Consumers Don't Care About Your Brand

Consumers don’t care about your brand…

And other things you probably don’t want to, but desperately need to, hear from your advertising agency

We live in a world of fractured and balkanized media

It used to be easier –you’d just buy television, radio, and print ads.

Nobody watches broadcast TV anymore. Internet is by far the fastest growing area. Those who are going to be 18-34 soon – may never buy a TV at all.

Radio is being rapidly overtaken by on-demand audio services

And print isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on anymore (most of the time).

Your agency says “ah ha! There’s digital!”

Banner ads are pretty close to worthless.

New technology is cropping up all the time to make it so your ad is never seen – but you pay for it anyways.

You’d have a better chance getting hit in the head from a meteor hurling through the atmosphere than creating “viral content”.

Bottom line – as a brand you’re competing with everyone on the planet who is wired, on-demand, and digitally creating, remixing, and consuming, information.

And consumers really could care less about your brand…

As a result, most brand leaders are under tremendous pressure to “know everything” about everything in media, technology, and marketing.

That’s hard.

Like beyond just hard… it’s ridiculously hard. The guys who built the atom bomb had an easier task than you do.

So brand leaders look to advertising agencies (and others) for answers.

They get a very good show, but mostly, what they get from them is advertising – you know, what didn’t work in the first place.

But brand managers have to do something – they can’t simply report to their bosses, “Well, we couldn’t figure it out, so we didn’t advertise or spend our media budget.”

Because then you get fired.

When you get fired, you can’t pay your bills.

When you can’t pay your bills, your creditors get mad at you.

When your creditors get mad at you, they take your stuff away.

Then other people get mad at you (like your wife, husband, children).

Then it gets ugly.

So to avoid all that, brand managers are desperate and spend their money pretty much on whatever their agency tells them to spend it on.

Because, they have to spend it on something; they don’t know what to spend it on; and if it fails, they’ll blame the agency.

It gets worse.

The agency doesn’t care if it gets fired. (Well it cares – but it knows it’s just a matter of time until you fire it anyways.)

The agency wants to produce work that might win it some awards, transfer the money from your pocket to theirs, and put your company logo up on their website to lure a new victim in the door.

That’s why in the first six months of working together – the agency does the best work it will ever do for a client… after that – it knows it’s on borrowed time.

So you think you’ve got leverage over your agency – the real spooky reality is, nope, if anything they’ve probably got leverage over you.

It gets worse.

CMOs get about 18-24 months in their job, on average. We find it unlikely that all CMO’s are idiots who can’t do their jobs, so why then is it the case that pretty much everyone gets fired in two years.

Because in the end the advertising agency drives the train.

And the agency in the end sells what it wants to sell, not necessarily what a CMO needs, or what a brand needs, to grow. The result –agencies routinely give bad advice.

Why do agencies give bad advice?

Why!

Because most haven’t a clue as to how to build the things that companies need to survive and thrive in this balkanized environment of media, people, and companies.

As if!

They’re afraid to tell you that your brand just isn’t that interesting (as conceptualized) to consumers.

They’re afraid to tell you that your strategy is probably a loser.

They’re afraid to bring you that big transformative idea –the very thing as advertising men we’ve been born to do.

They’re afraid to tell you your media plan is guaranteed to waste a lot of money, with little result.

They don’t know what to tell you to do that might make more money –because all they know is how to create advertising.

They’re afraid to throw their lot in with yours… putting themselves out there to “walk the walk”.

And they have no idea how to charge you for things that might actually build real brand and corporate value –because they’ve never had to do that before.

Now, you already know all this as a brand leader. It may be tough to hear – but you already knew everything we just told you.

So, let’s start with a new premise – nobody wants to get fired. Not you, not us, nobody.

The way we don’t both get canned (and have to find new revenue), is to actually deliver the results that CEO’s (and others) want.

In the end, we conceptualized all of that “stuff” in this idea…

CMOs need to make their presence felt.

They need to grow their market presence.

They need to grow the “audience” for their ideas, communications, products, and services.

They need the insight from that audience as to what their company should build “next”.

They need to stop advertising in ways that waste their media spend.

They need someone they can rely upon that truly understands how to make them (and the companies they lead) indomitable forces.

The end of the beginning

Clickafy’s people are focused on these CMOs who want to become the champions of this Information Age.

We’ve created iconic campaigns – more than once.

We understand how to build short-term revenue, as well as building an audience that builds businesses.

We’re not afraid to put ourselves out there (for the right client).

We’re media producers, advertising executives, and consultants. We’re truly architects of business greatness. We want to help companies build empires.

We’re about the big idea and not the big execution.

That means, we look for transformative strategies for clients.

That means, we’re not looking to get paid on execution activities (we even work with in-house agencies)

That means, our clients get noticed with the audiences that matter most to their bottom line – the most profitable lifetime value customer.

That means, our clients don’t have to pay for the same ground twice. They build advocates and audience, not advertisements to churn customers.

The Secret Sauce

We know every agency tells you they’re 360, out of the box thinking, digitally enabled, media neutral, holistically engineered, eCommercewangified, etc., etc., etc.

It’s all bull plop.

Their secret sauce is called 18-24 months of billing for time and hours doing pretty ads, redesigning logos, and buying media. Then they (and you) get fired.

Our secret sauce is this concept:

Brand Media Planning

Brand Media Planning is a technology.

A technology that helps weave a fabric of storytelling of your brand across a fractured community of consumers.

Uniting them into an audience that builds your brand and your business.

It works on many levels –each becoming progressively more authoritative and trustworthy.

As you get closer to the brand core, it becomes increasingly difficult for competitors (regardless of their advertising spend) to woo them away.

It gives clients control again over pricing and scarcity in the marketplace – even with competitor/commodity product lines.

It makes consumers think the wine tastes sweeter, the bread fresher, the roses redder, and life is just plain better.

It makes everyone happily ever after.Including you.

It builds empires....

In short, it’s the future of advertising in the Information Age.

It’s a revolution.

It’s why we’re here.

Smart Strategy for Smart Leaders

Brand Media Planning is ultimately about strategy. How are we going to fight a battle against well entrenched competitors, and displace them permanently ?

A Strategy looks at your business, your value, the strength and weaknesses of the competition, and your potential integration with an audience.

Not one that says, “Ok. So here’s some really cool ads to run.”

Why? (A good question)

Advertising agencies tell you the thing to do is advertise more… to do better creative… to “leverage media…”

They talk about saturation, reach, “top of mind” and all the things that your competitor is probably already dominating…

…essentially they advise you to undertake a plan of action that is the equivalent of a military strategy that says “rush headstrong right into the most formidable armies imaginable… “

… then people are shocked when the dominant brand remains.

No battle is won trying to beat the adversary where he’s strongest…

“And where is the Prince who can afford to so cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds, might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief, before a force could be brought together to repel them?”

(Benjamin Franklin –1775)

166 years later… that idea becomes reality in the US Army’s “Airborne” Units…

… attacking where the enemy was weakest …

And it was decisive in ending the Nazi stronghold over Europe.

Airborne units rendered Hitler’s Atlantic Wall –the most formidable set of defenses in the history of mankind…useless.

It was the light and fast Airborne units that…

• Disrupted the Nazis on D-Day, securing key towns and roads… for the allied advance.

• That held the line during the Ardennes Offensive, stopping the largest Nazi counter-attack of WWII.

• That ultimately captured Kehlsteinhaus (Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest)

Strategy matters…

… a lot.

You will not win fighting the adversary on his terms… so don’t.

Our approach helps you discover the context in which your offerings are relevant in the lives of your customers, amplifying what works, figuring out where you’re strongest, and they’re weakest.

It leverages the fact that others can be as effective (if not more effective) than you in making your brand “known”.

It guides you into the decisions and choices that result in attracting better customers –regardless of where they are in the world.

It also provides a clear set of metrics for the intangible (such as brand value), and tangible (sales, costs of acquiring customers, etc.) measures.

It provides companies with insights into what to develop next that will be profitable for the business.

All of these things, taken together, frame our clients as leaders in their industry – making things possible that they never imagined.

The greatest threat to your career, to your brand, and to your brighter tomorrow, is probably your advertising agency.

Maybe you should talk to us. We might have a better idea.

Contact Us

We’d be happy to talk to you about your goals and aspirations, and maybe we can guide you to better success with our strategies.

Contact me at bryan@clickafy.com

Or listen to our weekly Podcast (The Brand Media Studio Podcast)Or visit our blog (which has content like this every week).

Clickafy Media Group, LLC | bryan@Clickafy.com | @clicakfy | LinkedIn | iTunes