Brands are wasting their time trying to be publishers and broadcasters. People don't have time to become super-fans and engage with them every day and that means marketers are wasting their money. They should stick to proper management of the brand.
That's the view of former Nestle top marketer David Morgan. Speaking on a PWC panel session, Morgan said marketers had become like kids chasing a football and risked neglecting their core function by fascination with what he perceives as the Emperor's latest attire.
“We are letting our marketer's herd mentality [make us] go chasing the [publishing] ball. That is distracting them from what they should be doing, which is commercial management of brands to serve the consumer better.”
Morgan also said it was pointless brands wasting money trying to be people's best friends and engage deeply with them. Nobody has the time let alone the inclination, he said.
"It's just not a reality. There are 872 brands that I interact with on a weekly basis. That is 872 brand managers that want to produce content so that they can engage with me and make me a super fan. That is 872 additional relationships for me – and I am already full. I don't have time. I reckon 850 of them are totally wasted,” said Morgan. “That is a total waste of resource and capacity; a total waste of money.”
Morgan doesn't have anything against postmen. He likes postmen. But if one came to his door and wanted a “a daily dialogue and outlined how he wanted to engage with me, it's not going to happen. I don't have time. Then along comes my household cleaner brand, my shampoo, my detergent brand. I don't have time, or an interest. So we are wasting marketing talent when it should be doing much more important things that they are not doing right now.”
So what should brands be doing, if not publishing?
They should be looking at Lego, reckoned Morgan.
“What Lego has done over the last two or three years is just getting on with it, and a company that produced plastic bricks is now into gaming and movies in a way that no other brand has achieved. It has a commercial marketing manager who is already primed and ready for all of his manufacturing to stop in the low cost economies and become 3D printed in people's homes.
“That is how we should think of a brand and consumer-serving management and how to get your brand integrated rather than try and hire and train people for [media owner-type] jobs when there are already people in the industry who do that better than we do.”
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