If Your Firm Has a Story, Now Is the Time to Tell It

One of the most amazing business events of 2015 took place in Orlando, Florida in mid-October when over 2,500 of the most creative minds and imaginations in North American commerce gathered to conduct the annual Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing Conference. The meeting was alive with new ideas, old relationships and new challenges. It was a good decision to be there.

Even more interesting was the meeting's similarity to that held by the REALTORS® in San Diego. The marketing culture and the REALTOR® culture find themselves in very similar situations. They both find themselves being violently disrupted by forces far beyond their control and influence.

If you heard the story in San Diego, then you also heard it in Orlando and visa versa. The consumer is now in control. They have elected to reject and be combative with respect to the thousands of unwanted, intrusive, arrogant, and wildly expensive advertising messages marketers hurtle at them each day.

Consumers are communicating in a loud and clear voice that they do not want to hear the voice of any meaningless, irrelevant message. They are using every opportunity to "ad block" or "ad skip" to block the din. Regardless how advertisers attempt to mask their brand message with emotions, humor or even patriotism, consumers have developed an almost sixth sense about who is attempting to fool them.

Consumers are rejecting these messages and are increasingly punishing advertisers who assume such a childlike consumer response. Consider Delta Airline's childlike, if not overwhelmingly naïve, belief that by adding humor to the pre-takeoff message, passengers will somehow become transfixed, suffering through its robot like wording without recalling that the aircraft is dirty, the staff is nasty and punitive and the flight is going to be 30 minutes late for reasons that everyone understands were the direct result of arrogant management.