The one thing we marketers want more than anything else is people’s time. We have all kinds of metrics to track it. Indeed, it’s the thing we track most, more so than spending and usage.
Bear with me as I wax philosophical. It’s a circuitous path, but it will loop us to AI. So here goes.
Each year, research firms such as CB Insights analyze why both startups and new products from mature companies fail. On average, about 80 percent of VC-backed startups fail (and those are the best of the startup world), and somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of new products launched by mature companies also fail. Invariably, the primary reason for failure is “no market need.”
It is just astounding that after more than 35 years, some marketers are still using the flawed funnel approach to how advertising works. This is one reason that real, credible, data-supported brand management must be taught in business schools. For decades, we have known that using the funnel approach to advertising, in hopes of building brand loyalty, is a form of mismarketing on a major scale.
There is much angst about the state of advertising. Various commentators in the industry and in the general media have bemoaned a creativity crisis, which is attributed to everything from short-termism to artificial intelligence to the fragmentation of media. There is some evidence that advertising’s persuasive power has declined in recent years. It is less clear that this decline is attributable to a lessening of creativity in advertising. If advertising fails to deliver results, the...
