One of the many problems with "research, statistics and big data" is the concept that whoever has the information has the knowledge and therefore has all the power. Unfortunately most people have no experience, no training and no idea how to gather, analyze and/or use that information.
So the final season of Mad Men appeared in early April with a new Accutron spot as its focal point. Don Draper is on the outs with SC&P (though he is still a partner). Meanwhile, business has never been better for Freddy Rumsen, who is sitting before Peggy Olsen and making his pitch for the new Accutron campaign.
When did everyone turn into an authority about everything? Once upon a time, the world relied on experts to illuminate the masses. People of proven experience would share their lessons and help us all become better human beings – faster runners, deeper thinkers, better drivers, higher jumpers, smarter workers.
[Ordinarily I try not to cross the streams of my markeTING and Road to 90 blogs, but I felt this particular baseball post has some relevance to marketing.] Despite the final score (15-4) I watched the entire Tribe game last night full of anxiety, which is just the way I like it.
Like the final season of Mad Men, sometimes – as marketers – all you can do is watch from the sidelines as the game gets played out in front of you. Of course most of the time we cling to the illusion that we are in control – the sense that we are running the agency or executing the campaign or making the pitch.
Shakespeare, through Richard III, once said: "Talkers are no good doers: be assured We come to use our hands and not our tongues." A modern translation runs more along the lines of "if you're going to talk the talk, you've got to walk the walk." My dad used to say: "Talk is cheap, show me..." he was the Rod Tidwell of his generation.
I received an email last night from a Cleveland State University journalism and promotional communications student. Then I got his call this morning. He is writing an article about the role of technology in business and wanted to know my thoughts on how technology has impacted our business over the past 28 years.
When evaluating agency performance, exactly which performance are you evaluating? On the one hand, there's the performance, as in the pitch or the presentation. On the other hand, there's the performance, as in the actual work – the strategic planning, the creative, the execution and the results.
Sometimes I feel like our whole industry has gone mad... and then I realize it's me. But this is not one of those times. For the past couple years the topic of "content development' and "content marketing" has become a very popular buzzword that is snowballing downhill and growing to cartoonish proportions.
The outcome of last year’s marketing efforts (or even last week's) – positive, negative or neutral – provide valuable data. And if you analyze and assess properly, the insights will be priceless. On the other hand, if you assume you already “know” and “understand” the results, you run the risk of missing out on making new gains in the year ahead.
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