HELSINQI CREATIVE

Advertiser-Consumer Breakup

Thursday, 29 July 2010

This one's from a couple of years ago already. The only difference is that today it'd be a minute shorter…

PS. And no, I am not endorsing Microwhatever Digital Advertising Solutions. (It's a testament to virality that I'm posting it on my Helsinqi blog nonetheless. But, hey, we're both grown-ups.)

PPS. Props to Tom Howe for bringing this vid to my attn.

More cracks in the monolith: Ads down; PR up

Thursday, 25 February 2010

Everywhere we look, the status of marketing is changing radically. Whether you see it as a catastrophic sinkhole opening up below, or a powerful groundswell buoying you up depends — as revolutions always do — on how vested your interests are in the entrenched (erstwhile) status quo versus your readiness to embrace dramatic change as an opportunity.

It may come down to where you stand on the advertising-to-PR spectrum, or, to put a finer point on it, the spectrum between old-school, monolithic, unilateral push-messaging and a participatory communications model which, in terms of antecedents, is closer to the PR model.

The Economist writes on the sanguineness of public relations in the recession:

According to data from Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS), a private-equity firm, spending on public relations in America grew by more than 4% in 2008 and nearly 3% in 2009 to $3.7 billion. That is remarkable when compared with other forms of marketing. Spending on advertising contracted by nearly 3% in 2008 and by 8% in the past year. PR’s position looks even rosier when word-of-mouth marketing, which includes services that PR firms often manage, such as outreach to bloggers, is included. Spending on such things increased by more than 10% in 2009.

— ”Good News“, 14 Jan 2010.

Interesting times. Of course, whenever things look like this, there are two ways to respond. Most will take (what appears to be) the swift and easy road, devising ever cleverer ways to game the new situation. (The Economist refers to “blow-dried blogs.”) Pity, that. But I can’t complain: it leaves swathes of market hungry for a fundamental change — and visionary enough to see the writing on the wall — wide open to those of us solidly committed to the integrity way.