squawk,for,change,but,don,real marketing We squawk for change – but we don’t really mean it!

Awhile ago, I got an email from one of the "gurus" I follow and it shocked me. The gist of it was this person wanted to trade services for a household item.To say it floored me would be an understatement.What was worse was a few days later t Automation technologies represent a fundamental aspect of any modern industry. The major types of industrial automation solutions, such as DCS, PLC, SCADA, and MES, are used on a large-scale in process and discrete industries.DCS technologie

Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;mso-para-margin:0cm;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} The sharpest decline in billings, in 2009, occurred.  Billingsdeclined 7.5%, now that’s the sharpest decline since 1944! And cracks are starting to appear in the already complexrelationship between Agencies and Clients. Everybody appears to be getting in everybody else’sbusiness, which is confusing for Clients and creates new competition forAgencies. One problem is compensation.   Go back 10, 15 years ago and people knew how to pay a traditional Agency,but now it’s very hard.  What do you payto get someone to set up a Facebook page? Plus the fact that there are still a lot of questions within thecorporate world about the power of advertising, then there’s impatience forefficiency and effectiveness with little or no compromise towards deliveryeither.   There are higher expectationsof accountability from Clients! Measurement, instead of being apowerful enabler, is becoming a source of tension, particularly when viewedthrough the lens of the false construct above. If agencies embrace, lead,drive, integrate and make measurement an intrinsic part of their product, theywill immediately change their value perception to marketers. However, today itseems that research and analytics (most notably in creative agencies) is seenas the enemy designed to kill the opportunity for creativity. Creative agencies have been marginalized. They have enabled massive inefficiency driven by duplication and, sadly,have enabled open strife and conflict in full view of marketers, which onlyserves to diminish the value of all agency parties in the eye of marketers. Theholding companies need to confront this issue fast or they risk beingmarginalized. Agencies need to collaborate amongst themselves to create client-focusedvalue vs. playing out strife in public view of their clients. This is killingagency credibility and value among marketers. One of the problems is the fact that no new thinking has emerged fromAdvertising Agencies despite all the head scratching…Simply put …nothing.  Advertising Agencies are still dancing on thehead of a pin called a 30’ TVcommercial.  The really terrifying aspectof all this is that advertising agencies have come up with no new ideas as tohow to combat clutter; or even customer mistrust and outright avoidance oftraditional advertising. As somebody said to us the other day the attitude withinadvertising agencies still is “The answer is a TV commercial, - what’s yourquestion?” And if they can then load the TV production cost by hiringan outlandishly expensive Hollywoodmovie director, so much the better. It satisfies all the egos involved, but,and here is the real weird thing, the consumer couldn’t care less about whodirects the commercial, all they wanted was the right information that wouldallow them to like and need the product. Junk Mail is alive and growing. Who ever said “The more things change the more they remainthe same” was spot on when applying that maxim to the advertising world! Clutter. That dreadful word that came into vogue in thelate 1960s and was applied to the proliferation of advertising messages theconsumer could be exposed to during the course of his or her working day.  More accurately the term was “commercialclutter”, however we much prefer “meaningless noise” Well the growth of digital TV and Radio, together with theproliferation of TV channels means that “clutter” has become a downright delugeof information…of all sorts, and still the Advertising World has no answer tothe problem, and, frankly, they don’t want it to end. To the advertisingagencies “commercial clutter” means bigger profits, so stuff the Client andlets get more messages out there! We live in an over informed society and people everywhereare turning away from the commercial information spewed out from all media, itis of no interest or relevance to them at all! But the real insidious problem is the fact that we squawkfor change – but they just don’t mean it! The ugly truth is that change means loss of profits and cuts,cuts and more cuts.  That’s whyAdvertising Agencies don’t want anything to do with change. Change is the buzz-word; change the chorus; change thecry.   This said an advertising agencyfriend of mine is the advertising era cry for the moment. But no it isn’t. It’s anything-but-change advertising. It’s head-in-the-sand advertising. It’s the block-your-ears-and-screw-up-your-eyes advertising era! Change is the last thing the advertising people want.  They want things to carry on as they are. But the truth is simple…Clients are demanding moreaccountability – the truth is simple, we do not understand communication.  The change – if change were what we reallywere prepared to embrace- is simple, we will have to introduce interactivecommunication.  But already you can hearthe howls of pain, because advertising agencies are angry with the truthbecause it means a huge loss of income!  Shoppers’ Voice has made repeated attempts to articulate anew philosophy of marketing communication that does really work, and has beenproven to be the way to go.   From theadvertising agencies they have received a big raspberry for their pains!The anger of the advertising class is the anger not of themaster but the ineffectual servant,  Theyhave been routinely abused, insulted, called liars, accused of vast andmultifarious corruption and had their honour and creativity dragged through themud.  They have also been told to promisethe  “delivery” of what they know cannotbe delivered – accountability -  and whenany of them (Shoppers’ Voice) has been rash enough to suggest that yes, indeed,they do have the answer and can deliver accountability  they have been told that they will bepunished for doing that!