Among the first “old” media executives to awaken to the threat [posed by Google search] was Mel Karmazin, then the CEO of Viacom. He visited Google in 2003 and remembers how Page and Brin extolled the value of being able to measure everything, including the effectiveness of advertising.
This alarmed Karmazin, for it threatened how he sold advertising, which was based on salesmanship, emotion. Karmazin and the networks continued to charge steep rates because, Karmazin says, “advertisers don’t know what works and what doesn’t. That’s a great model.”
via madisonian.
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I find this line a bit interesting “Karmazin says, “advertisers don’t know what works and what doesn’t. That’s a great model.” as it partially holds true still. Even with tools like Google Analytics and others they still don’t know how effective what they produce will work. What they have found out that works is training society to have the want it now syndrome, which can be good and bad – the housing market crash is an example. I think that advertisers guess most of the time. The approach of a fresh look presented to the target audience seems effective but can make it confusing when considering branding. How many times have you looked for a favorite itm and be confused by packaging etc. “just a humble thought”
One problem with basing everything on data is that you become beholden to the data. A belief that if it’s not in there, it doesn’t exist. And that data is useless unless there a model to interpret it, to glean information from it.
But even still, people have instincts and feelings about this and that – or maybe they have a quota to meet – so they come up with various ways to interpret the data so that fits their biases, which is perhaps worse than having no data at all.
Most advertising agencies used to BS about brand recall and perceived recognition=branding. It doesn’t always work because people eventually find out it’s crap.
To sell- make a great product or cheap and cheerful one.
None of the people in the advertising business seem to want to be honest about what’s happening in the real world.
The consumers buying habits have changed (now people look for what they want) and they find advertising to be more annoying than ever.
Change is the only constant, advertisers must work harder/smarter to find more accountable ways to justify someone spending advertising dollars with them.
Advertising is not the glamorous and mysterious field that it once was, so get over it, and get to work being useful to your more demanding and budget conscious end user, or just say “ba-bye”.
The theme in the article is “killing the magic”. All of us, as creative professionals, can learn from this. Samsung vs. Apple should create an awareness that intellectual property is very important to corporations, and it should be important to us. I don’t know that each of us could get a “design patent” on the ways we make images, but copyright is our valuable IP that we should defend. In some ways, a design patent that described how we make images, would “kill the magic” of our work. Partially the numerous workshops and on-line articles on imaging technology “kill the magic”, making it appear too easy to create images, as if all one needed were the latest Nikon or Canon, and some software from Adobe.
The best take-away I get from that article is:
“Magic, in the sense of a belief in the transformative power of the partially-hidden “other,” is a fundamental part of the equation that says that innovation is some mysterious, important, and deeply complex process kept aloft, if at all, largely by the force of patent and copyright law. The effectiveness of IP rights and the impact of innovation are as much matters of assumption and belief (or, magicians would say, misdirection and distraction) as they are matters of data.”
Creative professionals who give away IP are “killing the magic” behind how we create. At whatever point in the future the magic is finally and truly gone, we will have no one to blame beyond ourselves. Our images are our magic, and like any good magician, we should guard it, and continue to perfect it.
To a large extent, advertising has been and always will be a dodge and never has that been more true than in print advertising. Until the internet. Now, the con of selling ads for dubious return benefit has been quantified and it’s screwed us all. I can’t help but smile.
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an impressive job and our entire community will be grateful to you.
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