But there are *serious* tools to gain twitter followers - that's gotta count for something... right?
But _they're_ right. Marketing folk ARE idiots.
Even the mail-room boys usually know and understand more about the business they're working in than the self-aggrandising and insular marketing folk.
If marketing/ad folk wanted _real_ insights, the should prob. talk to the guys on the ACTUAL frontline, talking to the ACTUAL customers. The techies, customer service, complaints, staff. The guys who see what's happening day in day out.
Don't forget the special contempt that most front-line salespeople have for the marketing/advertising side. I remember early in my career one of the grizzled (and very well compensated) sales vets taking me aside and saying, "Here's the deal: You guys *spend* the money, we *make* the money."
Not just our equals, but our allies.
No one even addresses the "what's in it for me?" question, much less answers it. It's rare to hear anyone even acknowledge there is a consumer any more.
I can't remember the last time I heard ROI discussed in a meeting. It's all about IDEAS and CONVERSATIONS. Buzzwords and babble.
I finally just had to bail.
Oh, and don't forget BUZZ.
If ad agencies were compensated by results, the idea of changing behavior (as opposed to attitudes) would be universally adopted. As long as agencies are richly rewarded through production markups and media commissions, there will continue to be a conflict of interest. It's not that TV advertising doesn't work, it's that the business model doesn't work.
I wouldn't be surprised if the disrespect you mentioned comes more from the feeling of having been swindled than the notion that marketing people are idiots.
I would change but one thing about this post: "jeremiad of jargon" maintains the alliterative flow.
Most of the work we do is in B2B. In that arena we always have pretty serious discussions about marketing ROI. If we can't defend the work with results, we don't expect to retain the business. I have never cared one whit about advertising awards or other soft measurement. Many of our client relationships include the CEO and other non-marketing officers. We are business people first, marketers second. I understand the problem between marketing and sales, and think it's preposterously stupid, so we have worked very hard to earn the trust of sales and end up ususally having very good, productive relationships with them.
Another point I would make is that I believe advertising works better to reinforce beliefs. We usually turn to research then public relations techniques if we actually need to change someone's mind or behavior.
"Yet, as I go through the websites and literature of ad agencies, I don't see any attempt to answer these questions -- or other questions of substance -- in a mature, serious fashion."
You're reading the wrong blogs, so let me shameless promote mine. A serious, no nonsense ad blog about a totally useless, bullshit business.
http://www.positiveagers.blogspot.com
@Head Boomer:
Not to worry. Shameless self-promotion is what we're all about.
Can't speak to advertising as I rarely interface with it - just subjected to it, but the part about missing the point:
I'm at the customer day in and day out - marketing comes flying through. I grab the sustaining marketing guy and I say - "We have a problem - they have changed the order system on the parts floor, and none of our parts for the older aircraft are in it. Can ya help them out? Some of them come from another division and we can't get any responses."
Marketing, including the sustaining guy, is busy with a new system. 6 months, I make the pitch over and over - nada.
Take a day off, drive to Atlanta, pitch a goddamn fit, get my boss called, get my ass chewed, get the part numbers I need.
Go back and sit out on the manufacturing floor and help look up part numbers and get them entered.
1 month sales go up 50K, 6 month sales up 250K, in a year we have sold a million damned dollars. Customer is taking orders for these parts from airlines world-wide who cannot find them elsewhere.
I get two calls - Atlanta wants to know who is selling all these things, pissed when they find out it is me.
Sustaining marketing calls, wants to know what all this activity is. I tell him it is the damned parts I tried for months to get from him. He puts it on his end-of-year. Bonus.
Phoenix, my boss, says sales doesn't go on my end-of-the-year evaluation, not my job. Still pissed about call from Atlanta a year ago and grades me accordingly.
No wonder the customer hired me away.
There's an interesting show in Australia that tries to answer some of the questions of advertising. It's called the Gruen Transfer - a term relating to that moment in a supermarket whereby the design of the shop starts to influence buying habits - and you can download and watch it at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruentr...er/
download.htm
Hopefully the downloading isn't just restricted to Oz.
/C
Finance, Operations, Production and Engineering (just to quote the ones you mentioned) live to manage the existing business. They are all the people you hire when you already have a company and by default customers. It's easy to be glib when you don't have to figure out ways to get the business in through the door (trust me glib is what I do best).
But marketing is the start of the process. Marketing is all we have. No one buys a product because the accounts are up to date. No one even buys a product because the turnover time from production line 3 to 4 is next to nothing. No one cares.
Sure, all of this stuff is important to keep the company turning once it starts but the reason why marketing people get carried away with their own magnificence is because if the product isn't tailored to the market no one buys the damn thing. If no one buys then it doesn't matter how nice the books look, or how fast the boys in production are changing lines or how well engineered the components are. If no one buys, none of these bright cookies go to work in the morning.
All these jobs exist because someone somewhere has already bought the product.
In the end, 'principles' don't mean diddly.
It's always about the implementation. Never mind the 'principles' behind your agency.
Make me an ad that makes the phone ring.
At least that's what I'm hearing nowadays.
Don't talk about how you do it.
Do it.
If we're all idiots focused on the meaningless, that would certainly represent an opportunity for someone with all the answers and a clear recognition of what truly matters to drive client success. That's you, of course!
Or maybe you're just not looking very hard, caught up as you tend to be with searching for examples of what's wrong with our industry. I'll venture to say that most of us are trying to stay current with waves of dramatic change sweeping through the business, while concurrently attempting to execute all the fundamental blocking and tackling that helps to convert awareness and attitudes into consumer/customer behaviors that create client profits.
I know it's impossible for you to be an optimist, but allowing a little fair pragmatism to creep into your patter occasionally would be refreshing.
As one of the engineering types mentioned at the beginning, my biggest observation I can give you advertising types is that you've lost your way.
I think 99% of you these days think you're in the entertainment industry and not the advertising industry.
If you're not making campaigns that actually create demand, you're wasting consumers' time and your clients' money.
Stop trying to make witty, comedic nonsense to entertain me. That's what the programs in between your commercials are for. Stop rewarding crap campaigns that entertain but don't get people to buy. Cleo awards should go to campaigns that generate the most new sales, not the cutesy drivel that doesn't get anything sold. Try focusing on making me want to actually buy what you're showcasing rather than just trying to make me giggle. Cavemen? Stacks of cash with eyes? NFL football coach mashups? Nothing more than entertaining idiocy.
If you folks get back to trying to sell me on stuff then maybe I'd abandon the 30 second skip on my TiVo and stop refusing to watch non-YouTube video clips online where you are making me sit through embedded advertising that does not one thing to make me want to buy what you're hawking.
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