Coal Companies Can't Give You Diamonds

This is a great article in todays Post.  Pearlstein exposes the agency community's premise that all business problems can be solved by a 30 second spot.

"If you go to a coal company looking for an energy supply, you'll get coal as the recommended solution. It's the same with most advertising agencies, which rarely meet a marketing problem that cannot be solved or a sales goal that cannot be met by a TV and radio campaign supported by direct marketing, some pop-up ads on Web sites and a bit of public relations."

So true.  "I know that X solution would drive better results, but we will make much more commission if we do it this other way."  How often is that said behind closed doors at traditional agencies?  OFTEN.

Here is the right attitude:

"[The creative solutiuon] starts by analyzing how consumers live and get information and works backward to create messages most appropriate for those channels."

The landscape is changing:

"...the power has shifted from marketer to consumer. Thanks to the Internet and TiVo, digital radio and video-on-demand, consumers decide what information and entertainment they want. Rather than simply pushing messages on consumers, the trick is to get consumers to pull them."

Turn advertising into content...make it fun...make consumers want to watch it and forward it to friends.  In the on-demand, consumer controlled media world that is growing before our very eyes, this will be required for success.

"In simple terms, we charge premium prices now for commodity services and then give away the creative stuff, which is where the value-added is," explained David Jones, the young, cosmopolitan chief executive of Euro RSCG Worldwide. "We need to figure out a way to drive down the price for the commodity parts and get paid for our ideas."

None of this is new for most of you reading this, but it is nice to see this idea spreading.  The more air-time the flawed agency model gets, the sooner it will be over-turned. 

Comments

[Diary of an Ad Man]

I thought the article betrayed a certain amount of ignorance about marketing and advertising overall. For me, it missed the boat by 5 years.