It’s time we woke up to the fact that Sir Martin Sorrell does... - By: Paul Ashby

...immense damage to the advertising business!

Let’s face it he is an accountant turned adman. He may possibly have been a very good accountant but as an adman he is turning into a disaster!

As some of his recent pronouncements will serve to confirm.
He was quoted as saying that London and New York were no longer the creative centers of the advertising world.

So what?

By now nearly anyone who’s anyone in advertising knows full well that creativity is no longer the sole criteria for the success of an advertising campaign and the selling of products.

Now the accountant is turning to Hollywood at a time when people are beginning to wake up to the fact that one way passive advertising is no longer working. Therefore the Accountant is turning to passive one-way product placement!

The Accountant, not understanding the process of communications, (he epitomizes Top-Down-Management) ignores interpersonal communication, together with the need for accountability.

Thus he will end up leading Clients and the advertising industry up a dead end street together with another colossal waste of money!

So here is a very simple lesson as to what constitutes good marketing communication. Simply put it is the human desire for interaction,
If this had been taught and the lesson put into everyday practice then billions of pounds and dollars would never have been poured down the black hole of television advertising! And none at all wasted on Hollywood!

So let’s review that desire in terms of the marketing of products and, at the same time, hope that those people working in or with advertising agencies read this simple lesson and learn a little of what they should have already known and been doing on behalf of their clients.

All advertising is a form of learning whereby the advertiser is asking people to change their behavior after learning the benefits of the products or services on offer. However, we all tend to filter out information, which we do not want to hear. This clearly alters the effectiveness of conventional advertising in quite a dramatic way.

The final purchase decision is invariably a compromise and this leads to a certain amount of anxiety; the worry that perhaps the decision was not the best or the right one. In order to minimize this anxiety the purchaser seeks to reinforce their choice and begins to take more notice of their chosen product’s marketing communications.

Due to a lack of understanding of the communication process we have created a media society during the past 40 or 50 years, where the whole process has been de-humanized.

There is now an extraordinary reduction in interaction because conventional advertising and marketing have become a one-way practice whereby information is disseminated in a passive form.

But, people still have this desire to be taken account of. To affect change, to learn and personalize their relationship with their environment. There are a phenomenal number of reasons that cause people to interact, going far beyond just giving them things.

When people agree to participate in truly interactive marketing programs they are told that their efforts and feedback are of positive help to the advertisers.

And most important to the advertisers, by participating and becoming involved, they then learn and understand the advertising message and do so at their own pace and to fit in with their schedule.

And no need at all for Hollywood and expensive Directors…thus saving Clients a great deal of money!

About the Author

Having invested over $10 million in independent research, Paul Ashby is ideally suited to present the case for the widespread use of interactive marketing communication. The research investment has proved conclusively that one exposure to an interactive "event" is far more effective in all key measurements, than traditional advertising. Paul made this investment because his company, Effective . Accountable . Communication is predicated on being totally accountable to its Clients. You can contact Paul at: paul.ashby@yahoo.com Discover more on http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com

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