One of the conference speakers, Adrian Ho, wrote a great post on interactions versus marketing.

One of the realisations I made about life in Minnesota was that it delivered a completely different kind of quality of life than I’d ever previously considered. Before Minnesota, I’d spent all my life in big cities: London, L.A, SF etc. These places taught me to value moments. Great nights at the theatre, interesting bars, clubs, good shopping, and interesting places to go on the weekend.

I think we’ve typically thought about marketing as the creation of moments - communications, events, spectacles, launches, etc. Similarly, I think these moments make up only a very small part of the view customers have of a brand. Instead the vast majority of what informs a person’s view of a brand is the day in, day out usage of the product/service.

This ties directly into what Zeus Jones is about: actions speak louder than words. This is so obvious and simple which makes it pretty genius. We focus so much on communicating and messaging that we forget about the core things that make up a product or service. Gareth mentioned that over 90% of budgets are spent on marketing. Brands like Method are striving to have marketing budgets of zero.

Does that mean we’re all out of jobs?

We’ll always need our Coke’s and Pepsi’s and BBDO’s and JWT’s to keep the engine running. But there’s a huge opportunity for startups and challenger brands to reinvent the wheel. The way I see it - if you have two products like Coke and Pepsi / Miller Light and Bud Light that are essentially the same thing, you have to utilize branding and advertising to differentiate yourself. The old model of advertising was flipping rational thought. No rational person would pay extra for a product or service that delivered the same utility. That’s why we have Fruity Pebbles and the store version - Fruity Stebbles. Advertising and branding was created to get people to act irrationally.

But, with technology, communication, web 3.0, etc today - it has created a ton of transparency. And with that, communications and advertising has changed with it. You are no longer communicating a message or convincing people to try your product because technology has allowed it for someone to duplicate or make your idea better. The “doing” aspect builds brand advocates which is what I think Adrian was referring to.

Another layer I would add is innovation. I know it’s a term that’s been overused but I look at the Apple iPhone and Nike Plus as innovative - service - branded utility things that would have never been considered before. Apple disrupted a whole category by creating the iPhone. Every company is trying to catch up and either match or exceed the iPhone. Google is already on board. Nike Plus created a global running community that mixes online and offline. Rather than saying they are the best, they are showing by innovating. I don’t really know where I’m going with this bit but I think “doing” and doing it right is directly linked to innovation. What’s the point of communicating something if it’s not innovative and transformative?

Any thoughts out there?