Catch Me If
You Can
Your
company's ability to reach me and other consumers through advertising,
marketing and social media has never been more limited, more fleeting more,
more impenetrable--or more lucrative. One company may have figured it out.
Executive director, Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation
and Tech Entrepreneurship, Illinois Institute of Technology @tullman
No business today - large
or small - has any business or any real excuse for being stupid about media
buys. The smartest players today know that resources are finite and that they
have to be strategic and smart about their spends or they will be left in the
dust. Smart reach (getting to the right people
at the right time and place with the right message) is still the only game
that's gonna grow your business. But to a certain extent those tools and
technologies are now just the most basic requirements. Because the tech keeps
charging ahead and the bar keeps rising and yesterday's miracles are just
today's "so whats."
What remains of the ad
biz these days is much more about science and measurement (transparency and
efficacy) than it is about someone's speculation, smell test or best guess
about what will work. And, by the way, the revolution isn't limited to ads - in
fact, we've already seen the whole game change in music and movies. But the
"Mad Men" are still just mostly stuck in yesterday's mud. The best
sets of "ears" in the music business (apologies to Ahmet Ertegan's
memory and condolences to Clive Davis) are simply no match for Spotify's
statistics and Pandora's playlists. And while it still helps to be
"creative," the content directions at Amazon and
Netflix are much more likely to come from calculations and computations
than from Spielberg and Soderbergh. Ready Player One was a C+
piece that was more about the numbers (and trying to play to the new masses)
than about any coherent and compelling narrative-; and it sucked accordingly.
Data today is trumping drama and even Steven seems to be running scared.
Honestly, every time
you start to believe that you're getting close to getting on top of this stuff
or almost reaching the finish, they move the goalposts and kick you in the
teeth a couple of times just for good measure. You've got to have new
strategies for dealing with the noise, clutter, confusion and sheer fatigue
that everyone out there is experiencing, and you've got to capture what little
slice of my attention you can and really hit hard when your moment arrives
because that moment couldn't be more fleeting. Being in the room isn't enough;
you've got to catch me when I'm in the zone and
interested or you'll end up just talking to yourself.
And then, you better
show me something special - something that I care about - and that represents
real value to me. If you don't, I'll be gone in a flash, but if you do, you get
me and my buddies as well. The deal is simple: if you take care of me, I'm
gonna share actively and willingly. You can't buy that kind of authentic recommendation and direct
influence for all the money in the world. Seems straightforward, but
millions of marketers still don't get it. They're into tonnage and pushing
paper. But they're just pissing people off and life is only going to get worse
for them and their clients. The pressures from consumers and regulators for
permission-based access and new affirmative disclosure and consent rules are
growing. Congress is still sound asleep, of course, but that may be the best
thing for us. In any case, the remaining bad actors will eventually be barred
and shut off as their results continue to crater and the people still stuck
doing business with them end up throwing their money down the drain.
But this is just the
start of tomorrow's story because even if you get to the right time and place
and target customers, your pitch, production and product better be as close to
perfect as possible because the stakes for screwing up have never been higher.
The list of companies burned in an instant on social media for transgressions
that seemed too trivial to even talk about just keeps growing. Ask the Gap
about their China T-Shirt, Dodge about RAMming MLK Day, Pepsi about handing a
pop to a policeman, Nivea about "Whiter" deodorant or Heineken about
"Lighter" beer. The message is always the same: "Who Knew?"
or even better yet, "Who Would Have Imagined?" and yet, in
retrospect, the stupidity seems obvious and the anger and eruptions inevitable.
These guys all whine about needing a crystal ball to do business today.
And you know what?
There is one. It can tell you if the right audience is interested and
listening. Where to put your money and your media. It can tell you what won't
work. And it can even help you figure out what to say. Amazed? Flabbergasted?
Dumbfounded? Nope. The answer is Dumbstruck.
Dumbstruck is
a Chicago and New York-based business that is already working in the
background with some of the biggest brands and agencies in the world. They
built a machine that reads minds and emotions. On the fly and in real time.
They're "coming out" at the Cannes Lion 2018 International Festival
of Creativity in France in June. I think they didn't want to steal any of
Meghan and Harry's thunder. And they're gonna make a big noise and some huge
changes in the ad biz and the momentum is already building.
That's all I can tell
you at the moment, but their moment is right now. Check 'em out.
