed internal staff to update the blog easily and communicate simply.
Another advantage of a switchover like this is that the search engines pick up all that new content much more easily than an overly designed Flash site. Remember, the majority of consumers now use search engines to navigate the web. So when you build a monstrosity of a site, the issue isn’t just the cost of the build itself, it’s the cost of maintenance, and the agency you need to employ because it wasn’t designed for search engines to scan.
Design a system that is templated specifically for your needs, and the control goes back to your company. Isn’t that where these decisions should rest anyway?
Reason 3: Scalability, production, and distributed messaging platforms
You used to be able to produce one TV ad and run in one market. If it resonated and helped move product, all you needed to do was scale the effort. The ad was already produced. You just had to spend more money. Same with print, outdoor, and many other traditional media. But with online, the playing field is so disparate that much of it is not as scalable.
You can produce a banner, but for some reason you always need to change it and produce more. Not to mention, you have to do it in four different sizes. Before too long, you have too many little snippets running in too many different places, and you find yourself myopically looking over analytics reports tweaking a tenth of 1 percent here and there. For what? The model is not scalable the way offline is. Sure, you can throw more media at it, but anyone in online media planning knows that with each new site, and each new format, you increase the complexity.
What most brands don’t have is the willingness to run a single ad, test and control that one ad, and beat the hell out of it. Now that’s efficient! The customization of messaging on the internet for each subgroup has created a cacophony of noise. So why not simplify? It’s only a matter of will, and you can probably ditch the huge amount of production, media trafficking, and complexity you are creating for yourself in trying to find the one thing that works with your agency.
There will never be one banner ad that fundamentally changes your business and impacts the consumer in the way one TV ad could. It’s the same with SEM. I watch company after company let their ad agency do their SEM ad copy. Are you serious? There is not going to be anything brilliant that an agency can do with 85 characters that you can’t. Let an SEM vendor do it. Again, you’re spending money on the wrong thing. If you’re going to use an ad agency, use them for ideation, not wasting billable hours.
Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, WordPress, blogs, email systems, and a host of other tools are available for you to extend your brand, so use them. Why build internally what other companies have spent millions building, tweaking, and supporting? And why have your agency build them? Look at Facebook the same way you view outsourcing any other aspect of your business. Facebook hosts it and deals with the IT and serving costs. You should be making the decisions, listening to those channels, and managing them.
Reason 4: Stop focus groups
This is where I enrage every company in this business. Sorry. In the end, it’s about what your consumers are saying about your product, although that conversation used to be isolated from both the client and the agency. Agencies used to have to conduct focus groups to gauge consumer opinion. There is no need for a focus group, ever. They are the harbingers of clients intending to cover their ass, and agencies that profit from it. Truth be told, many agencies hate focus groups, and please don’t ever use them for validating creative.
Agencies use them so when the idea fails miserably, they can point to the focus group and know that they had senior-leader approval. Business now moves way too quickly for that. Make the decision and go with it. Why are you spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get opinions from small groups of people who will tell you something that doesn’t even affect their behavior? Trust me, they don’t work. Instead, get Radian6, Biz360, Nielsen BuzzMetrics, or eCairn Conversation to help you learn what your consumers are actually saying. I advocate strongly for having this knowledge generate from inside your company and not from an agency. If it is inside, it will not be limited to the marketing group. This is the conversation that the CEO needs to hear, as welll as the product development people, etc. It should become core to your business because only by truly listening to your consumers will you make better products. And listening in on the conversation when they aren’t aware is the only way to get at the real information. Do you really think consumers in focus groups don’t know you’re behind the mirror? Wake up.
Reason 5: You should hire the right people
It’s time to make big decisions about your company’s future. Companies have started to see the power new technologies can create for a brand, but do they have a CEO enlightened enough to take the necessary risks? Build up talent inside your company. Don’t promote people internally from different divisions. I am often dismayed when I hear companies say, “He was a great performer in our internal marcom department for 12 years and would make a great choice for heading up our new global communications team.” If you want game-changing talent, look externally. Sorry, but the people you tend to have left in your company are those who were either not talented enough to get recruited externally, or they are just great internal politicians with an M.B.A. from a good school. That is not to say you don’t have great talent already in place, but it is more often that they are being shackled by someone in the upper management structure who won’t take the necessary risks for your company to thrive in this new age. It’s time to remove the shackles. The group must have C-level representation to succeed.
If you are not willing to do that, then by all means, keep all of your agencies just humming along. They will be very happy to keep taking your money.
This one says to believe the hype… don’t believe the hype is the sequel
Posted by: seanxc on: February 3, 2010
Paid Search Traffic Share Down 26%
I almost do not know where to begin to debunk this story… for technically the story is accurate in the statement “The share of search traffic coming from paid listings is decreasing at the expense of organic traffic.” I love analysts… most of their ignorance comes from only having the “theory” and none of the “practice” of doing what they so analyze. They report the numbers, but none of the context. Yes, Paid Search “share” has declined as a part of overall search traffic. But why? Analysts tend to avoid the “why,” because they have no idea why, but they do try, in their limited capacity, to explain why.
What data are you using for your conclusions
The “analyst” decided to track some branded terms… “travelocity,” “orbitz,” “walmart,” “home depot,” “usaa” and see what spending was year-over-year. Huh? Are they insane? That is the data set? Branded company terms?
As anyone who buys search will tell you, buying your company name is fraught with controversy because most likely your company is already listed in the first few spots in the organic listings, which are free. So why use paid search for them? Well, some studies tend to show that you’ll get a 10%-20% lift in response by buying your branded term. Those who become more paid search savvy naturally gravitate away from branded terms. Branded Terms in paid search is the hallmark of search Luddites. It’s easy to do, shows great results, but how much it actually helps your particular business has to do with a variety of factors external to Search.
What does happen, and I know this from having bought hundreds of millions of pounds worth of search advertising, is that you eventually squeeze out branded terms, in favor of long-tail Search terms, as you learn to be more efficient with your spend, and if your budget gets cut in Search, they are the first terms you pull out. They look good on a spreadsheet of performance, but often do not really drive the business.
The environment
Search spending is going up. What? But what is with all the articles talking about paid search spending dropping? Well, it is going down as a “share” of overall search because the pitch is getting bigger. Yes, Paid Search spending is growing, but the overall number of searches is just growing faster.
TechCrunch had an article that explained the phenomena of both the long-tail of search terms, and the increase in overall search volume effect.
Longer Queries Driving Down Ad Impressions? How About Bankrupt Advertisers?
Part of their conclusion suspects that a lot of the advertisers are not around anymore. Which really begs the question that if you are going to use Paid Search, get in a good internal system to manage it.
This is great for Paid Search advertisers, no, not just great, stupendous, because it increases the available opportunities to reach your audience more efficiently. Basic economics tells us that more supply (Searches conducted,) over less demand (slower growth in advertisers) will drive down the actual cost per acquisition in search. Result? You get customers more efficiently. If you’re not then you should be taking a look at what systems you are using.
Paid Search Spending is Going Up
Don’t believe me? Ok, here is the math to figure this out. If we can assume for a moment that Google is the measure of search spending, all we have to do is ask one simple question. Is Google making more money or less money this year than last? Answer: More money.
Google Profit Jumps 30% Despite Slowing Economy
Yes, Paid Search spending is going up. My advice? Get a good system internally to help manage your Paid Search program; for God’s sake don’t build your own. Or even outsource your paid search to a company that knows what it’s doing, and just ignore the proclamations about Organic search vs. Paid Search. Why? In Paid Search you can control your messaging, what pages you direct people to, and you don’t have to rely on any “suspect” techniques by companies promising to improve your organic listings that could get you in trouble, or worse, get you banned from the engines you now rely on to conduct your business.
Now granted, I could take a couple random search terms from different companies and show you why Paid Search spending is down, but why would I do that? I’d just look like an analyst.
ranty rant signing off…
Mother nature hates outdoor
Posted by: seanxc on: January 18, 2010
It’s raining in San Francisco today. It rains a lot here over the winter months, the city bound in by fog. And when that happens the entire populace tends to look down when they walk. It is a subtle shift in behavior, but there is something about the fog, and an inability to see the sky that just naturally moves the populace to seek for comfort. That comfort is the ground in front of them.
Why am I mentioning this in a blog about advertising and marketing? Simple, does weather affect advertising?
If you happen to live in a place that rains like Seattle, snows like Minneapolis, fries your skin like Phoenix, or fogs in like San Francisco are there ways that you can use the weather to increase your ad effectiveness?
Take San Francisco for example: 3 months of fog and rain the winter. With everyone looking down is it better to buy spot TV than outdoor during this time?
Is print more effective on rainy days in places like Seattle.
When it’s a scorcher in Phoenix can you be smart enough about your outdoor buys that you’ll buy them in places where people will stand in the shade?
Is a billboard even remotely useful in Minneapolis in winter where drivers have a number of days being way more conscious on the roads because of snow? or is it the exact opposite in that the higher increase in accidents has people dirving so slowly that they’re stuck looking at your billboard for a mile barely moving?
As long as the weather is a predictable season you can use it to your benefit. It’s the consistency that you can use, and the expectation of the local populace to adhere to certain patterns during that time.
What all of this is dealing with is human nature behavior patterns to their environment. What surprises me is that I have been unable to find a study on it, and I think I know why.
Offline advertising is inherently unmeasurable. It influences the consumer is such small ways that what caused their purchase behavior is as much art as it is science. It is the reason why the best offline media buyers when buying outdoor will buy the advertising at constrictor bottlenecks… places in the traffic patterns where a car is stuck moving poast it at 20 miles an hour. Exit ramps in major cities where they know at rush hour everyuday traffic slows to a crawl and what do people do? They look for a distraction. An entertaining billboard. Anything to take their mind off of driving.
There may be another billboard the same price two miles down the highway, but by then the cars are moving at 80. You see, the billboard is priced based on the amount of traffic or cars that pass by it. The number of eyeballs that can potentially see it… and the demand for the space.
The n00b media buyer who tells the client they got a great deal because their billboard is 10% less than the one a mile closer to the city, and the same number of people see it! They understand the numbers, but not the art of advertising. Their client will be oblivious to it and often actually reward the client for that behavior. They both miss that the ad effectiveness has decreased by much more than 10%. Why? The same number of people had the “potential” to see the ad, but it had one major thing working against it.
the speed of the car, and thus length of “time opportunity” to see it
In the end it’s the offline media planner/buyer who is using art, intuition, and science to make decisions, decisions that help their client in numerous ways that go unnoticed. Occasionally a client takes all their advertising in house and is often confused by why, although they may get an initial boost, their ad effectiveness is dwindling over time… why? because they do not understand that…
Mother nature hates outdoor…
Do No Evil, or Let’s Redefine “Neutrality”
Posted by: seanxc on: January 15, 2010
Google’s proposed arrangement with network providers, internally called OpenEdge, would place Google servers directly within the network of the service providers. The setup would accelerate Google’s service for users. Google has asked the providers it has approached not to talk about the idea.
At risk is a principle known as “network neutrality:” Cable and phone companies that operate the data pipelines are supposed to treat all traffic the same. It is a fundamental democratization of information transfer that has enabled the ‘net to be the anarchy it is.
This is coming to a head now because in AT&T’s 2006 acquisition of Bell South, the FCC made AT&T agree to shelve plans for a fast lane for 30 months. That moratorium expires in just a couple weeks.
Comcast got themselves into a whole lot of trouble with a not dissimilar strategy way back in 2002, which they claimed was just for their own efficiency then, much as Google does today.
It’s funny, one of the things that regulators have to be wondering about is why ISPs have not been permitted to do what third parties have been permitted to do, (witness Phorm’s and NebuAd’s follies, as they attempted to enable other ISPs to do essentially what AOL could do after integrating with Tacoda.) Back in 2002, Comcast’s troubles were described as “privacy” troubles.
And that is very charged word… Just refer to something as having “privacy concerns” and you can almost guarantee whatever the project, it hits the skids immediately.
See what I mean about the difference? When Google does it, nobody screams about privacy, but it’s against Net Neutrality, and thus inconsistent with Google’s own stated position.
The only question is whether web regulation will look more like TV/media regulation, electric/utility regulation, or Cable/telecom regulation in 10-20 years. People in our business want it to look most like TV/media regulation, which is to say not that regulated. But, I’m betting it will look more like Cable/Telecom, with a few cap-ex intensive players making/controlling the most money. (hint: if Pew is right, those players who win will be the ones controlling wireless access to the majority of us who, by then, will access the web via our handheld devices. Think about how different Apple’s approach is now in wireless than it was then on the desktop, and you’ll see why this makes them even sexier now than they were then.)
Think of how you watch TV and who gets paid when you watch, versus the same question 20 years ago to understand the dynamic I am describing. Today, the cable company gets paid no matter what station you watch because they control the T&D (transmission and delivery.) That wasn’t true back when HBO launched 36 years ago and any one of us could get the three major networks for free with an aerial antenna. Today, there are hundreds of stations and this media proliferates – yet what is regarded as “premium” content is largely not advertising-supported, you pay a premium for it, and you pay a premium to see it in HD. “Free,” advertising-supported TV is no longer free either though, is it?
One could argue that the media industry as a whole has benefitted from the regulation of the T&D segments. I might even be on that side. However, it’s only when the regulations against cross-media ownership were relaxed in 1996 that innovation – and our industry really took off.
The next stages of this evolution should prove interesting to watch. Even in retrospect, reviewing what our landscape was like ten years ago makes me wonder what the strategic conversations were like at AOL, which was the largest media company on the web and also the one company that controlled so much of the consumer T&D – both at once. Had AOL danced independently with AT&T or Verizon instead of so intimately with Time Warner, I wonder…
Advertising Civics…
Posted by: seanxc on: December 10, 2009
It is a sad societal reflection that most of my readership will turn to thoughts of Toyota, but that is but the tip of the iceberg. We have built a Titanic and this is our legacy… I opt to start the discourse to change direction.
Recently FOX decided to not show President Obama speech..
Fox beats networks without Obama
While Obama’s prime-time news conference aired on three Big Three broadcast networks — ABC, NBC, and CBS — Fox opted out and instead aired an episode of the drama “Lie to Me.”
That move seems to have paid off: Fox drew 7.9 million viewers and won the 8 p.m. time slot, according to TVNewser. However, approximately 19 million viewers tuned into Obama on the Big Three combined. (That’s according to Nielsen overnight numbers, with final ratings out later today.)
It is but a disturbing footnote. A reflection of the perverse freedom we all enjoy, and the complacence that comes with it. The Media, once a bastion of public consciousness and civic discourse is now a full blown reflection of our narcissistic tendencies.
Profitability over public service, and I may be but a small stone thrown into the pond, but the smallest stone may see its ripples reach the edge of the water.
Something is wrong with our industry, our society, and until those whose conscience be but a nagging mosquito in their ear listen to the buzz instead of swatting it, we are but pawns in a game that has no happy ending.
The Internet has the opportunity to do what television and radio broke away from. To bring the lesson of civics to our populace. Civics classes broke into our skulls with the intellectual acumen of a scalpel, but have been abandoned in our school systems in favor of classes that can improve test scores. In attempting to leave no child behind we have left our civic duty and an ability to think in the trash compactor.
We learned as a nation how to question our government and the roles of public service. Our government serves us, but that belief is now merely a tag-line on Police cars that suppress opinion and unrest. In civics we learned how to learn. To question our government, and the healthy debate that was necessary for society.
What does this have to do with Advertising or Marketing? We are but what we put out into the system. What we create. Advertising is the driving force behind programming. It has the power to influence, but what are we using that influence to do? If it be just a myopic isolation of ourselves, and acquiring more to distract and isolate, then we have not already lost the debate, but our societal mettle.
I had been debating this issue on the Internet Oldtimers Foundation, and the debates of this sort will end up in a political balancing act betwixt the freedom in our society and choice, from that which should be dictated. That balance is necessary for all of us, but it has become skewed. There are about 10,000 individuals in this country who control about 80% of the total media influence through advertising. We can do something to help. We can change the debate. We should not be looked at as pariahs sucking money out of consumers. We should be facilitating the lives of our populace. Just the word “consumer” is insulting to our intellects.
Billions of media impressions go unused, unwanted, unsold, and I ponder as to the reasoning why they cannot be used to lift up our nation. Hope IS currency. It cannot be put into your spreadsheets. It will definitely not inspire your financial officers… but it is not wasted on us.
We have the power to influence the subtle meme’s of society. To shape them and mold them while preserving choice, preserving freedom. What we have is power, and we choose instead to focus it inward. Isolating our companies, our products, and ourselves. Rarely does the company do a “good” deed. One that has no tangible benefit to itself, or its employees. Instead opting to see the benefit to corporate image as main motivations.
The financial crisis has shown holes in our armor. That not all dynamic systems work to benefit the whole. Statistic after statistic shows the rich getting richer and the growing gap of incomes, but that is merely the effect of our ignorance. We are in a golden age of information dissemination. The internet has the power to influence, educate, a pull our nation up to one of ideals again, not just create money, but create societal wealth.
We are but mirrors for each other, and our industry. Those 10,000 individuals have a choice; do what is easy, what is comfortable, or seek to make a difference. The choice, is yours…
We have been at this turning point before. 50 years ago…
I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in catching up with us.
We are to a large extent an imitative society. If one or two or three corporations would undertake to devote just a small traction of their advertising appropriation along the lines that I have suggested, the procedure would grow by contagion; the economic burden would be bearable, and there might ensue a most exciting adventure–exposure to ideas and the bringing of reality into the homes of the nation.
To those who say people wouldn’t look; they wouldn’t be interested; they’re too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter’s opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.
This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.
Good Night. And Good Luck
Edward R. Murrow
RTNDA Convention Chicago
October 15, 1958
from the film “Good Night and Good Luck” (original was not recorded)… full original transcript below.
This just might do nobody any good. At the end of this discourse a few people may accuse this reporter of fouling his own comfortable nest, and your organization may be accused of having given hospitality to heretical and even dangerous thoughts. But the elaborate structure of networks, advertising agencies and sponsors will not be shaken or altered. It is my desire, if not my duty, to try to talk to you journeymen with some candor about what is happening to radio and television.
I have no technical advice or counsel to offer those of you who labor in this vineyard that produces words and pictures. You will forgive me for not telling you that instruments with which you work are miraculous, that your responsibility is unprecedented or that your aspirations are frequently frustrated. It is not necessary to remind you that the fact that your voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other does not confer upon you greater wisdom or understanding than you possessed when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other. All of these things you know.
If what I have to say is responsible, then I alone am responsible for the saying of it. Seeking neither approbation from my employers, nor new sponsors, nor acclaim from the critics of radio and television, I cannot well be disappointed. Believing that potentially the commercial system of broadcasting as practiced in this country is the best and freest yet devised, I have decided to express my concern about what I believe to be happening to radio and television. These instruments have been good to me beyond my due. There exists in mind no reasonable grounds for personal complaint. I have no feud, either with my employers, any sponsors, or with the professional critics of radio and television. But I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage.
Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.
For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally. If there were to be a competition in indifference, or perhaps in insulation from reality, then Nero and his fiddle, Chamberlain and his umbrella, could not find a place on an early afternoon sustaining show. If Hollywood were to run out of Indians, the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then some courageous soul with a small budget might be able to do a documentary telling what, in fact, we have done–and are still doing–to the Indians in this country. But that would be unpleasant. And we must at all costs shield the sensitive citizens from anything that is unpleasant.
I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and more mature than most of our industry’s program planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence. I have reason to know, as do many of you, that when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is–an effort to illuminate rather than to agitate.
Several years ago, when we undertook to do a program on Egypt and Israel, well-meaning, experienced and intelligent friends shook their heads and said, “This you cannot do–you will be handed your head. It is an emotion-packed controversy, and there is no room for reason in it.” We did the program. Zionists, anti-Zionists, the friends of the Middle East, Egyptian and Israeli officials said, with a faint tone of surprise, “It was a fair count. The information was there. We have no complaints.”
Our experience was similar with two half-hour programs dealing with cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Both the medical profession and the tobacco industry cooperated in a rather wary fashion. But in the end of the day they were both reasonably content. The subject of radioactive fall-out and the banning of nuclear tests was, and is, highly controversial. But according to what little evidence there is, viewers were prepared to listen to both sides with reason and restraint. This is not said to claim any special or unusual competence in the presentation of controversial subjects, but rather to indicate that timidity in these areas is not warranted by the evidence.
Recently, network spokesmen have been disposed to complain that the professional critics of television have been “rather beastly.” There have been hints that somehow competition for the advertising dollar has caused the critics of print to gang up on television and radio. This reporter has no desire to defend the critics. They have space in which to do that on their own behalf. But it remains a fact that the newspapers and magazines are the only instruments of mass communication which remain free from sustained and regular critical comment. If the network spokesmen are so anguished about what appears in print, let them come forth and engage in a little sustained and regular comment regarding newspapers and magazines. It is an ancient and sad fact that most people in network television, and radio, have an exaggerated regard for what appears in print. And there have been cases where executives have refused to make even private comment or on a program for which they were responsible until they heard’d the reviews in print. This is hardly an exhibition confidence.
The oldest excuse of the networks for their timidity is their youth. Their spokesmen say, “We are young; we have not developed the traditions nor acquired the experience of the older media.” If they but knew it, they are building those traditions, creating those precedents everyday. Each time they yield to a voice from Washington or any political pressure, each time they eliminate something that might offend some section of the community, they are creating their own body of precedent and tradition. They are, in fact, not content to be “half safe.”
Nowhere is this better illustrated than by the fact that the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission publicly prods broadcasters to engage in their legal right to editorialize. Of course, to undertake an editorial policy, overt and clearly labeled, and obviously unsponsored, requires a station or a network to be responsible. Most stations today probably do not have the manpower to assume this responsibility, but the manpower could be recruited. Editorials would not be profitable; if they had a cutting edge, they might even offend. It is much easier, much less troublesome, to use the money-making machine of television and radio merely as a conduit through which to channel anything that is not libelous, obscene or defamatory. In that way one has the illusion of power without responsibility.
So far as radio–that most satisfying and rewarding instrument–is concerned, the diagnosis of its difficulties is rather easy. And obviously I speak only of news and information. In order to progress, it need only go backward. To the time when singing commercials were not allowed on news reports, when there was no middle commercial in a 15-minute news report, when radio was rather proud, alert and fast. I recently asked a network official, “Why this great rash of five-minute news reports (including three commercials) on weekends?” He replied, “Because that seems to be the only thing we can sell.”
In this kind of complex and confusing world, you can’t tell very much about the why of the news in broadcasts where only three minutes is available for news. The only man who could do that was Elmer Davis, and his kind aren’t about any more. If radio news is to be regarded as a commodity, only acceptable when saleable, then I don’t care what you call it–I say it isn’t news.
One of the minor tragedies of television news and information is that the networks will not even defend their vital interests. When my employer, CBS, through a combination of enterprise and good luck, did an interview with Nikita Khrushchev, the President uttered a few ill-chosen, uninformed words on the subject, and the network practically apologized. This produced a rarity. Many newspapers defended the CBS right to produce the program and commended it for initiative. But the other networks remained silent.
Likewise, when John Foster Dulles, by personal decree, banned American journalists from going to Communist China, and subsequently offered contradictory explanations, for his fiat the networks entered only a mild protest. Then they apparently forgot the unpleasantness. Can it be that this national industry is content to serve the public interest only with the trickle of news that comes out of Hong Kong, to leave its viewers in ignorance of the cataclysmic changes that are occurring in a nation of six hundred million people? I have no illusions about the difficulties reporting from a dictatorship, but our British and French allies have been better served–in their public interest–with some very useful information from their reporters in Communist China.
One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles. The top management of the networks with a few notable exceptions, has been trained in advertising, research, sales or show business. But by the nature of the coporate structure, they also make the final and crucial decisions having to do with news and public affairs. Frequently they have neither the time nor the competence to do this. It is not easy for the same small group of men to decide whether to buy a new station for millions of dollars, build a new building, alter the rate card, buy a new Western, sell a soap opera, decide what defensive line to take in connection with the latest Congressional inquiry, how much money to spend on promoting a new program, what additions or deletions should be made in the existing covey or clutch of vice-presidents, and at the same time– frequently on the same long day–to give mature, thoughtful consideration to the manifold problems that confront those who are charged with the responsibility for news and public affairs.
Sometimes there is a clash between the public interest and the corporate interest. A telephone call or a letter from the proper quarter in Washington is treated rather more seriously than a communication from an irate but not politically potent viewer. It is tempting enough to give away a little air time for frequently irresponsible and unwarranted utterances in an effort to temper the wind of criticism.
Upon occasion, economics and editorial judgment are in conflict. And there is no law which says that dollars will be defeated by duty. Not so long ago the President of the United States delivered a television address to the nation. He was discoursing on the possibility or probability of war between this nation and the Soviet Union and Communist China–a reasonably compelling subject. Two networks CBS and NBC, delayed that broadcast for an hour and fifteen minutes. If this decision was dictated by anything other than financial reasons, the networks didn’t deign to explain those reasons. That hour-and-fifteen-minute delay, by the way, is about twice the time required for an ICBM to travel from the Soviet Union to major targets in the United States. It is difficult to believe that this decision was made by men who love, respect and understand news.
So far, I have been dealing largely with the deficit side of the ledger, and the items could be expanded. But I have said, and I believe, that potentially we have in this country a free enterprise system of radio and television which is superior to any other. But to achieve its promise, it must be both free and enterprising. There is no suggestion here that networks or individual stations should operate as philanthropies. But I can find nothing in the Bill of Rights or the Communications Act which says that they must increase their net profits each year, lest the Republic collapse. I do not suggest that news and information should be subsidized by foundations or private subscriptions. I am aware that the networks have expended, and are expending, very considerable sums of money on public affairs programs from which they cannot hope to receive any financial reward. I have had the privilege at CBS of presiding over a considerable number of such programs. I testify, and am able to stand here and say, that I have never had a program turned down by my superiors because of the money it would cost.
But we all know that you cannot reach the potential maximum audience in marginal time with a sustaining program. This is so because so many stations on the network–any network–will decline to carry it. Every licensee who applies for a grant to operate in the public interest, convenience and necessity makes certain promises as to what he will do in terms of program content. Many recipients of licenses have, in blunt language, welshed on those promises. The money-making machine somehow blunts their memories. The only remedy for this is closer inspection and punitive action by the F.C.C. But in the view of many this would come perilously close to supervision of program content by a federal agency.
So it seems that we cannot rely on philanthropic support or foundation subsidies; we cannot follow the “sustaining route”–the networks cannot pay all the freight–and the F.C.C. cannot or will not discipline those who abuse the facilities that belong to the public. What, then, is the answer? Do we merely stay in our comfortable nests, concluding that the obligation of these instruments has been discharged when we work at the job of informing the public for a minimum of time? Or do we believe that the preservation of the Republic is a seven-day-a-week job, demanding more awareness, better skills and more perseverance than we have yet contemplated.
I am frightened by the imbalance, the constant striving to reach the largest possible audience for everything; by the absence of a sustained study of the state of the nation. Heywood Broun once said, “No body politic is healthy until it begins to itch.” I would like television to produce some itching pills rather than this endless outpouring of tranquilizers. It can be done. Maybe it won’t be, but it could. Let us not shoot the wrong piano player. Do not be deluded into believing that the titular heads of the networks control what appears on their networks. They all have better taste. All are responsible to stockholders, and in my experience all are honorable men. But they must schedule what they can sell in the public market.
And this brings us to the nub of the question. In one sense it rather revolves around the phrase heard frequently along Madison Avenue: The Corporate Image. I am not precisely sure what this phrase means, but I would imagine that it reflects a desire on the part of the corporations who pay the advertising bills to have the public image, or believe that they are not merely bodies with no souls, panting in pursuit of elusive dollars. They would like us to believe that they can distinguish between the public good and the private or corporate gain. So the question is this: Are the big corporations who pay the freight for radio and television programs wise to use that time exclusively for the sale of goods and services? Is it in their own interest and that of the stockholders so to do? The sponsor of an hour’s television program is not buying merely the six minutes devoted to commercial message. He is determining, within broad limits, the sum total of the impact of the entire hour. If he always, invariably, reaches for the largest possible audience, then this process of insulation, of escape from reality, will continue to be massively financed, and its apologist will continue to make winsome speeches about giving the public what it wants, or “letting the public decide.”
I refuse to believe that the presidents and chairmen of the boards of these big corporations want their corporate image to consist exclusively of a solemn voice in an echo chamber, or a pretty girl opening the door of a refrigerator, or a horse that talks. They want something better, and on occasion some of them have demonstrated it. But most of the men whose legal and moral responsibility it is to spend the stockholders’ money for advertising are removed from the realities of the mass media by five, six, or a dozen contraceptive layers of vice-presidents, public relations counsel and advertising agencies. Their business is to sell goods, and the competition is pretty tough.
But this nation is now in competition with malignant forces of evil who are using every instrument at their command to empty the minds of their subjects and fill those minds with slogans, determination and faith in the future. If we go on as we are, we are protecting the mind of the American public from any real contact with the menacing world that squeezes in upon us. We are engaged in a great experiment to discover whether a free public opinion can devise and direct methods of managing the affairs of the nation. We may fail. But we are handicapping ourselves needlessly.
Let us have a little competition. Not only in selling soap, cigarettes and automobiles, but in informing a troubled, apprehensive but receptive public. Why should not each of the 20 or 30 big corporations which dominate radio and television decide that they will give up one or two of their regularly scheduled programs each year, turn the time over to the networks and say in effect: “This is a tiny tithe, just a little bit of our profits. On this particular night we aren’t going to try to sell cigarettes or automobiles; this is merely a gesture to indicate our belief in the importance of ideas.” The networks should, and I think would, pay for the cost of producing the program. The advertiser, the sponsor, would get name credit but would have nothing to do with the content of the program. Would this blemish the corporate image? Would the stockholders object? I think not. For if the premise upon which our pluralistic society rests, which as I understand it is that if the people are given sufficient undiluted information, they will then somehow, even after long, sober second thoughts, reach the right decision–if that premise is wrong, then not only the corporate image but the corporations are done for.
Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information. Let us dream to the extent of saying that on a given Sunday night the time normally occupied by Ed Sullivan is given over to a clinical survey of the state of American education, and a week or two later the time normally used by Steve Allen is devoted to a thoroughgoing study of American policy in the Middle East. Would the corporate image of their respective sponsors be damaged? Would the stockholders rise up in their wrath and complain? Would anything happen other than that a few million people would have received a little illumination on subjects that may well determine the future of this country, and therefore the future of the corporations? This method would also provide real competition between the networks as to which could outdo the others in the palatable presentation of information. It would provide an outlet for the young men of skill, and there are some even of dedication, who would like to do something other than devise methods of insulating while selling.
There may be other and simpler methods of utilizing these instruments of radio and television in the interests of a free society. But I know of none that could be so easily accomplished inside the framework of the existing commercial system. I don’t know how you would measure the success or failure of a given program. And it would be hard to prove the magnitude of the benefit accruing to the corporation which gave up one night of a variety or quiz show in order that the network might marshal its skills to do a thorough-going job on the present status of NATO, or plans for controlling nuclear tests. But I would reckon that the president, and indeed the majority of shareholders of the corporation who sponsored such a venture, would feel just a little bit better about the corporation and the country.
It may be that the present system, with no modifications and no experiments, can survive. Perhaps the money-making machine has some kind of built-in perpetual motion, but I do not think so. To a very considerable extent the media of mass communications in a given country reflect the political, economic and social climate in which they flourish. That is the reason ours differ from the British and French, or the Russian and Chinese. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.
I do not advocate that we turn television into a 27-inch wailing wall, where longhairs constantly moan about the state of our culture and our defense. But I would just like to see it reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities of the world in which we live. I would like to see it done inside the existing framework, and I would like to see the doing of it redound to the credit of those who finance and program it. Measure the results by Nielsen, Trendex or Silex-it doesn’t matter. The main thing is to try. The responsibility can be easily placed, in spite of all the mouthings about giving the public what it wants. It rests on big business, and on big television, and it rests at the top. Responsibility is not something that can be assigned or delegated. And it promises its own reward: good business and good television.
Perhaps no one will do anything about it. I have ventured to outline it against a background of criticism that may have been too harsh only because I could think of nothing better. Someone once said–I think it was Max Eastman–that “that publisher serves his advertiser best who best serves his readers.” I cannot believe that radio and television, or the corporation that finance the programs, are serving well or truly their viewers or listeners, or themselves.
I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in catching up with us.
We are to a large extent an imitative society. If one or two or three corporations would undertake to devote just a small traction of their advertising appropriation along the lines that I have suggested, the procedure would grow by contagion; the economic burden would be bearable, and there might ensue a most exciting adventure–exposure to ideas and the bringing of reality into the homes of the nation.
To those who say people wouldn’t look; they wouldn’t be interested; they’re too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter’s opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.
This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.
Good Night. And Good Luck.
Edward R. Murrow
RTNDA Convention Chicago
October 15, 1958
What kind of agency would you create?
Posted by: seanxc on: November 16, 2009
A friend of mine and I were debating about the kind of agency we would create. “Agencies are broken, we all know that.” Yes, we do. But what caused them to break? and is it within our power to fix? Can we fix existing ones? or has the model shifted so rapidly that the only way to fix the problem to burn Rome?
Unfortunately I am a proponent of the latter. Burn the whole agency model. It is not only broken but preventing us from moving forward. It sits there as a wounded animal sucking resources and life from everything around it. Like the nemesis in an action film. Just die already!
But, alas, there are several limiting factors to burning Rome.
People. There is a dearth of talent, true talent in the ad business. Making the situation worse is that there is even a bigger hole client-side. We have spent the past 20 years of innovation and pushing boundaries, and replaced it with myopic statisticians who so concentrate on the miniscule that they slowly drive their brand to inequity. Corporations reward the luddite. The one who does not rock the boat. The lack of risk taker, and that modality is carried down the line. Agencies have turned from creative run powerhouses, to consultant run idiocracies.
People with no talent can get paid more being big shot somewhere else – same as with brands, when we scooped those people that did not fit into the little force fit mold of most major corporations.
Once again, with the CMO shift we will have to wait for the next generation. Oh, you many have one of two pop up, but every-time a new agency concept gets traction, one of the big holding companies swoops in, inserts process, their process, the talent leaves and the agency is shell of what it was.
That is because, fundamentally we do not have a real good scalable model. The business, the core of the business is people. Why anyone invests in the advertising business is beyond me. Invest in models that are scalable, not personality driven.
We may find ways to replace people with technology when it comes to analytic systems, do more with less. We may even be able to replace some production people with automated systems, but there are two positions which will always require people (at least for the foreseeable future) 1. Creatives 2. Account. We may get to a system where media becomes automated to the extent that people become almost unnecessary, but THAT is the problem. The stakes are so high for some brands that it is the differences that help push them over the hill, that human touch, huiman insight in media that makes it a success.
If you already have a brand, and you want to make your current process as efficient as possible, technology can do that. You can tweak, modify and extract every last drop from that stone, but in the end you’ll have the most efficiently running stone possible. The problem? The stone gets eroded over time. Its a friggen stone. If you start with a stone, you end up with a smoother stone, but you do not change the game. You do not advance. You erode.
The miracle of advertising is the ability to grow the stone, to give you more leeway and inefficiency to play with, to gamble and not have it hurt you, to reinvest. But the miracle of advertising requires people. If you want to move the curve of your rock you need human insight. Actually it only requires ONE great mind with ONE great insight, (think of them as the scriptwriter) but in order to get at that result, we have to start with a lot of great minds to get that insight. (the writers group) And more often than not those minds miss terribly.
You see, advertising has become an industry run by committee. It has become a chaos product subject to a law of normalization. Warning: Math Tangent! In any chaotic system with multiple variable inputs that system normalizes.
Any system becomes more stable with more variable inputs added to the same construct because the variability of the individual inputs tend to be less variable than one input.
When you gather a group of people together and say think outside the box you are defeating the actual purpose of doing so. Brainstorming sessions were obviously created by someone who had the creativity of a stone. You see, they want to be creative so badly, want their idea be the one that comes out of committee so they can get the promotion. It’s the only way they can.
Why do you think “consultants” at the top consulting firms always organize these exercises? It makes them look good.
They are merely exercises an agency uses to keep the client placated into believing they have input. If you are really using your clients as genuine idea generation then you are a hopelessly lost agency.
Which brings me to the point. How do you structure an agency in this new paradigm? You let it form organically, but not chaotically. Most smaller agencies are formed as constructs to the functions that their first couple clients need. That is because they can only afford to hire on an as needed basis.
Stop trying to grow too quickly. Expand slowly. Do not take on clients that are more than 20% of your total billing. It will not serve your long term goals. You need to be able to tell the client, and client, to “fuck off” and take their money. If you are not able to do that, then your agency is a slave to your clients, and you are not free to do the work that will push our industry forward.
You, have become what I abhor, a leech on the ad industry. An extractor from the system. Just die already!
AIR Marketing
Sean X currently serves as the Chief Digital Strategist of AIR Marketing.
About Sean X
Sean X Cummings is a recognized leader and expert on Internet marketing and advertising, with over 100 published articles and 30 speaking engagements.For over 15 years Sean X has worked as an award winning digital strategist, and has be one of the 100 executives featured on DishyMix: Podcast Famous Executives.
Noted for his inspirational style and ability to motivate employees and management, he is eagerly sought after as a dynamic thinker, speaker and writer, helping to educate brands, agencies, and vendors on how to best leverage emerging and existing advertising and marketing technologies.
Contact Sean X
For a complimentary 30-minute initial consultation for your brand, agency, or project email Sean X at sxc at me dot com or call 415.694.9514.Real Branding
Sean X also consults for Real Branding as Social Media and Analytics Tsar. If you require the services of a full service digital strategic agency email Sean X at sxc at me dot com and he will assess what you need and connect you with the right people.I believe in Kiva.org
