Mike Stopforth

Only Hugh MacLeod has epiphanies when he’s knackered.

From a recent post:

Here is one thought I came away with: As traditional, Madison-Avenue-style advertising gets more expensive and less relevant by the day, as the traditional mainstream media advertising business model gets continues to nosedive, where is all the client’s business going to move to, as it seeks out greener pastures? Google? Perhaps. Purple Cow? Sure. But where else?

Seriously. Where else?

There’s big money to be made by anyone who can provide the market with a half-decent answer.

So us Web 2.0 enthusiasts are running amok telling agencies and corporations that their advertising is dull and their marketing is ineffective. But what if they turned around and said, “Cool! Makes sense! Come up with a strategy that excludes all traditional channels but still makes an impact”. Would we be able to do that? Can we practice all that we preach? Or must we admit that traditional marketing and advertising still plays all too significant a role in spreading the message.

Doc Searls doesn’t think so. Also from Gaping void originally, this quote from him:

The bulk of advertising — all $160 billion of it (which buys a lot of art) — is a conversation between advertisers, media and agents for both. That conversation has enormous flywheels that were forged in the Age of Industry, and carry assumptions that are totally obsolete in a new age when the human beings we’ve been calling “consumers” are no longer dumb targets in a position only to absorb messages and displace cash.

The main reason I got out of advertising and PR was this epiphany:

THERE IS NO DEMAND FOR MESSAGES

So maybe Doc is right, but right for the US market. We are notoriously years behind them. Are jumping the gun a bit? Can we really expect Saffricans to respond to viral campaigns and mashups and user-generated content and all manner of other wonderful buzzwords?

Would like to hear your opinions on this one…