So… we’re all predicting melt-down of advertsing / marketing / brand / as the user glides effortlessly from passive thru active to ‘control’ but what are we going to do about it?
Well it’s not going to be a gerzillion myspaces/youtubes/flickers/blogs…
And the response isn't going to be 'user generated’ ads / films.
At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious we need to look for something that offers value to both the consumer and the brand. I believe we’re talking about Propositions.
Something of truth and proven usefulness, the very thing that delivers relevance and value to the consumer, that that is desireable and delightful. No, it’s absolutely not about the ad.
It’s the actual service or product.
How do we know what that looks like?
Ask and understand your consumers. Engage with them. Collaborate with them in conversations, brainstorms, ‘un’focus groups, wild all night parties, whatever it takes. Avoid reliance on statistics, sure - use quanatitive research but more usefully and for inspiration mix in empathic research techniques alongside intuition.
Then use your very best skills of interaction, experience and service design to create these propositions. Of course if you’re an ad agency, those skills might not be ten a penny so therein lies a challenge.
But when it comes to awareness, that’s where the traditional advertising 1.0 skills pay off – so there’ll still be slots and posters and films and stuff but they won’t be really informing us consumers any deeper than simply that the product or service actually exists. Just kicking off the consumer-brand relationship.
Word of mouth will become even more powerful as us consumers really begin to enjoy those experiences ‘we’ helped create. Agencies will simply help that advocacy along a little.
So… post chaos we’ll be creating propositions that add value for the consumer and the business. Ad agencies will see decreasing revenue from traditional business models and the new creatives, experience / relationship / service / product designers hand in hand with empaths will become very busy. People like IDEO, live|work, Engine are explictly doing this, Many product orientated companies are doing it too, famously P&G. Many, many more design consultancies and digital agencies and some of the forward thinking 'ex' agency agencies are doing it even if they don't realise it.
The new consumer knows what she wants and won’t be sidetracked by lifestyle or fluff. She wants value for money and to be in control of the relationship.
We’re moving from décor towards core.
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