
How the Mad Men Lost the Plot - zbravo
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/cd1722ba-8333-11e5-8e80-1574112844fd.html#axzz3qWkMqSSR
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thisjustinm
Both sides in this debate, those in favor of "traditional" ads and those in
favor or digital ad have a point but I think where things are going lies
somewhere in the middle which will end up irking the zealots on either side.

The big egos of traditional advertising will be upset because not everyone on
earth will have seen their latest "big idea." This is due in no small part to
overall media fragmentation which digital (or the internet) but also cable
have played big parts. When that Coke ad aired in 1971 how many channels were
there? Maybe 6? Of course a large portion of the population was going to see
your ad.

And on the digital side they'll have to accept that measurement isn't the be-
all-end-all. Between crazy amounts of fraudulent data and the simple fact that
creativity and "brand awareness" are really, really tough to quantify they'll
have to concede that sometimes the traditional thinking around creative work
and "big ideas" will need to win out over analytics.

Source: worked for several years in advertising on the creative side and then
on the tech side (and part of the problem is that those two departments are,
well, departments but that's a story for another time...)

~~~
corin_
Couldn't agree more. You wrote the comment I wanted to write but hadn't got
round to starting on. The only thing I'd add is that whether in traditional or
digital, an awful lot of guesswork is needed to even know how well something
performed, yet alone how something will perform in the future.

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kator
Reading this article when the author says:

    
    
      “the most effective advertisements of all are those with little or no rational content”
    

I thought of:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Isuzu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Isuzu)

Imagine that, ads I saw 30 years ago just popped into my head.

I have to admit I'm in adTech and when people ask me what the highest impact
is to any campaign's success I don't talk about the next machine learning
algorithm my data science team is working on. I talk about the creative, it's
all about the creative (or message). I can find the perfect time, to show the
perfectly matched advertisement to a single person, but if the creative
doesn't connect with that person I'm just wasting the advertisers money and
the person's time.

~~~
qbrass
Sure you remember the ads, but did you buy an Isuzu?

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whatever_dude
Digital advertising as we know it is just dying and most people know it, or
has suspicions. It is slow but it is happening. Certain players are getting
better at extracting what they can from it, but the system is moving in such a
way that online "advertising" will be considered a really shady business in
the long term. It's not just that people hate, and don't click banners; it's
because it just doesn't do much for the big brands, and their budget is what
moves the needle of what big Advertising companies do.

Apple's move towards blocking ads may help fasten it, but it's not about them.
It's something that's bigger and already in motion.

Big brands are starting to understand that what they want is not to force
someone into seeing their name, but to create something that people actually
want to use. Be it an application, be it a service. And not force "INSTALL OUR
APP!" into someone's screen. For a good example, Coke's new app that allows
you to customize the drink you can get from their machine. Or Mountain Dew's
fidelity program tracking app. Baby steps, but it's actually something
_useful_. Regardless of what you think of soda or soda drinkers, those are a
actual services that some people would find convenient, and would help tie
them to the brand.

Traditional advertising is a one-way, in-your-face kind of deal, and it works
for brand awareness, especially for new consumers (kids). But with the
technology we have today, it makes little sense to move that online. We have
learned to ignore it. Sure, the internet had to do it, and it helped it grow.
But now people are tired. We grew used to it. Most brands are now
understanding that there's more they can do with the medium, and finding their
way out of that death spiral.

I've worked in advertising for ~17 years, nearly my whole career. Finally got
out of it and couldn't be happier. Work was fine and my coworkers were great
people (there ARE good advertising agencies out there). But it was easy to see
it was a dead-end street.

~~~
jkyle
Considering the world's greatest talent seems to go to either Finance or
Selling Ads, I'm not sure the death of advertising is nigh. Though the nature
of advertising is certainly changing.

~~~
smacktoward
On the other hand, a Ph.D. wouldn't have helped King Canute turn back the
tide...

~~~
david-given
On the gripping hand, Canute knew full well that he couldn't turn back the
tide --- he was demonstrating to his courtiers that even kings had limits; not
all orders are obeyable.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_waves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_waves)

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13thLetter
Really good article, but what I found myself thinking was: didn't we already
know all this?

It's been common advertising wisdom for years that the benefit of brand
advertising is simply awareness. Person is in store, person doesn't know which
thing to get and doesn't really care that much, brand name pops into their
head because the ad had that catchy jingle or adorable cat in it, they pick up
that one and go on with their lives.

Perhaps the great delusion was that most people care enough about their
purchasing choices of mundane items to "engage" with brands. That's never been
true and it's continued to not be true, despite the construction of a vast new
internet advertising industry focused around nothing but brand engagement at
all costs.

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Domenic_S
"People don't want to engage with brands"

I've said this for years, ever since I started seeing twitter and facebook
logos on things like ketchup and cereal. Here's one I just saw: who wants to
"engage" with C&H SUGAR of all things? [https://instagram.com/p/9JVo-
gpvQw/](https://instagram.com/p/9JVo-gpvQw/)

The only companies that make money from plastering twitter and facebook logos
on stuff are ... twitter and facebook.

~~~
Pyxl101
If those social media accounts function as an expedited way to get customer
service, then people are indeed interested in engaging with them. That seems
to be one of the popular uses of Twitter for brands these days: a way to
escalate complaints that aren't getting attention through usual channels.

~~~
ghaff
I've also personally run across cases where I was bitching about some aspect
of the service at a hotel or whatever. Not trying to get customer support
necessarily, but just complaining--e.g. the network went out for 2 hours this
afternoon. And I've had people from the main hotel customer service reach out
and put some points in my account or whatever.

It's not a huge deal but this sort of thing can move experiences from black
marks to something even mildly positive.

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danans
I think the article has a point that brand advertising is more about inserting
your brand into the culture than convincing people that your product is
better.

It misses the fact, however, that there are more media than ever for inserting
ideas - not just brands - into the culture. These are all competing for
people's low-cognitive-load "buy" responses.

Most of these alternative media are digital, but some are also hybrid
digital/word-of-mount campaigns that move through specific class subdivisions
of society. As an example, I have never seen a Nespresso ad (I've heard they
exist) but we are heavy users of that product.

Edit: more thoughts.

Another issue is that people have learned to be skeptical of traditional TV
brand advertising because it is so broadly targeted. Especially for
traditional brands that people often find passé.

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hammock
_> Applying a statistical analysis to sales data, he demonstrates that the
majority of any successful brand’s sales comes from “light buyers”: people who
buy it relatively infrequently. Coca-Cola’s business is not built on a
hardcore of Coke lovers who drink it daily, but on the millions of people who
buy it once or twice a year. _

Having not read the book referenced, I haven't seen the data. But this seems
to go against the Pareto Principle AKA 80/20 Rule which suggests 80% of your
sales come from 20% of your (heaviest) customers, and against my own anecdotal
experience as a marketer.

~~~
slg
I think what is meant is that those loyal (20%) Coke drinkers will continue to
drink Coke regardless. There is no reason to focus on them. You are also
probably not going to be able to convince someone who never drinks Coke to
start drinking Coke. There is no reason to focus on them. That means the best
area for marginal sales is those people who occasionally drink it. Getting
those people to choose Coke slightly more often is probably the most efficient
way to increase sales and is the method around which Coke builds its business.

~~~
kbenson
That makes sense, but it's not specifically what the quote says. The quote
seems to be referencing total sales, and this sounds more like converted sales
(for lack of knowing the best term to use).

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Apocryphon
So is digital marketing/online ads the bubble that SV is currently founded
upon, not VC overvaluations? It seems like in the event of a recession, and
companies not being able to spend as much as they have on ads, would have a
huge resonance cascade on a lot of startup business models.

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habitue
Maybe TV is an ideal medium for brand awareness campaigns, but it simply won't
have a large enough audience at some point. It seems like these marketers
jumped on digital during the hype phase, and were just ahead of the curve. Now
they're in the "trough of disillusionment", but eventually the number of
eyeballs on TV will go below the point of cost effectiveness and digital will
be what they have to use out of necessity.

~~~
msbarnett
The article points out that "eyeballs on TV" hasn't dropped nearly as much as
people thought it was going to 10 years ago. They're spread out over more
channels, but watching as much TV as ever (and skipping ads _less_ than they
used to).

~~~
habitue
The article says people who watch TV watch as many hours as they used to. It's
not true that as many people watch TV as they used to. I don't think there's a
good reason to think TV viewership will go anywhere but down over time

In any case, I'm not saying we're there yet

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subliminalzen
The issue isn't so much about which marketing channel works best (i.e.
traditional vs digital) but about the psychological levers of persuassion.
People don't like "conversing" and "engaging" with brands. That's why social
media doesn't work. Social media is supposed to be social and not commercial.

As the article said, it's low cognitive involvement that works best, not brand
loyalty. That's why advertisers are using the Low Attention Processing
Model.[1] With this particular advertising strategy, brand information is
'acquired' at low and even zero attention levels using implicit learning.[2]
Implicit learning cannot analyse or re-interpret anything. The information
goes directly to the subconscious mind.

If so, then we are silently influenced by ambient images and messages around
us. Advertisers could be affecting our decision making and even outlook on
life in ways we can't perceive. This has been the driving inspiration for
these posters I designed:
[http://subliminalzen.com](http://subliminalzen.com).

Essentially, if anyone is going to advertise to my subconscious mind, it's
going to be me. And I'd rather acquire positive habits and character traits
than an emotional connection to a product.

[1]
[http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...](http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=364813&fileId=S0021849905050282)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_learning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_learning)

