Alan Volk, who’s blog I’ve been enjoying for a few weeks now led me to an interesting article he wrote for AdWeek (a few months ago) called “The Real Digital Revolution”.
In it, he asserts that the Real Digital Revolution is the mortal enemy of advertising and marketing.
“Because the real digital revolution is about consumer empowerment, the ability to research and learn about products and services and make decisions independently from, and in spite of, any sort of advertising messages.”
While I of course agree that advertising is at best part of an integrated approach, I see two things differently.
The first is about the first half of the assertion that the paradigm has shifted from:
“Ad leads to purchase”
to
“Ad leads to Google leads to purchase”
I don’t think ads have led directly to purchases for a long time now. Good ads have always led to conversations. In the period that Advertising has had any purchase on it’s own at all, good ads have led to conversations. They’re noticeable, memorable and ideally shareable. The British benefited from only having four channels well into the era of modern advertising–because advertising was such a clear interruption of their limited programming, advertisers banked on engaging creative work that would turn into discussion over pints at the local.
The second discrepancy is that it’s not simply the proliferation of information and easy access to it that’s making the difference. It’s also the speed at which conversation now travels.
Since we first learned that advertisers could conceivably be putting their bottom lines ahead of our needs, we’ve turned to trusted sources to corroborate their messages or otherwise help us rationalize a purchase. That one friend who’s a buff/fan, done the research, or somehow qualified to make a judgment.
Think about it, who did you consult before you bought your last camera?
What’s changed isn’t merely that the information can be googled, it’s that we don’t have to wait until we run into that friend to talk anymore. Sure I was grateful for the amazing camera research at dpreview. But then I called our friend Mike, the commercial photographer, for the low down.
To my mind, referals, and all the ways we can get them are the real digital revolution. And the lesson is that advertisers should focus on keeping the experts we turn to in the loop. This should in theory make their jobs easier in that there are fewer experts than info seekers.
