The Rebirth of Advertising: How to Get from the Gold Rush to the Golden Age

The Rebirth of Advertising:How to Get from the Gold Rush to the Golden Age

David BerkowitzChief Strategy Officer, [email protected]@dberkowitz / @sysomos

“The robots did not care whether you bought one style of clothing or another,

ate in one restaurant or another, lived in one kind of housing or another... It

was all the same to them. Therefore, there was no need for advertising. If a

fad caught on… it all happened by word of mouth. “

Brain, Marshall. Manna: Two Visions of Humanity's Future (Kindle Locations

1073-1075). BYG Publishing, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

This talk was presented to the La French Touch NYC conference in June 2017.

See the notes field in the downloaded presentation for sources and other

related info. On Twitter, you can find hashtags from the conference via the

#LFTCNYC hashtag or following @LaFrenchTouchConf.

Note that this was originally called The End of Advertising. Then I realized

Forrester recently released a report with the same title (I then quoted it here),

and Andrew Essex also used that as a title for his book (also quoted here). The

title was also a bit misleading for this talk. This is about looking forward – not

at the end, but a new beginning.

Thanks for reading this. - David

https://lafrenchtouchconference.net/new_york/2017/home/program/

https://twitter.com/search?q=#LFTCNYC&src=tyah

https://twitter.com/FrenchTouchConf

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mailto:[email protected]







And now, on with

our story…

We’re in a post-trust world

Agencies

Consumers

Marketers

Publishers

Tech

Companies

VC, PE

firms







Let’s play…

What’s wrong with

this picture?

Ads on top of ads! Do you

wonder why ad blockers

are popular?







ADVERTISING =

GREEDY







Advertisers were pitted against publishers in a zero-

sum game where advertisers "win" by getting the

best inventory as cheaply as possible, and publishers

"win" by selling the worst inventory possible at the

highest price possible… Agencies and ad networks

fight to deliver profitable media buys because too

many people have their hand in the arbitrage cookie

jar.- Judy Shapiro, CEO, engageSimply







ADVERTISING =

DEVALUED







ADVERTISING =

UGLY







Agencies and their clients need to recapture some of

the respect, fun and profitability of working in what

was once one of the most fulfilling and glamorous of

industries but has become a grim sweatshop for the

people who do the work.-Michael Farmer, Madison Avenue Manslaughter







ADVERTISING =

GRIM







The robots did not care whether you bought one

style of clothing or another, ate in one restaurant or

another, lived in one kind of housing or another...

Therefore, there was no need for advertising. If a fad

caught on… it all happened by word of mouth. - Marshall Brain, Manna







ADVERTISING =

DYSTOPIA

For the past 50 years, we’ve essentially pursued a

model called “command and control,” which is to

interrupt people in the rudest possible way with

something they didn’t ask to see, which is most

exemplified by interrupting a TV program at a

moment of great interest to show you a 30-second

toilet-paper spot.-Andrew Essex, The End of Advertising







ADVERTISING =

RUDE

It’s the online privacy nightmare come true: a

company you’ve never heard of scraping up your

data trails and online bread crumbs in order to mine

some of the most sensitive information about you.-Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu, Gizmodo







ADVERTISING =

NIGHTMARE

Without express consent, most of us have passively

opened ourselves up to the commercial exploitation

of our attention just about anywhere and anytime. If

there is to be some scheme of zoning to stem this

sprawl, it will need to be mostly an act of will on the

part of the individual.-Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants







ADVERTISING =

EXPLOITATITVE

…We don’t want to waste time and money on a

crappy media supply chain.-Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer, P&G







ADVERTISING =

CRAPPY

Society doesn't need advertising like it used to. People

have less time for interruption-driven media. At the same

time, they are putting more trust in intelligent agents to

guide their decisions.

-Forrester Research, “The End of Advertising”







ADVERTISING =

USELESS

• No digital

• No TV

• Just NYC

• Created by a TV

show about

advertising

“On Monday night here in

Cannes, the campaign came

full circle, as it picked up gold

Lions in both the Outdoor and

Print & Publishing Lions

contests (and adding a silver

Lion in Print as well).”

- Adweek

It is a beautiful

campaign – simple,

elegant, powerful

visuals. But if it’s that

great, why not run it as

a major brand

campaign, not an OOH

stunt that seems

designed to solely win

awards and generate a

bit of PR?







ADVERTISING =

RECYCLABLE







ADVERTISING =

INVASIVE

The jury calls the ad “intrusive” and it wins one of the most prestigious awards. Granted, I thought it was

an innovative stunt, one that I’d have approved as the client if it could have worked without editing

Wikipedia (something too precious to too many people to mess with). It’s the disconnect between calling

something a stunt and some award-worthy, groundbreaking work that is jarring, especially when taking

into account the consumer’s perspective.

That sums up the disconnect between how ad

people think of ads and how the rest of the

world does. No wonder everyone hates us.







GOLDEN AGE OF

RADIO







“Liberty, equality,

fraternity”

“Yup, we’re still

pretty racist”

A proper translation of our national mottos…







FIRST GOLDEN AGE

OF TV

America was prosperous. Everyone watched the same stuff. And

soap operas were the model for TV: the brand was behind and often

integrated with the programming.

The 1960s heralded the so-called Golden Age of Advertising. That’s when the

Flintstones were pushing Winstons. Do we really want to return to these days?







SECOND GOLDEN

AGE OF TV

This new Golden Age is epitomized by binge watching. And shows

that people binge typically have no ads – or they’re watched on-

demand when people can skip whatever ads originally aired.







GOLDEN AGE

OF DIGITAL







A NEW GOLDEN

AGE… OF ADS?







HOPE

In America, we love hope!

We had the man from Hope!

We had hope and change!

And now we have even more hope!







ADVERTISING =

TRANSPARENT

With blockchain for media, you’ll be able to have total

transparency… Because it’s a clear supply chain, it’ll also be

ad-tech players in that mix that will no longer be necessary.

If everybody has the same information, you won’t need

every single one of them.Babs Rangalah, Executive Partner, IBM iX

Client bill of rights – Dave Smith







ADVERTISING =

IMPACTFUL

Noting how kids without clean clothes often didn’t show up to

school, Whirlpool donated washers and dryers to communities

where kids struggled. 90% of kids participating increased school

attendance.







ADVERTISING =

RECIPROCAL

Adobe created its TV spot for Photoshop based on the work people

created with it. This kind of co-creation, or storymaking, is a great

way to put customers at the center of the marketing.







ADVERTISING =

VALUABLE

During the 2016 election season, Boost Mobile turned stores into

polling stations to make it easier for disenfranchised voters

(demographically, its customers) to vote.







ADVERTISING =

THOUGHTFUL

Thailand property development company AP Public Company

Limited found abandoned lots in neighborhoods without much

public space and transformed them into soccer fields.







ADVERTISING =

FUN

For The Art Institute of Chicago, Leo Burnett created real-life versions of Van

Gogh’s “The Bedroom” and allowed people to book the residence on

AirBNB.







ADVERTISING =

INFORMATIVE







ADVERTISING =

CONSENSUAL







ADVERTISING =

DOESN’T SHOW YOU THE SAME

AD OVER AND OVER AGAIN EVEN

AFTER YOU ALREADY BOUGHT IT

OR WERE ONLY RESEARCHING

SOMETHING FOR YOUR NIECE’S

GRADUATION PARTY







ADVERTISING =

RESPECTFUL

We are in the storytelling business, not necessarily the

advertising business. We’re in the advertising business as

long as it allows us to tell our stories to more people. When

it becomes a detriment – when it starts to turn people away

– it hurts our storytellers.

-Joe Marchese, President, Advertising Revenue, Fox

Networks Group

Of course, 30 Rock predicted

all this with their 10-second

sitcom, Makin’ It Happen







One request before we part ways:

Are you working on ushering in the

Golden Age of Ads,

leaving the Gold Rush behind?

I want to hear from you. Please contact me

(details are on the next slide).







Keep in touch! À bientôt!

• Email: [email protected]• Sysomos: www.sysomos.com / @sysomos• Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram: @dberkowitz• My blog: www.serialmarketer.net

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Epilogue:

The Legend

of King

Dotcomidas

This story wasn’t shared during the talk, but I wrote it while

toying with the themes here and decided to include it.







Once upon a time, there emerged a new king named Dotcomidas. He

wasn’t content to be a king though. He wanted to be one of the

gods – especially the god of Televisia, sitting in her golden throne.

To curry favor with Televisia, the king ordered his finest weavers to

create a garment for her – an impeccably tailored robe he called the

Cloak of Addressibility. Televisia, tantalized by the riches it would

bring her, accepted it, and offered him the reward of his choosing.

King Dotcomidas said he wished for everything he touched to turn

to gold.







King Dotcomidas returned home and started touching everyone in

his kingdom. His reach expanded far and wide. Every time he

reached someone, he turned them into gold. By monetizing them,

he grew richer and richer. Their eyeballs proved to be the most

valuable of all, so he kept selling them.

As he sold more of them, there was a glut in the market. As the

price dropped, he had to sell more of his subjects’ eyeballs just to

maintain the value of his kingdom. When that wasn’t enough, he

had to create fake people and pretend they were also made of gold.







But then, people were wondering if he should really be king. So they

dug moats and put up paywalls to block him. They turned their

backs and ignored him. They said, “Enough.” The subjects

surrendered to his touch when they felt compelled to visit some of

his realms, such as Googland, Facebookkan, and Amazonia, as well

as the dark and massive Desert of Pornlandia, but otherwise, the

king was shunned – whether protested, or ignored.

That left King Dotcomidas with a choice. He could choose to keep

his power or his people. If he kept wielding his power, his people

would turn on him. If he caved to his people, the King would need to

renounce his godly power and find a new path to fund his lavish

tastes.







He is currently agonizing over his

decision.

Which path will he choose?

To be continued…

The Rebirth of Advertising: How to Get from the Gold Rush to the Golden Age

Marketing

Transcript of The Rebirth of Advertising: How to Get from the Gold Rush to the Golden Age