Essential Reading IIa

Life After the 30-Second Spot isn’t going down as easily as The Fall of Advertising and The Rise of PR, but I’m getting there.  I’ll have a review and some of the things that I’ll be taking away from the book coming up later this week. 

However, I absolutely love the multimedia approach Joseph (apologies for calling you Joe) takes – Chapter 10 is an online chapter available as a pdf here.  Love that idea and it really fits in with the tone of the book – innovative approaches to an age old business model. 

I’m personally a pretty big fan of good TV adverts – the ones that are funny, subversive and sometimes inspiring.  But very rarely do they get me to buy anything. 

At best, a good ad announces a new product or service and I nod, make a mental note to check the website the next day and invariably do nothing about it. 

But I hate bad ads.  The intrusive ones, the irrelevant ones, the ones that are small variations of each other and the ones that get repeated in the same ad-break on TV.  And any combination of the above is just a complete killer. 

But both the Rieses and Jaffe are right – the advertising world is definitely in a state of flux right now.  Its poster child and revenue touch stone is under threat from (over) informed, cynical consumers and the very way in which the industry delivers its message is changing too quickly for it to become an expert or trusted advisor to its clients. 

And then there is PR.  We’re in a fantastic position to take advantage of advertising’s problems. 

We know how to connect with consumers.  We know the basic tenets behind any new form of media (it’s the relationships stupid!), even if we’re not 100 per cent sure about how to take advantage of them in the best way for both our clients and for us. 

If just 10 per cent of PR agencies can get themselves into the same client-agency relationships that advertising agencies had in the 50s and 60s, we will, as an industry be in a position to really benefit both consumers, through better products, and clients, through increased sales. 

By becoming trusted, knowledgeable advisors (tactically or strategically), we can ask consumers what they want and then tell our clients.  Which is where social media comes in and why I'm so excited about using it properly.

It’s a crazy, crazy notion that we all experience every day.  It’s called conversation and we are the agents provocateurs.

But, as always, there’s a caveat.  We need to somehow get over the client churn problem. 

Building the right environment for this two-way conversation is a lot like clay court tennis.  You can go for a winner straight off, but if you get it wrong, you’re in a position to be hammered. 

No, better to go for a slow build up and get yourself in the best position possible before going for an outright winner. 

Oh, and never get right up in their faces.  They’ll just pass you. 

Links Come Out – Cevin Fisher.  Links for Monday June 5, 2006. 

Godin to Blogosphere – “F@#$ off cretins”; Blogosphere to Godin – “F@$ you!”  Just as an update to yesterday’s link, Seth created a firestorm in the blogosphere by telling everyone why he doesn’t allow comments.  My feeling?  Yes it’s against the conventional wisdom of the blogging elite (comments create conversation) but hey, it’s his house, it’s his rules and if he wants to take his ball and go home, that’s his choice  (some really mixed metaphors there!). David doesn’t agree with me and I respect both his opinion and his well made point but it just goes to show that no-one is an expert 

MSN says live TV is dead – wow, a website reporting that TV is dead!  No conflict of interest at all! 

We’re in the Experience Business – Rajesh Setty  points to the experience being the ROI.  Which is why as PRs, we should make sure that whenever we make the decision to host an event, media or otherwise, we should make sure that their experience is as enjoyable as possible.  Disclosure – Build a Bear Workshop is a great business and is a client at my current firm although I’ve never worked on the account 

New Canadian Marketing Podcast – Thanks to Terry and Dave for recommending Mitch Joel’s new podcast Six Pixels of Seperation.  Pretty stuff interesting so far 

And just to warn you all.  There may be a huge influx of tenuous and occasionally painful soccer related analogies over the next month or so as the FIFA World Cup kicks off.