04/08/23 BarCampRDU July 22, 2006 1

04/08/23 BarCampRDU July 22, 2006 2

Sex & The Death Of Advertising• Agenda

– Part 1: State of Things• Who am I?• Is Advertising dead?• Who killed it?• Random ad thoughts.

– Part 2: Identifying What’s Next?• Word of Mouth• Long Tails• Search Marketing• Purple Products• Random What’s Next

Thoughts.

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Sex & Death of Advertising: Who Am I

• Worked for one of the largest advertiser in the world.

• Worked for a candy company with great brands.

• Worked for a company that created a brand by advertising on other brands such as Coke and Pepsi.

• Co-Founded a gift company that couldn’t afford advertising but received lots of free press and word of mouth.

• Last 3-years Director of E-Commerce for a direct response company.

• Procter & Gamble

• M&M/Mars

• The NutraSweet Company

• Found Objects selling Magnetic Poetry Kit.

• Sinclair Institute

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Why Sex & The Death of Advertising?

• I work in direct response now, so wanted to get your attention.

• Martin’s Theory

– Advertising, or interruption based, non-permission, top down, push advertising is dead when marketers can’t use sex to gain attention and sell things anymore.

“Food, sex, children and health are surefire attention grabbers.”

- Attention Economy pg. 62

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Sex doesn’t work anymore = push advertising is dead.

Direct Response Upfront Profit

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Time

Pro

fit

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What killed advertising….We Did…The World Did.

“Today attention is the real currency of business and individuals.”- The Attention Economy pg. 3

• Previous generations = no attention deficit

– No internet, 3 TV Stations, No cell phones

• Now

– Billions of web pages

– 300,000 new books published last year worldwide

– 18,000 magazines publishing 225 billion pages of content every year.

– 87.2 billion pieces of direct mail in 1998 (more now).

– Most of us process hundreds of email daily.

– Cell phones.

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Death of Advertising

“In other words its no longer sufficient to be a solid competent organization; you have to stir the brain cells – and the hearts – of your intended audience.”

- Attention Economy pg. 8

The average American is targeted by 3000 messages per day.

That includes phone calls, e-mail, meetings, conversations.

-- Data Smog by David Shenk

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Random Ad Thoughts

What has been your experience with your company’s advertising efforts lately?

Have you experienced a death in the ad family or is your company going strong?

Other random ad thoughts before we discuss what’s next?

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Part II: Identifying What’s Next: WOM

“People find what they want not as much through advertising as through far more credible word-of-mouth from friends and colleagues.”- Gonzo Marketing pg. 12

* Word-of-mouth from highly influential “sneezers” and friends.

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Part II: Identifying What’s Next: Long Tails

“However in Long Tail markets – where distribution is cheap and shelf space is plentiful – the safe bet is to assume that everything is going to be available.

As such, in Long Tail markets, the role of he filter then shifts from gatekeeper to advisor. Rather than predicting taste, post-filters such as Google measure it. - The Long Tail pg. 123

* Long Tails and Filters

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Part II: Identifying What’s Next: Purple Products

“The new rule is:

Create remarkable products that the right people seek out.”

-Purple Cow, pg. 16

* Is it “purple” enough?

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Part II: Identifying What’s Next: Search Marketing

Paid Search = what will be the impact of P&G other major $$ advertisers as they flee unproductive channels (TV, Print)?

Organic search, will relevancy lose traction as more major companies realize the value of content plays?

Is there a long tail for content?

Will search marketing survive its own success?

Is there something fundamentally different about pull marketing with key terms vs. push marketing with ads?

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Part II: Identifying What’s Next: Random Thoughts?

What other strategies and tactics will be part of “what’s next?”

If you had a new purple product burning a hole in your hand what would you do to create a market for it?

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Sex and the Death of Advertising: Contact Martin

Thanks for attending our BarCamp working session.

Martin can be reached via email at: martinsellingzoe@aol.com.