PR Firm Comes Out of Five-Year Coma

Last night I had - ready to go - this long, nasty post about a really silly article in Ad Age. It talks about a 'new' survey with absolutely no new or useful information - along with the most simplistic and addle-brained crunching:

The Misunderstood Generation

But I looked at my blog and saw a handful of negative posts in a row and … well, I didn't want to sound like a sourpuss over and over. So instead I tossed up a playful, innocuous one about a couple of upcoming conferences and a book due out in the
summer.

Then in the morning I visited my pal Dick Stroud's blog - and he'd done it for me:

Edelman - where have you been for the past 5 years?

"We really set out to blow up some myths," said the exec VP-general manager of Edelman's Boomer Insights Generation Group. "The longer that marketers keep treating boomers as a huge mass as opposed to individuals, the longer it's going to take them to enter the market."

Give me strength. This is 101 marketing. I cannot believe this has come as a shock to Edelman and its clients. Have these guys been in a coma for the last 5 years?

Good. Let Dick do the dirty work. My hands are clean. (Unless someone breaks into my computer and finds the draft - which isn't much different from Mr. Stroud's astute invective.)

Ad Age should do a bit of research before printing tired assessments of Baby Boomers and how to advertise to them. They don't have to go very far - just read some recent pieces in their own publication - by their boss, Rance Crain:

Calcified Advertising Agencies

Rance Crain Makes Perfect Sense Yet Again

The Tale of Two Conferences

I mention a certain European country a lot in this blog. There are all sorts of reasons for this. Go ahead and pick one.

Now I'm mentioning it again because my good friend and colleague Brent Green is headed back there for a marketing conference. I'm jealous.

And I love the monochrome design for the pics on the web site. (Click "Sprekers" when you get there.) Brent is quite the handsome rascal - circa-1900 - don't you think? (If I'd been the designer, he'd be sporting a handlebar moustache.)

As far as international speaking engagements this year for Yours Truly, there's only one I've been invited to so far (but it's early) - Japan in October:

The Silver Market Phenomenon: Business Opportunities and Responsibilities in an Era of Demographic Change

Organizers:

Konrad Osterwalder
United Nations University
Tokyo (UNU) Japan

Chihiro Watanabe
Tokyo Institute of Technology
(TokyoTech) Japan

Cornelius Herstatt
Technical University Hamburg-Harburg
(TUHH) Germany

Florian Kohlbacher
German Institute for Japanese Studies
(DIJ) Japan

Associate Partner:
World Demographic Association (WDA)

I contributed a chapter for the book.

Eons: An Almost Obit

It's always fun being the smartest kid on the block. Almost as much fun is saying that you're the smartest kid on the block - and backing it up with empirical evidence (scroll past the first post).

Well ... I wasn't the smartest kid on the block when it came to handicapping Eons - just one of a slew of smart kids. Many of us marketing to 50+ pundits knew it was god-awful from the beginning. And non-marketing to 50+ sources likewise pooh-poohed it.

Eons is in its death throes. In a desperate move, it's now letting riff-raff in.

Okay, I'm kidding. Some of my best friends are under fifty …

And a bunch of whippernsappers, even with their ageism intact, make some good points (and a few ex-Eons members chime in), although much of what is said I've been saying for years.

Here's irony: Even another social networking site is positioning itself as the 'new' Eons - attempting to steal away the paltry number of people who are on Eons and turn it into an 'alternative' Eons. Nothing like following in the footsteps of failure. Too, too weird.

The sad part of it all for me: If I keep this blog on topic, I won't have Eons to kick around anymore.

Or I'll cheat. Maybe when the ether settles, I'll write a long post or article about the demise of Eons. I have a bunch of juicy, sort-of-insider stories - where I'll change the names to protect the guilty.

Can a Sandwich Be Slandered?

I got a kick out of this piece in The New York Times:

Can a Sandwich Be Slandered?
By LOUISE STORY

It bleeds into the previous post and comments made by my friend in The Netherlands, Martijn de Haas.

The idea of letting consumers be creative isn't a new one. Remember jingle writing? (Actually it still goes on.) The problem is this: with jingle writing the agency always had control over what was released. Now anybody can produce a pseudo-commercial and upload it to YouTube.

While I wish I had the technical ability thirty or forty years ago to put together a 'demo reel' like young folks do today (and it's great that they have this opportunity), it looks like Quiznos is getting into a bit of a legal tangle. I predict that before long companies will understand that they should retain control over their creative, marketing, and PR messages - and not just because it's smarter - but because of lawsuits like the Quizno's/Subway one in progress. Soon agencies and clients will be asking (or demanding) that YouTube delete fake spots before any lawsuits emerge.

Every so often some creative kid will rise to the top with a great idea for a spot. But 99% of the stuff uploaded is junk - and potentially harmful to the brand or product.

And … it's a fad. Not YouTube or making videos - but producing faux commercials. The amateur video makers will get bored - and the viewers will certainly get bored.

From coverage of The Idea Conference by Ad Age:

"We've got to stop thinking that consumer-generated content is an idea," he (David Jones, Euro RSCG Worldwide) said. "It isn't. It is a phenomenon."

What's the Word?

Nigel Hollis, Chief Global Analyst for Millward Brown, does a good job bringing us up-to-date on the current status of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. Download the PDF: What's the Word?

I've talked about this subject ad nauseam - in my book, in my presentations (attendees usually have to suffer through at least fifteen minutes worth), and in this blog over the last few years:

Advertising/Marketing Article of The Month

The Brouhaha Over WOMM

The Brouhaha Over WOMM Returns

What's Plaguing Viral Marketing

If you read the Millward Brown report and some of the above posts, it's pretty obvious that Mr. Hollis and Yours Truly are on the same page more often than not. Transparency and a light touch from PR is the best approach in most cases - especially when targeting Baby Boomers:

The report says:

A 2007 survey conducted by Millward Brown in the United States and the United Kingdom suggested that relatively few people use informal sources of online information (message boards, blogs, etc.) to guide their purchase decisions; the majority of shoppers turn to friends, neighbors and colleagues for advice.

We can hypothesize that the power of online word of mouth is diminished by both the receiver’s lack of knowledge about who is providing advice, and the provider’s lack of knowledge about who is receiving it.

For Baby Boomers: Make that a fraction of a fraction on the web, double whatever percentage makes up "the majority", and assume anything received has not simply "diminished" - but gone up in a puff of ether.

And I love this one:




Read The Brouhaha Over WOMM Returns.

I've discussed the Dove Pro Age Campaigns - and the commercial that was banned in the U.S. I've never mentioned The Onslaught or Evolution - great spots. Great Public Relations spots.

Check out Nigel Hollis' Blog.