CONFERENCE UPDATE: DAY 1
So we’ve had the morning sessions … loads of speakers basically giving their company creds, passing off other people’s ideas as their own and showing old viral pieces as if they’ve just come out.
Hey, I’m not knocking it, I’ll probably be doing the same in a few hours … however one guy has pissed me off and that’s one of the conferences “Guru’s” – Nirmalya Kumar – Professor of Marketing Harvard, IMD / Director – Centre for Marketing / Co-Director Aditya Birla India Centre, UK London Business School.
Obviously this guy is very smart and very informed – you don’t get to where you are without that – however like most University lecturers, he speaks AT an audience, he detests being questioned and he only understands life by post-rationalised case studies.
Well guess what I did!? Yep I called him on all 3.
You see it was all going well till he started talking about the fashion brand, Zara.
Without doubt they are an amazing business because like Google, they’ve come from nowhere to everywhere in about 10 years – however what pissed me off was that he said Zara has become a brilliant brand without ever advertising … they’ve just created and communicated their competitive advantage through their advanced processes and systems.
Now don’t get me wrong, process and systems has played an enormous part in creating Zara’s consistent and competitive brand advantage … however what this old school thinker fails to realize is that communication is no longer just about television spots or billboards, it’s about [as in Zara’s case] things like shopping experience, location, PR, fashion shows, magazine articles – hell, even the clothes – so whilst Zara may not use the ‘old school’ method of advertising, they still spend a shit load of cash on communicating their brand to the masses.
Of course I had to bring this issue to his attention and do you know what he did?
He grabbed the mic off me and made some glib comment that because this method of communication wouldn’t get adland the commission they demand from media channels, he was right and Zara owe their success to internal efficiencies and infrastructure.
Now apart from the fact that [1] I have seen Zara advertise in traditional channels [2] they do have ad agencies on their books and [3] they spend a huge amount in exposing their brand to the masses … the media commission model is incredibly outdated and if most agencies relied on that for their only income, they’d all go bust in an instant.
So all in all this guy has made 4 major faux pas …
1/ He has not acknowledged the role adland can have in making an efficiently run company into a brand that motivates and infiltrates society
2/ He does not understand the changing face of the communication industry.
3/ He doesn’t understand how real people think/do/act
4/ He is letting me speak after him.
Revenge happens in about 3 hours.