**** Bob Garfield’s Chaos Scenario 2.0

Chief Branding Officers Take Note…

Most people who read this blog are probably not all that interested in mass media as a marketing vehicle.  But I think just about any Marketing person would benefit from reading this incredibly stark view of the future in the traditional agency / mass media complex in this article over at Ad Age.  Yikes!

I don’t doubt that the cost structure of the mass media complex will have to change, especially on the agency side.  I mean really, you have Google trying to facilitate the purchase of radio and print through a web interface, for crying out loud.  Agencies should really start to push deeper into the corporation and become business strategy consultants.  There are a ton of smart, creative people in the agencies.  Perhaps they could help out with this Deconstruction of Marketing thing.

But the mass media itself?  They will just have to figure out what their place is in the world, and adapt.  I suspect that means leaning more towards direct (drive people to web site or call center) and away from “branding” in the traditional sense.  This has already been happening among the smarter players.  Perhaps we need to lose a major network to “cable only” status in order to funnel more dollars to fewer avails and increase quality.  Just remember, radio was supposed to kill print, FM was supposed to kill AM, network TV was supposed to kill radio, and Cable was supposed to kill network TV.

Quote from article: When Chairman-CEO A.G. Lafley (Proctor & Gamble) says, “We need to reinvent the way we market to consumers,” he doesn’t mean, “We need to find a place to amass 30 million people at a time so we can tell them not to squeeze the Charmin.”

Rich, I tell ya.  Very well written and quite funny, at least sitting on this side of the equation… your thoughts?

4 thoughts on “**** Bob Garfield’s Chaos Scenario 2.0

  1. Hi Jim,

    This is not suprising….at all. I think the thing marketers do not talk about is the rapid change that is taking place in business to business marketing & lead generation.

    There was a time when a technology lead could cost you up to 450 to $600 a K, depending upon how it was aquired. Quite frankly, at this point, we have no economic justification for us to go to tradeshows and conferences, because the cost per lead is way too prohibitive, especially when we use search engine optimization & search engine marketing for lead acquisition. And our results say that tradeshows and conferences are not effective. We don’t pay any thing close to what we used to pay to acquire a lead.

    I think its a huge story, impacting many b to b publishers that have tradeshow units and industry groups that run tradeshows. Tha’t my two cents.

    I really think that is a big big story. Have a great day.

    Mary Kay Lofurno

  2. Hi Jim,

    I read your bog, jump to the AdAge article, which mentions ning.com on which I immediately notice a fan site about Aishwarya Rai (the famous indian actress), in a few clicks, I learn about “Kajra Re”, one of the top hit songs in Indian cinema in 2005, click agin on iTunes, buy it… from my kitchen table in Montreal, Canada.

    How do you account for that as a marketer?

    Has someone figured that out, or what? and some don’t call it a revolution??

  3. Joseph Jaffe (www.jaffejuice.com) has been blogging away on this theme for a while with humor and intelligence. His book last year is called “Life After the 30 Second Spot.”

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