The things people think they can buy. Ron Shevlin's Marketing Whims, at You Cannot Advertise Your Way To Greatness, tells the crack-up story of a chief marketing officer who grandly announced that he wanted the next advertising campaign to make is company an iconic brand that people love.
Say what? As Ron points out, you can't just decide to be an "iconic brand." Only your customers can make you that:
Nobody cares who you are. To become an iconic brand that people love, it takes a lot more than a new ad campaign. You cannot advertise your way to greatness.
It's a common delusion in brand advertising: That you can -- through superior creativity, some elbow grease, and a lot of media spending -- become loved and admired.
Maybe it used to be possible. Back when there weren't very many brands, there was no easy way to find out what other people beyond your immediate social circle were experiencing, and the average person had a pretty weak BS-filter. Now, people see right through your claims, and can find out the real truth in a few minutes online.
The only way to get people to love you is to be consistently lovable, and to do something worth talking about. And the only way to be "iconic" is to stay that way for a long time. Advertising hardly helps at all. And when it reeks of BS, it only makes things worse.
So take that creativity and money you might have spent on advertising, and use it to actually become great. Then you won't need advertising.
Technorati Tags: fundraising, advertising
Love the plug for consistency --- and the link between creativity and greatness!
Posted by: Melanie Schmidt | 10 March 2008 at 13:28
Sam, let's see ... give us a break. Jeff is writing the way people talk. He is a former college level English professor.
Posted by: Ted Grigg | 07 March 2008 at 23:14
You wrote, "and can find out the real truth in a few minutes online."
Let's see, that's the "real truth" as opposed to the "false truth" or "unreal truth"?
Posted by: Sam Davis | 07 March 2008 at 09:19