Kevin’s cure for the economy is advertising. According to Roberts the country needs to advertise its way back to financial health.
Now why does that not surprise me?
Along with other flamboyant ideas I have heard him utter this is an absolute pearler. His New Zealand Herald article sounds more like a small boy whistling in the dark than words of wisdom
Put aside for a moment the obvious self serving motivation for this commentary and consider what he is suggesting.
If advertising can get us out of this mess then it would be fair to ask what part did it play in getting us here in the first place?
To be fair to Kev he doesn’t explain what he means by advertising but let me give you my definition; advertising is ‘paid skiting’. If the advertising industry was booming (which it isn’t) then his comments might make sense and I quote…
“Too often it's claimed that advertising is all about selling people stuff they don't want and need. If it had been that dumb and short-term advertising would have been up against the wall decades ago.”
…(which was about when advertising did indeed start its fitful dive.) Advertising right now is more than ‘dumb and short term’ (in general) it is also expensive, ineffective and for the most part poorly executed.
Recent statistics from the Fournaise Marketing Group a firm, which specializes in tracking, measuring and auditing the real-time performance of global marketing and advertising campaigns refute what Kevin is saying. The January 2009 WARC news article claims that ‘as much as 60% of all tracked advertising expenditure worldwide during 2008 failed to deliver the results expected by its marketers and can therefore be considered wasted.’
Business needs to build brands of value rather than advertise.
My definition of a brand is a ‘reputation’. We are in a value crisis not an advertising crisis. Brands are built with advocacy not advertising, because when consumers buy something of extraordinary value they talk it up to friends and family. Word of mouth is the most potent form of ‘advertising’, it always has been and probably always will be.
But don’t let me stop you form reading Kevin’s article it should provoke a hearty belly laugh. Perhaps he has shares in APN?
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2 comments:
There is the apocryphal story of the businessman who needed to cut costs so looked at his advertising budget. He stated that whilst he knew only half his advertising worked, the problem was he didn't know which half. So what to do?
Is advertising really the failure that Brandanaman postulates? What exactly is "advertising", when and where does it meld with "branding" and what validity does it retain in the current environment?
There is certainly the "paid skiting" element in advertising. We see that often masquerading as "branding" in the self-congratulatory "Proud to be associated with/ sponsors off..." pap disseminated by usually, but not always, corporates. The recent sick-making New World/NZ Netball TV campaign is an example of this.
In another sense advertising can be seen as "news" about Product, Price, Availability and Location. This is its overt commercial face. So too the magnificent posters by Toulouse-Lautrec promoting the Moulin Rouge. Art yes, but also commercial advertising for sure.
In a further sense advertising can be seen as "notification", as in births, deaths and marriages, council road closures and jobs available notices. This is its (usually) non-commercial face. The puffery and pomposity evident in many over-written job ads does however tend toward the hype usually associated with commercial PPAL.
Then there is the advertising which transcends the dull retail and short term campaign PPAL work plaguing our life and wider media experience. This is the stuff of legend and true creative genius, the work with tangible and identifiable results in the market which both produces sales and builds brands.
"The Man in the Hathaway Shirt" print campaign is a prime example. In September 1951 Hathaway ran the first of a series of full page ads in the New Yorker magazine featuring Baron George Wrangell complete with eyepatch wearing a new shirt. The creative and placement were outstanding. The sales and branding results were phenomenal.
The 1960's VW Beetle "Lemon" US print campaign is another example of the sublime linking of advertising and branding. It's perhaps the most successful brand establishing promotion of all time. A key element in both of these examples was simplicity. Whilst DDB was rolling out the VW campaign it was also delivering the monumentally successful Avis Rent-A-Car "We try harder" sales AND branding promotion.
Obviously there was a convergence of creative brilliance and market cognisance at the same time at DDB.
These time-honoured examples prove that advertising and branding are NOT mutually exclusive in the same work and can achieve the dual purpose of increasing immediate sales uptake and long term consumer brand based loyalty.
A recent campaign which to my mind is the perfect mutually supporting example of advertising and brand building comes from Holland. Yes lads, you all know it! Featuring the sexiest brunette ever to grace our TV screens its the "Moccona heft mir mmmm" campaign from a couple of years back. Good on Douwe-Egberts for the courage and nous to understand the melding principle.
As to validity...yes, there is a need to continue to advertise. But the standards of truth must be re-examined. There is objective and subjective truth. Right now we need more of the former.
So now to Our Kev..."Labour isn't Working" remains one of the great advertising/branding campaigns of recent times, subsequently emulated in various jurisdictions. Some may argue that a decade of the grocer's daughter was not the ideal outcome in the big picture, but it was surely the desired outcome of the creative and placement. Oh that the use of billboards could be so majestic today.
But alas Our Kev was not part of Snatchit and Snatchit at the time.He is more recently noted for the jingoistic All Black jumbo, dining with Helen and of course promoting himself as saviour of the nation. As to shares in APN, given Tony O'Reilly's troubles would you really want them? Still, Our Kev is probably lovemarked up enough to believe that the fatuousness evident on the NZ page of the LM web-site represents keen insight and true understanding.
Jeez, get a life people.
I am not a number! I am a free man.
any links to the Fournaise Marketing Group contrarian research? I'd like to be able to beat the bosses up with it. Without it, it's just so much opinion though
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