In The Palm Of Your Hands

side note - the winner of the contest in my previous post will be revealed tomorrow.

Now, onto the main attraction. As a music fan, and a guy who will hit a live concert at just about any opportunity, I am fascinated by the rare breed of artist that can take the audience and put it in the palm of their hand, and basically play with it because they can. It really is a very small percentage of people that have that level of charisma and talent. It's scarily small when you take into consideration the millions of musicians and singers and such out there.

Is the same true for marketing/advertising, etc? Are there a very very small percentage of people that can take control of their audience and pretty much make them do as they please?

Yes.

The same kind of person that is a rarity in the entertainment world is just as rare in the marketing/advertising world. Sure, there are plenty of people who can do it good enough to get the job done, and people that are good enough at it to be among the top in the industry. But just like in the music industry, there is that extremely small percentage that transcend the marketing industry.

Is there an exact formula to it? I have no idea, if I did, I'd be rich as shit from selling said formula, and I'd be among the elite myself.

What do YOU think?

Thanks for reading...

Web 2.0 = Marketing 2.0??

For some reason, lately the need to classify things has been bouncing around in my head. Not trying to classify my own stuff in my house, but why its done. Of course, general classification is obviously and correctly used to differentiate things that for the most part are blatantly different, with small variation.

Animal. Vegetable. Mineral. Mammal. Fish. Arachnid. Whatever, they're for the most part useful.

But what is Web 2.0? What is new marketing? For that matter, what compromised Web 1.0? What exactly is included within traditional marketing? Who's traditions? Mine? Yours? Nostradamus? Bill Clinton? Dave Chappelle? Where do you draw the lines...is it really necessary to draw them?

No.

To concentrate on marketing for a moment...how do you know when to draw the line? Was it when the first spam email went out? Was it when the first banner ad was clicked on? Was it the first television commercial? Was it the first magazine ad? The line is useless....marketing is marketing is marketing. The music industry is full of the same bullshit...everything has to have a label to make it digestable to the latest and the greatest of whatever. Fuck it. Music is music is music. Its all music....leave it at the general classifications that you see in a record store. I don't need new this, or post that, or cross genre classifications. Its music. Get over it. Its marketing. ITS ALL THE SAME! The method of delivery is the difference. Since day one, marketing has been about getting your product or service in front of as many of the right people as often and as cheaply as possible without pissing them off. Thats what it is, thats what its been, and thats what it will always be.

Same with the internet. If you really want to get technical, Web 1.0 was the millitary defense network before any of the concepts of the internet beyond BBSs was even a thought in Al Gore's mind. Which would mean by classification of evolutionary ideas, we'd be on like Web 9.2 at this point. So why aren't we? Because the classification doesn't mean a damn thing. Its subjective, its made up to pigeonhole stuff, much like what I spoke about above. Its the internet. It has a wide variety of uses and has gone through a wide variety of generations...but its still the internet. No need to call it anything else...no more classifications needed. Just leave it alone.

What are your favorite useless classifications?

Thanks for reading...

Blast From The Past - Local Advertising

When I was younger, my favorite commercials were the local ones. You know, the ones with horrible production values, lousy scripts, and the store owner from down the street making an ass out of himself on camera in the name of another dollar. As a kid, I had a really odd sense of humor, and stuff like everyone's favorite liquor store owner, Connecticut's own Crazy Bruce, made me laugh my little head off. How can you not find this funny?



and we cannot forget the Tires Plus Wheels guy, another local legend.



There's always Bob of Bob's Discount Furniture, the guy that did the Ruby Vine Railroad Discount warehouse, or something like that...even today, Connecticut has Stephen Barbarino car dealers doing the low budget thing.

When I was little, they would make me laugh, and not knowing anything at all about advertising or marketing, had no idea that over twenty years later, I would still remember them and be writing a blog post about them. Looking back on them, it was very obvious that local businesses were willing to do just about anything they could to stand out from the national advertisers that got 99% of the advertising time on television. If they had to sing a stupid song, or a funny dance, or just make an idiot of themselves on TV to get noticed, they would do it.

There's really nothing like those ads on TV these days. There are very few businesses willing to do what it takes anymore, and that's a huge problem.

Where are you from and what were your favorite old horrible local commercials? I know you have some.

Thanks for reading...

Can Marketing Really Be Taught In School?

Oddly enough, as a person with a bachelors degree in Marketing, I'd have to say I'm not sure.

There's only so much that can be taught. Obviously you've got to learn the basics, and when you learn the basics of a lot of different concepts, it helps you refine what you are actually interested in. But so many things that are needed to be successful in marketing, advertising and such cannot truly be taught. Imagination and creativity for one, would be hard to learn. Every person has a different view on what is creative and/or imaginative, its too subjective of an idea to really be taught. Unfortunately, you need both to really be good. You can take a class in ad design, or ad writing, or what have you, but that only shows you what to do, not how to do it. I'm honestly proud that I can say that I have a bachelors in Marketing, but it doesn't automatically get you somewhere like it used to. Not to say that its worthless, because in no way is it. You need to get the basics. But with how fast things are changing in our industry, are those basics from long ago still the same? Hell, are the basics from LAST YEAR still the same as you need today? I don't know.

The one thing that truly leads to education is experience. Its a shame that its so hard to get experience these days, unless you're working with very unconventional means. To get a job, you need experience. To get experience, you need a job. To get a job, you need experience. To get experience, you need a job. How are you supposed to break that?

Marketing and advertising is too important to a company to trust to some kid right out of college...which is harsh, because these days, more often than not its the kid just out of school that has a handle on what's going on, especially with all the new stuff coming around on the internet and such.

Experience cannot be taught, only gained and used. Maybe its time that all of us younger folks who are struggling to get a foot in the door somewhere to make our own doors...or start kicking out windows instead. Maybe the good way in isn't through the door, its over the back fence. I'll bring the bolt cutters if you bring the shovel.

Thanks for reading...

"Traditional Marketing" Gone Forever?

I think not. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who's ever thought so, either. Hell, I'm probably late to jump on the bandwagon as it is.

The world we live in is to cyclical for traditional, or older style marketing to disappear. Clothing styles go in and out with astonishing regularity, and tend to circle back on a generational term. Music does the same thing. Look at the ska, swing, and psychedelic periods that the music industry went through. Popularity comes and goes, and yet there are things that are always there. Good old standbys, if you want to think of them that way. Jeans and tshirts. Manufactured pop music. Even the movie and television industry falls into cycles on occasion.

Why would marketing and advertising be any different? Word of mouth, viral marketing, and banner advertisements are great, and have many plenty of people tons of money...but so have traditional advertising means. There was a point in time as all of this next generation stuff was coming along, that Yahoo! was running television commercials. They aren't anymore. Yeah, probably because everyone who uses the internet knows what Yahoo! is. Now people are all excited about Google. With good reason, of course, because Google is growing into a category and an industry all to its own. I can't for the life of me remember a tv commercial or a magazine ad, or any kind of other "traditional" advertisement for Google. Or Blogger. Or Twitter. Or MySpace. Facebook. Sure, they got written up in technology magazines or computer magazine or stuff like that...and it probably did them a world of good. But abandoning what was once traditional advertising is a bad idea.

Why? Because sooner or later, the cycle will come around again, and for some it will be too late. Maybe they just sunk a ton into whatever newfangled promotional thing that just came down the pike, and they have nothing left for print or television. Maybe they just didn't think the cycle would come around again.

I've yet to see a company that does more than a slightly passable job (if they even attempt it) at balancing new and traditional marketing and advertising concepts. At least not to the point where it's all that noticeable. Is it being done? I hope so, but I'm not really sure. Will it be done? That's for time to show.

Thanks for reading.