What point do you ask?
It’s not about which “term” is best (long or short)—it’s about the value you create in the marketplace…
… if you create none, you’ll be out of business in the short term.
… if you create lots, you’ll be whistling dixie over the long term.
The marketing buzzards of today are all about short-termism, do/say/promise whatever they can to make a quick sale, then on the next one.
The only thought these buzzards give about the long term is…
… how much longer can we drive more sales in the short term!
The marketing world is abuzz with funnel freaks—they’ve even got fancy funnel graphics that illustrate the various stages of consumer ascension.
It’s no wonder the average consumer has lost total faith in marketers and the advertising world in general—it’s a short-term paradise for digital peddling and con artists.
The great digital divide is upon us my marketing friends—forget about the future, you must focus on today.
The digital economy is indeed a short game—focused squarely on activation.
Just look at all the metrics—they’ve been specifically designed to keep score…
… the only question is, who is winning and who is losing?
The short-term marketing buzzards are today’s digital dopamine dealers—and they have loads of vanity data to keep you addicted and coming back for more.
Brands should be aiming to create long-term value in the short term so that one takes care of the other.
Activate the value chain and you’ll keep consumers coming back, and if you keep doing that your reputation will start to precede you in the market, and thus your all-mighty brand will be born.
Wrong Message, Wrong Time, Wrong Audience
Have you noticed?…
… advertising just plain sucks today.
And to think that these poor companies are paying to have an ad agency create all of these phony baloney messages.
For one, they’re trying way too damn hard to sound smart, clever, and cute.
Second, the virtue-signaling is off the charts.
Third, what are they trying to say exactly?
In sum, it’s simply the wrong message, at the wrong time, aimed at the wrong audience.
It’s all wrong.
When you hire a creative agency, that’s exactly what you get—a bunch of over-zealous creatives focused on being creative.
It’s creative for creative’s sake.
It’s become a battle over who can be the most creative.
Forget about what your product or service actually does for consumers, who cares about that—it’s all about the creative.
They’ve got creative awards to win so they can hang the “best creative” plaques in their office.
Are they all bad?
Not at all!
But a vast majority of them are flat-out bad.
Combined with the short-termism of the day and we’ve got the perfect storm brewing in marketingland.
One where the only goal is to outwit the clever clowns and back it all up with meaningless metrics.
What a waste…
…waste of time…
…waste of effort…
…waste of attention…
…waste of money.
Waste is waste—over the short-term and long-term.
Waste enough in the short-term and there is no long-term.
Maybe that’s our saving grace after all…
…the marketing buzzards will just end up eating themselves alive…
…and then a new marketing sun will rise….
…and the patient, long-term, and unruly will win back the day.
Beware the buzzards and stay unruly ~