JUNE 2005 l exchangemagazine.com l 11

FEATURE STORY

RADICAL SOLUTIONS, DIMINISHING EFFECTIVENESS AND REFUSAL TOINVEST IN THE FUTURE – A “TELL IT LIKE IT IS” INTERVIEW WITH EDGERADICAL SOLUTIONS, DIMINISHING EFFECTIVENESS AND REFUSAL TOINVEST IN THE FUTURE – A “TELL IT LIKE IT IS” INTERVIEW WITH EDGE

TUNING out,TURNING off,

DROPPING outTUNING out,

TURNING off,DROPPING out BY JON ROHR

...continued on page 12

12 l exchangemagazine.com l JUNE 2005

It’s a world full of messages. Consumers increasingly tune outrepetitive bursts of sameness. Mar-

keting and advertising professionalsface communication challenges thatare getting tougher every hour of everyday.

Consumers are bombarded with newmessages, as continual waves of adver-tising and promotion activities over-whelm them. Each message becomes‘less valuable’ than the one before. Thelaw of diminishing returns is working atfull force. Individuals whose cortexesare saturated with content respond tothe barrage of cerebral bombardmentby tuning out, making it increasinglydifficult for advertisers and marketersto connect with new business andmake that final sale. Is the advertisingand marketing industry in peril?

“The answer, quite frankly, is no,”says Larry Smith, Assistant Professor ofEconomics at the University of Water-loo, and CEO of Essential Economics.“The industry will go on, creative peo-ple are a transient bunch, they’ll go towhere the business is, and avoid whereit’s not. Who is in peril as a result ofthis increase phenomenon? The busi-nesses that use their services; enter-prises who, faced with growing compe-tition from all sides, suffocate commu-nication strategies, under-fund com-munication initiatives, and expect tolive long and prosper.”

Exchange Magazine Editor Jon Rohrrecently had the opportunity to discussadvertising and marketing with Smith,a well respected economist who wasthe subject of a Making a Differencefeature story by Brian Hunsberger, inExchange Magazine’s Sept. 2004 issue.

Smith argues that the advertisingand marketing industry has to consider“radical solutions” to combat “dimin-ishing effectiveness”.

The economist, who consults withmany advertising and marketing agen-cies, has noticed that it's getting harderand harder to get someone’s attention.His argument is that, without radicalinnovations, advertising and marketingtechniques as they currently exist willbe less effective tomorrow.

“In the ubiquitous world of advertis-ing, is the law of diminishing return.The more stuff ... you see, the lesseffective each image will be.” Market-ing and advertising is all about image.

Smith is not alone in his concern,but he is frustrated that experts are not

discussing the problem with moreurgency. Consumers see a lot of mes-sages, from voice, print, radio, TV,internet. He points out that this is “asociety that puts advertising every-where – product placements in movies,advertisements on fruit, advertising iseverywhere. More and more, more ofeverything, more forms of advertising.And therefore, each of us sees moreadvertising messages every day thanwe used too, because they are in moreplaces, including the internet.”

Advertising messages are carried by

media. And media target a demograph-ic that is meaningful to advertisers. Asnew media are created, such as theinternet, more messages are producedand carried.

Since the advent of the internet,Smith astutely points out, “print publi-cations haven’t disappeared.” Newmedia do not replace older ones, so“ads are everywhere. There is somemovement of ads between the variousmedia, but still the total volume of adsis up, every conceivable description ofads are rising.”

Smith states, “ads are distractive,and humans naturally tune them out.”To counter this phenomenon, ads must“grab attention,” he says.

Since advertising and marketing areexpensive, “this most certainly meansthat advertising clients will have tospend more money.”

Smith recommends a number ofstrategies. The foremost is to be “radi-cal”, although he emphasizes, “Radicalin a realistic sense.” The only way todo this, says Smith, “is to give the per-son something in addition to the mes-sage – sometimes that would reinforcethe message, but in addition to themessage.”

He goes on to say that ‘radical’ is asubjective thing. “At times it might beradical to the client, but not to [adver-tising and marketing] professionals,while some solutions might be radicalto them as well.“

He suggests, with respect to varying

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JUNE 2005 l exchangemagazine.com l 13

FEATURE STORY

levels of ‘radical’ that he prefers “lessradical things,“ but encourages adver-tising professionals not to “shy awayfrom more radical things: entertainthem, tell them a funny joke, showthem a funny image, give them a funnystory, give them an engaging story ...but a story isn’t something you can doin 15 seconds,” Smith remarks.

Smith is an astute observer of peo-ple’s habits: “In a world in whichclients are conservative, the reaction oftoo many conservative businessper-

sons is to say to their advisers, ‘Look,we want a high impact campaign, andwe want it to stand out, just, of course,don’t do anything too radical’. I am get-ting impatient with this reaction; I am agung ho, marketplace type person, butsometimes business persons are theirown worst enemies. They have viewsthat are just incompatible with reality,and tomorrow [reality] is going to bestranger.”

Smith speaks about the component

“This most certainly

means that advertising

clients will have to

spend more money.”

14 l exchangemagazine.com l JUNE 2005

most recently added to consumer bom-bardment, the internet. Considered bymany to be an inexpensive means toadvertise, he maintains, “the internetstill attracts a disproportionate amountof attention, because it looks cheap.But it doesn’t particularly work, so ...[even though] it will work less nextyear, it doesn’t mean you won’t use theinternet, and all the tools will simplybecome more expensive.”

As an example, Smith points torecent developments concerning the

internet search engine. Fundamentally,Smith argues, search engines arebiased. “Somebody has paid to gethigher up on the list. And resultsvaguely related to what you were ask-ing for come up first. That is not a pureengine. This doesn’t trouble consumersyet, but will, in due course.”

Smith emphasizes that because ofthe law of diminishing returns, mes-sages are becoming meaningless in thesense that they are not heard. To com-bat this meaninglessness, businessmust use radical methodologies tobreak the mould and trump expecta-tions, “in the sense that [their advertis-ing] violates assumptions or norms.”

“The cautiousness of advertising andmarketing, particularly in North Ameri-ca, finds its roots in the United States,”he says. “America seems to be a extraor-dinarily conservative society. When‘wardrobe malfunctions’ cause the prin-cipal communications regulatory body ofthe Republic of the United States to getagitated, this is beyond cuckoo.”

Smith believes he has identified theproblem: “I talk to marketing profes-sionals quite often; the clients are theirproblem ... they want bland, safe andeffective.”

Smith notes that the rest of theworld’s advertising has “a little moreedge”, than America’s, but he calls on

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advertisers to go beyond even thatinternational standard. “That’s notenough. Give them edge!” he thunders.

He suggest that one thing business-es can give is infinite product knowl-edge, through the “use of demonstra-tions. If time is the problem, and it is,then save the customer the search,save them the time, do demo stuff.”

But Smith says businesses don’twant to pay the cost of human contact,“fine, don’t pay the cost. But when youdo guerrilla warfare, you go one onone; the best way to communicate isnose to nose. At least to create a criti-cal mass of awareness of the thing.”

Smith’s recommendation is not invogue; demonstrations are not state ofthe art. “It’s not electronic, and we allknow if it’s not electronic, it’s not mod-ern anymore,” Smith says, tongue firm-ly in cheek. Demonstrations, he says,are the latest thing. Old is new again,in a way that makes it radical; “it’s rad-ical in the sense that it violatesassumptions or norms.”

Another suggestion comes in theform of Product Give-aways. “WhenI’m at the Liquor Control Board buyingrecreational drugs, I insist there is a lit-

tle miniature bottle, and if there’s not aminiature bottle attached, I will notbuy it. I will delay purchases; I don’tmind trying a sample of somethingelse. This brand is not worth not get-ting a little present. I want a present,what the hell.”

What’s the allure of edgy messages,product demonstrations and productgiveaways? Saving time. “Ultimately,you’re trying to save time, and the bestway to save time is to stop the cus-tomer from searching.”

How can advertisers meet this needto solve the problem of searching?That’s the point of product demonstra-tions or humourous sketches, either ofwhich can impart a scale-tippingamount of product knowledge. Smithstresses that consumers are increas-ingly aware that the “search cost” ispart of the “transaction cost.” Andaccording to Larry Smith, there areother new and radical ways toapproach the same problem. ExchangeMagazine will examine them in ournext issue.

(To be continued in the July/August2005 issue of Exchange Magazine forBusiness.)

JUNE 2005 l exchangemagazine.com l 15

FEATURE STORYTHERE’S

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