Where can advertising go next?

The fanfare that greeted the emergence of integrated marketing communications in the early 90s has died away, leaving the industry uncomfortably aware that it still represents a series of one-trick ponies. Advertising agencies still espouse solutions that center on advertising. PR agencies always suggest PR; direct agencies suggest direct marketing and so on.As a result each fails to diagnose the problem correctly and opts to solve all their clients' communications issues with one tool. Ask WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell. He bemoaned the fact that most agencies 'redefine every problem in terms of their proposed solution.' As Sir Martin knows, different communications tools have different strengths. This has two implications. First, a company must completely diagnose the communications challenge before it assigns the communications tools to be used in its strategy. For many Clients, tools such as advertising, PR or sponsorship will prove entirely ineffective no matter how well they are applied because they are wrong tools for the job. Second, by combining two or more communication tools into an integrated campaign, a company is likely to realize significant synergies. An integrated strategy that spreads its budget across a combination of PR, direct marketing and events marketing is guaranteed to have a greater impact than a campaign that opts to spend the total budget on just one of them.  The ideal model is obvious: a handyman with a variety of tools, who first studies the problem, then selects a combination of tools to solve the problem.But this model has proved impossible to replicate in marketing communications terms. Despite owning an impressive list of different organizations that represent every major communications tools, WPP, for example, has consistently failed to get its organizations to work together for their clients' common good. The concept of an integrated campaign in which BPRI does the research, Added Value positions the brand, Landor designs the new corporate identity, Y & R does the media advertising, Burson-Marsteller does the PR and Ogilvy Direct runs the customer relationship management strategy, remains a pipe dream. Integration on the supply side it seems will never occur. Turf wars, egos and a lack of common systems and understanding means agencies will remain segregated. The only potential site of integration resides on the demand side with the client. It is up to clients to diagnose their problems, select and motivate these groups to work in a single strategic agenda. Firstly we have to start change by facing up to the fact that the problems with the current system are manifest.   The challenges faced by marketing and advertising stem largely from the institutional dimensions of both.  Remove these old models from the equation and many of the existing problems of lack of sales etc will disappear.Nowadays consumers want information that’s relevant, credible and engaging, and they don’t much care where it comes from.The subject of interactive communication has been the focus of innumerable articles in the popular press.   Most of these have looked at the phenomenon through a mass-media lens, with “interactivity” reduced to advertising links and “Buy-It” buttons.And certainly not understanding the very important fact that interactivity is the most crucial aspect of all communication.   And it is certainly not determined by the expectations of media conglomerates bent on appealing to the lowest common denominator and therefore, by the inexorable and inflexible logic of broadcast, to the largest collection of passive ad receivers.    Today consumers don’t like ad infested terrestrial TV what they do like is the opportunity to express an opinion, they like, in other words, voice. All advertising is a form of learning whereby the advertiser is asking people to change their behavior after learning the benefits of the products or services on offer. However, we all tend to filter out information, which we do not want to hear. This clearly alters the effectiveness of conventional advertising in quite a dramatic way.The final purchase decision is invariably a compromise and this leads to a certain amount of anxiety; the worry that perhaps the decision was not the best or the right one.  In order to minimize this anxiety the purchaser seeks to reinforce their choice and begins to take more notice of their chosen product’s marketing communications.Due to a lack of understanding of the communication process we have created a media society during the past 40 or 50 years, where the whole process has been de-humanized.  There is now an extraordinary reduction in interaction because conventional advertising and marketing have become a one-way practice whereby information is disseminated in a passive form.We must always remember that people still have this desire to be taken account of. To affect change, to learn and personalize their relationship with their environment.   There are a phenomenal number of reasons that cause people to interact, going far beyond just giving them things.When people agree to participate in truly interactive marketing programmes they are told that their efforts and feedback are of positive help to the advertisers.    And most important to the advertisers, by participating and becoming involved, they then learn and understand the advertising message and do so at their own pace and to fit in with their schedule. Consequently, because they are being involved in the process of developing the product or service, it starts to re- personalize their relationship with the advertiser and their products.This takes the consumer through the barrier of not wanting to address change and takes that compromise, the anxiety and worry that perhaps the decision was not the best or the right one, out of the equation. In other words, there is no reason why they should not change from their usual brand in favor of this alternative that they have now learned, fulfills their needs better. And isn’t this the ultimate market the advertiser is after – the people who use his competitors’ products.  Now the consumer can say, “Yes, I will change my behaviour and I have a very good reason or series of reasons why”. They can adopt this position because they have a well-in-formed opinion or have developed an image of why that product is appropriate for their needs.Now the long silence – the industrial interruption of the human conversation is coming to an end.   With interactive communication every product you can think of, from fashion to office supplies, can be discussed, and argue.