The End of Advertising as We Know It

Rating:
Summary: Not a book that will help you make business decisions.
Review: As a new marketing manager given the responsibility of spending money on advertising, I felt like the first three chapters helped me understand 1) What advertising really is and 2) The value a manager should expect to derive from spending money on advertising.

From there the book launches into a description of different forms of advertising. Zyman packs the book full of examples of advertising that (at least in his opinion) work and don't work. He continues on about the necessity of managers to ensure that advertising is positively impacting revenue and profit while lambasting those company's that seem to engage in advertising for advertising's sake.

I really expected Zyman to go beyond the complaints and accolades and help me learn how to develop metrics and programmatic evaluations of marketing initiatives so that I can make the right decisions before spending the company's money. No such luck, I suppose that knowledge like that is the "secret sauce" reserved for those who plunk down money at his agency.

If you know nothing about advertising, this is a good history book of do's and don'ts. If you need to make decisions about spending money on advertising you'll be better served finding a more technical book on marketing campaigns and programs...... or giving Zyman's firm a call I suppose..... which may be the real reason the book was written.... it is after all good advertising.

Rating:
Summary: Packed With Knowledge!
Review: Deeply informed by his marketing experience at Coca-Cola, Sergio Zyman knows advertising theories, but he doesn't like them. He is marketing's angry child, shouting, "Traditional advertising just isn't working." He delights in hurling stones at traditional advertising icons, including "brand awareness," which may get your product considered, but will not guarantee a sale or an increase in sales. For sales heft, he postulates, position your product to be relevant to the consumer. Build this "brand relevance," then start working on media buzz. He compliments his own marketing expertise, but who wants a shy promoter? He says corporations waste ad dollars, so if you work in a traditional glass-house advertising agency, you won't feel too secure when you see angry kid Zyman picking up a rock. His targets, according to us, are people who work in Madison Avenue glass houses, and those who hire them.

Rating:
Summary: Important, yet inconclusive and confusing, analysis
Review: I wish this was a better book because it's at least part of a good book on a very important subject for business. Basically, the advertising business is imploding-- caught up in its own creative shorts by an obsession with TV commercials, awards and the trendy technique of the moment, oblivious if not downright hostile to client demands for accountability and non-TV services like direct response, and as a result no longer trusted by clients as marketing partners. Zyman's trench-level observations on this are timely and powerful, not to mention occasionally hilarious (and no, ad biz, we're not laughing with you).

But in the end, although he convinces me that The End is nigh, he's not very clear on what will come next. One minute he seems to be urging a back to basics, retail-gutter-level approach focused solely on sales, the next he's devoting a whole chapter to how to use celebrities in your advertising (the epitome of empty glitz, 99% of the time). Basically he deeply mistrusts the haphazard, unaccountable way brand advertising has been done for years, and is right to do so, but knows he can't honestly dismiss it entirely (as PR man Al Ries blithely does in his The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR). As a result, he doesn't offer a roadmap beyond what might be described as "You know all those solid principles of salesmanship you read about in Ogilvy on Advertising 20 years ago? Well, start using them again!"

The book also suffers some of the more general flaws of business books-- chapters seem to wander all over a variety of topics with no very clear agenda, sentences are bolded randomly (and about ten times too frequently), and every person Zyman's ever worked with was either a clueless dinosaur or one of the true visionaries and a good friend. (It would make me a little afraid to work with him; disagree once and bam, you're in his next book.) Finally, this is a book that poses serious questions few have wanted to raise, and is worthwhile on that basis, even if the answers never quite arrive.

Rating:
Summary: Good if you're interested in how great Sergio is
Review: In his book "Crossing the Chasm," which explored how technology companies move from start-up to success, Geoffrey Moore used a great analogy to explain how market concepts move from the fringe to the center. Moore said the bulk of companies were like cows, always bunched together while contentedly looking down at their tiny patch of grass. Then one cow looks up and thinks, "new grass!" Another cow looks up too, and soon there's a stampede over to a different field.

In branding, the cows are starting to look up.

Sergio Zyman is a former chief marketing officer of Coca-Cola who bills himself as a "high-profile marketing guru." He runs an Atlanta-based consulting group with clients in banking, aluminum, skiing and golf. In 2001, Time magazine named him one of the three best pitchmen of the 20th century.

This book is a follow-up to his 2000 book, The End of Marketing As We Know It. His current book is a collection of observations on the changing role of branding, specific advice on sponsorships and PR agency selection, and musings on the impact of 9/11on advertising. He writes only for companies selling to consumers, ignoring the vital role of branding for businesses that sell to other businesses.

The premise that advertising has "ended" covers attacks on large, traditional agencies, who see advertising through the lens of 30-second TV commercials and define success by the number of creative awards. "The truth is that most agency art directors are frustrated movie directors and most agency copywriters are frustrated playwrights and both consider themselves artists," he says. Instead, he defines advertising as the sum total of corporate operations, ranging from packaging and PR to how secretaries answer phones.

Zyman also argues that "awareness" is irrelevant. "Too many companies make the mistake of thinking that creating an image is some kind of goal unto itself, that once they get their image into the public's mind they'll automatically see an increase in sales and customer loyalty. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way," he writes.

He makes a strong case for accountability. He dismisses traditional metrics like "reach," "frequency" and "continuity" because of a lack of targeting. Every marketing expense must be treated as an investment, with a quantifiable return. Even sponsorships must have a hard-dollar impact on revenue. Such accountability extends to ad and PR agencies. Don't hire anyone, he advises, who is not willing to be paid based on sales results.

Based on his extensive experience at Coke, he is especially strong on celebrity endorsements and sponsorships. When considering celebrities, key questions to ask include: "Is there a relevant connection between the brand and the celebrity?" Otherwise, it's a waste. Case in point: Hiring Terry Bradshaw to promote 1-800-COLLECT, or Michael Jordan for Ray-O-Vac batteries. What is the risk of controversy? Is the celebrity overexposed? ("Two words: Fran Tarkenton.") Can the celebrity be used in different media? And, does the celebrity actually use the product? There were a lot of frowns at Pepsi when Britney Spears was spotted drinking Coke.

Out of a worldwide marketing budget of $5 billion, Coke once spent about one-third on sponsorships. Zyman now suggests that the word "sponsorship" should be abandoned because it implies one-way philanthropy. His alternative: "Marketing Property Utilization." Key questions to answer before sponsoring events include: What specific business results are you trying to achieve? How much business will the event need to generate to achieve revenue and profit objectives? What are the opportunity costs? He emphasizes that the usual method of measuring return - minutes of exposure compared to equivalent media costs - "is a load of crap." He suggests that property sellers take a stake in the success from the event. For example, a bank sponsor of a NASCAR event paid NASCAR for every new account that was opened.

But Zyman misses the boat in several areas. He not only argues for "positioning," but "positioning du jour." "When it comes to brands, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' doesn't work....If your brand is going to succeed, and you're going to stay ahead of the competition, you're going to constantly fix things before they break and continuously realign your message and your image to your customers' wants and needs." It's hard to imagine a scarred veteran of the New Coke fiasco making such a statement.

He dismisses the experience that results from product and customer interaction. Zyman writes: "Pay attention because this is absolutely critical: The people who got you where you are right now - no matter how good they are- can't get you where you want to go. They just can't. If you're going to move ahead, expand your business, or get into new markets, you need to bring in some new people with new ideas. If you can't do that, you at least need to send your old people out to be retrained."

And some statements are worthy of American humorist Dave Barry, known for his catch-phrase, "I am not making this up." "The Microsoft brand, for example, projects an image that the company and Bill Gates himself are committed to making their products bigger, brighter, and more useful. They even try to involve customers in product development. By continually putting out a product that breaks they're giving the impression that Microsoft's technology is so advanced that their products are always in development. The company responds well to suggestions for fixes offered by heavy and light users alike and people end up almost feeling as though they own the company," he writes.

Some of his ideas are good, but are tainted by the blatant self-promotion on almost every page. If you're interested in a book that explores many of the same themes, but details how to put them into action and measure results, check out FusionBranding: How to Forge Your Brand for the Future by Nick Wreden. The difference between the two books is like exploring the same ground, one from 50,000 feet in the air, and the other with a map, guide and compass.