This week’s award for stupid business journalism goes to Adweek for suggesting that today, a brand must become an assistant, friend, adviser and guide. This is beyond stupid, it clearly shows that the advertising industry is clueless.
Here is an excerpt..”with the rise of conversational experiences, just about every business function—from marketing to commerce to support—must be redesigned to be conversational. The greatest impact felt due to conversational marketing is that businesses interact with far more consumer prospects than they do with those paying customers”.
So what’s wrong with this picture?
1ne: [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]Consumers do not want to have a conversation with your brand, or an “authentic relationship” with it, or co-create with it, or engage with it, or dance with it, or take a shower with it.[/inlinetweet]
2wo:[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””] Most of what we call “brand loyalty” is simply a habit, convenience, mild satisfaction or easy availability.[/inlinetweet]
3hree: [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]According to Havas Media, “in Europe and the US, people would not care if 92% of brands disappeared.”[/inlinetweet]
4our:[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””] Our brands are very important to us marketers and very unimportant to most consumers.[/inlinetweet]
5ive: Modern marketing is operating under the delusion that consumers want to interact with brands, and have relationships with brands, and have brand experiences, and engage with them, and co-create with them.
Marketers are being confused by big data and too many people telling them they “have to” do this or be here. What they need to concentrate on is the actual relationship between their customers and the product. Steve Jobs knew this too well and hated it when someone talked about “branding”. To him building a great product experience was the key to success.
If more brand people would get off their asses instead of attending meetings, they might see how people are shopping and how lousy some of the brand experiences actually are.
