Is the medium the message or vice versa?

It’s the message not the medium, stupid!

Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian Philosopher of communication strategy,  famously coined the expression “the medium is the message” which, whilst being right in suggesting context is important, managed to brainwash generations into thinking that the medium mattered more than the message...

Being on telly makes all the difference. True or False?

Increasingly, I hear people talking about the media strategy or about integrated marketing rather than what the campaign needs to achieve. One big FMCG company I know placed greater emphasis on their trade marketing than on anything else. The trade had to be convinced that the campaign was big and long-lasting. This gave social media an unusually important role in putting “x’s” on a media schedule.

There are pages and pages of stuff looking like lots of hits….of what?

Barking? Not really. Trade support is a key but please don’t argue that this was a decision based on brand positioning or strategic reasons.

It’s just tactical, my dears, that’s all.

Before you decide whether to go by bike, bus, train or plane, you’d better decide where you want go. So, in other words, what’s your destination?

Kevin Roberts of Saatchi and Saatchi who has a good line in polemic, insists strategy is dead, big ideas are dead and that the consumer owns all the chips and can decide whatever idea or campaign they like and that’s it, done and sorted,  because the consumer’s right (even when they’re goddamned wrong).

This is Kevin. Sensationalist or Prophet?

Hmm! Well it sounds a bit like a version of X Factor for marketing or Strictly Strategy. I’m not sure that deciding on what’s right for a brand can just be determined by the punters. They are certainly not stupid, in fact they are savvy and astute, but you wouldn’t ask them to design a product or create a decent ad would you?

In my long, long, he-can’t-be-that-old experience the consumer is seldom right except when they dig into their pockets and buy something, that’s when you pay attention. Does that sound shocking? I fear we’re becoming too fuzzy and sloppy in expecting social media to give us valuable clues about consumer views. Like conventional market research it’s an erratic, fuzzy forum full of spontaneity but short on truth.

Anita Roddick founder of Body Shop put it perfectly: "‘Using research to manage a business is like using the rear-view mirror to drive a car".

As marketers it’s our job to decide where we want to take our consumers, how we are going to take them and then what the fare’s going to be.

The message is everything. So long as it’s the same message and one that we all believe in like those folks at Innocent or the irrepressible 'Ben and Jerry' who are now the incredibly rich Messrs Cohen and Greenfield of Unilever, the company who took their business over.

I love this and their declared mission statement “to make nice ice cream”.

But can they deliver the stuff below? We’ll see but I’m not sure I care too much as this business should still be fun as ice cream always must be.

Yeah well… whatever. I feel a bit squeamish – make great ice cream, sell lots, laugh a lot, live and die. Come on guys -  lighten up.

Thanks to Richard Hall for sharing his advice and opinions in this post. Richard has been CEO at FCO for 10 years - voted most creative Agency in London and Deputy Chairman at Euro RSCG when it bought FCO. Over the last 17 years Richard has chaired six Marketing Services companies, mentored scores of senior executives, written 10 books (including second and third editions and revisions) that have been translated and published in 24 countries. Chairman of Showcase Presentations, the Friends St Nicholas (local charity), RH&A (consultancy) and a creative think-tank called Colourful Thinkers. You can connect on LinkedIn or read his blog.