Like the mythical double-headed serpent, advertising is in a process of rebirth. This can be attributed to an overcrowded internet, hell-bent on engagement, and a resurrection of creative advertising focused on long-term brand building.
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I recently performed a google search using the queue — crap internet content — which returned 2,770,000 results in 0.68 seconds. This statistic alone should speak volumes about the current state of the internet and the questionable quality of the content that is pumped out for public consumption. With so much underwhelming, misdirected, me-too, and opinion-stated-as-fact content available for consumption, it’s no wonder our attention spans are being reduced to microseconds.
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Recently I attended Colorado Ad Day on the CU Boulder campus. Steve Babcock, Chief Creative Officer for Vayner Media, presented his thoughts on creating and producing branded content. Steve is an advocate of producing “show approach pilots” much the same way that networks produce episode pilots to measure audience engagement and interest.
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McKinsey and Company recently published “An incumbent’s guide to digital disruption.” In the guide, they suggest that all incumbent businesses are susceptible to digital disruption and the four phases that executives should be aware of and plan for so as not to go the way of the dodo bird. Siting examples for the music, newspaper, and travel industries, McKinsey charts the path of creative disruption. Below is my interpretation for small to mid-sized B-to-B firms, having lived through digital’s onslaught of the advertising business.
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In today’s cluttered marketing environment, standing out from the competition has become more challenging. Everywhere we turn, thousands of brands are vying for our limited attention span. This overload has conditioned us to be hyper-sensitive to brand messaging delivered through advertising, POP marketing, and social media platforms, or as I prefer to call it, our “BS” meters are working overtime.
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In the not too distant past, social media was embraced by brands as a conduit to engage with users in hopes of creating a personal relationship. Diaper brands embraced mommy bloggers, food brands created recipe sharing websites, Facebook created the wall where users posted enhanced digital profiles of their exploits and lives. Titans of corporations envisioned social media as a way to reduce advertising costs because in their view, social media was free. Free in the sense of no media expenditures, content was provided by the users and as a bonus it came with a rudimentary form of ROI based on likes, opens and click-through rates.
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It seems that the entire advertising ecosphere has become infected with the cheaper/better virus.
Startups think that agile marketing can introduce their idea/App/product exclusively through social media. Thinking that social media can be scaled and user comments controlled to reach and influence the intended target audience with enough impressions to influence the next round of investor backing is naive.
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As demonstrated in the recent presidential election, a simple statement that created an emotional connection with millions of voters undid big data analysis. You may be asking how did this happen and how was it misdiagnosed?
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For all of the resources that companies are pouring into automating the customer’s journey, many are falling woefully behind in training their frontline personnel in the automated customer service process.
Automating back office customer service functions is nothing new. Companies are obsessed with efficiency, implementing automated customer service systems, and reducing head count as a way to increase efficiency and reduce cost.
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We’ve grown accustomed to believing that the search and social media platforms on the internet are a free service. The truth, however, resides in the fact that paid advertising on those mammoth digital platforms keeps all those bits and bytes flowing in and out of your smart phone, tablet, and desktop computer.
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Life After Advertising 2.0 