Showing up

Woody Allen famously said that 80% of success was simply showing up. The older I get, the truer I think that sentiment is. And as Martin Bihl points out, it's certainly true of advertising. And I would say, it's (sadly) especially true of how online and mobile advertising currently works. A lot of advertising works simply by being there when your competitor isn't.

I'm consistently disappointed with the dismal quality of a lot of advertising, the volume of advertising messages via all channels and the desperation of ad networks to sell their inventory, of ad agencies wanting to buy eyeballs and of advertisers clutching at straws to make us buy something we really don't need. 

As an early mobile marketing pioneer, I'm also frustrated at the lack of innovation when it comes to mobile advertising in particular. We have all these wonderful, unique qualities to a mobile phone in terms of location, convenience, uniquely personal, and many other sensors and we just use them for analytics that then drives more dismal advertising to our screens, whatever screen that may be. Where are the new ways to connect with customers beyond pushing them a bunch of unwanted messages? Where are the nifty ways to improve on customer service to help us retain customers? There has to be a better way than sending relentless 'buy me' emails, surely?

When I started at ZagMe with Russell Buckley 17 years ago, and my younger and less experienced of life, really thought we could change the advertising world for the better by being more relevant, increasing the quality of advertising whilst decreasing the volume of it. I guess greed, desperation and a lack of imagination got in the way and, instead we have the online advertising model of advertising shoehorned on to a tiny screen.

Martin's post on the topic of advertisers showing up is well worth a read and he says it much better than I can. Check it out here.

It's not all bad though. We are seeing some quality TV adverts on our screens in the UK. The current Warburton's advert, Pride and Breadjudice, with Peter Kay is a particular favourite of mine. 

Day 8/30 NaBloPoMo