3. Sharing - The Strategic Start Point

So if we assume that volume of advertising continues to grow, and that digital is now an established medium, other media stay relevant but choice in media consumption will increasingly go into the hands of the consumer and that what we crave is trust where do we go?

First understand how the current model doesn't deliver.

Established thinking in marketing has always focused on the brand. Understand clearly what we are, why we are better and then tell the consumer in a clear, appealing, emotive manner and make them WANT us.

In real terms (see below) we understand our brand, our target market, and then how we can PUSH to them and best REACH that market in apportioning our media spend. Then we create a message that best exploits each media and (hopefully) all fits into the same broader "Big Idea". We then do that every three months, often starting from point zero again with a new "Big Idea".



Thing is, if what we marry that to human behaviour that is like me meeting you for the first time, saying "Hello, pleased to meet you, I'm Jason Hartley, and I'm a great brand strategist, who are you?" then meeting you three months later and saying "Hello, pleased to meet you, I'm Jason Hartley, and I'm a great Creative Strategist, who are you?". You are going to think a) he's rude for not remembering me, b) he's inconsistent and maybe a bit of a bullshitter for changing what he is and maybe, c) he's a little arrogant for claiming to be great...I'll be the judge of that. The outcome of this is dis-trust, the exact opposite of what we seek.

So how do we resolve this. We do the following:



By placing people at the centre of our model we allow people to control the conversation with the brand. They PULL and ENGAGE with the brand in media as they see fit. Of course we can attract, stimulate and guide using traditional methods, no harm in that, but they take on the role of stimulus, jumping out of the crowd starting a dialogue saying "hey, fancy a chat?", rather than "hey you, shut up and listen to this".

Note that unlike the previous model where we can create individual brand communication for each channel in isolation we now have to create a holistic brand experience that can take into account a person starting or engaging in a dialogue at any given point in time or in any medium. This means that any touch point needs to be both an introduction to, and a driver to, continue engagement and that all points HAVE to be consistent in message, tone of voice and their visualisation. Brand managers will no doubt say that has always been the case but I challenge them to go and look at their communication delivered by different agencies across different media and then tell me what they wanted was what they got.

The role of media is also important to note here. You cannot do one size fits all. You need to be flexible and not prescriptive with media strategy, until we determine where the dialogue is going to be most effective or where it will be held we cannot pretend to have 100% understanding of where we must invest. Media agencies will no doubt contest this, but only because their business model means they have to. This flexibility needs to extend per market and even per segment per market. Again, developing trust takes commitment and effort and can't be based on general-isms and shortcuts.

Given that the pragmatic answer to a cohesive, consistant dialogue across media isn't and never will be "give it all to one agency" the challenge for brands/companies is how they deliver the above. That is next...


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