Trout on Advertising

Marketing and branding strategist and guru, Jack Trout, wrote this piece for Forbes, titled "Digital Confusion"

He begins his piece with the following words:

If you're like me, you're totally bewildered by the so-called digital revolution and its impact on marketing.

At least he's honest about his lack of clarity and understanding. That's where the new wave of leadership comes in. To that end, Trout paternalistically reminds us that strategy and fundamentals should go hand in hand with the new, exciting tools at our disposal.

His point is taken but I do want to add that in this day and age of integration, engagement and accountability, it is integral and critical to take a holistic approach when assessing and evaluating both the sum and its parts. Case in point, the example of Disney's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Yes, the movie did not perform and it did get panned, however is it fair and balanced to isolate the interactive or blogosphere components without judging every other movie that sucked before and scrutinizing their respective media mixes? I would contend that as a percentage of money invested, digital has largely been underutilized and arguably has overdelivered time and time again, relative to the other media components.

In the case of the blog strategy, it most likely did activate and engage the lowest hanging fruit i.e. those die hard Adams fans which admittedly would have seen the movie no matter what. So was that preaching to the choir? Perhaps. Or perhaps the idea was to use them to reach out to the rest of the community...in which case, mission not exactly accomplished.

In his article, he also mentions myself and Life after the 30-second spot. Hopefully this will continue to boost the awareness and passion behind LA30 and getting this into the hands of those who need it most:

And then there's Joseph Jaffe, who has written a pretty good book, Life After the 30-Second Spot. His point is that you can energize your brand with a mix of alternatives to traditional advertising. His theories call for rethinking the consumer, rethinking branding, rethinking advertising and rethinking the agency. (Help, I can't think because I'm so busy rethinking.)

Hey, multi-tasking in today's marketing and media worlds has become a mandatory, not an optional extra anymore.

Give the piece and let me know what you think...