conversations<\/em>\u00a0about them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span>Because people wanted to interact with pop musicians, famous athletes, and movies stars we thought they’d want to interact with us. Not.
<\/span><\/span>
\nThe idea that the same consumer who was gleefully clicking her remote to escape <\/i>from TV ads was going to joyfully click her mouse to interact <\/i>with online ads is going to go down as one of the great marketing fantasies of all time.
\n
<\/span>
\nOur second dumbest idea is “personalization.” Somewhere marketers got the idea that personalized one-to-one targeting is superior to mass media reach. (I’ll have a lot to say about this in my new book “Advertising For Skeptics<\/em>” set to be published within the next few weeks — start saving now!)<\/span>
\n
<\/span>Amazingly, the same people who babble on about “personalization” also won’t shut up about “storytelling.” They can’t see the contradiction. They don’t understand that storytelling and personalization are enemies. Storytelling is about shared, universal narratives. Personalization is about individualized messages.<\/span><\/span>
\n
<\/span>Jesus on the cross, Joan of Arc at the stake, George Washington and the cherry tree are not “personalized.” They are powerful storytelling because they are universal. They are known by masses of people.\u00a0That’s their power.<\/span><\/span>
\n
<\/span><\/span>
\nIf you want to create successful stories you have to tell them out loud and in public. If you want to get all personal you have to do it privately.<\/span><\/span>
\n
<\/span>We have become so absorbed in our own insular feedback loop that we have lost any sense of the connection marketing has to the basics of human communication. You can’t be pro-storytelling and anti-mass media.<\/span><\/span>
\n
<\/span>
\nAs usual the marketing industry is so far up its own ass with its new technology toys that technology trumps common sense. The fact that we\u00a0can<\/i>\u00a0do personalized, one-to-one advertising is not a compelling reason why we\u00a0should<\/i>.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the past couple of years, the advertising industry has been fixated on two themes: the creative side of the business has been preoccupied with “storytelling,” and the media side has been hooked on “personalization.” What no one seems to realize is that these two goals are contradictory. We’ll get to that in a minute. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12023],"tags":[14239,8397,14214,17676,8402,2485,34368,3140,12636,17677,5393],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-93452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advertising","tag-ads","tag-advertising","tag-branding","tag-contrarian","tag-marketing","tag-online","tag-personalization","tag-pick","tag-storytelling","tag-television","tag-web"],"yoast_head":"\n
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