Killing your campaign in 3 words.

LONG-TERM, ORGANIC, PARNTERSHIP. These are the three words that explain why your campaign(s) are not delivering the results - over time - that you had hoped for.

Reading the MobileYouth blog this morning, these wise words by Graham Brown really went straight to the heart of the problem:

"Marketing’s biggest weakness is its own soil – it’s inorganic. Marketing seeks short term results and as every caffeine fuelled overworked agency exec knows, short term is the client’s push-button.

TV doesn’t work like its used to but we’re still prepared to pour resources into the channel because it’s what we know, we have the relationships and we’re never going to get fired for committing the bulk of our budget to youth programming.

The future lies in a more organic process – one that requires nurturing the soil, one that requires innovation beyond the ability to wield buying power, one that requires marketers to think up why youth should consider your product the choice of their generation."

And even though Graham is specifically talking about youth marketing in his post, I believe the argument is as applicable to other consumer segments too - whether they be young career women or the 'Second Lifer' women of 55+.

Attention is a brands biggest cost. Demand far outstrips supply. Across all consumer segments.

The answer? Desire Paths.
Desire paths are uniquely individual, organic ways in which we navigate the interests and passions in our lives. Like a woman's 'web thinking', desire paths connect the dots in our lives.

We need to rethink traditional marketing models. We need to show some vision, some courage to break away from a model we all know is dying but which we cling to because it keeps the client happy (today) and delivers results (this quarter).

Food for thought...

Desire Paths: Branding for Digital Lives

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