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The "Chaos Scenario"
Apr. 14th, 2005 10:22 amDoc Searls reports getting a newsletter from Advertising Age that has this abstract:
BACKGROUND: In an epic 5,500-word front-page article in the April 4 print edition of Advertising Age, columnist Bob Garfield laid out a sweeping vision of an advertising industry caroming toward chaos and disruption wrought by the digital media revolution. Boiled down, his theory goes something like this: The marketing industry is currently whistling past the graveyard and largely ignoring signs of massive, fundamental changes in how the business of mass marketing will be conducted in the near future. The broadcast TV model is working less well each year and will eventually cave in on itself as it reaches ever-fewer viewers with a fare of low-quality programming and mind-numbing clutter. Marketers will increasingly abandon it. But despite their glitzy promise, the aggregate of new digital technologies -- from Web sites and e-mail to cell phone content and video on demand -- lack the infrastructure or scale to support the minimum amount of mainstream marketing required to smoothly sustain the U.S. economy. The result, as the old systems are abandoned and the insufficient new systems struggle to carry an impossible advertising load, is what Garfield calls "The Chaos Scenario" -- a period of serious disruption moving like a tsunami through the marketing business as well as the economy and the broader society itself.
He then points to a transcript and streaming audio file of NPR's On the Media, where Garfield does about a 15-minute gig on what he's talking about.
Here's what I just sent in reply:
*^*^*^*^*
The "Chaos Scenario"
Here's the fundamental question that Bob Garfield left begging:
"Why would the death of marketing and advertising be bad?" -- which is what we're really talking about.
I was saying this to friends when the internet bubble burst, and ads for online media started drying up: That while the old media were having their schadenfreude about the uppity new media being given what for, they would be next. Because the very fact that internet marketing could be so precisely targeted meant that one finally had proof that...
...advertising doesn't work.
At least, it doesn't necessarily generate sales, which is what advertisers like Procter and Gamble are interested in.
To use my own media reference: Advertising makes every product into a polka dot.
I forget who came up with the term, but a "polka dot" is someone who is famous for being famous. Zsa Zsa Gabor was a polka dot. Charo was a polka dot.
The trouble is, despite all the exposure they got on game shows, talk shows, and their ilk, you'll notice that polka dots don't usually become, well, you know... real stars. Tom Cruise can control his media appearances very carefully because he has enough star power to open a movie. His fame actually rests on something.
In the same way, advertising hardly ever leads to increases in sales. Or it leads to increases so marginal that one might as well have just given the money back to the customer (or the shareholders) in the form of a lower price. People remember the ad, sure... But does that mean they buy the product? On the other hand, you'll note that Rolls Royce hardly ever advertises -- because they don't need to.
So what I think is really happening here isn't that advertisers are getting fed up with television and other older media as such. They're realizing that advertising itself, in any medium, is a fool's game.
I remember the observation during the 1980s in the Cold War -- I have no idea if it's true -- that the percentage of GDP spent on graft to get consumer goods in the Soviet Union, and the percentage of GDP spent on advertising in the West was about the same. That baksheesh -- in whatever language, and whatever culture -- was a constant.
It just might be that we're finally getting to the point where both everyday people and companies have come to the conclusion that their money is maybe best spent -- well, on each other.
Sincerely,
etc.
*^*^*^*^*
It's too long. Being a radio show, they simply don't have time for that one.
On the other hand, maybe Garfield himself will see it, and it'll be a valuable piece of feedback. Because, as I say, focusing on the horse race aspect of which medium is in or out isn't the real story here.
BACKGROUND: In an epic 5,500-word front-page article in the April 4 print edition of Advertising Age, columnist Bob Garfield laid out a sweeping vision of an advertising industry caroming toward chaos and disruption wrought by the digital media revolution. Boiled down, his theory goes something like this: The marketing industry is currently whistling past the graveyard and largely ignoring signs of massive, fundamental changes in how the business of mass marketing will be conducted in the near future. The broadcast TV model is working less well each year and will eventually cave in on itself as it reaches ever-fewer viewers with a fare of low-quality programming and mind-numbing clutter. Marketers will increasingly abandon it. But despite their glitzy promise, the aggregate of new digital technologies -- from Web sites and e-mail to cell phone content and video on demand -- lack the infrastructure or scale to support the minimum amount of mainstream marketing required to smoothly sustain the U.S. economy. The result, as the old systems are abandoned and the insufficient new systems struggle to carry an impossible advertising load, is what Garfield calls "The Chaos Scenario" -- a period of serious disruption moving like a tsunami through the marketing business as well as the economy and the broader society itself.
He then points to a transcript and streaming audio file of NPR's On the Media, where Garfield does about a 15-minute gig on what he's talking about.
Here's what I just sent in reply:
*^*^*^*^*
The "Chaos Scenario"
Here's the fundamental question that Bob Garfield left begging:
"Why would the death of marketing and advertising be bad?" -- which is what we're really talking about.
I was saying this to friends when the internet bubble burst, and ads for online media started drying up: That while the old media were having their schadenfreude about the uppity new media being given what for, they would be next. Because the very fact that internet marketing could be so precisely targeted meant that one finally had proof that...
...advertising doesn't work.
At least, it doesn't necessarily generate sales, which is what advertisers like Procter and Gamble are interested in.
To use my own media reference: Advertising makes every product into a polka dot.
I forget who came up with the term, but a "polka dot" is someone who is famous for being famous. Zsa Zsa Gabor was a polka dot. Charo was a polka dot.
The trouble is, despite all the exposure they got on game shows, talk shows, and their ilk, you'll notice that polka dots don't usually become, well, you know... real stars. Tom Cruise can control his media appearances very carefully because he has enough star power to open a movie. His fame actually rests on something.
In the same way, advertising hardly ever leads to increases in sales. Or it leads to increases so marginal that one might as well have just given the money back to the customer (or the shareholders) in the form of a lower price. People remember the ad, sure... But does that mean they buy the product? On the other hand, you'll note that Rolls Royce hardly ever advertises -- because they don't need to.
So what I think is really happening here isn't that advertisers are getting fed up with television and other older media as such. They're realizing that advertising itself, in any medium, is a fool's game.
I remember the observation during the 1980s in the Cold War -- I have no idea if it's true -- that the percentage of GDP spent on graft to get consumer goods in the Soviet Union, and the percentage of GDP spent on advertising in the West was about the same. That baksheesh -- in whatever language, and whatever culture -- was a constant.
It just might be that we're finally getting to the point where both everyday people and companies have come to the conclusion that their money is maybe best spent -- well, on each other.
Sincerely,
etc.
*^*^*^*^*
It's too long. Being a radio show, they simply don't have time for that one.
On the other hand, maybe Garfield himself will see it, and it'll be a valuable piece of feedback. Because, as I say, focusing on the horse race aspect of which medium is in or out isn't the real story here.
