This article was taken from the June 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Planning a startup and wondering how much of your limited budget to allocate to traditional advertising?
We have no doubt of the answer: nothing.
Though they shouldn't, traditional advertising and mass media still dominate many marketing budgets.
That made sense when the networks open to companies -- billboards, cinemas, newspapers, TV -- were owned by a handful of broadcasters and publishers. Brands paid outside "creatives" lots of money to come up with dazzling campaigns, then paid outside media buyers to pay media owners even more money in order to get them seen. It was the only way.
Not any more. The traditional gatekeepers are still here, but they are no longer the only people with keys. As Wired readers are well aware, new ideas and businesses now reach us through the mobile web, apps, social media and numerous other digital channels. A well-defined project from the funding platform Kickstarter is just as much about seeding an innovative new idea or company in the public imagination as it is raising money. And that is just the first of three crucial structural shifts that digital has facilitated and which disrupt the very idea of advertising.
For the consumer, digital has changed things even more drastically. The phone is the passport to everything advertising was designed to obscure -- which is to say, the truth. Fifteen years ago, the only way to differentiate between brands of washing-up liquid was to fall for the claims made for them in their ads. Today, you can get the real views of millions of people, and the opinions of your friends, by consulting the device in your pocket. Sure, the brand might still have an outdoor campaign, a catchy jingle or a groovy strapline -- but compared to the meaningful data that we can instantly access today, that's just hissing in the wind. Thanks to that, ad campaigns that tell fibs, create myths or overhype products get exposed and ridiculed instantly; a campaign can be reduced to a joke in an afternoon on Twitter.
Now, it's wisest to ensure that whatever you might call "promotion" actually substantiates the value of your product, not mythologises it. The third reason why digital has made old-fashioned "advertising" redundant? The very idea of outsourcing "creative" thinking to Mad Men-style mavericks is out of date. Brands should know their businesses and customers better than anybody. In a digital world, their job is to build out from that knowledge by collaborating with, not commissioning, talent from beyond.
Collaboration is a much more powerful way of understanding how to serve your customer and their desires. Talk value is worth more than any ad. "Serve the customer"? We know some readers will be sniggering at the back there. But if you think about it, brands no longer have a choice.
It's no accident that the most successful companies today have established themselves through indispensable services, not shallow promises. Their low-key, how-it-works, soft-sell approaches that refuse to insult the intelligence of their audiences are about delivering true value. "Here's something we think is cool, maybe you'll like it." Nobody knows your business and your customer better than you. Use the power of digital to find new ways to create love and loyalty. Make marketing a part of the development process, not an afterthought. Most important, make something brilliant. As Jeff Bezos says, "Advertising is the price you pay for having an unremarkable product or service." The premise is that today we have a new communication platform, when in reality what we have is a new connection platform based around what matters in people's lives.
It's an opportunity to make yourself indispensable. And that's not an ad brief.
*Stefan Olander, VP of digital sport at Nike, and Ajaz Ahmed, founder of AKQA, are the authors of
[Velocity:
The Seven New Laws for a World Gone Digital](https://www.penguin.co.uk/company/about-us.html) (Vermilion)*
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
