Fredrik wrote a post on marketing hypes such as Consumer Generated Content, which I found interesting. Here’s my comment.

The advertising/communications industry thrives on creative destruction. To evolve, we have to invent new ways of reaching the customer. Trial-and-error might be the best strategy for the industry to find better ways of doing things. This implies getting rid of the old and replacing it with something better.

Following this argument, aren’t hypes are the sources of innovation?

They can be, but aren’t always.

To re-brand a century-old concept such as word-of-mouth into Consumer Generated Content is like putting lipstick on a pig. There are obvious distinctions, I know. But is it hardly that different, in principle, that it deserves the attention it now gets.

In my opinion, things get overly hyped when we as professionals jump on the bandwagon without knowing where it’s taking us. Using new concepts without fully understanding them gives rise to buzzwords. These equal bullshit to most people, no matter how useful the concept, technique or phenomena is. This is bad because stuff that is valuable might get undermined, and stuff that is crap might turn into bubble bursts. Disappointments from over-promising leads to more risk-aversion on the client side. That’s not what we need.

I believe that the problem are not the hypes themselves. The problem is what we choose do with them.

Reject or accept. Those are the choices we face and should make. If we don’t, we increase the “stickiness” of hypes. Too much information and too many choices paralyse us (economists would diagnose the problem as higher transaction costs through imperfect information). In other words, we have to cut through the bullshit or we’ll drown in it. Less books and seminars, more action please.

What can we do to avoid the hype-trap?

There are three things we can do or try to achieve:

1. Planners, be ultra-informed. Distinguish between hype and the real thing. Dig deeper and see the bigger picture of things. Convey this to the client in a powerful yet simple way. Inspire the client to think big instead of buying into the latest fad.

2. Improve the client-agency dialogue. We tend to over-promise because we want to make the client feel good. If we somehow can find a good balance between realistic and attractive client’s expectations we don’t have to over-promise. A longer-term trusted relationship lessens the pressure for delivering for new marketing hypes.

3. Swedish media, educate. The Swedish press for the advertising, media and PR industry (Resumé, Dagens Media, SvD, DI, etc) are focussed too much on gossip and too little on educating or enlightening buyers. The knowledge level between what is written about in the press and what is taught at business schools is appalling.

I believe this would also “clean out some of Adland’s mediocrity”.