Media observer Bob Garfield on what we learned about advertising from the recent campaigns:
“Nothing that comes out of the mouth of a brand or any other institution has remotely the influence of what comes from the mouths of 7 billion bystanders freely trading opinions online.”
“What matters is what the public has to say about you — based on who the public believes you really are. … If people don’t like you, they are no longer eager to do business with you. And in a socially mediated world, not to mention a world of enforced transparency wherein your every move is searchable on Google in perpetuity, you can no longer advertise your way into their wallets, much less their hearts.”
“We are now and forevermore in the Relationship Era. What the GOP proved, and what all marketers must at long last internalize, is that you can’t advertise yourself out of a bad relationship.”