When I was a young marketer — for everything from a crisis hotline in Chicago to a structural engineering firm — I had a photo pinned up on my bulletin board for years.
The photo showed two hitchhikers with signs. The first hitchhiker, labeled “Advertising,” held a sign that read “To Memphis.” The other hitchhiker, labeled “Marketing,” hoisted a sign that said, “To Mom’s for Christmas.”
Yep. Who would YOU want to pick up?
We’re still in that same world — just compounded by the proliferation of devices and digital media. But advertising — with its emphasis on frequency and unrelenting sameness — is dying. Marketing — or, the telling of stories — will never die.
Lou Paskalis, the SVP of Enterprise Media at Bank of America, is shedding no tears over advertising.
“We’re at the end of the advertising era — it’s coming to an end,” Paskalis said in a recent industry panel discussion filmed by Beet.TV. “Thank God. Because now we can all be marketers, which is why we got in to this business, and get out of this ridiculous business of advertising, which is disruptive, not additive to the consumer experience, and which exactly no-one including your family wants.”
Content is the issue. Or, put another way — it’s about getting to Mom’s house for Christmas.
“What (people) desperately want on their mobile device is content,” insists Paskalis. “Marketers can make great content. Content has nothing to do with ads. Ads are stories about my brand, content is stuff people want — we have to figure out how to win them over with content, earn their attention and make a connection.”
The interview conducted by Tobi Elkin included Vonage media VP Kathryn Szumowski, who agreed, adding content must engage users actively to be effective.
“It’s really time we look at things from the consumers’ points of view,” she said.
This interview video is from “Media Future Conversations 2015: Unblocked – Valuing Human Attention In A Content-Driven World,” an event presented by true[X] in association with Beet.TV.
Worth watching? You betcha. Especially if you want to drink eggnog with Mom on Christmas Eve.
To check it out, click here.