October 26th, 2004
Doc Searls wonders whether the marketing communications industry and their clients will ever be able to truly deliver engagement marketing. in his post Five years later, the train pulls into Madison Avenue.
He quotes an article by Scott Donaton of Advertising Age, Adjusting to the reality of a consumer controlled market
Donaton says,
Consumer control. Accountability. Innovation. Engagement. Collaboration.
These are the buzzwords of the marketing industry today, and they can't be repeated often enough.
"Intellectually," one marketing exec told me last week, "people are starting to get it."
But it's not sufficient to hear those terms ring out from behind podiums, no matter how prominent the speaker. It's time for marketers and those who do business with them to stop paying lip service to the changes sweeping the business and adapt.
The marketing revolution
That means recruiting talent with new skill sets and retraining existing work forces. It means redefining metrics around behavior and engagement rather than distribution and impressions. It means reconfiguring organizations, redirecting spending and confronting the operational challenges of the marketing revolution.
Make no mistake, it's nothing short of a revolution. Those who don't embrace it — and resistance to change remains disappointingly strong — will be crushed by it.
Donaton then quotes senior people at a number of large organisations
Larry Light, global chief marketing officer at McDonald's, once again publicly declared the death of the broadcast-centric ad model: "Mass marketing today is a mass mistake." McDonald's used to spend two-thirds of its ad budget on network prime time; that figure is now down to less than one-third.
General Motors' Roger Adams, noting the automaker's experimentation with less-intrusive forms of marketing, said, "The consumer wants to be in control, and we want to put them in control."
This consumer empowerment is at the heart of everything. End users are now in control of how, whether and where they consume information and entertainment. Whatever they don't want to interact with is gone. That upends the intrusive model the advertising business has been sustained by for decades.
What infuriates Doc Searls is his worry that "advertising is one thing, customer relationships are quite another." And that these words become associated with businesses and marketers paying lip service to the notion.
I agree, that what is required is a very different model, which enables brands to market themselves intelligently and meaningfully. Joined up thinking and execution is necessary. A non-siloed approach that creates value for clients and their potential customers.
Want an example? The music manufactuer Korg has embarked on what it terms "Weekend Warriors". "Weekend Warriors" appeals to lapsed muscians, Mums and Dads that used to play etc.
Korg puts people together, by musical ability, and capability, provides rehearsal space and a mentor to coach them to performance level of a song they all agree they like. They perfom, and record. The outcome, a great customer experience which is likely to lead those involved to decide to start playing again, to buy some equipment.
This has been pioneered in the US, and is now undergoing a pilot scheme in the UK. Its brilliant in its simplicity, its grass roots and local.
Engagement requires the marketing activity to be "just in time", "relevant" and delivers on a customers P&L account which is based upon value.
Value for money
Value for time (do you think your time is well spent?)
Return on attention (was it worthwhile paying attention to this?)
Emotional return (was it a cause of happiness or hassle?)
Return on labour (I worked hard to realise this experience – was it worth it?).
Doc Searls is right to be concerned, but I think there are companies out there which do understand engagment and have demonstrated its benefits. The debate in the UK is just starting to emerge as the UK marketing industry awakens to a new age.
Loading ...
Follow Alan Moore on Twitter.
