The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Emperor’s New Clothes?

Another day, another proprietary  tool’. 

However, Media Planning and Buying Company, GROUP M, has done more than just re-package the same old bollocks with an exciting new name … oh yes, they’ve created a ‘tool’ that can measure how much advertising ‘engages’ consumers ’emotionally and/or behaviourally.

Sorry, but am I the only one who thinks this sort of thing actually creates an greater divide between brand and public?

Don’t get me wrong, I love how science can answer things previously thought of as unanswerable – but advertising is not a science … infact it is one of the most simplistic things on earth! 

For me, the problem is that business doesn’t allow its people to try new things – and I can sort of understand why, because mistakes are bloody expensive. However what it has resulted in is most marketers only approving communication that is quantifiable – be it creativity, media, R&D etc etc – because then, if something goes wrong, they have the ‘data’ to explain why they acted in the best interests of their company.

The irony is that for all the research and information we have available, we now have less successful brands than at any point in history – even when clients spend so much on research till it say’s everything is going to be a great success!

A colleague of mine, Fred, has written a wonderful paper on the ‘Rise Of The Focus Group’ [www.fredriksarnblad.wordpress.com/2006/05/09/goodbye-innovation/]  Don’t get me [or him] wrong, we love research – it is a very valuable and valid methodology that can really help guide the development of communication – it’s just that in the wrong hands [and it’s in alot of wrong hands at the moment] it can screw up ‘potential’ better than any teacher or parent.

My problem is that I can’t help  feel this ‘engagement tool’ is going to screw up creativity and imagination to an even greater extent … because apart from the results being reliant on the interpretation of the individual ‘expert decoder’, it’s still asking people to ‘switch on’ their rational side of the brain [even if it is done subconsciously] and this will naturally skew the ‘findings’ because in the ‘real World’, everything we do is emotionally led, rationally justified.

Anyway, you can read Group M’s hype at … http://adage.com/article?article_id=110187 … and please bare in mind that media companies have a long history of launching ‘new tools’ pronouncing they can save the World of communication when in reality, they tend to end up doing the same old thing they’ve always done.  Think about it … for all their talk about the ever-changing media consumption habits of the consumer, if you analyse where the majority of the media money is invested by them, you’ll find it’s generally in the same old QUANTIFIABLE media they’ve always used.  Hmmmm ….

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