What I don't get about Marketing
27 February 2018
I want to try to figure out something I still don't understand about Marketing.
First, read this story by Sarah Vizard at Marketing Week: Why Google and Facebook should heed Unilever’s warnings.
All good points, right?
With the rise of fake news and revelations about how the Russians used social platforms to influence both the US election and EU referendum, the need for change is pressing, both for the platforms and for the advertisers that support them.
We know there's a brand equity crisis going on. Brand-unsafe placements are making mainstream brands increasingly indistinguishable from scams. So the story makes sense so far. But here's what I don't get.
For the call to action to work, Unilever really needs other brands to rally round but these have so far been few and far between.
Other brands? Why?
If brands are worth anything, they can at least help people tell one product apart from another.
Saying that other brands need to participate in saving Unilever's brands from the three-ring shitshow of brand-unsafe advertising is like saying that Volkswagen really needs other brands to get into simple layouts and natural-sounding copy just because Volkswagen's agency did.
Not everybody has to make the same stuff and sell it the same way. Brands being different from each other is a good thing. (Right?)
Sometimes a problem on the Internet isn't a "let's all work together" kind of problem. Sometimes it's an opportunity for one brand to get out ahead of another.
What if every brand in a category kept on playing in the trash fire except one?
