Why Marketers And Advertisers Are Not Trusted

Seriously we are not. Nothing killed me more than the scene in the beginning of the Last Days of Disco when Kate Beckinsdale (Charlotte) finds out Mackenzie Austin (Jimmy) is in Advertising and the response is he is lower than a Used Car Salesman when it comes to potential dating partners. As well as Jimmy taking clients later in the movie to the Disco only to have the Club Owner ban him for bringing lame people.

Think about it. We often get paid to lie to consumers. Weren't most of the Superbowl Ads technically lies? Aren't Chryslers poor quality cars? But someone was paid to make this dramatic spot about Detroit. Totally lying about 25 years of crap pumped out by Chrysler to make it seem like they were something they were proud of? Do people physically assaulting others with cans of Pepsi Max really say anything about the product?

It also doesn't help that Marketers create all this nonsensical spin that we believe and pass on to each other. Yesterday I blogged about the Sentiment Measuring of the Superbowl Spots having technically Zero Value. It was a neat exercise the Brand Bowl, but really didn't say anything about the Brands or Products or future Sales. It was very murky based on what was being measured.

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Who really cares if I like a commercial? Seriously, there are many commercials I will watch over and over for humor or entertainment and never buy their product. Why give kudos to an Ad Agency for that? For Branding something I will never buy? And if I already buy something do you need to craft funny ads for me? Teach me something. Then we are getting somewhere.

This week this Infographic was tweeted by some pretty heavy hitters in Social Communications whom I shall not name:

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I immediately, being a champion of Mobile Communications more than Social Communications, jumped all over it claiming if it was true Facebook is worth 2 cents. Then I did the math. 200Trillion SMS Texts per day? That comes out to over 14,000 per person per day in the U.S. including babies, toddlers, etc. The rest of the info while maybe is correct, how can I believe it? What if a Mobile Agency used this data to convince a client to run SMS text campaigns?

Then I saw this article yesterday about Yelp! on EMarketer written by a fairly well known Social Communications and SEO person.

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I am a fan of Yelp! btw. I have used it's Mobile app and really like it. It is one of the best Apps for finding information about local businesses I have come across. But I had to comment because the data sounds so impressive. A photo is uploaded to Yelp! every 30 seconds. Wow! Sounds like a lot. Which comes out to 57 Photos per US State per day. And 3.2 Million users is a very small group nationally. Nothing to sneeze at. But only 64,000 per state.

A better write up would of just stuck with showcasing how easy it is to use the App, check In to places, write reviews from your phone, and upload photos, without the claims of 'universal overwhelming usage'.

Everyday we see Advertising and Marketing that is shallow, biased, white lies, fibs, to outright deceitful. And we do it to each other as well! Most of the Ad Age Top 50 marketing blogs I do not read because they are just BS. That is why I often say Marketers are the biggest suckers. But whether it is the Brand's fault or the Agency's fault it does our industry no help for our image. 

And to tell you the truth Charlotte wound up shagging Jimmy in the film, even though he was such a shallow loser. But so was.

This hilarious scene discussing in depth Lady and the Tramp is a much watch for all creatives who tell stories.