By Ved Sen

Needless to say that following this mantra will only get you to through throw good money after bad. There are more fundamental changes going on in the world of advertising and indeed the science of marketing itself. Some of these were appropriately highlighted in the Convergence Conversation (on the 26th of August 2010).

The most stark message that came through was about honesty. I call this the end of persuasion. Referring not to the end of our willingness to be persuaded, but for brands and brand owners to do this. We will make up our own mind, based on information we gather from multiple sources. Many of these will be friends, other users, customers of products we choose to use. Somebody redefined it well as the “diffusion of persuasion”.

There is simply no place to hide any more. As a brand, as a product, as an organization, there is absolutely no way you are going to get away with a lie. Be it about your product’s performance, or ingredients, or benefits or even its values. It’s always going to get found out. Even as BT were receiving kudos about the way in which their ads have created storylines and even audience interaction, they were being hauled up for committing speeds their product cannot deliver.

One of the direct outcomes of the honesty-factor, is that your actions speak louder than words. This old proverb has never been truer for brands than it is, now. So take that marketing budget, and make sure you spend it first on making sure your product is delivering its promise better than the competitions, and then try and find something that you can actually do to improve the lives of your customers. Be relevant, be positive, be beneficial. If you can do this really well, you might not even need to advertise. Think Google, think Apple. One has become a verb, and the other has customers who often evangelize the brand given half a chance!

Even beyond the product, think of actions, not of clever straplines. Think of ways to make a real difference, rather than the next big TV campaign. The example of Pepsi was discussed at the conversation – Pepsi decided to take the millions of $ it would have spent on a superbowl spot and instead invest it in “refreshing” – or rebuilding and rejuvenating parts of the US that need the money. There is a current project on to fund ideas to refresh the gulf coast.

Clearly the role of social media in this kind of environment is a critical one. This is different from rushing blindly into Facebook Twitter, or the next big thing. Not that you shouldn’t exploit whatever is the tool de jure, but that the thinking should be more fundamental. For example one of the key thoughts was about how the social media is constructed around a generation that is used to control. This generation believes that they can completely control their media. Manage it, stop and pause it, place and time-shift it and fit it into their lives, rather than the other way around. For this generation, the idea of pre and post roll ads that can’t be avoided or fast forward is an inexplicable and unacceptable loss of control.

And though there is the aura of measurability about new media, there are still other areas where it lags behind. Notably, in traditional media, there are quantitative predictive models, based on years of experience that are understood and trusted, which can convert focus group or test results to market share. Whether good or bad, these models are important contributors to decision making. New Media is too new to have such quantitative predictive models and ironically, therefore, it’s old media which at least in some important ways, is more measurable.

Needless to say the future will belong more and more to data driven models, but whilst we are now familiar with the power of historical data, in future, advertising might well be about real time and predictive data. Data that can capture your mood, your tone of voice, and in real time project your needs or receptivity to a message or tune the message accordingly. And consumers and brands will form barter relationships in which they will trade data (and privacy) for direct and indirect benefits.

Plenty of technologies will shape our ability to do all of this better. The Internet of things, leading to the design of smart objects and smart experiences; augmented reality; location based services; clickable video, and many more.

But even as brands and corporations rush in to exploit these technologies, they will do well to remember that across the world, the levels of trust in brands and in corporations is probably at its lowest ever. The consumer will not be wowed by the next cool gizmo or the shiny new ad. Real actions, that evoke real responses is a must. Brand-relevant and consumer-relevant actions that motivate consumers to share data, become a part of that action and engage with the brand, are the most important mechanisms for building trust and delivering the brand’s message. Or as we might call it, advertising.

Disclaimer note: these views are summarized from the Convergence Conversation event held at Intellect which I chaired on the 26th of August 2010. I agree with all the ones I’ve published here, but they are a combination of my own thoughts and the discussions we had on the evening.

This note has been first published on the blog Think Plank. http://thinkplank.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/the-transmogrification-of-advertising-convergence-conversation/