Comments

Tom,

This is one of your best yet! Impressions, Impressions, Impressions. I'm as tired of it as you are ;) Lets change things.

Dave Morin
Student/Peer-To-Peer Marketing Manager
Apple

Posted by Dave Morin at December 20, 2004 3:40 AM

Steve:

I agree that there is just too much interruption marketing going on in the US nowadays. But it used to work before right? That's why people are still doing it.

And if it worked before then the same method of interrupting customers might still work for developing countries where the marketing noise level is not that high. What do you think?

Dennis Balajadia
Philippines

Posted by Dennis Balajadia at December 20, 2004 4:50 AM

Marketing seems to be stuck in old tired models - to me too much means that I'd NEVER buy or recommend some items! Seems like marketing departments at times just go through the motions - with no REGARD FOR ROI!

Posted by Freeman at December 20, 2004 7:43 AM

Steve, love the Post, but I must ruefully admit that I was a "share-of-eyeball" Lurker & Popper-Into-View sort with prospective girlfriends.

Posted by tom peters at December 20, 2004 8:12 AM

Steve : If the agency is making that pitch and the client is buying it ( that's obvious else you wouldn't have seen those ads!) Who is at fault - the guy who sold or the guy who bought? More importantly what's the alternative? In today's media option explosion, isn't the possibility of being seen POSITIVELY a great idea?

Posted by R.Srinivasan at December 20, 2004 8:20 AM

Steve, This a great example. You can see that marketing approches have changed or at least should do from a cognitive perspective, where people are moved by the visual signs they are offered, to a much more complicated field, the realm of affective attachments.

It´s the jump from a sensory experience to a fully emotional engagement. I think this shift in the way marketers should build a relation with their clients is very important.

From exhibitionism to caring. Great post!

Posted by felix gerena at December 20, 2004 10:11 AM

Dave - Flattered you think I'm Tom, but I'm Steve! Glad you agree with the post!

Dennis - Good question, about developing countries. I guess it depends on which countries ... In general, people are much more savvy and less gullible than before, and even in developing countries there is so much more access to information ... these are the trends that make "Brute Force Branding" less effective. ALso ... the marketing noise level is high just about everywhere! (I have a client who is on a 10 day silent meditation retreat ... he's about the only person I know who is avoiding the noise right now!)

Freeman - you're right ... going through the motions and running ads is easy ... creating Brand Harmony is hard.

Tom - did it work?

R. - I think they are both at fault! And I don't think "just being seen" is always positive. Overload leads to sensory apathy.

Felix - Yes, exhibitionism isn't marketing. (And it's no way to attract girlfriends, to circle back to our metaphor.) It's actually a pretty good metaphor. As Marti Barletta showed us all at Tom's Reimagine Summit last week, women consider more variables when making decisions ... the "fully emotional engagement" Felix rights about.

Posted by Steve Yastrow at December 20, 2004 12:35 PM

Sorry Steve! I dropped you a line via email. I was a little excitable about the post and ripped off a comment too quickly ;) Would love to chat!

Posted by Dave Morin at December 20, 2004 3:37 PM

Steve,

I think that what you are seeking is a shift in mindset. Businesses must look at marketing differently. I agree -they need to understand that ads are a part - but only a small part of the entire picture - and take more of a minor role than many currently believe.

Posted by Caroline at December 21, 2004 12:12 PM

Steve,

I think that what you are seeking is a shift in mindset. Businesses must look at marketing differently. I agree -they need to understand that ads are a part - but only a small part of the entire picture - and take more of a minor role than many currently believe.

Posted by Caroline at December 21, 2004 12:12 PM

Steve,
As a former agency COO, I know that agencies are always looking for that new and unique way to get in-front of target audiences. I am sure that the media department that reccomended this buy was spot-on with the macro demographics of the America West traveler. Your point however is right on. The agency belief that you have to scream your message as loud as possible and hope that somebody that cares is listenging is hurting more than helping the brand in many cases. I heard a comment recently that we are entering into an anti-marketing era (no-call lists, tivo, spam filters) and with invasive advertising like this you can understand why.

Posted by Will at December 22, 2004 6:32 PM

Team - I was thinking...there are similiarities in the inappropriate use of this technology just as there are in the Texas realtor question/comment. The headline is we need to stop trying to avoid the loss [reach/frequency] and embrace technology to enable us to help consumers "get to their emotional reality - feel the way they want to feel." ...NOT tell them what to do.

A thought I had for planes was that companies could sponsor the technology and programming to set up connections with travelers and their desire to generate social capital. You have the consumers right there - the right target audience, the BoBos as David Brooks calls them. Set up an alliance with Bill Drayton's Ashoka organization, or other cause marketing efforts that are more closely related to their own lives.

OR another approach could be to have personal digitial assists at every seat that make daily life easier for everyone, e.g., the ability to place grocery orders, dry cleaning pick-up, dinner for that night...whatever..make the silly trip productive personally. I just read where there are going to be drive-thru supercenters going up in Arizona - start an alliance.

Stop going for eyeballs and go for enhancement, go for making your consumers "feel" a certain way, start making your products secondary to your consumer...and we won't be interrupted by sh*t but rather be free to enjoy our passions because we are no longer worried about so much - someone else is [a computer chip] ...again, i'm just tossing ideas around.

Posted by Wendy at December 23, 2004 2:34 AM

Steve: We've blogged about this specific program as well and it speaks to the two, very different futures of the advertising business. Either way, it will certainly include a pretty seismic shift in the agency business. And this is before we add things like AI shopping bots, who won't be influenced by advertising of any kind! Simply moving the 30 second spot from TV to the aisles of a retail store won't cut it. Renaming the 30 second spot "branded content" probably isn't going to be a long terms answer. Forcing people to look at an ad while strapped into an airplane seat isn't going to create a positive, emotional attachment with a company. Advertising is either going to be a future of noise, where we simply hunt the audience down and club them over the head with our message; or a future of engagement, where the audience wants to participate in the experience. It will be interesting to see which future wins!

Posted by David Polinchock at December 27, 2004 12:34 AM