experiencefreak.com

.. in moments of frustration, I (as anyone who frequently reads this blog or my past posts at Ideacity will know) often throw a few shots over the bow towards the madison avenue types that still seem to be locked like deers in the headlights from the change brought on by digital media. seems like an incessant, if not silly thing to harp about in this day and age but surprisingly still a big problem. if you think i am whining about an issue that’s shrinked significantly, think again. read through this well articulated but rather sad keynote from a recent Executive Advertising Conference, that ashamedly had to be titled “there are no excuses for NOT understanding the digital future” and you’ll get the jist of my continued angst. Global CEO Irwin Gotlieb of WPP’s GroupM media firm does an outstanding job of presenting the case that many of us have been trying to drive home for many years. The lecturing tone and “mastery of the obvious” points are a bit mundane if you are obsessed with the digital media landscape, but are spot on in calling out some of the prevailing lack of self awareness that the media industry has when it comes to the huge changes afoot.

Whatever my frustration, I have been quick to call out academics, response driven digital marketers, and ROI focused vc and tech folks who are puzzled about why change has not rolled forward more quickly. Simply put, Mo Money Mo problems my friends. No matter how much change is in the air, nothing changes overnight when you have billions of dollars wrapped up into an old market infrastructure. Even more so, if clients don’t change their spending patterns dramatically there’s little reason for ad execs to make monumental media or creative shifts. Clients still aren’t buying big into digital even though the shift has gained major momentum.

Similar to Gotliebs lecture to ad execs about why it matters for the operational side of the biz, I’d not seen a super well articulated discussion of the pre-existing/massive economies of traditional ad buying and the resulting lack of change in the market. That is until I stumbled across this. Leave it to a VC firm to spell things out in dollars and sense. WIthin, Michael Speiser of Sutter Hill Ventures shows clearly how much money is on the table AND how small, nimble and measurable media players (as well as advertisers that value ROI) wil outsmart big media. My only MAJOR point of contention is the lack of any kindof caveats around the age-old “ad innovation vs brand roi measurement” argument. Sorry Mike, I’ll agree that brand activity and media spend should be and will be more accountable in the future but don’t hamstring your funded companies with short term marketing ROI and response performance metrics. A balance needs to be struck else you’ll hamper innovation. It’s hard to be another Google these days, and a relentless mentality for ROI is what drives success then huge problems for big companies. Look at Wal-mart, followed by the kick in the ass Dell received. Measured risk and reward, ROI AND creative leaps of faith made by companies like Nike, Apple, and enlightened media players like Conde Nasty are what will get companies ahead in the future.

So learning from the above, one would hope that the day is coming soon (?.. in just a few years when addressable tv rolls out) that the game will have to change. Once Sir Martin, General John Wren, and Don Michael Roth’s wallets are looking a little thin one could imagine the worker bee’s buying activity will change pretty quick. And as they say, where the wallet goes, the head and heart will follow eh?

Once that happens we’ll help move folks to the head and heart of the matter for themselves and their customers. We’ll simply forward them a ream of past posts and columns from the advertising practitioner to lead em to the future.

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