TO: High-Level Business Executives
FROM: The Executive Whisper
Highlights
The worlds of advertising and marketing are undergoing radical changes due to disruptive technologies. As we head into a Post-Advertising Age, businesses will need to evolve their marketing efforts to find buyers and retain customers. Traditional approaches are rapidly becoming obsolete and wasteful. 
However, C-level executives – engulfed in a tsunami of information, hype and opinions – are struggling to determine which ideas matter and should be incorporated into their marketing plans. The answers they seek are the secrets to the Post-Advertising Age, and are revealed on this site.
Background: Traditional Marketing is dead.
Advertising and marketing are experiencing seismic shifts, fundamentally altering their very foundations. Disruptive technologies – from TiVo to smartphones to Facebook – have changed how your customers and prospects take in information and communicate with others. Traditional marketing is dead. TV, print, radio ads, direct mail – the “Interruption Model” in general – are no longer effective. All major advertisers are shifting dollars away from traditional marketing efforts as a result of rapidly declining results.
High-level decision-makers, like yourself, should be cautious of the resources you would typically consult for solutions, i.e., your agencies and even your internal IT staff. They have various biases and personal agendas that keep you from receiving the best answers. Most traditional agencies are unable to update their offerings because they lack core expertise and deep understanding of new technologies and social media channels. Consequently, they prefer the status quo and work to obscure benefits of new approaches.
What other sources are saying: Consumers have tuned out advertising
“The advertising industry is in a world of hurt because consumers are tuning out the messages the industry is predicated on producing.” — Forrester Report, 2008
“…consumers increasingly do not trust marketing messages. Instead they rely on advice from friends and others in various communities to make product decisions.” — Forrester Report, 2008
“The traditional TV-spot-centric model is close to broken. That’s as it should be. The model is no longer valid, no longer relevant.” — Maurice Levy, CEO, Publicis Groupe, the world’s fourth largest comunications group.
Opportunity: Stop interrupting. Start attracting.
We are entering an era, the Post-Advertising Age, where businesses can save significant money while reaching buyers more effectively than ever before. However, to do so, the high-level decision-maker needs to rethink his or her entire approach to marketing.
It will be hard to wean yourself off the advertising high, but stop. Stop interrupting strangers in their homes, cars, and walks down the street with a message that is largely being ignored anyway.
Instead of “Interruption” think “Attraction.”
The Attraction model works like this: Attract self-identified buyers. Build relationships with them. Convert them into customers. Keep them happy. Encourage them to tell others. Repeat often.
The Attraction model will prove to be more effective, save money, and build long-term assets.
The Secrets: Executive Summary
New strategies, new creative, new media, new technologies, and new results.
1) New Strategies
- Formula: Attract. Build. Convert. Keep. Encourage sharing.
- Two audiences: 1) Buyers who self identify. 2) Computers using algorithms to determine rank and popularity
- Vocabulary: No longer: CPM, reach, frequency, etc. Now: voluntary engagements, conversations, recommendations, tags, fans,… more
- All decisions are data-driven. No longer dependent upon assumptions, opinions, anecdotes, and false case studies.
2) New Creative
- Creating content (words and images) or features (ability to do something) that adds value to buyers’ lives
- Focus on talk value and conversation starters
- User experience (UX or UI) now critical part of creative formula
3) New Media
- Starts with Google and Bing (search and rankings)
- Online and offline locations to start conversations
- Earned media – messages that earn coverage (aka PR)
- It’s yours now: You build it. You own it. It becomes an asset that increases in value over time. Paid media (owned by someone else) is an expense primarily.
4) New Technologies
- Fundamentally disrupting everything
- The Cloud changes your IT spending – costs being driven to super-low levels
- Open Source, AJAX, APIs, widgets, other, open up new opportunities
- The end of IT as we know it
5) New Results
- You own the destination, content, and relationships
- You stop paying for perishable medias
- Your marketing dollars work as an investment, not an expense
- You’re building long-term equity, an asset that increases in value over time
Where to find the secrets:
This entire site is dedicated to delivering the details – which are really The Secrets of the Post-Advertising Age. And it’s what no one is telling you.
