Seth Godin made numerous valid points in his blog titled “Poisoning the well” that he wrote on April 3rd of this year. He gave some examples of situations in which “selfish short-sighted marketers” irritate people. I am tired of receiving 20 junk e-mails each day and I believe that whoever is reading this has also had similar irritating experiences. Seth makes the argument that “marketers have spammed, lied, deceived, cluttered, and ripped us off for so long, we’re sick of it.” I completely agree with his argument. He also touches on the fact that the public has become so upset with the bombardment of advertisements surrounding each of us each day that we have become very skeptical of advertisements and marketers’ intentions. I know that I do my best to ignore the majority of advertisements that I actually see, and I am almost certain that I have become immune to many forms of advertisements.
According to Seth, “selfish short-sighted marketers ruined it for all of us. The only way out, I think, is for a few marketers to so overwhelm the market with long-term, generous marketing that we have no choice but to start paying attention again.” I concur. Marketers need to get away from making sorry attempts at quickly driving up sales. If their advertisements irritate customers, then it is very likely that the consumers will ignore future advertising attempts from the respective firm. I have learned from my Customer Insights class that it is absolutely critical for marketers to do their due diligence and gain insights about their specific target market first. If they did this, I believe that they would realize that making a positive impact on potential consumers is the key to eventually developing a long-term relationship with them.
There is a wealth of evidence from several current forms of advertisements that supports the thought that marketers must have discovered this issue when analyzing the negative results of certain sneaky advertising tactics. Many marketers have recognized the problem at hand and are taking some proactive actions to try to restore the respect of the public. These actions are by no means typically reasonable. Many times marketers of companies are have having to pay a huge amount of money in order to successfully reach their target market.
Super Bowl advertisements really exemplify this fact. The Super Bowl is one of the most watched events and is a prime opportunity for companies to reach their target market when the majority of their target market is expecting it. This is an example of a time when people are completely open to hearing out advertisements. There are many people who are watching the Super Bowl specifically to watch the advertisements for some form of entertainment. Unfortunately this year, NBC actually had to fill advertising spots with their own commercials for one of the first times in history due to the poor economy and high cost of each advertisement spot.
Another expensive, yet fairly effective form of advertising that is respectful of the public is product placement. When products are incorporated into a movie or TV show, people are not very likely to be offended. I actually prefer receiving the message this way because I get to see my favorite characters using products that I may potentially like without feeling like I am being deceived. It is very important for marketers to realize that product placement must not be overwhelming or used too often.
As we can clearly see from these two examples, marketers are definitely making attempts at being accepted again by the general public. Now the question is: how long it will take for us to “start paying attention again” ?
Seth Godin's Blog: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/04/poisoning-the-well.html
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