I have to admit that today’s AOTD made me think, and I changed my mind after reading and re-reading it. So, thank you to the author for a thought-provoking topic. Here is the link.
What I summarize from this is the author making the point that in the past, for marketers, “it didn’t matter that the claims we claimed could never be substantiated, or that the values with which we associated our brands were purchased, not organic. Sell the same car or TV for more because of some sleight of superficial badge? No worries; nobody had the capacity or desire to discover the truth.”
That last statement is just not true. I think as consumers we ALL have the capacity to discover the truth about what we’re buying. The difference today versus years ago is that there are more tools at a consumer’s disposal to find out other people’s opinions and experiences about a product or brand which help us as individuals generate our own conclusions about that product or brand.
The crux of the author’s main argument is rooted in the premise that brands and advertisers are engaging in a two-way dialogue with consumers rather than a one-way, “push” approach in their messaging. This is absolutely true, and the beauty of the advancements made in social media in the last few years. No longer can brands tell the story how they want to tell it; rather, fans and consumers (and detractors) have a say in a very public way to state their opinion. The author’s point is that this dynamic helps close a truth gap of sorts; in other words, brands can’t “lie” any more due to the court of public opinion nor will consumers tolerate it.
I get the author’s point, but I don’t agree with where his conclusions are rooted. Perhaps it is the difference between existing brands with a long track record and new brands of today.
Let’s say I’m a new brand trying to build a following. Or better yet, I’m trying to market a new book. The message, or key selling points, I would bring to market today are likely the same as they would have been 1, 2, or even 5 years ago. The message wouldn’t be different. I’d be trying to tell the consumer what benefits the book has, how it might help them, and then would try and charge a reasonable price consistent with the book’s market value to maximize sales. If you don’t like the message, you won’t buy the book.
The major difference is not a change in message, it is in what platforms are used to deliver the message now versus a few years ago. As with any marketing campaign or product, you’ll have detractors and a vocal minority no matter what. As a marketer, it isn’t as if the marketing messages I used 10 years ago would have been deceitful, but today they’d be truthful. That makes no sense.
So I’m not buying this idea of a “truth gap” suddenly appearing on the horizon because from the minute that Amazon added customer reviews, or TripAdvisor added traveler reviews, it changed the game in some ways – but not others. It meant greater transparency and that brands and products needed to be more accountable to their consumer base than before at the risk of having people publicly express their displeasure; but it didn’t mean all of a sudden marketing messages changed or that, as the author hints, marketers were all liars before and they can’t be in the future.
I buy that marketers need to be accountable for their brands, products and services more than ever before given the two-way dialogue prevalent in our culture today. I just don’t buy that marketing messages will change all that much; marketers still have to match their message to the consumers expectations and needs. There are just many more platforms at a marketer’s disposal nowadays to deliver those messages, and communications are more public than they used to be. Platforms change, but the messages themselves don’t (or shouldn’t).