Adnerds

Anyone who has been working in publicity for – say – the last 20 years, definitely already has heard someone drag up this story.

Selling lawn mowers to flatdwellers.

If you’re going through any trouble or spend any money to try and sell a lawn mower to flatdwellers, you’re not particularly bright. The reason is blatantly obvious: no matter how resourceful a salesman you are, no matter how hilarious an entertainer you are, you will never ever sell that lawn mower. Not to flatdwellers. Because flatdwellers are no idiots. Neither is any other consumer.

Nevertheless, trying to sell lawn mowers to those who will never draw benefit, is exactly what advertisers pig-headedly are still wasting most of their money on. They try and fob off baldies with shampoo. Canal boats with the Bedouin. Disposable nappies with the childless. Porn with priests. Although the latter may seem like a business model in its own right, you’re no idiot either: you got the point.

How come? Everyone knows you’d better not bother people with stuff that will never be of any use to them, isn’t that right? People are no morons. And no advertiser is capable of bending anyone’s free will.

Carpet bombing your marketing message.

But then again: up until a couple of years ago, advertisers really had not much of an alternative. The only option to create awareness or merely get your product sold, was to carpet bomb your target group with your marketing message and hope you hit as many of them as possible. Undoubtedly, you are familiar with these marketing tactics. They’ve been baptized the “Spray and Pray Approach”.

With this approach, it is crucial to build up as much stopping power as possible in order to cut through the clutter. So maybe, possibly, consumers would stop and listen to you. That stopping power, that potential to cut through the clutter could only be achieved by a –everything but mediocre– creative idea.

However, the ‘Spray and Pray’ model is terminal. Because, not only has an alternative emerged, it proves to be both valid and solid.

Society has adopted new behaviors.

The past couple of years, we have all become extremely techno-dependent. Both at home and at work. A recent study by Synovate tells us that in Australia, the States and Western Europe, 9 out of 10 people rate the internet as ‘completely necessary to their lives’. We communicate in totally different ways than only a couple of years ago. And if we change the way we communicate, we change society. It is obvious that, now that society has adopted new behaviors, marketing communication has to adapt in order to remain efficient.

In the fifties, the time when television got its breakthrough, one used to say that thanks to this ‘invention’, advertisers could step into people’s living room. Today, thanks to social media in general and particularly social media on the mobile platform, advertisers can enter people’s lives. Always. Everywhere. With highly relevant messages based on profile, time and place.

Creativity is secondary to relevance.

You’re on to me. Today, relevance is what determines the stopping power of your marketing message. First and foremost. Albeit that the creative idea is still important, it has become secondary to relevance. Whoever still clings to the idea of the omnipotent creative idea, is putting the cart before the horse.

Advertisers’ number one priority is that the marketing message is completely in the consumer’s line. At the right time, under the right circumstances. If that is the case, and only then, the creative idea can possibly make a difference.

Is there immediate cause for copywriters and art directors anywhere in the world to start worrying? To the extent they do not have jumping brains – i.e. brains affected by the online way of thinking – most definitely. Yes.

The first node to reach vast networks.

Online is where you get to know people. By profiling. It is the place where the receiver of the message is not the final destination of that message but the first node to potentially reach vast networks. With tuned messages with regard to profile, time and place.

Whoever understands this, understands the true meaning of it. The center of gravity has shifted. Your internet strategy has become the heart of your communication. The people in charge of communication at Coca-Cola (expedition206), Ford (FiestaMovement) and Samsung (Mobile Explorers) are no idiots. We know we’re repeating ourselves, but neither are you.