...or maybe, as Ad Age's Matt Creamer puts it, Lord Maurice Saatchi is just "out of touch"
Creamer is referring to an Financial Times Op Ed piece quilled by Lord Saatchi which basically underscores the great divide between old marketing and new marketing. It also represents everything wrong with traditional advertising world - marketer, agency and media alike.
In his diatribe, Saatchi poo-poos the little upstart search engine called Google, and discounts "prediction" in favor of "perception"
Saatchi explains that, "People do not know what they want until a brilliant person shows them," and yet discounts the fact that a brilliant person can also be a brilliant algorithm. Perhaps human search like Mahalo.com will be critiqued in Saatchi's next technology master-piece. I'm holding my breath.
I'm not finished. Let's dissect that statement a little more:
- "People do not know what they want" - I find this statement to be arrogant and patronizing. It's time we stop underestimating the consumer who knows exactly what he or she wants...or at least has a good idea
- "until a brilliant person shows them" - Saatchi illustrates this point with Henry Ford, but who exactly is this "brilliant person" in today's times? Which "brilliant person" works on Madison Avenue and is "showing" consumers what they want? And while we're talking about Ford, are we talking about the same company that introduced Bold Moves and recently had a CMO change.
The rest of the article is full of hyperbole and vague, abstract and obscure metaphors. Sound familiar? Remind you of a certain golden goose that helped Maurice pay down his various villas?
BTW, I Googled "Lord Saatchi" and the third ranked result took me to a critique of his litany of obtuse and out of touch tirades. Guess the algorithm works fine after all.
PS Gotta love the banner that appeared directly above the Ad Age article
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