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I’m not a classic early adopter. I don’t queue outside Apple stores every time a plastic cover for the iPad is released, but I latch onto technology fairly quickly. I was online in the late nineties, had one of the first phase of free Spotify accounts and even owned a mini-disc player when portable CD machines were the norm.
So why have I never used a QR code?
Social media – that’s where it’s at. Who needs those expensive telly spots, press spreads and billboards, when hip digital networks offer untold benefits for your brilliant campaign at a fraction of the cost? In the past, I have written that customer engagement via these sites may well be the only game in town. I’m happy to admit I was probably being a touch bold. In truth, very few brands are actually taking the plunge and completely eschewing traditional platforms for the brave new world. But, Cillit Bang is the exception, promoting and selling the new ‘All In 1 Dish And Surface’ cleaner on facebook alone.
It’s a college. No it’s not, it’s a record label. Sorry, it’s a TV studio. Hang on, no, it’s a computer games firm.
Let’s start again. Confetti is definitely a bar and meeting place. And all of the above, it seems.
Nestling in the centre of Nottingham, Confetti is quite unlike any media company I’ve ever encountered. And I’ve encountered a few. Established in 1994, the organisation launced as a well-equipped, creative technology school for college students and school leavers. It was the vision of Craig Chettle and initially worked with The People’s College of Further Education. As Craig puts it, “We wanted to create a place and an opportunity that was not available to us when we were in further education.”
In the age of social engagement, double opt-in emails and viral campaigns, some vintage marketing strategies are still as popular as ever, despite their venerable age.
Take ‘the offer’. When our hunter-gatherer ancestors first started trading goats for wheat, it was probably no more than 24 hours before someone muscled in on the action, offering Buy-One-Goat-Get-One-Goat-Free (BOGGOGF).
The psychology of ‘the offer’ is of course, terribly basic: ‘choose our brand and we’ll reward you for it’. We’ll give you something, let you have two for the price of one, throw in a free gift or give you a deduction on your next purchase. Natural human lust for ‘something for nothing’ will do the rest.
“Seriously. If you’re in marketing or advertising, kill yourself. There’s no punchline, just do it. You’re the spawn of Satan and the death of everything that’s good.”
That’s Bill Hicks. Angry, bitter, smoking and ranting hero of stand up comedy and – obviously – no great admirer of advertising.
Unless, of course, it was to his benefit.
From the off, I am happy to acknowledge I am male and therefore not necessarily best qualified to judge the merits or flaws in advertisements for ‘sanitary protection’. But, as media planners have yet to find a platform completely invisible to men, I glimpse such campaigns from time to time. Ever the critic, I also tend to form opinions on the work.
I’ve never really seen the point in air fresheners myself. They’re a classic case of tackling the symptom not the problem. If your house smells fishy, farty or otherwise funny, you should really be looking for the culprit (dog, bin, partner) rather than masking the evil smelling odour with a floral fog.
However, it appears I’m in the minority. The UK market for pleasant smelling sprays is a staggering £300m. By any measure, we are all but addicted to the heavenly waft of lavender and aerosol propellant – so perhaps we shouldn’t be at all surprised by the brutality of the competition to market cans of sweet ozone to us.
The problem isn’t losing, it’s winning. Losing attracts back-slaps of commiseration and sympathetic platitudes. Losing brings assurances of injustice and judges with poor taste. Winning, on the other hand, gives rise to accusations of undeserved spoils, notions of being overrated and, above all, great expectations. Such is the curse on the Mercury Music Prize.
Even a grizzled old blogger like me can call it wrong. And last week I did. My previous piece stated with confidence that the phone hacking (it’s not really hacking is it?) scandal would not spell the end of the News Of The World. Within 24 hours, the title was finished. The paper was very profitable, sold 2.6 million copies and generated about £35-40m in advertising spend every year.
But misjudgement on such a monumental scale couldn’t be carried and it died of shame.
Is marketing dead? Saatchi’s CEO thinks so.
Thursday, April 26th, 2012This would be an interesting position for any business leader, but coming from the big cheese at one of the world’s best known marketing and advertising agencies, it’s a right old jaw-dropper. Could this master marketeer really believe the whole shebang is over and we should all sleeve our iPads and get off home? Possibly – but probably not.
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Tags: 02, Advertising, big idea, CEO, Institute of Directors, Kevin Roberts, Magnus Shaw, Magnus Shaw blog, marketing, Martin Luther King, Saatchi & Saatchi, strategy
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