With a contribution from the Great Denny Hatch and the acutely perceptive Howie Jacobson
I’ll come to Denny and Howie in a minute, but first:
A few months ago I went to Slovenia to talk to a big mail order firm. I had no idea how big till I did my research.
They operate in 21 countries and sell all manner of stuff from mattresses to bicycles through almost every medium – TV, press, phone, direct mail.
I also had no idea what their hell their copy was saying as I didn’t understand a single one of the 21 languages they communicate in. So I started with a clip from Laurel and Hardy – with the line in the title above this piece.
I got myself in another nice mess the other day when someone suggested I start a group on Linked-in called Ask Drayton. No signs of originality there!
Anyhow the subject quickly turned to all the waffle about digital/social media etc, and Andy Gilbert whom I don’t know said it’s all relationship marketing.
I actually don’t like that particular term as I think it is the direct element that makes it possible to measure and improve, and started reminiscing about the days when people started inventing new names for direct marketing.
There was relationship marketing, database marketing, one-to-one marketing, curriculum marketing. Then came customer relationship management and people said all you need is a computer and never worry about the copy. Wonder how many billions that naive notion has cost.
The faster they came up with a new label for dear old DM the more money they made. I forgot digital marketing. People loved that so much I changed the title of my old Commonsense book for the fourth edition.
Now with the internet almost everything is direct. But with new labels. Content marketing, native marketing, social media. All taking money off the mugs.
I am thinking of starting Jargon Marketing. This is a wonderful new wheeze. Nobody has the faintest idea what you’re talking about, so it must be expensive. It certainly works, as the list above proves.
In the meantime I just carry on doing trying to do what I did when I started in 1957. Write stuff that sells more.Believe it or not, the word marketing was never even used then. I first heard it in 1961.
The great Denny Hatch sent me something apropos two days ago. He wrote: “From one lover of corporate speak promotions to another, check out this sucker”.
The sucker in question read: How to curate content without a single original thought.
Mystified, I turned to Howie, who replied in minutes:
Hah!
Content = words, sounds, and images
Curation = featuring someone else’s content
As in:
“Are you an unsuccessful artist living in a sanatorium on your brother’s dime? Stop painting and open up a gallery that sells other artists’ kitsch to tourists. Never need an original idea again.”
Gotcha!
Here’s what John Hegarty had to say about brands that want a relationship:
“To those brands that say ‘I understand you’ I say ‘Fuck off, you don’t understand me. Mind your own business, I don’t want to be understood by you. I don’t understand myself sometimes… and it can be fun.'”
http://adage.com/article/global-news/john-hegarty-contrarian-view-big-data/240448/
Absolutely spot on. About twenty years ago I did a talk to banks and insurance people about this relationship piffle and asked what sane person wants to go to bed with his bank. You know you’re going to get screwed anyhow. This, of course, was long before we all discovered that a) we were about to get one of the biggest screwings in history b) we were then going to bail out the villains c) None of them would endure anything except a few slaps on the wrist d) Nothing would be put in place to stop it happening again
Right on Mr. Hegarty! F**k the corporations and their evil Orwellian spies wanting to understand me when I don’t even understand myself. God, I’m so complex and interesting!
I totally agree that consumers are far less interested in brands than many marketers would have us believe (I’m looking at you Social Media) but Hegarty is basically knocking any kind of use of data in marketing which I just can’t agree with. He’s a real politician. He uses lots of emotion in his statements because it’s the best way to stop people thinking (probably why he’s so successful in advertising). He talks about the horse meat scandal which is a very sensitive subject but I don’t think there is a connection between this and how supermarkets use data to examine customer behaviour. I doubt he thinks there is a connection either but he uses it to serve his argument anyway.
He later talks about ‘putting the consumer first’, I don’t see how you can do this without looking at data. Otherwise, you’re just doing whatever you feel like?
I agree with you. Just flying blind is insane. Of course emotion rules. But the more you know about people the better you can serve them – unless you misuse the data. Or as in so many cases, don’t use it intelligently.