Madison Avenue: You Have the Problem

Madison Avenue – You have the problem. You’re still working from a mindset in which you think narcissistically idealized images sell stuff best 9 times out of 10.

But that’s becoming passé, more than you realize – even among the 18-39-year-olds that you covet so much.

It started when people over 40 became a growing majority in 1989. No headlines heralded the event, but nothing is doing more to change the calculus of supply and demand in a bigger and faster way.

People in middle age or older have always generally reacted better to reality advertising over fantasy advertising. The sentiments of most are, “Just the facts, ma’am. Don’t give me hype. Just reality.”

What you need to know, Madison Avenue, is that younger adults are acting more and more like their elders in this way. But you haven’t got it figured out yet. Until you do, Yankelovich and Roper surveys will continue showing consumer responses to your huckstering continuing to fall. And marketing clients’ haunting suspicion that the high priests of marketing don’t really understand today’s markets.

In a few months, my good friends Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore will have a new book out on the crucial role that authenticity is playing in today’s marketing environments. I’m pulling for this book to be 10 times more influential than their much lauded last book, The Experience Economy.

In the meantime, study the Dove ad in this post. It is just one piece of evidence that reality is overtaking impossible fantasies in the marketing game. It’s not that people don’t dream anymore of being better than they are. It’s that where they want to be better is more inner-focused than outer-focused.

Comments

[johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)]

A great example of a company telling the story and not making up a story. Fairy tale marketing must end and authentic marketing must begin. Nice post David.

I’m also looking forward to the new Pine|Gilmore book.

[David Wolfe]

Well said, John. I see the Marketing Revolution gathering steam thanks to growth in your kind of thinking. The keepers of the remaining embers of the old flames of the worthy marketing paradigm of the past will still fight tooth and claw, but there is no stopping the progress toward marketing with greater integrity and an authentic dedication to the core interests of consumers.

Thanks.