Eric Woning
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

some truths in here — a lot not though.

Let’s start of with the most egregious one: don’t conflate marketing with advertising. Advertising is a part of marketing, marketing is a WHOLE LOT MORE. Digital marketing is also UX, digital marketing is deciding whether you can or cannot buy online. This is not in decline or even less creative than it has been…. so let’s not mix the two por favor!

Second — methinks you have rose tinted glasses on regarding the past. ‘Whopper Sacrifice’ is not the be-all end-all of digital advertising. Arguably it’s just another online video. It’s not a video loop of He-Man singing HEYAYAYA out of tune… It’s not pointer pointer. It’s old medium in new meidum. It’s bananasplit (sorry — dutch reference to a hidden cam show) for brands. It’s not something that is even Subservient Chicken.

There is a lot of great stuff happening… it’s just not coming from traditional shops because they just want to make another whopper freakout (or Jean Claude van Damme on a Truck). Funnily enough the thing you point to would have done GREAT both on Facebook as well as on YouTube (which is Google’s #2 property.) So I think you are riling against the wrong thing

Third — there was a time before Google & Facebook… and guess what: advertising sucked online back then as well. Guess why? Advertising agencies didn’t take it seriously…. (I was working at Lycos at the time… literally got asked to send the creatives back after a campaign….) It’s not that ad agencies don’t understand the internet… they just have an aversion of it because you have to think from the user towards the brand instead of the other way around.

Fourth — I think if ad agencies did embrace the internet for what it is, they’d spoil it. Think about it. Do you really want brands in everything that you do? Do you want you memes to have coke in them? Do you want the stuff that you send to friends be sponsored? What if what you like has a brand in there that you vehemently dislike… do you still send it? I think the internet is so malleable, so flexible because it rejects being solely for brands. I think people go in another direction as soon as brands take over…. because what agencies (& therefore brands) don’t get is that there are spaces where people want to be amongst themselves… and if you don’t respect that, they will respect you less for it.

Sixth — there’s a lot that we can do that actually is great. Let’s embrace that slightly more. At it’s best we can actually help people get (to) the products they want more easily. We can help people understand why a brand actually fits their need. We can enhance products by services. We can enhance services by products. We can make sure that the right kind of message (to help the customer decide better what she wants) goes in front of the customer…. even if it’s because she isn’t looking yet and we’re creating salience. But let’s try to not only focus on the salience building part…. there’s other mediums that do that as well — and in some instances, arguably even better. Let’s try to be both useful & entertaining.

    Eric Woning

    Written by

    Planning Director (@TBWA\London) MUSIC, Digital media, Advertising, movies, games / 80% water, 10% bile, 5% adrenaline, 5% wind, my opinion = my own