A STORY ABOUT FACING CHANGE
IN ADVERTISING TOLD IN 30 QUOTES
Published on mad-blog.com

Change started here: “Technology is shifting the
power away from the editors, the publishers, the
establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people
who are in control.”
Rupert Murdoch, Global Media Entrepreneur

People got power: “Consumers are beginning in a
very real sense to own our brands and participate in
their creation … We need to begin to learn to let go.”
A.G. Lafley, CEO and Chairman, Procter & Gamble

People lost trust: “People don’t trust businesses the way
they used to ... For the first time we found that the most
trusted sources were ‘a person such as yourself or a peer’.”
Steve Rubel, Director of Insights, Edelman Digital

People don‘t care that much about brands: “Often
our biggest mistake as managers is believing that,
in general, customers care a lot about your brand.
They do not.”
Prof. Patrick Barwise, London Business School

People don‘t care that much about advertising:
“Nobody reads advertising. People read what
interests them. And sometimes it’s an ad.”
Howard Gossage, Freeman Mander & Gossage

And the lack of interest gets bigger: “There’s a limited
amount of attention in the world. If more of it is going
to personal, non-commercial, un-advertised media, less
of it will go to advertising.”
Russel Davies, Strategist & Author

A logical deduction: “Brands that rely too heavily on
mainstream media, or that are not exploring new
technologies and connection points, will lose touch.”
Jim Stengel, Gobal Marketing Officer, Procter & Gamble

Remind yourself of what the actual job is: “We’re not
in the business of keeping the media companies alive.
We’re in the business of connecting with consumers.”
Trevor Edwards, Vice President of Global
Brand Management, Nike

Today‘s possibilities to connect are endless: “In an
interconnected world, media is everywhere: (...) The
opportunities for value creation are greater than ever
before – but we must expand our vision of what media
is to begin realizing them.”
Umair Haque, Director, Havas Media Lab

So: “Everything a brand does that connects to the
consumer is media.”
Lee Clow, Director of Media Arts, TBWA Worldwide

The change in media broadens the creative playground:
“By 2015 there will be no separate media and creative
awards because there will be no distinction between ad
agency creativity and media agency creativity.”
Cliff Francis, Manager of Global Media and
Communication, Procter & Gamble

The change in media alters the way brands should
communicate: “Every brand today has to think and act
like a media company, rather than pushing stuff out
there, to instead aim to pull an audience in. With our
audience, word is spread like wildfire and it’s much
more cost effective for the client.”
Spencer Baim, Head of Virtue

Stop boring the people by sending simple messages:
“The whole industry is obsessed with the idea of a
simple message, endlessly repeated (...) What people
actually want is stuff with some complexity, some meat,
some richness (...) Not stuff that’s distilled to a simple
essence or refined to a single compelling truth. No-one
ever came out of a movie and said ‘I really liked that.
It was really clear.’”
Russel Davies, Strategist & Author

So what should brands talk about: “If you want to be
boring, talk about yourself. If you want to be
interesting, talk about something other than yourself.”
Hugh MacLeod, Cartoonist, gapingvoid.com

Stop interrupting what people are interested in.
Become part of it: “You used to use your budget to
buy an audience. Now you have to invent ideas to
attract an audience.”
Lisa Seward, Mod Communications

Because today ... :“Audiences can now watch
whatever they want, whenever they want. ‘Safe’
advertising gets ignored. It is the beginning of the
end for repetitive advertising.”
Jean Marie Dru, Chairman, TBWA\\ Worldwide

And they are right: “The audience is right. They’re
always, always right. You hear directors complain that
the advertising was lousy, the distribution is no good,
the date was wrong to open the film. I don’t believe
that. The audience is never wrong. Never.”
William Friedkin, Movie Director (“The Excorcist”)

What agencies should deliver to attract an audience:
“The agency’s job is to create content so valuable and
useful that consumers wouldn’t want to live without it (…)
create content that’s interesting and entertaining enough
to invite the consumer.”
Jeff Hicks, CEO, Crispin Porter Bogusky

Giving becomes crucial for a brand: “People become
loyal to that what the brand is giving.”
David Armano, Vice President of Experience Design, Critical Mass

Create something valuable that people can engage
with: “The key is to produce something that both pulls
people together and gives them something to do.”
Henry Jenkins, Director Comparative Media Studies Program, MIT

Why strive for engagement: “Engagement has a
psychological component, but it will manifest
behaviourally – it will lead to an action.”
Robert DeSena, Director of Relationship Marketing, MARS USA

But ... : “Content isn’t king. Conversation is king.
If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice
of taking your friends or your movies, you’d choose
your friends – if you chose the movies, we’d call you a
sociopath. Content is just something to talk about.”
Cory Doctorow, Sci-Fi Author

The content must contribute something interesting to
the conversation: “Brands only have a role if they can
make the conversation more interesting. Advertising
can’t succeed against the conversation but it can
influence and contribute to the conversation.”
Richard Huntington, Director of Strategy, Saatchi & Saatchi UK

So ... : “If it’s not worth talking about, it’s not
worth doing.”
Andy Sernovitz, Author of “WoM Marketing:
How Smart Companies Get People Talking“

Finally media changed marketing: “New Marketing
isn’t a single event or website or technology. New
Marketing treats every interaction, product, service
and side effect as a form of media.”
Seth Godin, Author of “Meatball Sundae:
Is Your Marketing out of Sync?”

Finally media changed model: “The old model was
informing, persuading and reminding, the new model
is demonstrating, involving and empowering.”
Mitch Matthews, Marketing Chief, Microsoft

We can face the change by being prepared:
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never
come up with anything original.”
Sir Ken Robinson, Author of “Out of Our Minds:
Learning to be Creative“

We can face the change by celebrating trial and error:
“Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning
of the lone genius.”
Dave Kelley, Founder of Ideo

We can face the change by failing again: “Always
make new mistakes – If we keep doing the same thing,
we’ll get the same results. We need to be unafraid to
experiment, to try new approaches. And we need to
be unafraid of cocking up and of failing.”
Esther Dyson, Journalist, on emerging digital technology

“We are at the beginning of the most exciting time the
advertising business has ever seen. While lots of
people are talking about the challenge of the multi-
media future, I believe it is the biggest opportunity for
creative minds since the ‘60’s.“
Lee Clow, Director of Media Arts, TBWA Worldwide

TBWA\\ Group Germany
Hubertus von Lobenstein, CEO
Rosenstrasse 16-17
10178 Berlin (Germany)
Compiled and arranged by michael.zorn@tbwa.de