Advertising is dead, long live content
posted on March 31, 2008
If you are working for a traditional advertising agency, it is time to quit your job. No we are not being bold, we are giving you some sound advice. Many of the large agencies are simply adapting… way… too… slow. They are sitting around brain storming the next 30 second spot, maybe they are even trying to be progressive and have hired an “interaction designer” who is hot with actionscript. It is too late however, they will not last. Mark our words.
The fact of that matter is that people are fed up with advertising in every way, shape and form. TV commercials are edited out with TIVO, banner ads are blocked or ignored, peoples spam filters catch that most recent mailing campaign you sent out. Don’t even get me started with direct mail and how much of that ends up in the trash.
I have yet to even mention how YouTube is slowly replacing TV and how online media is replacing print and print advertising. Podcasts are going to out run radio, and e-mail an online transactions will render most mail useless. Our traditional methods of connecting to consumers are failing, and the methods in which we try and target them will only become more and more obsolete. People do not want to be sold.
So what is replacing advertising? Simple… content.
Content is king, period. Great design can make up for weak content, but MySpace is a great example about how a site that is content rich can be fugly as hell and still be successful. Brands need to forget about their next big TV campaign, think about how you can offer consumers content that they will seek out. Instead of trying to shove your message in their face, create a message that they will want to find.
The smart brands are already doing it, whether it is a wealth of content about parenting by a company that sells diapers or legos builing a whole community of content around their product, some brands “get it.” People online are always searching for relevant content, these companies have found out how to advertise them with value rather than tricks or interuptions.
There are thousands of ways to create real value to consumers, and it is no secret that we think blogs are a great way. Don’t limit yourself or your company however. Simply sit down and think about what you can offer your consumers, and you will quickly find a long list of methods to offer said content.
Forget about the thirty second spot. Delete your banner templates. Throw away your ad rate cards and media kits. Think about value, the ROI and attention you get will shock you.
I used to love the lego site when i was young. I think it was the free flash games that made it so attractive. There was similar campaign with Frosties online as well i seem to remember. Give children free flash games and they will love you. If the children love you then they will persuade their parents.
Comment by will on April 2, 2008 @ 4:01 am
Very good point on several levels Will. Sometimes the people that you should be targeting and communicating with are not the decision makers. In the case of parents and children, it is the kids who want the product but the parents who are purchasing. In which case you have to consider both communicating that it is a safe and good product for the child, and getting the childs attention to request it in the first place.
Comment by admin on April 2, 2008 @ 4:45 am
[…] on BlogFire, there’s a post titled Advertising is Dead, Long Live Content. The article is great in pointing out the reality that many of us understand. Content is […]
Pingback by Is Advertising Really Dead? by Vernon Kesner on April 2, 2008 @ 9:02 am
Most people, that is, the people who don’t read blogs, the people who don’t constantly try to work smarter and improve their work, are not changing. The people who are always trying to learn will always have to be reached through new methods. Everyone else will generally process whatever marketing campaign lands in front of them — they aren’t learning much and their life isn’t changing, so everything is new and interesting.
Those sets of people, the ones who are constantly working smarter and the ones who just keep trucking, exist everywhere, even in marketing. The marketers who keep on trucking will keep buying newspaper ads, and they’ll keep reaching the public who keeps on trucking and actually reads newspaper ads.
Comment by Dave on April 2, 2008 @ 10:17 am
Ahh you are so correct there Dave!
Yet even the people who are as you say “not changing” are in fact, changing. They are retiring, they are being replaced by newer, younger work forces, and they are learning about blogs, online communities, and publications — because even if they are so clued into the mainstream media, and the mainstream media ONLY, the mainstream media can’t ignore it
It is an exciting time. People and generations are shifting, and there is a reason that online media, blogging, etc, is growing at such a fast pace..
Thanks for the great post, your feedback is spot on.
Comment by admin on April 2, 2008 @ 10:42 am
Thanks for the comment back! You’re spot on… I think we agree in a disagreeing way.
You are completely right on the TV front though. As I said in my post, there are some commercials that I’ll actually watch even though I can fast forward through them. However, the number of those commercials is VERY FEW.
That’s why I finished my post the way I did. Over the past several years business has truly moved from selling to relating. Advertising has got to eventually make the same leap. Your reference to Lego in your post and Phillips in your comment on my blog are two examples of this kind of relating.
Like we’ve said, we pretty much agree. A good metaphor may be a see-saw (or teeter-totter). They’re not really any fun unless you’ve got someone on both ends (no nasty pun intended).
Comment by Vernon on April 2, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
A really great article !! I totally agree with it !
I wrote something similar today, I will write another comment
If I am ready to post it…
Comment by Sat Pirott on April 2, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
Exactly! The companies who are putting out the commercials that do engage you enough to watch them when you have the chance to skip have got the right idea. That is one of the great situations in which advertising can work. However sooner or later advertising as a whole will no longer be effective, but the companies who are developing these great commercials will have no problem making the transition because they are already creating content of value. Those commercials would work just as well as a micro-site as they do full TV advertisements.
Comment by admin on April 2, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
Good points and i tend to agree with it all you have written. I have written about this before. I do not think advertising is dead but rather that you have to think of new ways to get the viewers to look at your advertising. Free fun online games for movies is one example.
Comment by GermWorks on April 2, 2008 @ 7:38 pm
Absolutely, we are at a point in the industry where people’s attention is extremely valuable. Simply placing a message in front of them is no longer effective. However the definition of advertising becomes very important in this situation, websters defines it as “paid announcements”.” In which case free games or movies would not really be an advertisement in the traditional sense.
Comment by admin on April 2, 2008 @ 8:17 pm
For at least 12 years, I’ve heard various people in the advertising/marketing community talk about how other people “get it” or “don’t get it.” Most of the time these self-appointed (or self-annointed) “thought leaders” turn out to be no more prescient than most other people. As a result, when I hear someone talking about people who “get it” or don’t, it raises a red flag. I’m not defending advertising or its permanence on the landscape, but the writer’s premise is old; tired, even. Wishful thinking about the end of advertising doesn’t amount to useful content.
Comment by Ray on April 3, 2008 @ 1:14 am
Ah but Ray, isn’t your participation in this conversation a perfect example of how things are changing? This situation right here, right now, could have played out much differently had it taken the venue of the tired, old, outdated advertising formats.
BlogFire the company could have run a 30 second commercial that you saw, disagreed with, maybe you would have visited our website, and then left. We would be none the wiser, you would not be engaged.
Instead you chose to participate, put a level of involvement and opinion into our outreach. Like it or not you are much more engaged than had we sent you the same message in between your favorite TV shows. You are much more likely to remember this site, this blog, this company.
We also learned valuable information, that some people are not ready or do not believe that advertising is on it’s way out (even if it is not in the near future). We also learned that people in the industry don’t trust people who claim to “get it.” We can make a decision to alter our copy, or keep it as is for the reasons we originally wrote it as such.
So after all that, can you tell me how the 30 second spot is not arcane and outdated? It may not go away in the next six months, but it is a matter of time. Cheers!
Comment by admin on April 3, 2008 @ 4:55 am
My participation may indicate the options have increased, but it does NOT indicate the demise of advertising. Reminds me of predictions in the early 60s that we’d all be driving hover cars by 2000, or predictions in the early 90s of paperless offices. I think you underestimate people’s attachment to the familiar and overestimate the transformative power of technology.
Comment by Ray on April 3, 2008 @ 8:18 am
Ah but the attention of consumers and the manufacturing of cars or the cost savings of a paperless office are very different beasts. People may want to continue to push out traditional “paid announcements” but if it is ineffective, they will be forced to adapt or simply fail.
People don’t have to chose what type of advertising they pay attention, they now have the very real ability consciously or subconsciously ignore it all. Are you suggesting that people are choosing to watch advertisements when they have the option of ignoring them simply because it is familiar?? Hardly seems realistic.
Don’t forget that we are having a shifting of generations, as Gen Y and Millennials get older and command more buying power it will become more dramatic. These are the very people who hare already engrossed in the medias that encourage ad blindness.
To assume the industry won’t change when it has changed so dramatically in the last 5 years would be to assume that humans as a species don’t change. Obviously this is not the case.
But this has been a wonderful conversation disagreement or not, thanks for the response.
Comment by admin on April 3, 2008 @ 8:34 am
I gotta assume you are in your 20s, and I’m twice your age and probably suffering from an “I’ve heard this all before” brand of cynicism, but if a young person who was happy in advertising (indicative that we’re not dealing with a deep thinker) came to me and asked if he/she should, as you suggest, quit their job in advertising because they heard advertising was dead, I’d tell them not only don’t quit your job, but if you’re any good at what you do, plan on a career in advertising. My prediction is that if blogging proves to be an economically viable alternative to advertising, and if you prove to be one of the thought leaders pushing that paradigm, some agency will throw money at you to join them and you will draw your paycheck from and advertising firm. BTW, I’m not in the advertising industry. Interesting assumption on your part. Also, on your website, if you’re going to use huge all caps letters in your messaging, you oughta take a minute to check your spelling.
Comment by Ray on April 3, 2008 @ 10:00 am
Well we no doubt will have to agree to disagree,
While wisdom is no doubt valuable, and you sound older than me (although it doesn’t sound like twice my age) I would advise to be careful not to get clouded judgement. Because people have said that traditional methods of advertising were on their way out before (hell at one point people thought that having a “brand” was dead, generics were going to win), doesn’t mean that it is not the case and that it simply has not come true yet. The for sight to see where trends and changes occur before they do can mean the success or failure of a business (especially in one that changes as fast as yours, which I assume is web development NOT advertising).
But my prediction is that when content becomes the replacement to advertising most of the big agencies will be out of business, and replaced by the ones who are already doing this type of advertising like critical mass, crayon, MS&L, etc. Having been a part of two large, “traditional” agencies and see their struggle I can say that it is all eminent. All but a few simply have not reacted fast enough, and are too set in their ways and are losing business because of it. Lots of them are laying people off, and all new hires are expected to know and understand the interactive, social, and content space.
I welcome further discussion, hopefully on topic. Age and spelling don’t really have anything to do with content vs push messaging.
Comment by admin on April 3, 2008 @ 10:33 am
So, your reference to generational differences is on-topic, but my reference to age is off-topic. Interesting. And, you’re welcome for my finding the mis-spelling. My final point is this: if you’re going to make grandiose pronouncements about things, provide some data or documentation that at least shows a trend in that direction. Otherwise, it’s just talk and opinion, and that is what devalues the blogosphere and undermines the value of its content. Hey! Wouldn’t that slow down the death of advertising?
Comment by Ray on April 3, 2008 @ 11:49 am
General differences was in regards to mass consumer behavior and opinion, your reference to age was in regards to who is more credible in this debate, you or I.e If our goal with this post was to get people to believe our opinion or prediction, then use it would be devaluing the blogosphere, however our goal was instead to start a conversation and get people thinking about content as an alternative. Were we bold and over the top in how we said it? Sure, but it got your attention didn’t it? Can you tell me you never thought about it, for a second, even if it was in an effort to disprove me?
Look at any report of online marketing spend growth compared to traditional media, and there are your numbers right there.
http://www.marketingvox.com/execs_unhappy_with_marketing_moving_spend_online-022016/
http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/study-conversational-marketing-to-become-the-mainstream-by-2012-2065/
Not to mention SEM spend has reached over $12 Billion for 2007. Studies show that people trust organic results in search over paid 10 to 1… This is a trend that has and will continue to grow. The numbers prove it.
Comment by admin on April 3, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
Wishing that advertising would disappear will not make it so. The idea that advertising is dead is absurd. Anyone with eyes can see that we are inundated with advertising. Every wall, dry cleaning bag, urinal, t-shirt and taxi cab is covered in advertising. The idea that all this is going to be replaced by “content” is infantile. Better hang on to that job.
Comment by ad contrarian on April 6, 2008 @ 9:32 am