Noise/Signal
I haven’t done nearly enough writing recently. I’ve started to feel a bit fat and unfit as far the blog is concerned. I wasn’t able to keep the momentum of the first half of the year going into the second half.
It’s amazing how quickly habit and routine can break down. My drafts are littered with dozens of half started or half finished posts. My note book full of half baked ideas or thoughts. Part of my reticence to write has been driven by the fact that the world - and the world of media and marketing - has been such an incredibly confusing and disorientating place of late.
The things I’ve started to write have amounted to little more than shoulder shrugs, resigned to the fact that there have been some genuine ‘WTF’ moments over the last few months. The noise to signal ratio hasn’t been especially positive, so I decided not to contribute further to the problem. Especially as my thinking was rooted almost exclusively in situational analysis and lacked any real or practical applications for either myself or the few readers I have to actually use and apply.
Particularly around the time of the Queens’ death, there were a confluence of factors that were all contributing to what I could only describe as a state of low-level chaos.
A new prime minister and chancellor who were clearly out of their depth. A cost of living crisis already well underway, started to worsen considerably as the profits of energy companies were prioritised over the wellbeing of households. Linkedin fanboys and girls losing their minds over Patagonia’s descision to put itself into a trust. Brands and businesses losing their minds over what constituted a suitable level of respect and deference to a dead monarch. Holding Company executives handing out coffee on the southbank to people queing for days to see her body in state.
And whilst Rome burned, well known marketing academics were tearing strips out of each other on Twitter and people were having to politely remind the world that no advertising spend is not the same as no marketing spend….
Just at the time that marketing could potentially provide a life-jacket for business, I was left feeling like we (the marketing and advertising community) were in the worst possible place. Focussed on the wrong things. Spending time and energy on what amounted to little more than gossip and not able to take a leadership position on the topics and issues that really matter.
Sitting watching Ruben Ostlund’s 2017 film The Square last weekend I couldn’t help but feel some level of empathy for Anne, played by Elisabeth Moss, during one of the film’s opening scenes. Faced with some almost inpenetrable guff about an exhibition, she his faced with a choice. She can call bullshit on the nonsense she faces or she can acquiese.
Just like Moss’ character, we are collectively bombarded by similar nonsense each and every day of our working lives. We’re surrounded by noise. So little of the content and discourse on Twitter, LinkedIn et al is sustaining or nourishing. The danger is that we don’t challenge it. That we accept it and that we acquiese. It’s easy to dismiss some of the nonsense and froth discussed by ‘thought leaders’ as marginal and overhyped. But we all know that marginal, overhyped opinions quickly become mainstream - informing client questions, meeting agendas and responses to brief, sucking up precious time and brain power and distracting from the the real task at hand.
I’m not sure what I’d call the following. Hopes for the year ahead? Resolutions, perhaps. A mix of the two, maybe. Whatever they are, they’ve emerged as my reactions to the chaos and swirl of the last six months…. things which I hope represent at least a tiny slither of utility against the onslaught of noisiness out there. Things which in my own small way I can plug away with when we return to work in the new year.
As we move further into the cost of living crisis, Marketers have to attempt to reclaim the centre ground - reverting to first principles. The discipline of marketing is about the creation and management of demand. In order to do this, marketers have to re-engage with all of the Ps, not just promotion, which is where many marketers find themselves spending more and more of their time. Similarly, this is the topic which seems to claim most of the column inches and conversation. It isn’t just the media landscape that has fragmented, but the marketing landscape and the marketing department too. Through the lens of ‘managing demand’ - would the metaverse have commanded as much time as we spent on it in 2022? Should it take up as much time next year? Would a discussion about pricing be more profitable?
For strategists, we need to remind ourselves that what we do - communications strategy - is a full contact sport. With the speed and severity of the changes we’re seeing in the consumer/commercial landscape, now more than ever we have to be producing work which is not only reflective of the real world, but is propelled and energised by it. As Richard Huntingdon says in his Campaign column this week, “the year ahead is a foreign country for us all”. Sitting writing ppt from a desk might be fine in more stable, predictable times, but this is not where we find ourselves. Consumers are struggling to make ends meet - and consumer confidence, as measured by the OECD shows that consumers are less sure of things than they were during the height of COVID. People are having to make some seriously tough choices about where they prioritise what little free money they have. We have to doing work which reacts to the consumer reality more than ever before.
Collectively, we need to realise that there is significant risk in being risk averse. That doing nothing - or perhaps more precisely, waiting for ‘perfect data’ to inform a choice or decision - is not a valid choice. Especially when things seem to be moving so quickly. Consumer confidence, inflation in both commercial and media markets and continued instabilitity on the global political stage can induce corporate procrastination. Too often ‘long term’ planning is seen as a hindrance when faced with rapid change and complex decisions but strategy can be agile, providing a framework from which companies, marketers and their agencies can iterate. Back to Stephen King: where are we now, where might we be, how are we going to get there and when will we know we have arrived?
The year ahead is going to be challenging - both personally and professionally. I have never known a situation like this - nor indeed has anyone of my age. Collectively, we need to find a way of cutting through the bullshit, getting back to the stuff that matters - reducing the noise and concentrating on finding, focussing and amplifying the signal.
