Some Random Thoughts on Advertising

During the peak of the lonelygirl saga, I read a posting on Fine On Media - BusinessWeek Online and one of the things he wrote about was a book from several years ago called Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. So I've just starting reading it again and I think that it serves a very useful backdrop to some of the conversations happening today in the advertising community. The first time I read it, a few years back, we weren’t in the place we are today and it didn’t have the same impact on me as it seems to be having now.

If you know the book, one of the story lines it’s about a series of video clips being anonymously posted to the net and the hubbub it created. Very much like what happened with lonelygirl and her postings on youtube. Lots of interest when people didn’t know if it was real or not and, once we found =out it wasn’t, the interest dropped faster the the stock market on news of bad sales by Wal-Mart! Yes, she was covered in a recent Wired (Wired 14.12: The Secret World of Lonelygirl), but only because the article was probably written several months ago. After all of the hype, I don’t think I’ve seen many new articles about her since she left youtube for revver (I think) and I’m not sure she’s come up with a business model for the show. I think it was a great way for her to get notice as an actress, but I would be very curious about how many people would pay to watch her posts online.

Despite what all of the pundits say, I'm not sure that lonelygirl or youtube for that matter, have set the television model on its head. One of the interesting quotes from the FUTURE OF TELEVISION FORUM was how the networks use online activities to fill the gaps on shows when they take these stupidly long breaks in the middle of the season (like Lost). The thinking goes that we won't be as upset about it taking a 7 or 8 week break because we can go online and keep getting our fill.

We'll be one of the first to predict that when youtube starts running advertising (either pre or post-roll ads or whatever format they come up with), their traffic will drop by at least 25%. How's that for putting a take in the ground! There's no doubt that content has been set free, but I think we're a ways away from the current TV model going away completely.

Another character in the book works for a WOM marketing company called Trans and her paid gig is to go to bars, clubs, etc., and chat people up about a product that she’s being paid to discuss. She talks about how well it works when an attractive person chats you up about a particular product, movie, etc. Here’s a brief excerpt:

”You’re in a bar, having a drink, and someone beside you starts a conversation. Someone you might fancy a look of. All very pleasant, and then you’re chatting along, and she, or he...mentions this great new streetware label, or this brilliant little film they’ve just seen. Nothing like a pitch, you understand, just a brief favorable mention. And do you know what you do? This is what I can’t bloody stand about it. Do you know what you do?”

“No,” Cayce says.

“You say you like it too. You lie! At first I thought it was only men who’d do that, but woman do it as well! They lie!”

“And then they take it away with them, this favorable mention, associated with an attractive member of the opposite sex. One who’s shown some slight degree of interest in them, whom they’ve lied to in an attempt to favorably impress”

“But they buy jeans,” Voytek demands, “see movie? No!”

“Exactly,” Cayce says, “but that’s why it works. They don’t buy the product. They recycle the information. They use it to impress the next person they meet.” (Note: emphasis mine)

“But it’s starting to do something to me. I’ll be out on my own, with friends, say, not working, and I’ll meet someone, and we’ll be talking, and they’ll mention something.”

“And?”

“Something they like. A film. A designer. And something in me just stops. Do you see what I mean?”

“I think so.”

“I’m devaluing something. In others. In myself. And I’m starting to distrust the most casual exchange.”

In order to be completely transparent, I have cut some of the dialogue out, but if you look at the book (pages 84 – 85), you will see that I’ve left the meaning intact. And that’s important to my thoughts about WOM marketing and what it means to us as an industry. One of the things that we’ve said about WOM is that it’s an outcome of doing something well, not a tactic by itself. And one of our biggest issues is that no matter how you cut it, if you’re paying someone — directly or indirectly — to talk up your product, it’s advertising It’s not WOM if it’s been solicited by the company. That’s why so many people were upset about the Edleman/Wal-Mart flog fiasco ( Experience Manifesto: MediaPost Publications - Edelman Reveals Two More Wal-Mart 'Flogs' - 10/20/2006). Because they weren’t transparent about the fact that the blogs were written by employees of either Wal-Mart or Edelman.

I tell people about my Mephisto shoes not because I’ve been paid, but because I really believe in what they do. (Of course, if anyone from Mephisto reads our blog, I wouldn’t mind a new pair!) But, if I were paying paid or induced in some way to say nice things about them, my recommendation would lose it’s authenticity and authenticity is one of the most important issues to today’s audience.

I think that we get way to hung up on the tactics and we stop thinking about the real strategy. And very often, the tactics are used to cover up the fact that the product/service just isn’t up to snuff. You see, the truth is that people love to talk about our brands and what we do. We just don't usually give them enough reason to say good things about us! I just completed a piece for the next issue of Marketing at Retail about some of the stores around our office and how much their staffs no about their products. I'm talking like how and where it was made and where the fabric came from. Even the folks at Kiki De Montparnasse have an extensive training program before they can get on the store floor. OK, get it out already -- yes, that is one program that we'd all like to take!

So maybe we need our own version of the Hippocratic Oath -- First make nothing bad. Then we'll get authentic praise for what we do and no matter how the advertising industry changes, people will still want to hear our message!