Monday, June 26, 2006

:: adgruntie :: Would you like a rant?

+Advertisers challenged by consumer-created content has these two quotes:
Chris Dobson, vice president of international ad sales for Microsoft Corp.’s online business group: "The power of the consumer being in control is scary if you come from a traditional marketing world … There is a risk for brands. There is nowhere to hide online now."

Mark Tutssel, chief creative officer for Leo Burnett: "Marketers must learn to let go of the control they think they have over their brand … Once consumers have interacted with brands they will not go back to being shouted at marketers."
I guess I'm alone in struggling to grasp how that much different things are now than "back then". Yes, the internet does make it easier for consumers to interact with brands and spread the word (good or bad) about a brand, but, people were doing that before the internet. It just wasn't done at the same level. Marketers didn't have their hands on the reins quite as much as they believed.

And consumer created content isn't anything new either. It's just now it can be shared more easily without geographic constrants. If you release an ad online you expect only people from Switzerland to see, it can be hard to maintain that geographic exclusivity. People find ways around those barriers that people try to put in place, if they want the content badly enough.

I really do find it interesting how often there are claims of "this is the way" and "we are certain that" in regards to online advertising and marketing. I'm sure there are a few things that have been sussed out in the last, what, 10 or so years that the internet has become what it is today. But quite frankly, if 10 years into the invention and general use of print folks were claiming that they had all the answers, don't you think many people would have thought they were full of shit? The other big issue is that online is constantly in a state of change. New technologies and ways of being able to distribute information come out on a regular basis, making it even hard to state "X" is the way.

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