Mark Walsh, CEO of Genius Rocket, attended the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas and provides us with this insider's report:
First, let me reveal that I have never been to the CES in Vegas before this year. I have studiously tried to avoid it, hearing tales of tortured logistics, miles of loud booths, overcrowded parties with cheap drinks, and a sense of subtle desperation throughout every gathering that somehow…. someway… there was a BETTER party going on somewhere else and you were not invited. I already have lots of parties like that down here in Washington D.C, they’re called Political Fundraisers and Conventions.
But, this year, I was flattered to be invited to speak on a panel hosted by Digital Hollywood under the CES banner, and I spent virtually all of the daytime hours at various panels and confabs sponsored by Digital Hollywood that covered the current state of marketing and advertising and entertainment on the web and other connected devices. What I did with my nighttime hours is another story… but I will mention that I was at a blackjack table where a player next to me left the table with $45,000. I was betting $25 a hand. We did not have much to celebrate together.
What I said, saw, and heard at the panels I attended or participated in centered around three interrelated themes:
1) Traditional advertising will not work anymore;
2) New ways have to be developed or commerce will grind to a halt; and
3) There is a new breed of consumer/customer who rejects all prior behavior, demands to be heard, and is full of opinions.
Regarding the new breed of consumer, he or she is not prepared to be spoken to in a one-way, disruptive, “sales-y” fashion. The process of persuasion has taken on new features, new urgency and new economics. I was struck by how many senior executives from marketing and advertising agencies kept hammering down the theme that “Nothing will ever be the same”.
I had some time to think about that… and particularly about the issue that kept coming up in panel after panel about the “blogosphere” and how a brand can try to “contain” what is said about it. I was struck by how many agency people kept saying that it was getting harder and harder to control… and I realized that Message Control was so much a part of the DNA of prior advertising models, that it is hard for “soldiers in the last war” to give up what they know, or knew.
I am convinced that the more a brand manager or ad agency exec is worried about the voice-of-the-people being able to comment on their client in public blogs set up around the marketing messages, the more that brand manager is convinced that their product is substandard and will be "discovered and debunked” by the angry mob. The old adage in advertising… the fastest way to kill a bad product is with great advertising…. holds true here. If a product does not deliver on its promise, then today’s consumer landscape not only discovers that faster, it SHARES it faster. A viral campaign is a vicious mistress when it is going against your products message..
What I see happening is brands that have confidence in their basic value proposition are not only allowing conversations about their brand to occur around and IN the advertising itself, but they are trying to engage their customers to be the agency of the future. “Your Customer is Your Creative Department” I yelled a couple of times.
This is a liberating experience and conclusion for a brand confident in its delivery and appeal. It lets the brand manager get back to what he or she knows best… managing the Value Proposition, not the Place the message ends up.
What’s the old line… “If you love something, let it go. If it never comes back, it was never yours to begin with.” That’s where advertising is… Brand Managers have to let the Brand go… if it loses altitude in the Open Blogosphere… then it’s Value Proposition was never “yours” to begin with.
Now, I am finished typing. I have to get back to my gambling website and practice. I wanna go to the Big Boy’s table and play blackjack next year!