When I first heard about Geert Desager’s experiment I wondered whether it would work. I liked the idea and I liked the title and I liked the passion behind the project, but I felt like I was still grasping for the through line … for a story that I could sink my teeth into. I suppose it didn’t help that the work was being done for Microsoft, raising my eyebrows and activating a strong in-built scepticism.
As a piece of technology marketing, this is a nice change of pace (plenty of lessons for other technology mass marketers). The story is framed as a breakup in the relationship between advertiser and consumer … and by exposing the way that we, as marketers, aggregate, segment and analyse data, it is easy to see where the disconnects between brand and consumers lie. It also provides, by comparison, a clear reason as to why "social" marketing has has such a positive adoption across the consumer landscape.
Social marketing brings brands and consumers together in a relationship in a way that harkens back to the local-shop ethos. And as markets and marketing has evolved, the one-to-one relationships that once were possible have proven to be unsustainable. Geert’s movie brings the nature of this relationship back into focus — showing that where there once was love there is now only suspicion, impatience and scant regard. So will this effort bring back the love for Microsoft? Perhaps not straight away … but at least we are talking …
Hi Gavin,
Beyond Microsoft, the goal is to convince advertisers to invest more online and to it in a smart way (assuming that Microsoft will have reasonable market shares). In Belgium, only 3% of advertising budgets are spent online (versus 20% of media time)
I really like what has been done with your project … and can see that it was intentionally targeted to marketing professionals. I trust that you are running some internal comms to bolster and promote your good work … in my experience a good integrated campaign has to have an internal and an external face.
Clearly, the line about “we don’t even hang out in the same places anymore” says a lot about the ways in which consumers have shifted and the failure of brands to notice.
Good luck!
Love this as the start of a conversation.
Would love to see the shift more towards experimentation and content development online. I think the real argument is not to spend advertising $$ online, but rather to spend more of your media dollars on content development.
Seth’s turn the funnel around.
Or any of the other hundreds of metaphors out there for engagement marketing. Joining a community. etc.