Comply or Die by Profero Global

There are, inevitably, both pros and cons to reaching maturity at a time when economies around the world are collapsing, a time when even the assumed recession-proof financial superpowers in the Middle East are bellowing smoke signals for help.

Social marketing has, ostensibly, helped many brands bridge the chasm that can separate consumer confidence and corporate promises; it has added value to products and corporations where value was previously lacking. We have seen relatively run-of-the-mill companies, such as Coffee Grounds and Zappos, leverage social media in ways that have transformed their marketing strategies, revitalised their customer service policies and even enhanced their core business models, turning them into local and global superstars.

With the maturation of the social super brands i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Bebo etc there is an inevitability that this is due to the aging and maturing taste of the consumer. The recent explosion of social media and the seemingly endless list of ‘innovative’ social platforms has been well documented, one only needs to go as far as the Conversation Prism and the changes made on a weekly basis to Brian Solis’s work of art to gasp at the accelerated pace of evolution. However, this torrent of social network offerings has recently begun to slow, with the projected plateau being reached early 2012. It seems that consumers’ digital taste buds are beginning to have satisfied their curiosity for all things social and have settled on fewer platforms. Yet the time spent on these, fewer, sites has increased dramatically i.e. the average user visits 5 main sites each day with Facebook holding the longest engagement statistics with people spending on average of 55 minutes each day on the site.

So, what does this change in social media consumption mean to marketers? Is the growth of Facebook and Twitter the motive for the increase in digital advertising spends? It is, surly, one of the reasons. But one only has to watch an “Awesome Social Media Guru” parody to understand the clichés that have begun to attach themselves to this segment of the industry. Has the work of Facebook, conveniently segregating consumer interests and psychographics, made marketers lazy? Some, of course. However, for social marketing strategists who aim to create memorable and lasting experiences these social superpowers have created a small problem.

The growth and influence of Facebook, in particular, has seen the platform take on the role of teacher, entertainer, retailer, communicator, organiser and, in some cases, employer. Users might now struggle to find a reason to leave this space. The age-old casino trick of offering players free sandwiches and beverages has the audience in a very favourable position. Parallels can be drawn with the introduction supermarkets in the UK: for the consumer it’s convenient, for the independent retailer a nightmare.

There is a divide in opinion about the growth of social media and the power of the new Tesco’s of the web. There are those who think it’s a quick win, a holy grail in the form of a strategy that can now satisfy client needs for ROI figures; and there are those who believe it stems creativity and that its popularity has made it a beacon to naïve clients and lazy marketers, ultimately devaluing it. I am drawn between both. I agree that the platform is great in that it offers a space for brands to listen and create relationships, but on the other hand I feel that the consumer has been spoiled. They want to have their cake and eat it (this includes myself to an extent) at a time that suits them and in a space of their choice. And that is Facebook.

So, sure this creates a conundrum when the brief comes in, for the weaker of the marketers, the ‘Awesome Social Media Gurus’ and the like, simply creating a plan centralizing around a Facebook strategy that a nodding client can sign-off, regardless of the lack of innovation and creativity required, is a good days work (shudder). For the stronger agencies, creating digital spaces the client can own, that bear roots from a creative idea is the real challenge. To create ideas that are not restricted in offering value to the consumer but current and potential business and customer service models, is even more so.

The future is looking bright, however. Facebook seems to have become conscious of the changes in quality to the user experience that social marketing has had and this can be seen in stringent regulations now in place for marketers to adhere to. For the main part, innovative, engaging campaigns that offer real value i.e. Virgin ‘Frienemies’, Audi crowd sourcing for the future etc., the crux of these ideas will remain unaffected.

The changes include a banning of pushed notifications, pushed ‘share’ boxes and the removal of Facebook ‘boxes’ from the user control panel, among others. Although the seeding for these ideas may now alter slightly, the ideas at their heart are the true drivers of their success, not the blanketing of messaging across the target market, praying that the low click-through-rates (0.3 on a good day) will come good. And the result? The more generic/traditional/disappointing advertising approaches used by the idle industry advertisers, those that result in merely seeding Facebook contextual ads, spamming news streams whilst begging you to ‘share’ boring content and so on, is to be abolished in the new year.

It can be assumed (dangerous but tempting) that Facebook has finally monopolised this segment of social networks, similar to YouTube, and can now strip back the growing clutter to concentrate on a purer consumer experience. This is certainly not a case of leaving us marketers outside in the cold, salivating at the abundance of consumer insights and information of yester-year, but now throws down the gauntlet to advertisers who relish the Darwinian challenge that only the deserving, most innovative ideas will prevail on this evolving landscape.
So, it seems that while the monoliths may be growing in stature, signaled by the lack of threat from new entrants, with power comes responsibility. With the reforming of rules within Facebook advertising, ethics and value for the customer remain integral to the new plan; and it is a change welcomed by those ready for the challenge in the new year….so only the strong need apply.

Comply or Die by Profero Global

There are, inevitably, both pros and cons to reaching maturity at a time when economies around the world are collapsing, a time when even the assumed recession-proof financial superpowers in the Middle East are bellowing smoke signals for help.

Social marketing has, ostensibly, helped many brands bridge the chasm that can separate consumer confidence and corporate promises; it has added value to products and corporations where value was previously lacking. We have seen relatively run-of-the-mill companies, such as Coffee Grounds and Zappos, leverage social media in ways that have transformed their marketing strategies, revitalised their customer service policies and even enhanced their core business models, turning them into local and global superstars.

With the maturation of the social super brands i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Bebo etc there is an inevitability that this is due to the aging and maturing taste of the consumer. The recent explosion of social media and the seemingly endless list of ‘innovative’ social platforms has been well documented, one only needs to go as far as the Conversation Prism and the changes made on a weekly basis to Brian Solis’s work of art to gasp at the accelerated pace of evolution. However, this torrent of social network offerings has recently begun to slow, with the projected plateau being reached early 2012. It seems that consumers’ digital taste buds are beginning to have satisfied their curiosity for all things social and have settled on fewer platforms. Yet the time spent on these, fewer, sites has increased dramatically i.e. the average user visits 5 main sites each day with Facebook holding the longest engagement statistics with people spending on average of 55 minutes each day on the site.

So, what does this change in social media consumption mean to marketers? Is the growth of Facebook and Twitter the motive for the increase in digital advertising spends? It is, surly, one of the reasons. But one only has to watch an “Awesome Social Media Guru” parody to understand the clichés that have begun to attach themselves to this segment of the industry. Has the work of Facebook, conveniently segregating consumer interests and psychographics, made marketers lazy? Some, of course. However, for social marketing strategists who aim to create memorable and lasting experiences these social superpowers have created a small problem.

The growth and influence of Facebook, in particular, has seen the platform take on the role of teacher, entertainer, retailer, communicator, organiser and, in some cases, employer. Users might now struggle to find a reason to leave this space. The age-old casino trick of offering players free sandwiches and beverages has the audience in a very favourable position. Parallels can be drawn with the introduction supermarkets in the UK: for the consumer it’s convenient, for the independent retailer a nightmare.

There is a divide in opinion about the growth of social media and the power of the new Tesco’s of the web. There are those who think it’s a quick win, a holy grail in the form of a strategy that can now satisfy client needs for ROI figures; and there are those who believe it stems creativity and that its popularity has made it a beacon to naïve clients and lazy marketers, ultimately devaluing it. I am drawn between both. I agree that the platform is great in that it offers a space for brands to listen and create relationships, but on the other hand I feel that the consumer has been spoiled. They want to have their cake and eat it (this includes myself to an extent) at a time that suits them and in a space of their choice. And that is Facebook.

So, sure this creates a conundrum when the brief comes in, for the weaker of the marketers, the ‘Awesome Social Media Gurus’ and the like, simply creating a plan centralizing around a Facebook strategy that a nodding client can sign-off, regardless of the lack of innovation and creativity required, is a good days work (shudder). For the stronger agencies, creating digital spaces the client can own, that bear roots from a creative idea is the real challenge. To create ideas that are not restricted in offering value to the consumer but current and potential business and customer service models, is even more so.

The future is looking bright, however. Facebook seems to have become conscious of the changes in quality to the user experience that social marketing has had and this can be seen in stringent regulations now in place for marketers to adhere to. For the main part, innovative, engaging campaigns that offer real value i.e. Virgin ‘Frienemies’, Audi crowd sourcing for the future etc., the crux of these ideas will remain unaffected.

The changes include a banning of pushed notifications, pushed ‘share’ boxes and the removal of Facebook ‘boxes’ from the user control panel, among others. Although the seeding for these ideas may now alter slightly, the ideas at their heart are the true drivers of their success, not the blanketing of messaging across the target market, praying that the low click-through-rates (0.3 on a good day) will come good. And the result? The more generic/traditional/disappointing advertising approaches used by the idle industry advertisers, those that result in merely seeding Facebook contextual ads, spamming news streams whilst begging you to ‘share’ boring content and so on, is to be abolished in the new year.

It can be assumed (dangerous but tempting) that Facebook has finally monopolised this segment of social networks, similar to YouTube, and can now strip back the growing clutter to concentrate on a purer consumer experience. This is certainly not a case of leaving us marketers outside in the cold, salivating at the abundance of consumer insights and information of yester-year, but now throws down the gauntlet to advertisers who relish the Darwinian challenge that only the deserving, most innovative ideas will prevail on this evolving landscape.
So, it seems that while the monoliths may be growing in stature, signaled by the lack of threat from new entrants, with power comes responsibility. With the reforming of rules within Facebook advertising, ethics and value for the customer remain integral to the new plan; and it is a change welcomed by those ready for the challenge in the new year….so only the strong need apply.

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words – Hippocrates

Pop quiz, readers. Re-calibrate your synapses, set your faces to stunned and prepare for linguistic splashdown. Feast your eyes on this smorgasbord of gibberish and pick out the runt of the litter:

“Building a conversation strategy will allow us to visually see our complete marketing ecosystem and bake in our communication throughout all touch points.”

“First, by socializing all media, the engagement experience is cyclical and ongoing. Second, by identifying conversation groups (social graphs) and tapping directly into them and then connecting them together, the long tail of niche market segments become your mass or ‘mainstream’ media play.”

“Develop a multi-faceted communication program utilizing both traditional media and truly interactive social media channels, where listening and acting upon your human being’s wants is KING”

“A multimedia mix framed to spark conversations requires a compelling message concept that can work across a multimedia platform.”

“…Package the compelling message (internal marketing, external marketing and social network marketing) into an organized dashboard that exponentially expands website real estate, then push the content in real time to all product/service distribution points…”

Which of these abominations were written with a straight face, by real people with working brains? And which is the fraudulent imposter, demanding to be bound in the back of a transit van, driven to a remote woodland clearing and shot at close range through the back of the head? Well, are you sitting down? Because, remarkably, they are all genuine. And to someone somewhere they really do mean something.  To those displaying the characteristics of sentient and evolved human beings, however – upright, opposable thumbs, a rational mistrust of Scientology and men with winter tans – they are nothing more than a dreadful noise. A low, humming dreadful noise. And as someone who sat through much of the Guantanamo Bay-inspired torture purporting to be cutting-edge insight, from the industry’s “leading thinkers” at this year’s Cannes Festival, like a latter day, hairier Martha Gellhorn I can report from the frontline that this sort of smoke-and-mirrors propaganda is not restricted to the written word. People actually say this stuff, too. And other people clap. Loudly. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Or, to put it less succinctly, the Danish vertical has become unsynergised from the positive engagement factor of the mainstream virtual/emotional experience vector.

Children, children….

And herein lies much of the problem, folks. Language has become a barrier to understanding. As 2009 hauls its broken carcass across the finish line there is a definite funk in the air. The funk of hostility. Peace, or whatever there was of it, has been ripped asunder and the emergence of gauche upstart “digital” as a major player has caused much irritation among the “traditional” set. There is a very obvious rift and it seems to have morphed into the media equivalent of an East End turf war, but without the samurai swords and Rottweilers.

Superficially the debate has always been, and remains, an “either/or contest”. Unlike Michael Jackson’s skin pigmentation or Tom Cruise’s sexuality, you are one or the other. Or in the words of that great twenty-first century Kierkegaard, George Walker Bush, “You are with us or you’re against us.” We seem pathologically incapable of approaching the discussion in anything other than purely Manichean terms. Traditional is, depending on your heritage, either prehistoric and profligate or awe-inspiring, while digital is either the emperor’s new clothes or revolutionary. In this world the two are mutually exclusive. The reality, of course, is far more complicated and any attempt to delineate them is redundant. So, in an effort at clarity, I contend that the crux of this spiteful little mess is not really about real value or superiority, but rather one about perceptions of value and how it is communicated.

It Ain’t Always Wot We Do, It’s Sometimes Wot We Say

Whatever your opinions on the merits or otherwise of digital, one thing that its advocates must admit to is an horrendous and unforgivable butchering of language. It‘s painful to witness and, sadly, has only served to keep digital alienated from the realities of popular marketing and communication. We have become so saturated in a kind of meta-language, a simulacrum of sense that we have made it almost impossible to understand. Marketing has been awash with jargon for many years, and it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise, but why has digital assumed the role of chief flag-waver for bullshit? It’s impossible to see who gains from it.

It might be sacrilegious to suggest, but could it be because just sometimes the numbers don’t add up? That when it comes to emotion, persuasiveness and good old-fashioned storytelling, nothing comes close to a well-made TV ad or a beautiful, epic cinema spot? Could it be that in falling short of the sheer scale, reach and romance of TV, digital apostles have created an amphetamine-fuelled demi-language that gives the illusion of grandeur? Could all this talk of “multi-media migration” and “cross-vertical communication utilisation” be a subconscious attempt to cloud this issue? This is not to disparage digital in anyway. There is some remarkable digital work by some wonderful minds. What some brands have achieved through digital is extraordinary and certainly can’t be matched by our offline cousins. Digital does utility better than any other medium. It enables people to act. But what it can’t do, or has failed to find a way of achieving so far, is a deeper emotion.

Emotion v Utility

Two examples: this 1998 TV and cinema spot is still talked about, by industry and non-industry people alike, in revered tones; and this much awarded 2007 digital strategy and execution is stunning in its scope and its capacity to involve people. The first is entirely emotion-led, the second entirely practical. Both have immense, possibly equal value to each of the brands. The former is admired by people and builds affinity through impression; the latter valued and builds affinity through efficacy. Yet comparing the two is entirely superfluous. So why do we try? Why does digital insist on attempting to muscle in on a brand of advertising that it cannot match? And why do traditional campaigners insist on belittling digital in such a vehemently supercilious manner? As long as the debate around “traditional v digital” continues along such entrenched battle lines then it will be impossible for digital to look traditional in the eyes and for traditional to be anything other than a swaggering distant relative.

One way to abandon this divide and to de-clutter the “media landscape” must be to call a moratorium on the debasement of a language that has functioned perfectly well without being manipulated into something entirely lacking credibility and authenticity. Any joker can trot out spurious and mercilessly banal media-speak, half-truths and bogus insight. The very best people don’t need to. So let’s demystify what we do and engender a little simplicity; strip back the language that clogs up presentations and blogs; demonstrate a little humility and honesty. Let’s call a halt to comparisons and competition and childish things. Let’s establish a reasonable, logical and intelligible foundation – digital can’t do what traditional can do and traditional can’t do what digital can – and move on from there. Let’s abandon any pretence and antagonism and understand that in their own ways each medium has a huge amount to offer, can work separately or, perhaps more importantly, can work together. Suddenly it all becomes a little clearer.

Beauty in Simplicity

Let’s move the focus away from the medium and back to the brand. It’s so much more simple. So, forget about vertical communication synergisation; and conversational media integration; and consumer deforestation; and interplanetary bespoke cross-platform noise generation. There is only one brand. Nike, Guinness, Levis, Burger King….there is no separate brand for online and another for offline. The same basic principles, and the integrity that your actions demand, apply wherever it exists. And wherever that might be there should be only four basic questions that need asking: Does the work created communicate the brand message? Does it impart relevant information and/or provide a utility? Is it brilliantly executed? Is it interesting?

Anything more is superfluous and obfuscation. Keeping things simple, keeping things honest and having the rigorous self-discipline to avoid distraction is far harder to achieve than creating self-justifying diversions to cloud shortcomings. It’s why the very best in the industry, irrespective of whether they are from “digital” or “traditional” backgrounds, do simply great work and those that purport to be the best merely end up talking about it.

(A special thank you to the ever wonderful The Ad Contrarian for holding his nose and sifting through the bullsh*t…so we don’t have to)

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words – Hippocrates

Pop quiz, readers. Re-calibrate your synapses, set your faces to stunned and prepare for linguistic splashdown. Feast your eyes on this smorgasbord of gibberish and pick out the runt of the litter:

“Building a conversation strategy will allow us to visually see our complete marketing ecosystem and bake in our communication throughout all touch points.”

“First, by socializing all media, the engagement experience is cyclical and ongoing. Second, by identifying conversation groups (social graphs) and tapping directly into them and then connecting them together, the long tail of niche market segments become your mass or ‘mainstream’ media play.”

“Develop a multi-faceted communication program utilizing both traditional media and truly interactive social media channels, where listening and acting upon your human being’s wants is KING”

“A multimedia mix framed to spark conversations requires a compelling message concept that can work across a multimedia platform.”

“…Package the compelling message (internal marketing, external marketing and social network marketing) into an organized dashboard that exponentially expands website real estate, then push the content in real time to all product/service distribution points…”

Which of these abominations were written with a straight face, by real people with working brains? And which is the fraudulent imposter, demanding to be bound in the back of a transit van, driven to a remote woodland clearing and shot at close range through the back of the head? Well, are you sitting down? Because, remarkably, they are all genuine. And to someone somewhere they really do mean something.  To those displaying the characteristics of sentient and evolved human beings, however – upright, opposable thumbs, a rational mistrust of Scientology and men with winter tans – they are nothing more than a dreadful noise. A low, humming dreadful noise. And as someone who sat through much of the Guantanamo Bay-inspired torture purporting to be cutting-edge insight, from the industry’s “leading thinkers” at this year’s Cannes Festival, like a latter day, hairier Martha Gellhorn I can report from the frontline that this sort of smoke-and-mirrors propaganda is not restricted to the written word. People actually say this stuff, too. And other people clap. Loudly. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Or, to put it less succinctly, the Danish vertical has become unsynergised from the positive engagement factor of the mainstream virtual/emotional experience vector.

Children, children….

And herein lies much of the problem, folks. Language has become a barrier to understanding. As 2009 hauls its broken carcass across the finish line there is a definite funk in the air. The funk of hostility. Peace, or whatever there was of it, has been ripped asunder and the emergence of gauche upstart “digital” as a major player has caused much irritation among the “traditional” set. There is a very obvious rift and it seems to have morphed into the media equivalent of an East End turf war, but without the samurai swords and Rottweilers.

Superficially the debate has always been, and remains, an “either/or contest”. Unlike Michael Jackson’s skin pigmentation or Tom Cruise’s sexuality, you are one or the other. Or in the words of that great twenty-first century Kierkegaard, George Walker Bush, “You are with us or you’re against us.” We seem pathologically incapable of approaching the discussion in anything other than purely Manichean terms. Traditional is, depending on your heritage, either prehistoric and profligate or awe-inspiring, while digital is either the emperor’s new clothes or revolutionary. In this world the two are mutually exclusive. The reality, of course, is far more complicated and any attempt to delineate them is redundant. So, in an effort at clarity, I contend that the crux of this spiteful little mess is not really about real value or superiority, but rather one about perceptions of value and how it is communicated.

It Ain’t Always Wot We Do, It’s Sometimes Wot We Say

Whatever your opinions on the merits or otherwise of digital, one thing that its advocates must admit to is an horrendous and unforgivable butchering of language. It‘s painful to witness and, sadly, has only served to keep digital alienated from the realities of popular marketing and communication. We have become so saturated in a kind of meta-language, a simulacrum of sense that we have made it almost impossible to understand. Marketing has been awash with jargon for many years, and it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise, but why has digital assumed the role of chief flag-waver for bullshit? It’s impossible to see who gains from it.

It might be sacrilegious to suggest, but could it be because just sometimes the numbers don’t add up? That when it comes to emotion, persuasiveness and good old-fashioned storytelling, nothing comes close to a well-made TV ad or a beautiful, epic cinema spot? Could it be that in falling short of the sheer scale, reach and romance of TV, digital apostles have created an amphetamine-fuelled demi-language that gives the illusion of grandeur? Could all this talk of “multi-media migration” and “cross-vertical communication utilisation” be a subconscious attempt to cloud this issue? This is not to disparage digital in anyway. There is some remarkable digital work by some wonderful minds. What some brands have achieved through digital is extraordinary and certainly can’t be matched by our offline cousins. Digital does utility better than any other medium. It enables people to act. But what it can’t do, or has failed to find a way of achieving so far, is a deeper emotion.

Emotion v Utility

Two examples: this 1998 TV and cinema spot is still talked about, by industry and non-industry people alike, in revered tones; and this much awarded 2007 digital strategy and execution is stunning in its scope and its capacity to involve people. The first is entirely emotion-led, the second entirely practical. Both have immense, possibly equal value to each of the brands. The former is admired by people and builds affinity through impression; the latter valued and builds affinity through efficacy. Yet comparing the two is entirely superfluous. So why do we try? Why does digital insist on attempting to muscle in on a brand of advertising that it cannot match? And why do traditional campaigners insist on belittling digital in such a vehemently supercilious manner? As long as the debate around “traditional v digital” continues along such entrenched battle lines then it will be impossible for digital to look traditional in the eyes and for traditional to be anything other than a swaggering distant relative.

One way to abandon this divide and to de-clutter the “media landscape” must be to call a moratorium on the debasement of a language that has functioned perfectly well without being manipulated into something entirely lacking credibility and authenticity. Any joker can trot out spurious and mercilessly banal media-speak, half-truths and bogus insight. The very best people don’t need to. So let’s demystify what we do and engender a little simplicity; strip back the language that clogs up presentations and blogs; demonstrate a little humility and honesty. Let’s call a halt to comparisons and competition and childish things. Let’s establish a reasonable, logical and intelligible foundation – digital can’t do what traditional can do and traditional can’t do what digital can – and move on from there. Let’s abandon any pretence and antagonism and understand that in their own ways each medium has a huge amount to offer, can work separately or, perhaps more importantly, can work together. Suddenly it all becomes a little clearer.

Beauty in Simplicity

Let’s move the focus away from the medium and back to the brand. It’s so much more simple. So, forget about vertical communication synergisation; and conversational media integration; and consumer deforestation; and interplanetary bespoke cross-platform noise generation. There is only one brand. Nike, Guinness, Levis, Burger King….there is no separate brand for online and another for offline. The same basic principles, and the integrity that your actions demand, apply wherever it exists. And wherever that might be there should be only four basic questions that need asking: Does the work created communicate the brand message? Does it impart relevant information and/or provide a utility? Is it brilliantly executed? Is it interesting?

Anything more is superfluous and obfuscation. Keeping things simple, keeping things honest and having the rigorous self-discipline to avoid distraction is far harder to achieve than creating self-justifying diversions to cloud shortcomings. It’s why the very best in the industry, irrespective of whether they are from “digital” or “traditional” backgrounds, do simply great work and those that purport to be the best merely end up talking about it.

(A special thank you to the ever wonderful The Ad Contrarian for holding his nose and sifting through the b*llshit…so we don’t have to)

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words – Hippocrates

Pop quiz, readers. Re-calibrate your synapses, set your faces to stunned and prepare for linguistic splashdown. Feast your eyes on this smorgasbord of gibberish and pick out the runt of the litter:

“Building a conversation strategy will allow us to visually see our complete marketing ecosystem and bake in our communication throughout all touch points.”

“First, by socializing all media, the engagement experience is cyclical and ongoing. Second, by identifying conversation groups (social graphs) and tapping directly into them and then connecting them together, the long tail of niche market segments become your mass or ‘mainstream’ media play.”

“Develop a multi-faceted communication program utilizing both traditional media and truly interactive social media channels, where listening and acting upon your human being’s wants is KING”

“A multimedia mix framed to spark conversations requires a compelling message concept that can work across a multimedia platform.”

“…Package the compelling message (internal marketing, external marketing and social network marketing) into an organized dashboard that exponentially expands website real estate, then push the content in real time to all product/service distribution points…”

Which of these abominations were written with a straight face, by real people with working brains? And which is the fraudulent imposter, demanding to be bound in the back of a transit van, driven to a remote woodland clearing and shot at close range through the back of the head? Well, are you sitting down? Because, remarkably, they are all genuine. And to someone somewhere they really do mean something.  To those displaying the characteristics of sentient and evolved human beings, however – upright, opposable thumbs, a rational mistrust of Scientology and men with winter tans – they are nothing more than a dreadful noise. A low, humming dreadful noise. And as someone who sat through much of the Guantanamo Bay-inspired torture purporting to be cutting-edge insight, from the industry’s “leading thinkers” at this year’s Cannes Festival, like a latter day, hairier Martha Gellhorn I can report from the frontline that this sort of smoke-and-mirrors propaganda is not restricted to the written word. People actually say this stuff, too. And other people clap. Loudly. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Or, to put it less succinctly, the Danish vertical has become unsynergised from the positive engagement factor of the mainstream virtual/emotional experience vector.

Children, children….

And herein lies much of the problem, folks. Language has become a barrier to understanding. As 2009 hauls its broken carcass across the finish line there is a definite funk in the air. The funk of hostility. Peace, or whatever there was of it, has been ripped asunder and the emergence of gauche upstart “digital” as a main player has caused much irritation among the “traditional” set. There is a definite rift and it seems to have morphed into the media equivalent of an East End turf war, but without the samurai swords and Rottweilers.

Superficially the debate has always been, and remains, an “either/or contest”. Unlike Michael Jackson’s skin pigmentation or Tom Cruise’s sexuality, you are one or the other. Or in the words of that great twenty-first century Kierkegaard, George Walker Bush, “You are with us or you’re against us.” We seem pathologically incapable of approaching the discussion in anything other than purely Manichean terms. Traditional is, depending on your heritage, either prehistoric and profligate or fundamental and awe-inspiring, while digital is either the emperor’s new clothes or revolutionary. In this world the two are mutually exclusive. The reality, of course, is far more complicated and any attempt to delineate them is redundant. So, in an effort at clarity, I contend that the crux of this spiteful little mess is not really about real value or superiority, but rather one about perceptions of value and how it is communicated.

It Ain’t Always Wot We Do, It’s Sometimes Wot We Say

Whatever your opinions on the merits or otherwise of digital, one thing that its advocates must admit to is an horrendous and unforgivable butchering of language. It‘s painful to witness and, sadly, has only served to keep digital alienated from the realities of popular marketing and communication. We have become so saturated in a kind of meta-language, a simulacrum of sense that we have made it almost impossible to understand. It has become so removed from conventional speech that it’s like dragging your canoe up the banks of the Amazon and trying to talk turkey with the lost Matis Indians…or something. Marketing has been awash with jargon for many years, and it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise, but why has digital assumed the role of chief flag-waver for bullshit? It’s impossible to see who gains from it.

It might be sacrilegious to suggest, but could it be because just sometimes the numbers don’t add up? That when it comes to emotion, persuasiveness and good old-fashioned storytelling, nothing comes close to a well-made TV ad or a beautiful, epic cinema spot? Could it be that in falling short of the sheer scale, reach and romance of TV, digital apostles have created an amphetamine-fuelled demi-language that gives the illusion of grandeur? Could all this talk of “multi-media migration” and “cross-vertical communication utilisation” be a subconscious attempt to cloud this issue? This is not to disparage digital in anyway. There is some remarkable, stunning digital work out there, by some wonderfully creative minds. What some brands have achieved through digital is extraordinary and certainly can’t be matched by our offline cousins. Digital does utility better than any other medium. It enables people to act. But what it can’t do, or has failed to find a way of achieving so far, is a deeper emotion.

Emotion v Utility

Two examples: this 1998 TV and cinema spot is still talked about, by industry and non-industry people alike, in revered tones; and this much awarded 2007 digital strategy and execution is stunning in its scope and its capacity to involve people. The first is entirely emotion-led, the second entirely practical. Both have immense, possibly equal value to each of the brands. The former is admired by people and builds affinity through impression; the latter valued and builds affinity through efficacy. Yet comparing the two is entirely superfluous. So why do we try? Why does digital insist on attempting to muscle in on a brand of advertising that it cannot match? And why do traditional campaigners insist on belittling digital in such a vehemently supercilious manner? As long as the debate around “traditional v digital” continues along such entrenched battle lines then it will be impossible for digital to look traditional in the eyes and for traditional to be anything other than a swaggering distant relative.

One way to abandon this divide and to de-clutter the “media landscape” must be to call a moratorium on the debasement of a language that has functioned perfectly well without being manipulated into something entirely lacking credibility and authenticity. Any joker can trot out spurious and mercilessly banal media-speak, half-truths and bogus insight. The very best people don’t need to. So let’s demystify what we do and engender a little simplicity; strip back the language that clogs up presentations and blogs; demonstrate a little humility and honesty. Let’s call a halt to comparisons and competition and childish things. Let’s establish a reasonable, logical and intelligible foundation – digital can’t do what traditional can do and traditional can’t do what digital can – and move on from there. Let’s abandon any pretence and antagonism and understand that in their own ways each medium has a huge amount to offer, can work separately or, perhaps more importantly, can work together. Suddenly it all becomes a little clearer.

Beauty in Simplicity

Let’s move the focus away from the medium and back to the brand. It’s so much more simple. So, forget about vertical communication synergisation; and conversational media integration; and consumer deforestation; and interplanetary bespoke cross-platform noise generation. There is only one brand. Nike, Guinness, Levis, Burger King….there is no separate brand for online and another for offline. The same basic principles, and the integrity that your actions demand, apply wherever it exists. And wherever that might be there should be only four basic questions that need asking: Does the work created communicate the brand message? Does it impart relevant information and/or provide a utility? Is it brilliantly executed? Is it interesting?

Anything more is superfluous and obfuscation. Keeping things simple, keeping things honest and having the rigorous self-discipline to avoid distraction is far harder to achieve than creating self-justifying diversions to cloud shortcomings. It’s why the very best in the industry, irrespective of whether they are from “digital” or “traditional” backgrounds, do simply great work and those that purport to be the best merely end up talking about it.

(A special thank you to the ever wonderful The Ad Contrarian for holding his nose and sifting through the b*llshit…so we don’t have to)

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words – Hippocrates

Pop quiz, readers. Re-calibrate your synapses, set your faces to stunned and prepare for linguistic splashdown. Feast your eyes on this smorgasbord of gibberish and pick out the runt of the litter:

“Building a conversation strategy will allow us to visually see our complete marketing ecosystem and bake in our communication throughout all touch points.”

“First, by socializing all media, the engagement experience is cyclical and ongoing. Second, by identifying conversation groups (social graphs) and tapping directly into them and then connecting them together, the long tail of niche market segments become your mass or ‘mainstream’ media play.”

“Develop a multi-faceted communication program utilizing both traditional media and truly interactive social media channels, where listening and acting upon your human being’s wants is KING”

“A multimedia mix framed to spark conversations requires a compelling message concept that can work across a multimedia platform.”

“…Package the compelling message (internal marketing, external marketing and social network marketing) into an organized dashboard that exponentially expands website real estate, then push the content in real time to all product/service distribution points…”

Which of these abominations were written with a straight face, by real people with working brains? And which is the fraudulent imposter, demanding to be bound in the back of a transit van, driven to a remote woodland clearing and shot at close range through the back of the head? Well, are you sitting down? Because, remarkably, they are all genuine. And to someone somewhere they really do mean something.  To those displaying the characteristics of sentient and evolved human beings, however – upright, opposable thumbs, a rational mistrust of Scientology and men with winter tans – they are nothing more than a dreadful noise. A low, humming dreadful noise. And as someone who sat through much of the Guantanamo Bay-inspired torture purporting to be cutting-edge insight, from the industry’s “leading thinkers” at this year’s Cannes Festival, like a latter day, hairier Martha Gellhorn I can report from the frontline that this sort of smoke-and-mirrors propaganda is not restricted to the written word. People actually say this stuff, too. And other people clap. Loudly. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Or, to put it less succinctly, the Danish vertical has become unsynergised from the positive engagement factor of the mainstream virtual/emotional experience vector.

Children, children….

And herein lies much of the problem, folks. Language has become a barrier to understanding. As 2009 hauls its broken carcass across the finish line there is a definite funk in the air. The funk of hostility. Peace, or whatever there was of it, has been ripped asunder and the emergence of gauche upstart “digital” as a main player has caused much irritation among the “traditional” set. And it’s all being played out on global marketing message boards and blogs. This is no surprise given the trenchant views of media-types on most matters, either relevant or wildly superfluous. There are, after all, few things that appeal to a marketer more than the syrupy sound of his or her own opinion. That the debate has often become so vitriolic, and personal, is a little more alarming, however. It seems to have morphed into the media equivalent of an East End turf war, but without the samurai swords and Rottweilers.

Superficially the debate has always been, and remains, an “either/or contest”. Unlike Michael Jackson’s skin pigmentation or Tom Cruise’s sexuality, you are one or the other. Or in the words of that great twenty-first century Kierkegaard, George Walker Bush, “You are with us or you’re against us.” We seem pathologically incapable of approaching the discussion in anything other than purely Manichean terms. Traditional is, depending on your heritage, either prehistoric and profligate or fundamental and awe-inspiring, while digital is either the emperor’s new clothes or revolutionary. In this world the two are mutually exclusive. The reality, of course, is far more complicated and any attempt to delineate them is redundant. So, in an effort at clarity, I contend that the crux of this spiteful little mess is not really about real value or superiority, but rather one about perceptions of value and how it is communicated.

It Ain’t Always Wot We Do, It’s Sometimes Wot We Say

Whatever your opinions on the merits or otherwise of digital, one thing that its advocates must admit to is an horrendous and unforgivable butchering of language. It‘s painful to witness and, sadly, has only served to keep digital alienated from the realities of popular marketing and communication. We have become so saturated in a kind of meta-language, a simulacrum of sense that we have made it almost impossible to understand. It has become so removed from conventional speech that it’s like dragging your canoe up the banks of the Amazon and trying to talk turkey with the lost Matis Indians…or something. Marketing has been awash with jargon for many years, and it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise, but why has digital assumed the role of chief flag-waver for bullshit? It’s impossible to see who gains from it.

It might be sacrilegious to suggest, but could it be because just sometimes the numbers don’t add up? That when it comes to emotion, persuasiveness and good old-fashioned storytelling, nothing comes close to a well-made TV ad or a beautiful, epic cinema spot? Could it be that in falling short of the sheer scale, reach and romance of TV, digital apostles have created an amphetamine-fuelled demi-language that gives the illusion of grandeur? Could all this talk of “multi-media migration” and “cross-vertical communication utilisation” be a subconscious attempt to cloud this issue? This is not to disparage digital in anyway. There is some remarkable, stunning digital work out there, by some wonderfully creative minds. What some brands have achieved through digital is extraordinary and certainly can’t be matched by our offline cousins. Digital does utility better than any other medium. It enables people to act. But what it can’t do, or has failed to find a way of achieving so far, is a deeper emotion.

Emotion v Utility

Two examples: this 1998 TV and cinema spot is still talked about, by industry and non-industry people alike, in revered tones; and this much awarded 2007 digital strategy and execution is stunning in its scope and its capacity to involve people. The first is entirely emotion-led, the second entirely practical. Both have immense, possibly equal value to each of the brands. The former is admired by people and builds affinity through impression; the latter valued and builds affinity through efficacy. Yet comparing the two is entirely superfluous. So why do we try? Why does digital insist on attempting to muscle in on a brand of advertising that it cannot match? And why do traditional campaigners insist on belittling digital in such a vehemently supercilious manner? As long as the debate around “traditional v digital” continues along such entrenched battle lines then it will be impossible for digital to look traditional in the eyes and for traditional to be anything other than a swaggering distant relative.

One way to abandon this divide and to de-clutter the “media landscape” must be to call a moratorium on the debasement of a language that has functioned perfectly well without being manipulated into something entirely lacking credibility and authenticity. Any joker can trot out spurious and mercilessly banal media-speak, half-truths and bogus insight. The very best people don’t need to. So let’s demystify what we do and engender a little simplicity; strip back the language that clogs up presentations and blogs; demonstrate a little humility and honesty. Let’s call a halt to comparisons and competition and childish things. Let’s establish a reasonable, logical and intelligible foundation – digital can’t do what traditional can do and traditional can’t do what digital can – and move on from there. Let’s abandon any pretence and antagonism and understand that in their own ways each medium has a huge amount to offer, can work separately or, perhaps more importantly, can work together. Suddenly it all becomes a little clearer.

Beauty in Simplicity

Let’s move the focus away from the medium and back to the brand. It’s so much more simple. So, forget about vertical communication synergisation; and conversational media integration; and consumer deforestation; and interplanetary bespoke cross-platform noise generation. There is only one brand. Nike, Guinness, Levis, Burger King….there is no separate brand for online and another for offline. The same basic principles, and the integrity that your actions demand, apply wherever it exists. And wherever that might be there should be only four basic questions that need asking: Does the work created communicate the brand message? Does it impart relevant information and/or provide a utility? Is it brilliantly executed? Is it interesting?

Anything more is superfluous and obfuscation. Keeping things simple, keeping things honest and having the rigorous self-discipline to avoid distraction is far harder to achieve than creating self-justifying diversions to cloud shortcomings. It’s why the very best in the industry, irrespective of whether they are from “digital” or “traditional” backgrounds, do simply great work and those that purport to be the best merely end up talking about it.

(A special thank you to the ever wonderful The Ad Contrarian for holding his nose and sifting through the b*llshit…so we don’t have to)

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words – Hippocrates

Pop quiz, readers. Re-calibrate your synapses, set your faces to stunned and prepare for linguistic splashdown. Feast your eyes on this smorgasbord of gibberish and pick out the runt of the litter:

“Building a conversation strategy will allow us to visually see our complete marketing ecosystem and bake in our communication throughout all touch points.”

“First, by socializing all media, the engagement experience is cyclical and ongoing. Second, by identifying conversation groups (social graphs) and tapping directly into them and then connecting them together, the long tail of niche market segments become your mass or ‘mainstream’ media play.”

“Develop a multi-faceted communication program utilizing both traditional media and truly interactive social media channels, where listening and acting upon your human being’s wants is KING”

“A multimedia mix framed to spark conversations requires a compelling message concept that can work across a multimedia platform.”

“…Package the compelling message (internal marketing, external marketing and social network marketing) into an organized dashboard that exponentially expands website real estate, then push the content in real time to all product/service distribution points…”

Which of these abominations were written with a straight face, by real people with working brains? And which is the fraudulent imposter, demanding to be bound in the back of a transit van, driven to a remote woodland clearing and shot at close range through the back of the head? Well, are you sitting down? Because, remarkably, they are all genuine. And to someone somewhere they really do mean something.  To those displaying the characteristics of sentient and evolved human beings, however – upright, opposable thumbs, a rational mistrust of Scientology and men with winter tans – they are nothing more than a dreadful noise. A low, humming dreadful noise. And as someone who sat through much of the Guantanamo Bay-inspired torture purporting to be cutting-edge insight, from the industry’s “leading thinkers” at this year’s Cannes Festival, like a latter day, hairier Martha Gellhorn I can report from the frontline that this sort of smoke-and-mirrors propaganda is not restricted to the written word. People actually say this stuff, too. And other people clap. Loudly. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Or, to put it less succinctly, the Danish vertical has become unsynergised from the positive engagement factor of the mainstream virtual/emotional experience vector.

Children, children….

And herein lies much of the problem, folks. Language has become a barrier to understanding. As 2009 hauls its broken carcass across the finish line there is a definite funk in the air. The funk of hostility. Peace, or whatever there was of it, has been ripped asunder and the emergence of gauche upstart “digital” as a main player has caused much irritation among the “traditional” set. And it’s all being played out on global marketing message boards and blogs. This is no surprise given the trenchant views of media-types on most matters, either relevant or wildly superfluous. There are, after all, few things that appeal to a marketer more than the syrupy sound of his or her own opinion. That the debate has often become so vitriolic, and personal, is a little more alarming, however. It seems to have morphed into the media equivalent of an East End turf war, but without the samurai swords and Rottweilers.

Superficially the debate has always been, and remains, an “either/or contest”. Unlike Michael Jackson’s skin pigmentation or Tom Cruise’s sexuality, you are one or the other. Or in the words of that great twenty-first century Kierkegaard, George Walker Bush, “You are with us or you’re against us.” We seem pathologically incapable of approaching the discussion in anything other than purely Manichean terms. Traditional is, depending on your heritage, either prehistoric and profligate or fundamental and awe-inspiring, while digital is either the emperor’s new clothes or revolutionary. In this world the two are mutually exclusive. The reality, of course, is far more complicated and any attempt to delineate them is redundant. So, in an effort at clarity, I contend that the crux of this spiteful little mess is not really about real value or superiority, but rather one about perceptions of value and how it is communicated.

It Ain’t Always Wot We Do, It’s Sometimes Wot We Say

Whatever your opinions on the merits or otherwise of digital, one thing that its advocates must admit to is an horrendous and unforgivable butchering of language. It‘s painful to witness and, sadly, has only served to keep digital alienated from the realities of popular marketing and communication. We have become so saturated in a kind of meta-language, a simulacrum of sense that we have made it almost impossible to understand. It has become so removed from conventional speech that it’s like dragging your canoe up the banks of the Amazon and trying to talk turkey with the lost Matis Indians…or something. Marketing has been awash with jargon for many years, and it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise, but why has digital assumed the role of chief flag-waver for bullshit? It’s impossible to see who gains from it.

It might be sacrilegious to suggest, but could it be because just sometimes the numbers don’t add up? That when it comes to emotion, persuasiveness and good old-fashioned storytelling, nothing comes close to a well-made TV ad or a beautiful, epic cinema spot? Could it be that in falling short of the sheer scale, reach and romance of TV, digital apostles have created an amphetamine-fuelled demi-language that gives the illusion of grandeur? Could all this talk of “multi-media migration” and “cross-vertical communication utilisation” be a subconscious attempt to cloud this issue? This is not to disparage digital in anyway. There is some remarkable, stunning digital work out there, by some wonderfully creative minds. What some brands have achieved through digital is extraordinary and certainly can’t be matched by our offline cousins. Digital does utility better than any other medium. It enables people to act. But what it can’t do, or has failed to find a way of achieving so far, is a deeper emotion.

Emotion v Utility

Two examples: this 1998 TV and cinema spot is still talked about, by industry and non-industry people alike, in revered tones; and this much awarded 2007 digital strategy and execution is stunning in its scope and its capacity to involve people. The first is entirely emotion-led, the second entirely practical. Both have immense, possibly equal value to each of the brands. The former is admired by people and builds affinity through impression; the latter valued and builds affinity through efficacy. Yet comparing the two is entirely superfluous. So why do we try? Why does digital insist on attempting to muscle in on a brand of advertising that it cannot match? And why do traditional campaigners insist on belittling digital in such a vehemently supercilious manner? As long as the debate around “traditional v digital” continues along such entrenched battle lines then it will be impossible for digital to look traditional in the eyes and for traditional to be anything other than a swaggering distant relative.

One way to abandon this divide and to de-clutter the “media landscape” must be to call a moratorium on the debasement of a language that has functioned perfectly well without being manipulated into something entirely lacking credibility and authenticity. Any joker can trot out spurious and mercilessly banal media-speak, half-truths and bogus insight. The very best people don’t need to. So let’s demystify what we do and engender a little simplicity; strip back the language that clogs up presentations and blogs; demonstrate a little humility and honesty. Let’s call a halt to comparisons and competition and childish things. Let’s establish a reasonable, logical and intelligible foundation – digital can’t do what traditional can do and traditional can’t do what digital can – and move on from there. Let’s abandon any pretence and antagonism and understand that in their own ways each medium has a huge amount to offer, can work separately or, perhaps more importantly, can work together. Suddenly it all becomes a little clearer.

Beauty in Simplicity

Let’s move the focus away from the medium and back to the brand. It’s so much more simple. So, forget about vertical communication synergisation; and conversational media integration; and consumer deforestation; and interplanetary bespoke cross-platform noise generation. There is only one brand. Nike, Guinness, Levis, Burger King….there is no separate brand for online and another for offline. The same basic principles, and the integrity that your actions demand, apply wherever it exists. And wherever that might be there should be only four basic questions that need asking: Does the work created communicate the brand message? Does it impart relevant information and/or provide a utility? Is it brilliantly executed? Is it interesting?

Anything more is superfluous and obfuscation. Keeping things simple, keeping things honest and having the rigorous self-discipline to avoid distraction is far harder to achieve than creating self-justifying diversions to cloud shortcomings. It’s why the very best in the industry, irrespective of whether they are from “digital” or “traditional” backgrounds, do simply great work and those that purport to be the best merely end up talking about it.

(A special thank you to the ever wonderful The Adcontrarian for holding his nose and sifting through the b*llshit…so we don’t have to)

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words – Hippocrates

Pop quiz, readers. Re-calibrate your synapses, set your faces to stunned and prepare for linguistic splashdown. Feast your eyes on this smorgasbord of gibberish and pick out the runt of the litter:

“Building a conversation strategy will allow us to visually see our complete marketing ecosystem and bake in our communication throughout all touch points.”

“First, by socializing all media, the engagement experience is cyclical and ongoing. Second, by identifying conversation groups (social graphs) and tapping directly into them and then connecting them together, the long tail of niche market segments become your mass or ‘mainstream’ media play.”

“Develop a multi-faceted communication program utilizing both traditional media and truly interactive social media channels, where listening and acting upon your human being’s wants is KING”

“A multimedia mix framed to spark conversations requires a compelling message concept that can work across a multimedia platform.”

“…Package the compelling message (internal marketing, external marketing and social network marketing) into an organized dashboard that exponentially expands website real estate, then push the content in real time to all product/service distribution points…”

Which of these abominations were written with a straight face, by real people with working brains? And which is the fraudulent imposter, demanding to be bound in the back of a transit van, driven to a remote woodland clearing and shot at close range through the back of the head? Well, are you sitting down? Because, remarkably, they are all genuine. And to someone somewhere they really do mean something.  To those displaying the characteristics of sentient and evolved human beings, however – upright, opposable thumbs, a rational mistrust of Scientology and men with winter tans – they are nothing more than a dreadful noise. A low, humming dreadful noise. And as someone who sat through much of the Guantanamo Bay-inspired torture purporting to be cutting-edge insight, from the industry’s “leading thinkers” at this year’s Cannes Festival, like a latter day, hairier Martha Gellhorn I can report from the frontline that this sort of smoke-and-mirrors propaganda is not restricted to the written word. People actually say this stuff, too. And other people clap. Loudly. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Or, to put it less succinctly, the Danish vertical has become unsynergised from the positive engagement factor of the mainstream virtual/emotional experience vector.

Children, children….

And herein lies much of the problem, folks. Language has become a barrier to understanding. As 2009 hauls its broken carcass across the finish line there is a definite funk in the air. The funk of hostility. Peace, or whatever there was of it, has been ripped asunder and the emergence of gauche upstart “digital” as a main player has caused much irritation among the “traditional” set. And it’s all being played out on global marketing message boards and blogs. This is no surprise given the trenchant views of media-types on most matters, either relevant or wildly superfluous. There are, after all, few things that appeal to a marketer more than the syrupy sound of his or her own opinion. That the debate has often become so vitriolic, and personal, is a little more alarming, however. It seems to have morphed into the media equivalent of an East End turf war, but without the samurai swords and Rottweilers.

Superficially the debate has always been, and remains, an “either/or contest”. Unlike Michael Jackson’s skin pigmentation or Tom Cruise’s sexuality, you are one or the other. Or in the words of that great twenty-first century Kierkegaard, George Walker Bush, “You are with us or you’re against us.” We seem pathologically incapable of approaching the discussion in anything other than purely Manichean terms. Traditional is, depending on your heritage, either prehistoric and profligate or fundamental and awe-inspiring, while digital is either the emperor’s new clothes or revolutionary. In this world the two are mutually exclusive. The reality, of course, is far more complicated and any attempt to delineate them is redundant. So, in an effort at clarity, I contend that the crux of this spiteful little mess is not really about real value or superiority, but rather one about perceptions of value and how it is communicated.

It Ain’t Always Wot We Do, It’s Sometimes Wot We Say

Whatever your opinions on the merits or otherwise of digital, one thing that its advocates must admit to is an horrendous and unforgivable butchering of language. It‘s painful to witness and, sadly, has only served to keep digital alienated from the realities of popular marketing and communication. We have become so saturated in a kind of meta-language, a simulacrum of sense that we have made it almost impossible to understand. It has become so removed from conventional speech that it’s like dragging your canoe up the banks of the Amazon and trying to talk turkey with the lost Matis Indians…or something. Marketing has been awash with jargon for many years, and it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise, but why has digital assumed the role of chief flag-waver for bullshit? It’s impossible to see who gains from it.

It might be sacrilegious to suggest, but could it be because just sometimes the numbers don’t add up? That when it comes to emotion, persuasiveness and good old-fashioned storytelling, nothing comes close to a well-made TV ad or a beautiful, epic cinema spot? Could it be that in falling short of the sheer scale, reach and romance of TV, digital apostles have created an amphetamine-fuelled demi-language that gives the illusion of grandeur? Could all this talk of “multi-media migration” and “cross-vertical communication utilisation” be a subconscious attempt to cloud this issue? This is not to disparage digital in anyway. There is some remarkable, stunning digital work out there, by some wonderfully creative minds. What some brands have achieved through digital is extraordinary and certainly can’t be matched by our offline cousins. Digital does utility better than any other medium. It enables people to act. But what it can’t do, or has failed to find a way of achieving so far, is a deeper emotion.

Emotion v Utility

Two examples: this 1998 TV and cinema spot is still talked about, by industry and non-industry people alike, in revered tones; and this much awarded 2007 digital strategy and execution is stunning in its scope and its capacity to involve people. The first is entirely emotion-led, the second entirely practical. Both have immense, possibly equal value to each of the brands. The former is admired by people and builds affinity through impression; the latter valued and builds affinity through efficacy. Yet comparing the two is entirely superfluous. So why do we try? Why does digital insist on attempting to muscle in on a brand of advertising that it cannot match? And why do traditional campaigners insist on belittling digital in such a vehemently supercilious manner? As long as the debate around “traditional v digital” continues along such entrenched battle lines then it will be impossible for digital to look traditional in the eyes and for traditional to be anything other than a swaggering distant relative.

One way to abandon this divide and to de-clutter the “media landscape” must be to call a moratorium on the debasement of a language that has functioned perfectly well without being manipulated into something entirely lacking credibility and authenticity. Any joker can trot out spurious and mercilessly banal media-speak, half-truths and bogus insight. The very best people don’t need to. So let’s demystify what we do and engender a little simplicity; strip back the language that clogs up presentations and blogs; demonstrate a little humility and honesty. Let’s call a halt to comparisons and competition and childish things. Let’s establish a reasonable, logical and intelligible foundation – digital can’t do what traditional can do and traditional can’t do what digital can – and move on from there. Let’s abandon any pretence and antagonism and understand that in their own ways each medium has a huge amount to offer, can work separately or, perhaps more importantly, can work together. Suddenly it all becomes a little clearer.

Beauty in Simplicity

Let’s move the focus away from the medium and back to the brand. It’s so much more simple. So, forget about vertical communication synergisation; and conversational media integration; and consumer deforestation; and interplanetary bespoke cross-platform noise generation. There is only one brand. Nike, Guinness, Levis, Burger King….there is no separate brand for online and another for offline. The same basic principles, and the integrity that your actions demand, apply wherever it exists. And wherever that might be there should be only four basic questions that need asking: Does the work created communicate the brand message? Does it impart relevant information and/or provide a utility? Is it brilliantly executed? Is it interesting?

Anything more is superfluous and obfuscation. Keeping things simple, keeping things honest and having the rigorous self-discipline to avoid distraction is far harder to achieve than creating self-justifying diversions to cloud shortcomings. It’s why the very best in the industry, irrespective of whether they are from “digital” or “traditional” backgrounds, do simply great work and those that purport to be the best merely end up talking about it.

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words – Hippocates

Pop quiz, readers. Re-calibrate your synapses, set your faces to stunned and prepare for linguistic splashdown. Feast your eyes on this smorgasbord of gibberish and pick out the runt of the litter:

“Building a conversation strategy will allow us to visually see our complete marketing ecosystem and bake in our communication throughout all touch points.”

“First, by socializing all media, the engagement experience is cyclical and ongoing. Second, by identifying conversation groups (social graphs) and tapping directly into them and then connecting them together, the long tail of niche market segments become your mass or ‘mainstream’ media play.”

“Develop a multi-faceted communication program utilizing both traditional media and truly interactive social media channels, where listening and acting upon your human being’s wants is KING”

“A multimedia mix framed to spark conversations requires a compelling message concept that can work across a multimedia platform.”

“…Package the compelling message (internal marketing, external marketing and social network marketing) into an organized dashboard that exponentially expands website real estate, then push the content in real time to all product/service distribution points…”

Which of these abominations were written with a straight face, by real people with working brains? And which is the fraudulent imposter, demanding to be bound in the back of a transit van, driven to a remote woodland clearing and shot at close range through the back of the head? Well, are you sitting down? Because, remarkably, they are all genuine. And to someone somewhere they really do mean something.  To those displaying the characteristics of sentient and evolved human beings, however – upright, opposable thumbs, a rational mistrust of Scientology and men with winter tans – they are nothing more than a dreadful noise. A low, humming dreadful noise. And as someone who sat through much of the Guantanamo Bay-inspired torture purporting to be cutting-edge insight, from the industry’s “leading thinkers” at this year’s Cannes Festival, like a latter day, hairier Martha Gellhorn I can report from the frontline that this sort of smoke-and-mirrors propaganda is not restricted to the written word. People actually say this stuff, too. And other people clap. Loudly. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Or, to put it less succinctly, the Danish vertical has become unsynergised from the positive engagement factor of the mainstream virtual/emotional experience vector.

Children, children….

And herein lies much of the problem, folks. Language has become a barrier to understanding. As 2009 hauls its broken carcass across the finish line there is a definite funk in the air. The funk of hostility. Peace, or whatever there was of it, has been ripped asunder and the emergence of gauche upstart “digital” as a main player has caused much irritation among the “traditional” set. And it’s all being played out on global marketing message boards and blogs. This is no surprise given the trenchant views of media-types on most matters, either relevant or wildly superfluous. There are, after all, few things that appeal to a marketer more than the syrupy sound of his or her own opinion. That the debate has often become so vitriolic, and personal, is a little more alarming, however. It seems to have morphed into the media equivalent of an East End turf war, but without the samurai swords and Rottweilers.

Superficially the debate has always been, and remains, an “either/or contest”. Unlike Michael Jackson’s skin pigmentation or Tom Cruise’s sexuality, you are one or the other. Or in the words of that great twenty-first century Kierkegaard, George Walker Bush, “You are with us or you’re against us.” We seem pathologically incapable of approaching the discussion in anything other than purely Manichean terms. Traditional is, depending on your heritage, either prehistoric and profligate or fundamental and awe-inspiring, while digital is either the emperor’s new clothes or revolutionary. In this world the two are mutually exclusive. The reality, of course, is far more complicated and any attempt to delineate them is redundant. So, in an effort at clarity, I contend that the crux of this spiteful little mess is not really about real value or superiority, but rather one about perceptions of value and how it is communicated.

It Ain’t Always Wot We Do, It’s Sometimes Wot We Say

Whatever your opinions on the merits or otherwise of digital, one thing that its advocates must admit to is an horrendous and unforgivable butchering of language. It‘s painful to witness and, sadly, has only served to keep digital alienated from the realities of popular marketing and communication. We have become so saturated in a kind of meta-language, a simulacrum of sense that we have made it almost impossible to understand. It has become so removed from conventional speech that it’s like dragging your canoe up the banks of the Amazon and trying to talk turkey with the lost Matis Indians…or something. Marketing has been awash with jargon for many years, and it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise, but why has digital assumed the role of chief flag-waver for bullshit? It’s impossible to see who gains from it.

It might be sacrilegious to suggest, but could it be because just sometimes the numbers don’t add up? That when it comes to emotion, persuasiveness and good old-fashioned storytelling, nothing comes close to a well-made TV ad or a beautiful, epic cinema spot? Could it be that in falling short of the sheer scale, reach and romance of TV, digital apostles have created an amphetamine-fuelled demi-language that gives the illusion of grandeur? Could all this talk of “multi-media migration” and “cross-vertical communication utilisation” be a subconscious attempt to cloud this issue? This is not to disparage digital in anyway. There is some remarkable, stunning digital work out there, by some wonderfully creative minds. What some brands have achieved through digital is extraordinary and certainly can’t be matched by our offline cousins. Digital does utility better than any other medium. It enables people to act. But what it can’t do, or has failed to find a way of achieving so far, is a deeper emotion.

Emotion v Utility

Two examples: this 1998 TV and cinema spot is still talked about, by industry and non-industry people alike, in revered tones; and this much awarded 2007 digital strategy and execution is stunning in its scope and its capacity to involve people. The first is entirely emotion-led, the second entirely practical. Both have immense, possibly equal value to each of the brands. The former is admired by people and builds affinity through impression; the latter valued and builds affinity through efficacy. Yet comparing the two is entirely superfluous. So why do we try? Why does digital insist on attempting to muscle in on a brand of advertising that it cannot match? And why do traditional campaigners insist on belittling digital in such a vehemently supercilious manner? As long as the debate around “traditional v digital” continues along such entrenched battle lines then it will be impossible for digital to look traditional in the eyes and for traditional to be anything other than a swaggering distant relative.

One way to abandon this divide and to de-clutter the “media landscape” must be to call a moratorium on the debasement of a language that has functioned perfectly well without being manipulated into something entirely lacking credibility and authenticity. Any joker can trot out spurious and mercilessly banal media-speak, half-truths and bogus insight. The very best people don’t need to. So let’s demystify what we do and engender a little simplicity; strip back the language that clogs up presentations and blogs; demonstrate a little humility and honesty. Let’s call a halt to comparisons and competition and childish things. Let’s establish a reasonable, logical and intelligible foundation – digital can’t do what traditional can do and traditional can’t do what digital can – and move on from there. Let’s abandon any pretence and antagonism and understand that in their own ways each medium has a huge amount to offer, can work separately or, perhaps more importantly, can work together. Suddenly it all becomes a little clearer.

Beauty in Simplicity

Let’s move the focus away from the medium and back to the brand. It’s so much more simple. So, forget about vertical communication synergisation; and conversational media integration; and consumer deforestation; and interplanetary bespoke cross-platform noise generation. There is only one brand. Nike, Guinness, Levis, Burger King….there is no separate brand for online and another for offline. The same basic principles, and the integrity that your actions demand, apply wherever it exists. And wherever that might be there should be only four basic questions that need asking: Does the work created communicate the brand message? Does it impart relevant information and/or provide a utility? Is it brilliantly executed? Is it interesting?

Anything more is superfluous and obfuscation. Keeping things simple, keeping things honest and having the rigorous self-discipline to avoid distraction is far harder to achieve than creating self-justifying diversions to cloud shortcomings. It’s why the very best in the industry, irrespective of whether they are from “digital” or “traditional” backgrounds, do simply great work and those that purport to be the best merely end up talking about it.

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words – Hippocrates

Pop quiz, readers. Re-calibrate your synapses, set your faces to stunned and prepare for linguistic splashdown. Feast your eyes on this smorgasbord of gibberish and pick out the runt of the litter:

“Building a conversation strategy will allow us to visually see our complete marketing ecosystem and bake in our communication throughout all touch points.”

“First, by socializing all media, the engagement experience is cyclical and ongoing. Second, by identifying conversation groups (social graphs) and tapping directly into them and then connecting them together, the long tail of niche market segments become your mass or ‘mainstream’ media play.”

“Develop a multi-faceted communication program utilizing both traditional media and truly interactive social media channels, where listening and acting upon your human being’s wants is KING”

“A multimedia mix framed to spark conversations requires a compelling message concept that can work across a multimedia platform.”

“…Package the compelling message (internal marketing, external marketing and social network marketing) into an organized dashboard that exponentially expands website real estate, then push the content in real time to all product/service distribution points…”

Which of these abominations were written with a straight face, by real people with working brains? And which is the fraudulent imposter, demanding to be bound in the back of a transit van, driven to a remote woodland clearing and shot at close range through the back of the head? Well, are you sitting down? Because, remarkably, they are all genuine. And to someone somewhere they really do mean something.  To those displaying the characteristics of sentient and evolved human beings, however – upright, opposable thumbs, a rational mistrust of Scientology and men with winter tans – they are nothing more than a dreadful noise. A low, humming dreadful noise. And as someone who sat through much of the Guantanamo Bay-inspired torture purporting to be cutting-edge insight, from the industry’s “leading thinkers” at this year’s Cannes Festival, like a latter day, hairier Martha Gellhorn I can report from the frontline that this sort of smoke-and-mirrors propaganda is not restricted to the written word. People actually say this stuff, too. And other people clap. Loudly. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Or, to put it less succinctly, the Danish vertical has become unsynergised from the positive engagement factor of the mainstream virtual/emotional experience vector.

Children, children….

And herein lies much of the problem, folks. Language has become a barrier to understanding. As 2009 hauls its broken carcass across the finish line there is a definite funk in the air. The funk of hostility. Peace, or whatever there was of it, has been ripped asunder and the emergence of gauche upstart “digital” as a main player has caused much irritation among the “traditional” set. And it’s all being played out on global marketing message boards and blogs. This is no surprise given the trenchant views of media-types on most matters, either relevant or wildly superfluous. There are, after all, few things that appeal to a marketer more than the syrupy sound of his or her own opinion. That the debate has often become so vitriolic, and personal, is a little more alarming, however. It seems to have morphed into the media equivalent of an East End turf war, but without the samurai swords and Rottweilers.

Superficially the debate has always been, and remains, an “either/or contest”. Unlike Michael Jackson’s skin pigmentation or Tom Cruise’s sexuality, you are one or the other. Or in the words of that great twenty-first century Kierkegaard, George Walker Bush, “You are with us or you’re against us.” We seem pathologically incapable of approaching the discussion in anything other than purely Manichean terms. Traditional is, depending on your heritage, either prehistoric and profligate or fundamental and awe-inspiring, while digital is either the emperor’s new clothes or revolutionary. In this world the two are mutually exclusive. The reality, of course, is far more complicated and any attempt to delineate them is redundant. So, in an effort at clarity, I contend that the crux of this spiteful little mess is not really about real value or superiority, but rather one about perceptions of value and how it is communicated.

It Ain’t Always Wot We Do, It’s Sometimes Wot We Say

Whatever your opinions on the merits or otherwise of digital, one thing that its advocates must admit to is an horrendous and unforgivable butchering of language. It‘s painful to witness and, sadly, has only served to keep digital alienated from the realities of popular marketing and communication. We have become so saturated in a kind of meta-language, a simulacrum of sense that we have made it almost impossible to understand. It has become so removed from conventional speech that it’s like dragging your canoe up the banks of the Amazon and trying to talk turkey with the lost Matis Indians…or something. Marketing has been awash with jargon for many years, and it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise, but why has digital assumed the role of chief flag-waver for bullshit? It’s impossible to see who gains from it.

It might be sacrilegious to suggest, but could it be because just sometimes the numbers don’t add up? That when it comes to emotion, persuasiveness and good old-fashioned storytelling, nothing comes close to a well-made TV ad or a beautiful, epic cinema spot? Could it be that in falling short of the sheer scale, reach and romance of TV, digital apostles have created an amphetamine-fuelled demi-language that gives the illusion of grandeur? Could all this talk of “multi-media migration” and “cross-vertical communication utilisation” be a subconscious attempt to cloud this issue? This is not to disparage digital in anyway. There is some remarkable, stunning digital work out there, by some wonderfully creative minds. What some brands have achieved through digital is extraordinary and certainly can’t be matched by our offline cousins. Digital does utility better than any other medium. It enables people to act. But what it can’t do, or has failed to find a way of achieving so far, is a deeper emotion. 

Emotion v Utility

Two examples: this 1998 TV and cinema spot is still talked about, by industry and non-industry people alike, in revered tones; and this much awarded 2007 digital strategy and execution is stunning in its scope and its capacity to involve people. The first is entirely emotion-led, the second entirely practical. Both have immense, possibly equal value to each of the brands. The former is admired by people and builds affinity through impression; the latter valued and builds affinity through efficacy. Yet comparing the two is entirely superfluous. So why do we try? Why does digital insist on attempting to muscle in on a brand of advertising that it cannot match? And why do traditional campaigners insist on belittling digital in such a vehemently supercilious manner? As long as the debate around “traditional v digital” continues along such entrenched battle lines then it will be impossible for digital to look traditional in the eyes and for traditional to be anything other than a swaggering distant relative.

One way to abandon this divide and to de-clutter the “media landscape” must be to call a moratorium on the debasement of a language that has functioned perfectly well without being manipulated into something entirely lacking credibility and authenticity. Any joker can trot out spurious and mercilessly banal media-speak, half-truths and bogus insight. The very best people don’t need to. So let’s demystify what we do and engender a little simplicity; strip back the language that clogs up presentations and blogs; demonstrate a little humility and honesty. Let’s call a halt to comparisons and competition and childish things. Let’s establish a reasonable, logical and intelligible foundation – digital can’t do what traditional can do and traditional can’t do what digital can – and move on from there. Let’s abandon any pretence and antagonism and understand that in their own ways each medium has a huge amount to offer, can work separately or, perhaps more importantly, can work together. Suddenly it all becomes a little clearer.

Beauty in Simplicity

Let’s move the focus away from the medium and back to the brand. It’s so much more simple. So, forget about vertical communication synergisation; and conversational media integration; and consumer deforestation; and interplanetary bespoke cross-platform noise generation. There is only one brand. Nike, Guinness, Levis, Burger King….there is no separate brand for online and another for offline. The same basic principles, and the integrity that your actions demand, apply wherever it exists. And wherever that might be there should be only four basic questions that need asking: Does the work created communicate the brand message? Does it impart relevant information and/or provide a utility? Is it brilliantly executed? Is it interesting?

Anything more is superfluous and obfuscation. Keeping things simple, keeping things honest and having the rigorous self-discipline to avoid distraction is far harder to achieve than creating self-justifying diversions to cloud shortcomings. It’s why the very best in the industry, irrespective of whether they are from “digital” or “traditional” backgrounds, do simply great work and those that purport to be the best merely end up talking about it.