Читать книгу Beyond Advertising - Hays Catharine Findiesen - Страница 7

If you want to predict the future of advertising, imagine throwing a bottle into the ocean… Many pundits point out singular ‘futures’ in marketing and advertising by watching waves and musing about where the bottle is headed. This is useful in the short run. If you have a long-term objective it's more useful to focus on recognizing forces beyond the waves that will intersect in unexpected ways to shape, if not predictably determine, the future. Many forces shaping the future of advertising are well known, just as it's well known that tides move the ocean. The question is whether we understand their effect in shaping the future.

– Christopher Kenton, CEO and Founder, SocialRep (2012)

Yes, the changes that you are feeling are real. There is something bearing down on traditional approaches to advertising and marketing with unprecedented headwinds – the first visible indicator of the size and scope and speed of change that is to come. As the saying goes, we ain't seen nothing yet. Understand these changes, heed their import, and there is still time to make a course correction and thrive. Others are already doing so by harnessing these new forces, finding the new North Star that we present in Part II, and creating the more nimble craft and crew that we outline in Part III.

Why do we need to bother changing? What is the motivation for change? How are the five forces of change speeding up our world, disrupting traditional approaches and mindsets, and yet providing unprecedented horsepower to enable needed new approaches?

In Chapter 1 we delve into the five dramatic worldwide transformations that are impacting everything we thought we knew about how businesses and organizations communicate and connect with their customers (see Figure I.1). In brief, they are:

1. Rapid, Breakthrough Advances in Science and Technology

What are these breakthroughs and how to harness their power?

2. Exploding, Redefined, and Enhanced Media Landscape

How to allocate resources for the greatest return?

3. Skeptical and Empowered People

How to attract and retain both connected and unconnected “talent” and “consumers”?

4. Fundamental Cultural, Social, Environmental, and Geopolitical Challenges

What are the roles and responsibilities of brands as global challenges grow louder and more insistent, and what does this have to do with advertising?

5. Disruptive and Compelling Business and Revenue Models

What are the means of survival when disruption is almost inevitable?

Figure I.1 The Five Forces of Change and Opportunity

Equally important for a Beyond Advertising future, these forces of change represent not only the source of actionable insights to be monitored and tapped, but also the opportunity set for contributing a net positive impact from innovative and purposeful brand touchpoint initiatives… And the Most Important Tool for Harnessing the Future

The industry clings steadfastly to conceptual frameworks that in many cases date back 50 years or more. And the fact is that many of these frameworks are not just wrong but seriously misleading, so much so that they often lead to suboptimal outcomes, outcomes that are the very opposite of what the marketing team both wants and needs.

– Mark Tomblin, Chief Strategy Officer, TAXI (2013)

If you think you already know what you need to do, or as may be the case, what everyone else needs to do, then you will either read the book searching for confirmation of that point of view and/or reject anything we offer that doesn't reinforce your point of view. Based on our conversations with even the most forward-thinking people, we realize that entrenched thinking, or expecting affirmation, is a danger. So, before we explain the model that will address these challenges, we have a favor to ask. Actually this will be a requirement, since the new model that we outline in Part II won't mean much if you are still holding on to some old ways of thinking. Before you read the next part of this book, take a moment to suspend your current thinking, your mindsets, and those mental models that in all likelihood have worked so well for you for so many years.

In Chapter 2, we walk you through this process of tackling what we have found to be the single greatest impediment to change and transformation: mental models that worked in the past but must be challenged, given new realities to meet the future (see Figure I.2).

Figure I.2 Challenge Entrenched Mental Models

For example: we should probably stop referring to “consumers,” which implies a myopic mindset that defines “them” based on what and how much they consume. How would it change your mindset to think about “them” as “us” and about them as people whose lives we might enrich?

And that's just for starters.