Opinions And Ramblings By Adam Kmiec On All Things Media

You have to admire a brand like Axe.  They know their consumer audience really well and nearly all their work in on brand, on strategy, on message, and memorable.  That’s how ads should be.

Perhaps the best thing about this ad is that it leads to the sale of a real product. Yes, the Axe Detailer is legit.

Oh god, this hits so close to home.  The best line is when the client asks for qualifications and the Social Media Guru is unable to provide them, but instead references his blog as evidence of skills.  Hahah.  Freaking brilliant.

Absolutely love this little discovery.

Transparency.  This 4 syllable word has become one of the most over used terms by marketers.  It’s gotten to the point where I cringe every time I hear the word.  Transparency is the new synergy.  Yes, folks, I’m serious.  The problem isn’t the word transparency, it’s how we use it.  It’s become a catch all band-aid for marketing speak.

As I hear it being used, I’m reminded of the scene in the movie, the Princess Bride where Inigo Montoya says “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means,” in reference to the word “inconceivable.”

To illustrate my point, do you really think your customers want to see how hot dogs are made if you are say, Hebrew National?  Because, that’s what being transparent means.  Tell you what, you watch this video and let me know if you think Hebrew National or any other hot dog company would want to show this to their customers in the spirit of TRANSPARENCY.

If you’ve watched the entire video, I applaud you.  I worked on Hebrew National and even I got a little bit squeemish watching the vide.  Still think customers want transparency?  I didn’t think so

So if they don’t want transparency, what do they want?  They want authenticity.  That’s different than transparency.  They want to know that what they are going to eat (continuing out hot dog example) is real beef and not lips. More specifically:

This graphic, not the video is what the consumer wants.  They want authenticity, not transparency.  Trust me, no one wants to know how a hot dog is made.

So, please stop using the word transparency incorrectly, I really don’t think it means what you think it means.

Everywhere I look it seems that the more money you have the less logical your decision making becomes.  When you have a small amount of money we tend to be very safe, deliberate, and very logical in what we do with that money.  When you have trillions of dollars, you’ll spend $250,000 on diamond crusted underwear.

The same can be send for marketing budgets.  When we have a healthy budget we take chances and in doing so we sometimes come across illogical.  But, when our budgets have been sliced, the price of corn us up, and the economy is in the tank we make our decisions in a way that insulates from criticism.  Putting that money into trade, TV, FSIs, etc. are safe and given the years of supporting data, quite logical.  Putting money towards things like twitter and Facebook when you’re budgets are tight seems risky.  There just isn’t enough data to support those decisions.

Just because something seems safe, doesn’t make it logical.  Just because you have historical data to support a decision doesn’t make it logical.  Give that one some thought.