Involve and Engage

Many years ago an agency friend of mine the legendary Daz Valladares for those with long memories told me a story about an experience heamp8217d had on the London underground Daz had placed an ad in a particular newspaper Just reading that back I realize that the words quotplacedquot quotnewspaperquot and quite probably quotadquot must appear like a foreign language to some Let alone the word quotDazquotBy all accounts this placement had been fraught with problems Daz was particularly proud of the eventual outcomeThere was a guy sat opposite him on the tube reading that particular newspaper Daz watched as he came to the page with quothisquot ad on it and turned the page without even giving it a glanceThe way Daz told the story he was so upset he came close to going over to the guy yelling at him that he had no idea of the time and trouble heamp8217d gone to in order to place that ad in that particular spot and making him turn the page backDaz felt invested in the ad He had gone to great lengths to make sure it appeared in just the right place for the audience he wanted to reach to see it to engage with it And here was a reallife member of his target audience ignoring itWe all know of course that this happens all the time We quotknowquot it but so often we don39t know it in the sense of taking account of it in how we advise our clients and how we plan and buyToday more than ever that39s a matter for algorithms for unexplained and unexplainable systemsIt39s not a matter that stirs the emotions of those involvedWe aren39t sufficiently engaged in the process the truth is we don39t really care as long as the numbers say that we hit some meaningless impressions or clickthrough number That the auditor likes itI39m not so naamp239ve as to fail to understand that it39s all so much more complicated these days but to me that isn39t any excuse for not caring not thinking through how people in real life behaveWe could all do a lot worse than look around us as Daz did Look at our own behaviours at what those close to us doThat is quite different from saying all media decisions should be based on what we as individuals do but it is to suggest that we should add some air and some light some reallife experiences to leaven the stodge that is the numbersTake the mirage of datadriven personalized messagingIamp8217m just in the process of changing cars Not a bleat from the manufacturer I39ve been loyal to for most of the last 30 years I donamp8217t count autogenerated messages telling me my finance arrangement is about to end nor the dealerI39ve just called to change my motor and my home insurances No attempt to persuade me to stay from the company I39ve been with for the last 10 years aside from noting my decisionI get mail from local estate agencies offering me the opportunity to sell my house All have one thing in common they address me as quotDear Sir or Madamquot Actually that39s not true Some use quotDear HouseholderquotI have just bought a pair of shoes to those who know me that must come as a shock I am most certainly not going to buy another pair of the same shoes despite the constant recontact messages that destroy my online reading experienceWe all know these things are true we all have these experiencesSo why do we continue selling the wonderfulness of online messaging without considering that really in real life things don39t always work as well as all that conferencefodder would have us believeNever forget that what we do is really a sophisticated form of guessing All the research all the data certainly improves the odds but it39s still guessingWe should all lift our heads from the computer from the spreadsheets from the jargoninfested nonsense that infects both socialmedia and reallife platformsWe should look around breathe observeInvolve engageClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Brian Jacobs

Jon Miller | Cofounder Marketo, Engagio | The Gumball Machine is Broken - Rethinking B2B Marketing - By Mike Linton

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