Marketers, agencies and media companies are struggling to come to grips with the economic downturn, but the economy is camouflaging their most compelling and challenging long-term reality. The fundamental 200-year history of marketing is being overhauled. The basics of the business -- the underlying principles that are the foundation the advertising business—are being deconstructed. Completely new operational models are rising up and will define the business for the next 200-years.
ESTABLISHED PRINCIPLES
1. Generate Awareness
2. Create Interest
3. Establish Message Retention
4. Convince and Persuade
5. Drive Motivation
EMERGING PRINCIPLES
1. Establish Relevence
2. Define Differentiation
3. Conform to Patterns and Rituals
4. Establish and Maintain Trust
5. Engender Passion
In the early 1950's General Electric's marketing guru Herbert Krugman devised the basic three-stage premise that has served since then as the underpinning for all advertising campaigns:
- Generate Awareness
- Create Interest
- Establish Message Retention
Whether or not they realize it, these are the goals pursued by all ad agencies, media planning and buying firms and media sellers. The objectives are simple. Develop and place advertising messages that are seen, understood and acknowledged. In the early 1980s, New School Professor Bruce Eckman, working with research conducted by CBS Television Stations, expanded on Krugman's theories, positing that Krugman's three-point model should be expanded to Five Principles of Marketing Communications.
- Generate Awareness
- Create Interest
- Establish Message Retention
- Convince and Persuade
- Drive Motivation
While these added elements of persuasion and motivation might seem to be self-evident, they had not been a meaningful part of the advertising business, except for direct response and classified advertising, until search engine marketing stormed its way into the industry consciousness beginning with Google's launch in 1998. Still, however, the vast majority of advertising investments are based on Krugman's three basic principles, which have been simplified into the turn-key concept of reach and frequency. This failure of advertising to connect itself to motivation --AKA sales -- is the primary reason that advertising still captures only 30 percent of total marketing communications budgets while promotion, event and direct marketing capture 65 percent. As the advertising economy collapses and as industry executives open themselves to new models and growth opportunities based on persuasion and motivation, they also need to understand the industry will move beyond even Eckman's models in the Digital Relationship Age of the next 200 years. There are new fundamental business models and metrics emerging that will define industry leadership for decades ahead.
But before sharing these emerging opportunities, some historic perspective is required. For the past decade as online advertising expanded, marketers, agencies and media sellers have sub-consciously paid more attention to Eckman's added stages of persuasion and motivation. But they have remained wedded to the basic business models that developed around fundamental reach, frequency and cost-per-thousand parameters and currencies. In the next several years, and for decades beyond, the advertising industry will become progressively more focused on persuasion and motivation as their core goals. Although return-on-investment has been a mantra for executives for years, few have actually applied any real litmus test to their creative and media advertising campaigns.
Although advertising agency executives with responsibility for creative output are loathe to accept metrics around emotional connections, they will have no choice but to accept measures of persuasion and motivation in the future. (See Holy Grail) http://www.jackmyers.com/commentary/media-business-report/10345627.html
Set-top box and TiVo data assure that the role of commercial creativity will be applied to television commercials in the near future. Click-through data delivers insights now about online advertising. Standardized measures designed to connect advertising content and media plan execution to Eckman's five-principles is inevitable.
While both Krugman's and Eckman's Principles will continue to provide a foundation for defining and evaluating marketing objectives, they no longer offer context for the digital cross-platform marketing communications future. In addition to currencies defining Awareness, Interest, Retention, Persuasion and Motivation, new metrics and tools will arise that will redefine marketing communications and spur industry growth for another 200 years.
Myers Five Emerging Principles for Redefining Advertising and Marketing Effectiveness
ESTABLISHED PRINCIPLES
1. Generate Awareness
2. Create Interest
3. Establish Message Retention
4. Convince and Persuade
5. Drive Motivation
EMERGING PRINCIPLES
1. Establish Relevence
2. Define Differentiation
3. Conform to Patterns and Rituals
4. Establish and Maintain Trust
5. Engender Passion
Next week, Jack Myers Think Tank will offer insights on the Five Emerging Principles for Advertising and Marketing Effectiveness. Your comments are encouraged.
About Jack Myers: Jack Myers has been writing, speaking and advising companies on the future of media and advertising for nearly three decades. He can be contacted at jm@jackmyers.com
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This post originally appeared at JackMyers.com.