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Jonathan (Bilal) A.J. Wilson Academic Programme Director, Postgraduate suite in MarketingUniversity of Greenwich, London UKEditor: Journal of Islamic Marketing

The advertising revolution will not be televised anymore

“The advertising revolution will not be televised anymore. Smart minds, smart mouths, smart phones, smart thumbs, and smart messaging are the essence of the New School multi-screen scene. The revolution will be devised by advertisers who can act like rappers, and crack stats like mathematicians. The mission: being hip to the pop, enticing consumers with concision, and dropping the right zeitgeist. Learn the art of science, and chart the science of art - engineer unconscious compliance and avoid consumer defiance.”

I decided to loosen the tie, kick back and write something with the swagger I used to rock in the 90’s, when I wasn’t writing MBA assignments - but was working for DMA Design/Rockstar Games on the video game Grand Theft Auto, thumping my bass guitar, and busting mics on tour. If you wanna get your marketing on fleek, then why not drop in a touch of hip poetic pop-speak? While you read my piece, fire up YouTube and listen to the 1970’s Gil Scott-Heron song: ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’. Plug-in and bug out!

The Old School DinosaursTraditional approaches to Consumer behaviour study individuals’:• Thoughts (rational)• Feelings (emotional)• Actions (behavioural).

Customer segments are classified according to:• Demographics• Geographics• Psychographics• Behaviourals.

The role of advertising is to elicit a favourable response to a message and enhance desired traits.

Science fiction is factWhilst there’s more competition and noise than

ever before, the potential to track, engineer consent and verify effectiveness has increased.

What seemed like science fiction in Steven Spiel-berg’s 2002 Minority Report film is now science fact. Remember those scenes of consumers walking through malls with personalised real-time messages and triggers. Also, like Tom Cruise’s character, we’re looking to plug those gaps and report on the minority scenarios – that make or break consumer engagement.

Whilst globalisation has homogenised certain consumption patterns, consumer segments still hold onto nuanced cultural traits that present expo-nential opportunities if understood, or deal breakers if overlooked.

Globalisation has pulled minority traits into the mainstream, diversity is a reality for the majority. For example if we take ethnicity, it’s no longer skin deep, or merely a demographic trait. In today’s

markets, ethnicity is more about a state of mind and identifying a shared set of cultural values, which permeate other traits - linked to geographic, psycho-graphic and behavioural segmentation criteria.

New School CatsAnd the marketer-consumer relationship has

changed. Consumers are more savvy and sceptical of traditional advertising approaches – acquies-cence of that which interrupts their experience.

This is pulling everyone towards the age of user-generated content – content that consumers know how to sniff out nonsense. Citizen journalism; co-creation; increased desire for personalised messages; impressing your peers with pimped-out personalised product and service offerings – offering the initiated a hand in the land of personal branding.

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A E S T R O

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It would be a mistake to assume that this means shouting louder. Just like in the story of Goldilocks, there has to be a ‘just right’. Right place, right time, and right dose.

It’s about creating a level sophistication, subtlety and secret signalling - to avoid wearing out and advertising alienation. Advertising dinosaurs rub their sores as vloggers soar in popularity - steering peers with their interactivity and matter-of-fact congeniality.

Start to preach, and they zone out or reach for another screen. The television, tablet, smartphone and laptop are on standby – dry advertising eye-candy can stand by as consumers’ eyes try and dodge the bland in search for what’s on-demand. The invasive has to make way for the immersive – we’re going native. Advertising keyhole surgery.

Have you got game?Old School Marketing and Communications was

about broadcasting and staying ‘on topic’. Now it’s about sharing information and insight, in any field, and claiming that space.

Think of it like this: before marketers were archers, firing arrows towards targets – praying that they pinned down their prey. Big game hunting is so passé – you can’t make that play. Stop bawling, get in the lane, bring your A-game and call on the ballers. Now we’re playing basketball, volleyball or squash. It takes several moves, deflections, and willing opponents if you want to win points, and hopefully the game, set and match. These passes, reactions, deflections, hits and rallies are important. Hello immersive advertising.

Get in the groove and think about how much more fun and engaging the game is when there is a rally. Sure, you sweat more, but you learn more, grow stronger, and it draws in the crowds. People remember those rallies and they become the theatre where people get to show their personalities and emotions more. Advertising has to be immersive and experience-driven. Brands are those anchors and punctuation for advertising signals. Together, their language and narrative needs to ooze charisma, cool, authenticity and cultural zeitgeists.

Brands are discoveredBrands are the memes that convey and signal,

salience and relevance. They are meaning creators, language shapers, and game changers.

This is the age of play and seduction. Brands that are discovered elicit euphoria and a pull to share.

Amongst all of this we have to uncover what conscious, unconscious, implicit, explicit and tacit factors really make people tick?

These bonds are dynamic, contextual, perishable, nuanced, and as fluid as quicksilver. But can you deliver that silver bullet?

The Buzz – taking pollen and turning it into honey

Surfing a trend is cool, but business cats want

fishes. Advertising is your rod and marketing oxygen, but fishes live longer if you put them back in the water. Us cats need to get in, swim, and oughta avoid polluting the water. Your brand is the bait. Brand building is about fishing: landing clans that can execute your strategic plan - the story-telling, associating and linking your identity within networks and communities; and then allowing people to respond.

So hold up: maybe we should be like bees? The advertising buzz is about taking pollen and turning it into honey. That’s where the money is, honey. Live hives where we change lives and don’t just jump to trick chumps into best buys based upon celebrity lies.

If advertising is to resonate and deliver salience, then it has to absorb, collate and rank a series of variables and deliver native, authentic, and cultur-ally centric content.

Establish a hierarchy and consumer decision-making tree, then map this alongside real-time experiences and events, to allow a form of cultural osmosis to occur. Cut through the blur, rub up the static - and test that posit with Socratic questions which embrace fuzzy-logic.

Blend deductive and inductive methods, attempt intuitive trial closes and capture real human experi-ences and new data points. From this, watch out for the switch - behavioural change can be identified and worked on, so that new touch-points, pleasure-centres, and pathways can be created.

Understanding and identifying response are often the end goal of most campaigns – but is this the same as insight? This is only the beginning. My approach advocates the concept of surrogacy. Just like the adoption of a new family member as your own, or the grafting of two different species of plants together – take these analogies as the genesis for some new thinking.

“The end goal is to create an ecosystem where brands and consumers form strong bonds of association, where each embrace adoption with meaning; and there is a culture of both seeking to adopt and being adopted.”

The advertising revolution will not be televised anymore. We saw advertising dinosaurs paw over television audiences: no more my brothers and sisters - they’re stone cold bored, and we’re getting ignored. It’s time for smart minds, smart mouths, smart phones, smart thumbs, and smart messaging. Keep them guessing and they’ll push the button - this is the age of play and seduction.