Commentary

I Don't Need A Brand As A New Best Friend

Feeling like an alcoholic who slipped after 20 years of sobriety, I found myself reading this nonsense in a byliner: "Content, especially delivered in a native environment, works because consumers don't want to feel they are being marketed to. Rather, they want to make great decisions about what to buy and who to buy from in trusted environments. They expect brands to blend into their daily lives and offer value appropriate to what they are seeking in that specific setting."

Let’s reduce this swill line by line:

Content, especially delivered in a native environment, works because consumers don't want to feel they are being marketed to. Yes, you are so right. It better to disguise your pitch as "interesting content" than to let consumers know they are being marketed to. That totally builds consumers’ trust of brands.

Personally, I am entirely comfortable with brands staying on their side of the separation of church and state so that I know from the get-go that I am being marketed to. Making the whole process some sort of guessing game just pisses me off (as it does to many others, I suspect.). While I’m not a big fan of seeing the same ads over and over again, I don't mind seeing them in any context the first time or two. The notion that consumers don't want to feel they are being marketed to is patently absurd.

Rather, they want to make great decisions about what to buy and who to buy from in trusted environments. Not sure how you delineate a "great" decision from a regular decision unless that is some vague allusion to buyers’ remorse, which must inevitably result from making a purchase in a "non-trusted" environment.

More nonsense. If "trusted" is a key part of this equation, how does that square with deceiving consumers that they are being marketed to?Doesn't that somewhat sully the "environment"? Even the best "environments," like network TV, do themselves no favors by using the stars of adjacent shows to introduce commercials in a lame attempt to stop fast-forwarding. How do they think audiences react to this? With pleasant surprise and open wallets? Probably just the opposite.

They expect brands to blend into their daily lives and offer value appropriate to what they are seeking in that specific setting. The very LAST thing I want is for brands to blend into my daily life. Already they intrude into places they are not welcome. Not a day goes by that somebody doesn't launch a new business that promises to put ads in more places that will only add to the clutter of the 5,000 or so ad impressions we see a day, training us to further turn off all our senses to ads. At my gym I wear headphones because they stop the PA music to pitch club offers to one-time guests. This is untargeted noise to 99.99% of the folks on the workout floor who are already members. Building good will? Just the opposite. 

This is why I am such a fan of print ads, whose virtues are: 1) They are clearly marked as ads. 2) I know I am being marketed to, and I am totally okay with that. 3) They do not intrude on my enjoyment of news "content." 4) When I turn the page, it is over and done with. 5) They don't follow me around online lurking for a chance to retarget. 6) They are great to drain freshly cooked French fries on.

3 comments about "I Don't Need A Brand As A New Best Friend".
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  1. Randy Novak from NSA Media, November 7, 2014 at 9:47 a.m.

    Marketing mumbo-jumbo that is so prevalent today in order to cover up the lack of actual knowledge. Digital/tech is notorious. It is getting out of hand and at all levels of brands and agencies. Give me good old fashioned marketing that actually sells things as opposed to all of these meaningless buzzwords.

  2. Margaret Duffy from Duffy Consulting, November 7, 2014 at 9:58 a.m.

    Oh, for heaven's sake, George. Take a Valium. People like content even if it's sponsored (and it doesn't need to be deceptive and shouldn't be.) Take a look at what GoPro has done with, for example, "The Lion Whispererer:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNCzSfv4hX8

  3. George Simpson from George H. Simpson Communications, November 7, 2014 at 10:25 a.m.

    Forgive me Margaret but nowhere do I take issue with content, only that it should be clearly identified as sponsored. Calling sponsored content "native" does not make it OK regardless of the quality (or indirectness of the underlying attempt at marketing.) I don't think folks mind being "marketed to" but they do mind being deceived.

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