What light through yonder tunnel shaft breaks?
This is interesting.
In an article on Social Media advertising in this week’s Ad
Age, Adam Kmiec who is head of Social Media for Walgreens is quoted as
saying, "We
have allowed social media to become SEO industry; a collection pseudo experts
all promising a solution without the talent to deliver. Frankly, it's depressing.
I hope for better."
Well, one can always hope. But as long as our industry is dominated by
conglomerates run by accountants, MBAs, and lawyers whose sole function is to
separate every dime from every client and every employee I don’t see much changing. Besides, Social Media (and brand building)
are perfect shakedowns: immeasurable or meaningless metrics, cliché-ridden
promises that can never be realized, and no accountability.
On the other hand—and this is important for
agencies—Kmiec is a client and if he is speaking out, how many other clients
feel the same way right now but are too afraid of missing out on the next big
thing? I’d reckon quite a few, and soon
Kmiec will find that he is not alone.
They will begin to realize that just because a new communication
platform is evolving it doesn't mean that human behaviour is evolving, too. It
is just another medium and people (consumers, customers, "engagees," we)
will still process visual and aural information from it the same way they have
from cave walls and books, billboards and television. We constantly will filter messages and
stimuli, ignore or discard almost all of the irrelevant ones and register then decide
to act on those few of immediate importance or interest, usually in
seconds.
Only when clients start asking their agencies tough
questions about the effectiveness and the rationale of their strategies will
the hucksters flee and social media can live up to its strength: where
companies/brands can listen to what a small segment of its potential customer
base ("likes" do not represent loyalty) are saying, especially when
things go wrong. Keep in mind that what many advertisers and agencies
think is important content or brand knowledge, the consumer thinks otherwise
and could not care less. The lesson:
lurk and let the users decide and act on what is relevant, just be sure to take
notes and don’t be a defensive tool if things go south.
In the meantime at your holding company agency, while
you’re sitting at your broken-down '80s desk waiting for your shared five
year-old computer to render a tiff, or walking on threadbare carpeting in your
agency’s dingy hallways past holes in the drywall hoping to scrounge up some
Sharpie markers or a pad of tracing paper to sketch out some ideas, know that
the senior management at HQ shares your pain.
Seriously, here’s what the captains of our industry get paid in these
belt-tightening times:
WPP
Publicis Group
Interpublic
Omnicom
MDC (US)
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