Great marketing can never sell a bad product; not over an extended time-period anyway. And after all these years, nothing has really changed
When I got into advertising and marketing in the late eighties, it was still the golden age of creativity. In those days, there were only full service agencies, client servicing was critical and creative ruled supreme. Media planning was a simple template and buying, straightforward.
It was famously said at the time, and proudly I might add, “Only 50% of advertising works, but we don’t know which 50%.”
Advertising and marketing was all gut and feel with little math to back it up. And it worked. Maybe because there were fewer brands, lesser media options, a slower pace of life and not so demanding consumers.
By the early nineties, the new buzzword was clutter. We were entering an era of computerisation, mass media, multiple media, multiple brands, new challengers, industry blurring competition and a global market. The golden principles of advertising and marketing were being stretched to a breaking point. At times, the old rules appeared not to even apply anymore. Books and writings of the period repeated ad nauseum: how to cut through the clutter, how to carve out a niche in the crowded marketplace, how to position your brand, etc.
But for all the doomsday predictions about clutter, nobody even remotely expected or anticipated the enormous clutter of the internet and how it would profoundly change our world. The 2000s saw the internet, mobile telephony and social media descend upon us in quick succession. It didn’t rain, it didn’t pour. It was a deluge. A deluge of information, resulting in an age of mass distraction like never before in human history.
But even before the internet disruption could happen, the advertising industry disrupted itself into creative and buying as distinct functions, then into different companies.
This period saw the rise of the WPP Group and its clones globally, focussed purely on media planning and buying. Mathematics reigned and optimisation was key.
Creative agencies continued to think up amazingly creative campaigns, but how that communication was disseminated to consumers increasingly became the sole preserve of the media agencies. These agencies identified target audiences, figured the most cost-efficient ways of reaching them, bought media in bulk and were able to extract the best and lowest prices for their clients from media owners.
At every stage in the last 30 odd years, the debate has revolved around what challenges marketers face in the brave new world. It was always a ‘brave new world’; and the discussion invariably veered around to new entrants, new businesses and challenger brands — how do they crash the party? It’s way cooler to talk about Davids, not
Goliaths… and that never changes.
The reality, however, is different. The bigger deal for marketers has been to keep the incumbent brands alive and kicking — and to be honest, they are doing a great job. If you remove all the noise and hype that surrounds the marketing and advertising industry, you would realise that a majority of existing brands continue to do well, grow and even become stronger. Nature and consumers favour a known devil, a familiar habit.
Incumbency has numerous advantages — distribution muscle, revenue momentum, richer war chests,
a pole position in the consumer’s brain and most importantly, humankind’s genetically hardwired resistance
to change.
I recently read an interesting little concept in a book called Sapiens. It posits that we are no longer just members of countries or religions or local castes or tribes. We are also members of myriad of ‘consumer tribes’.
We are fans of Roger Federer, members of a hiking club, wearers of Nike, aficionados of single malts, readers of The Times, passionate about Arsenal, addicted to Netflix, frequent fliers of Virgin, users of Facebook, drink large quantities of Coke, can’t live without KFC and swear by Apple. We live in a parallel, imagined universe of social media, connected devices and consumer products woven together in the tapestry of the world wide web. God and country increasingly take a back seat in our daily lives, because consumption is king and it is these brands that truly unite us as consumers — despite differences in gender, geography, age, nationality and religion.
And no matter the clutter, consumers find what they need. They tell each other about amazing new things they’ve found. They praise or trash movies. They spread the word about Uber and Airbnb. They become fanatic about Chipotle. They cry when Rafa loses. They take their children to see Star Wars. They start to own, and then market, products and ideas. And now social media is helping them do that more actively than ever before.
Marketing was always about having great ideas to sell great ideas. Great marketing can never sell a bad product; not over an extended time-period anyway. And after all these years, nothing’s changed.
The challenge is never marketing.
It is the product. The challenge is not to come up with a clever marketing or advertising idea, it is to come up with
a clever product or service first — something that is so compelling and useful that it sells itself. If consumption is king, then product is god.
And the marketing function is the communication, of telling people that these wonderful products exist and/or why they need them. In as exciting a way as possible. The icing on the cake, if you will. Marketing is the wizard who creates the imagery and the magical storytelling around it all, to make the legendary, memorable brands that consumers keep believing in.
SAMEER NAIR 
Finally read it. Fantastic!!!!!! Loved it. Keep them coming