Mr Client: Please read between the lines…….

Advertising, Media and the Marketing industry at large is a competitive field where those that are good at selling ideas are always a step ahead from their peers. Media and especially media sale is a ruthless facet of the general marketing sphere – Media sales resonates the saying “the survival of the fittest”. Advertising on the other site is about selling ideas and concept. The greatest bull-shitters are the one reaping great rewards. Marketing is all about out moving units.

I’d like to tie or marry the link between the Advertising and Media, how that has subsequently ended up producing campaigns that don’t make much sense expect to those who conceptualized or sold the media space behind the campaign. But where is the client (marketing bloke) in all the mist? The process of linking marketing, media and advertising is quite an easy one, marketing bloke briefs the advertising and media blokes, the advertising and media blokes draft what is often referred to as a “strategy” and revert back to client (marketing bloke) who if happy, approves the concept.

In more ways than not, the “strategy” document is a self-serving concept filled with bullshit aimed at sweeping client off the feet. The media bloke is just there to sell his media space; he’ll say anything to achieve his course. A canny marketing bloke should be immune to such practice; he should see a bull-shitter a mile a way. Unfortunately this is not the case in most instances. When I see a TVC, I sometimes ask myself – how on earth did the marketing bloke approve of such bullshit? Which brings me to my nucleus point regarding this post?

Shell Petroleum is known to have a PR crisis of greater proportion in the Niger Delta region but for some reason, the marketing head-honcho at Shell Petroleum were sold a sponsorship deal on MTV base, Shell even copyrighted the programme dubbed “making of the video”. This sponsorship campaign started with a teaser when gun were blazing in the Niger Delta region. My initial reaction was what’s the logic behind sponsoring the “making of the video”? But then it hit me that this was a classical case were the advertising and media bull-shitters saw an opportunity and pounced on it. The opportunity? Shell has a PR headache, so let’s find a quick fix for them. Let’s sell them a sponsorship deal on MTV and hopefully the problem will go away. Because client (the marketing bloke) couldn’t bear the excruciating Niger Delta headache, he opted to buy the quick fix in the form of “making of the video”.

Six months later the advertising bull-shitter will commission his research bull-shitting buddy to run a post-campaign research on the “making of the video” campaign. The research bull-shitter will survey a sample of 100 people in the Niger Delta and up weight his sample to 100 000, then the research bloke will release his so-called “findings” on a platform provided by the media bull-shitter. The “findings” will read something like: 80% of the people in the Niger Delta voted Shell as their first choice Petroleum station, bear in mind it’s 80% of 100 people “up weighted” to represent views of 100 000 people.

After the research is conducted and published, the bull-shitter will use the “making of the video” and it’s “results” as a bullshitting mechanism often referred to as a “case study” to further bullshit other unsuspecting marketing blokes.

As the marketing bloke you must read between the line before you approve a campaign that will leave a great dent on your marketing budget and yield less admired results on your bottom line. In closing “read between the lines, you might be able to tell who’s trying to sell you a lie” Author Unknown.