Hazy Thoughts
Warning: this is not clear thinking. It's not a cohesive narrative, even a singular theme. Trying to write it out to get to those things.
I'm worried we’ve got a problem in advertising.
We’re all starting to sound exactly the same.
Not the work, although there is a little too much “I think I’ve seen this before” there too.
I’m talking about the people, strategists in particular.
On one level, that’s a good thing – greater access to the tools and knowledge necessary to provide credible, professional, counsel to our clients on how they can grow demands a certain level of objectivity; providing consistent, evidence-backed guidance on how to approach a neutral situation is a positive step. As Christopher Owens, Head of Brand Strategy at TRG likes to say: building on two decades of academic research that all points in a consistent direction, we’re approaching a grand unified theory of marketing effectiveness – reach everyone you can, consistently, widely, and surprisingly, using creative that elicits emotion (See all the great work at WARC if you’re curious here). The principles and methods are coalescing, but the application isn't guaranteed - knowing you need to elicit emotion at scale isn't the same thing is crafting (and selling) work that meets the task. In this case, knowing doesn't cleanly lead to doing.
But since we all have the same tools we’re all seeing the same signals, reading them in similar ways.
What are they telling us, and more importantly, where do we go from here?
The landscape does look particularly bleak and uninspiring, not pointing in any one particular direction.
ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, AND CULTURAL UNCERTAINTY LEADING TO SAFER (OR NO) CHOICES
Uncertain economic climate preventing confident investment
More justification required, less runway for risk tolerance = “safer” work; smaller bets and spreading investment thin to cover bases
Media landscape fragmentation means more complex campaign architecture is needed to even live up to commonly understood principles of effectiveness (including the potential implosion of the streaming landscape?)
WEARINESS WITH FIGHTING IS LEADING TO MORE FLIGHT FROM COMMUNAL SPACES
More divisiveness in culture – there are measurable increases in hate, violent rhetoric, misinformation, and tribalism around the globe, but heightened in America
Exhaustion and burnout – as a reaction, people are starting to “turtle” and turn inward, partially with an intention of protecting their own mental, and physical, health from the constant stresses this landscape creates. Exhaustion is further exacerbated by constantly shifting expectations for work, childcare and relationships, which again, are also exacerbated by the ongoing cultural shift towards antagonism.
Loss of community and pillars of stability – falling participation in organized religion, local government and other institutions
We're also in the middle of a growing loneliness epidemic
ALL THE SHINY OBJECTS HAVE FIZZLED
We’re at the tail end of an innovation cycle for the mobile-social web
The Web3, Metaverse, and AI revolution has stalled the hype and been subsumed into productivity enhancements, but the sticky issues with the technology remain
Nothing else has emerged that is rallying the collective imagination of the people we are trying to reach and the marketers hoping to gain an edge by building in new spaces
DANG. That’s dark. But it doesn’t have to stay here. Here’s how I’d like to see us push off against these trends.
GET COMFY AND COZY
Ride the rise of the cozy web – an idea first coined by Venkatesh Rao – an intentional rebound from the mobile-social era’s prioritization of scale, growth, and virality towards digital spaces founded on intimacy, true social exchange, and safety for revealing people’s true selves. I’m excited for this movement to grow because more meaningful connections get made in smaller spaces; while repositioning for mass brands still requires scale, brand intimacy and conviction will be built in a series of “smaller” worlds. Zoe Scaman’s work on communities, co-creation and mutual value creation are all pointing in a direction of creating worlds, but in smaller tribes – the brands building into this direction (like Lego) are showing that cozy and famous do not have to be mutually exclusive.
In addition to the potential fun we can anticipate for creating for a smaller group – and the potential to build with and for typically overlooked and underrepresented segments - creating for an intentionally smaller audience will reward us with creative work that takes bigger leaps. It explores more interesting edges, assumes MORE from the audience. Doesn’t just take the direct, simple, blandest form of the idea. Those leaps add up over time.
AIM FOR ADDITIVE AND ITERATIVE OVER PERFECTLY CONTROLLED
As we lose the mass reach that TV guaranteed, embrace the freedom that can bring. Redefine what consistency means for advertisers – consistent in feeling, emotion or POV; distinct in how it’s brought to life for a particular group/moment. Rather than hyperfixating on perfecting the singular expression of creative brilliance that connects universally, free up creative teams to make more fun – and hopefully funny – work. That is repeatable. Less testing, more trusting. And over time, the collective impact of all these bets on creativity will add up to a much larger sum; as each expression adds a deeper layer of meaning onto the brand.
DOUBLE DOWN ON BIG BETS – EXTRA POINTS FOR FUN
Big bets pay off even bigger when others are retreating – confidence gets rewarded, and with fewer mass stages to be owned; there is less competition for memorable work for those who truly double down on creative breakthroughs + creative commitment; we don’t have to be always on in every channel. Choose to do the thing that gets remembered, and trust that you can reach people again with similarly effective ideas. Partially as a reaction to the seriousness of the moment, but fun, irreverent creative work seems to be on the decline. Targeting our ambitions towards simply creating work that gets remembered and creates a positive inclination towards the brand – not having perfect selling points be recalled instantly, or persuading an audience that’s not in market to ultimately go buy our brand immediately, will lead to significantly better ideas and more potent work. Trust me. Or if you don’t trust me, trust the work from System1.
INFLUENCERS MAKE WAY FOR TASTEMAKERS
The functional benefit of platform-native content creation will always be around; but truly moving markets requires more thought – we’ll see a return to collaborations that have stakes, not just transactional money grabs; there will be a number of truly creative, culture-shifting collaborations between brands and tastemakers. That doesn’t just mean people – groups, publications, even events move markets too; we’ll see brands prioritizing bigger, meaningful action here over the disposable scale of influencers & creators.
RECLASSIFICATION OF DIGITAL RENT
The rise of algorithmically managed and delivered campaigns will continue. But more scrutiny will be placed on the value these systems create, is it truly incremental? Does it create lasting value? My bet is that the “tax” on advertising budgets that systems like Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage Shopping+ will shift out of the conversation around advertising and into a separate category for most – “digital rent.” It’s absolutely necessary for short-term success, but typically falls short on long-term market building; new analytic and investment prioritization models will emerge to better reflect this shift (and be persuasive to finance teams); freeing up more resources for high-attention, high-emotion, future-demand-creating investments.
