Open Sauce Live is a marketing blog to which Johnnie Moore contributes. Some interesting quotes on the front page …
Rupert Murdoch “What I worry about much more is News Corps ability to make the necessary cultural changes to meet the new demands of the digital native.”
The Economist “The less control a company has over its marketing message, the greater its credibility.” This latter is an example of the rational plans achieving the opposite of their intent. Which begs questions about whether any cynical deception / game theory strategies could ever counter it ?
Another quote, not really related to my agenda, just Joe Public amateur interest – “the challenge is not awareness, it’s engagement” Slick marketing may attract attention and entertain, and sow brand awareness and linked associations, but does it ever do anything at all to make a potential customer believe in (buy into) the product. The awareness is of the brand marketing values, not the product qualities, and as a human, you can tell the difference.
My niece graduated from a very prestigious art school last year. She went into advertising. Her speciality is “branding”.
“The awareness is of the brand marketing values, not the product qualities,”
I just bought a new printer. On the box is a picture of four people sitting on a boat, smiling at the photographer. I was staring at it yesterday (I had been working hard and needed a break,ok?) so I was staring at my printer box and wondering why did they pick that picture? What about four people sitting on a boat would make me want to buy that printer?
i ususally don’t get advertising. But it must work or they wouldn’t do it.
What is your understanding of McLuhan’s thought:”the media is the message” ?
As I said “branding” and advertising were really only peripheral amateur interest – so I don’t really know.
Your phrase “it must work or they wouldn’t do it” is absolutely magic. Worth questioning.
It’s at the core of my agenda. Of course they will have arguments and figures to “justify” doing it – but are they actually any good, what’s the quality of that argument, etc ….
Anyway, McLuhan is still really on my reading list, so I’m not sure exactly what he meant. What I understand by it these days is that your choice of if and how to communicate something – the medium (who, why, when, where, the channel, the form, the language, etc.) contains at least as much of the information as the semantics of the explicit message contained.