Do One Thing Well
on Sep 09 in Advertising, Digital, Strategy tagged by Peter Blackman
“Times are tough. Marketing budgets are squeezed. Marketing departments are shrinking. While online media options are increasing, and offline media is evolving. The result?
Fear Of Missing Out. The monstrous spectre of FOMO stalks the marketing land, terrorising marketers into thinking that their brands must have be ‘across’ all media.
FOMO produces what we laughably call ‘integrated campaigns’ featuring abandoned twitter feeds, neglected facebook pages, quick and dirty, cheap and nasty radio campaigns, print work with it’ll do photography and copy.
So here’s a thought. Just do #1 thing well. Embrace the idea that brands can be successful through telling the consumer one thing. In one media.
Using examples from all over the world, and from diverse brands and media, Giles Davis and Peter Blackman will demonstrate the power of doing just one thing really well.”
Ok, so that was the official sales pitch for an event that I’m going to be speaking at in October. Why should you come?
Here’s an additional piece of copy from an e mail I sent to someone about it….
“This is a manifesto presentation, and as such, is not a sales pitch for either of us. Rather we’re trying to stop charlatans and salesman fleecing clients for budget when the brand would be better served by doing one thing well, not trying to stretch itself across every media platform.
For we believe that ubiquity does not necessarily generate success - that exclusivity of media channel can do that just as well.
That a false friendliness has become the default position of insecure brands and their owners or managers - and a return is needed to single minded focus, do one thing well, and talk about it in a confident way .
We can show using our own experience on famous, successful brands how:
- global brands have been built through single minded proposition and ruthless exploitation of one, single media
- and that though the media environment has fragmented, brands can, and should still do this.
- because it delivers success - be that ROI or other measures.
Basically, Giles and I have been lucky enough to have been trained and worked at agencies where strategic and media neutrality were sacrosanct. Where the start point was ‘what does the brand want / need to achieve?’ and then look to develop a strategy accordingly. We’ve both been increasingly frustrated by seeing brands pursue a weak willed (and minded) approach to their relationship with the consumer. All that seems to matter these days is to cosy up to consumers on social media, taking care not to stand for anything that might risk offending anyone. Or to spread campaign blandness in more traditional media - never mind what you say, as long as you say it in a faux sub-Innocent drinks ‘hey, shucks we’re real people’ tone of voice.
Man up BRANDS!”