May 23, 2005
food for thought:
From an interview between The Hollywood Reporter and American Express Global Brand Director, John Hayes:
THR: And, of course, to every project you say yes to, you have to say no to dozens of others.
Hayes: Absolutely. There’s one other trend I think is worth noting — a few weeks ago, I asked a group to tell me about their favorite Starbucks commercial.
THR: The point being, there are none.
Hayes: Somebody said, “Well, they’re on every corner, they don’t need one.” But 10 years ago, they weren’t on any corner. Brands are not being built on advertising. You’re seeing this with more and more companies. If you fly Jet Blue, you talk about the experience. That’s how you build brands today, through experiences.
Thanks to Modern Marketing for the link, and for also supplying this doozie:
However, old-school ad boys like Mark Wnek think that the ad industry will take all this in it’s stride, because as he states in today’s Independent, the web is really just a “canvas for commercial messaging”.
Wnek believes that ad guys will just turn their skills effortlessly from one medium to the next. After all, he points out, “Who will fill these canvases in a way that excites consumers? The creative ladies and gentlemen who live in advertising agencies, that’s who.”
I’d make a comment if I weren’t so distracted by all the Schadenfreude welling up inside me.
Impressive to get that insight from a “mainstream” marketer like Amex … not surprising though to see a comment like Wnek’s. A blank canvas for commercial messaging? I think he’s ignoring the fact that the canvas has already got works of art on it — and the one’s that people are interested in aren’t commercials.
nice term…Schadenfreude — there’s also my mother’s favorite phrase — pride goeth before a fall…
having a canvas and being seen/heard is a very large chasm to cross.…lots of starving artists/writers…soon to be lots of starving adliens…
More meteors
The Times says advertisers are unhappy with business as usual from their agencies.
The Hollywood Reporter quotes Amex’s John Hayes saying the 30 second spot is dead (‘tell me about your favorite Starbucks commercial.’).
This Internet thing… it’s a …
The same scumbags who would call the web a “canvas for commercial messaging” also most likely see the human consciousness as a “blank slate to imprint hyperbolic brainwashing commercial messages upon”.
The web is a global communications and networking platform, and now, thanks to blogs, it is democratic, universal, and revolutionary.
Consumers are talking to each other about products, and are not listening to ad agencies anymore. Ad agencies could rarely prove statistically that their crap “worked” anyway.
Television commercials generally repulse me, and the more a product is advertised on television, the more I hate it.
I cannot think of a single item I have ever purchased due to seeing a television commercial about it. Car commercials are the absolute worst, IMHO.
And I’ve worked in advertising since 1978, but it has been mostly quantifiable direct marketing, promoting products to lists of proven buyers, people who have expressed a pre-existing interest in the product.
LOL…we fiddle with our templates while the City of Advertising burns to the ground.
It was nice when you could site Starbucks as a company that “doesn’t advertise.” That’s no longer true, though. They have billboards and display ads in print media now. I’ll give them credit for resisting enormous pressures to advertise but it’s over, folks — they caved.
I’m Sorry, He’s In A Meeting. Can I Take A Message?
Ad Guy #1: Hey, I know. Let’s meet. Then we can spend two hours making doodles while looking busy. Ad Guy #2: Excellent! Cartoon courtesy of Hugh MacLeod.…
I grew up in a very small town, without much money.
A lot of shopping was done through catalogs — from good old Sears (the big thick ones) to very niche-market outfits that had to be careful with their mailing lists so as not to print too many newsletters.
Sure, TV advertising was a constant presence, and I can still remember many a jingle — but out there in the sticks, the products that were big enough to get that coverage didn’t have much to do with our lives. McDonald’s or Burger King? We had neither. Coke or Pepsi? Whichever one’s in the soda fountain.
But the catalogs, we did love the catalogs. Window shopping on the john, National Geographic and Great Pacific Chouinard, taking the time to really think about what you want because you couldn’t buy very much anyway and you’d be too polite to return anything that didn’t fit.
Maybe internet marketing, blog marketing, is more like those catalogs and less like TV.
The tradition continues, and most of the really good ones combine a compelling story, a personal touch, a physical catalog and the web. And real human beings who believe in what they’re selling and are eager to talk to their customers.
Some faves: Professional Cutlery Direct at http://www.cutlery.com/ and Upton Tea at http://www.uptontea.com/ — plus Manufactum here in Europe (in German) at http://www.manufactum.de/
Reckless prediction: all three of them will be blogging within a year.
i am an idiot and i am lead by richard simmons