Can you speak fluent gibberish? Then advertising is the job for you!

It is fascinating to see the myriad heads of “Communication”, “Strategic Communications”, “Communication Operations”, etc within various companies.The Marketing/Advertising landscape is littered with “goals”, objectives”, and “targets”.On what planet do these people live?   Because despite these grandiose titles advertising/marketing still isn’t efficient nor accountable!Without a doubt the people in advertising to day are under trained – why they don’t even understand the word “communication”.There is no organisation in the world, which is so utterly cavalier as advertising about the capability of the people it puts into managerial positions.    Appointed one day and then making big spending decisions the next.   As a result they are easy prey for sharp talking media salesmen and fast-talking Management Consultants who promise to reinvent advertising or “gold-plate” its functions.Just listen to this little gem from the Editor of Media Week “…both are prerequisites for a effective platform that have been missing from before, but there have been moans from some quarters about the difficulty of using the touch screen if you have “thick fingers”.   However, the biggest gripe is that the iPhone is currently a 2.5G product, not a 3G service…”Meanwhile, despite all the gibberish, it is clear that the online adsector faces numerous obstacles, including the fact that public antipathy towards online ads is becoming a major problem for the sector.Disillusionment with online ads is becoming more prevalent, many internet users would be willing to pay to avoid ads being served online.  The majority of people find online ads more intrusive than other forms of advertising!Perhaps all this gibberish is designed to extract as much money as possible from the confused Clients before the Internet bandwagon becomes obsolete! The point is that, without the use of any gibberish, there has been a far superior form of marketing communication available for many many years, however those master of gibberish, the advertising agencies have chosen to ignore it.Current conventional mass media are weak conductors of knowledge and comprehension.   This is because of a number of factors, however the main reason is; they are non-interactive communications vehicles, in other words ‘conversations’ cannot take place.  Communication research shows that interaction raises a communication’s learning effectiveness.The one problem facing interactive advertising is the fact that it has become a cliché in recent years, without any very clear or consistent definition of what the word means or how it is supposed to work.Properly executed it has none of the woolly theorising- gibberish - that lies behind the arguments about various forms of so-called interactive communication using direct marketing and electronic media (most of which involves at best the minimum of true interactivity).   It is also practical, down-to-earth, and uses a readily comprehensible and verified mechanism to expand the relevance and salience of advertising and other forms of marketing communications.   It can be applied to all major media and to various other forms of communication, including new media.   There is no theoretical reason why it should not also be applied to packaging designs or product literature.The basic elements of interactive communication are very simple, as all communication should be.   The target audience – or any part of them – are provided with a Game, comprising a Quiz together with multiple choice answers.   This takes the reader/viewer through the detail of a commercial or advertisement and focuses their interest and attention on the product’s selling points.    The questionnaire is (usually) presented as an exercise in getting the public’s opinions about the products.   The effect is to combine the techniques of programmed learning and game playing to fix the advertising message in consumers’ minds.The programme is very flexible and can be distributed by mail, door-to-door, as a handout in shopping malls, or as a newspaper or magazine insert.  In fact it is media neutral.The traditional, though now out-dated, model of communication against which advertising has been judged is a one-way process whereby a Sender sends a message to a Receiver, who is then expected to absorb and act upon it.    Although any consumer-aware advertising person knows well that consumers use ads, rather than the reverse, the practice in most agencies remains the traditional one of pushing ads out towards the market and hoping for a response.In the face of growing clutter of advertising messages and the increasing ability of consumers to screen out unwanted commercials and ads., there is also a growing problem for advertisers in breaking through the surrounding noise.By presenting advertisements in the form of a Game it alters the consumer’s perception to the content making the communication process far more effective, by providing an enjoyable mechanism for consumers to become involved with the brand and its advertising message.    This meets the desire, evident among consumers, to open up a dialogue with at least some of the manufacturers or service companies whose products they buy; and also feeds consumers evident wish to be better informed about what it is they are being asked to buy.By getting consumers to make a commitment to finding out more about an advertiser’s offer, the interactive technique can create the conditions for positive attitudes towards the advertiser and positive learning about the product advertised.In addition to providing this encouragement for consumers to focus on  the brand – and to develop for themselves the steps  of the argument that should lead to a purchase – the technique can provide the advertiser with valuable feedback about both the product and its advertising.    This is a dialogue that can benefit both sides, and be seen to be doing so.By its very nature, the technique is totally accountable, so much so that it is, without a doubt the most heavily research concept in the history of marketing communication.   Many of the worlds largest independent research companies have measured the incremental increases that just one exposure to an interactive programme can bring.   The research findings are available for you to study.