Al Ries: Take a Holistic Approach to Your Messaging
Written by Webmaster
Friday, 03 October 2008
Holism is the concept that the whole has a reality independent and greater than the sum of its parts. Marketing people should pay more attention to this concept. Take Tiger Woods' endorsement of Buick. On the surface, this might seem like a good idea. A young, charismatic, world-class athlete drives a Buick. How could this not improve the perception of the brand? But wait. According to Forbes magazine, Tiger Woods made $115 million last year, including $90 million in endorsements. More money than any other athlete in the world. He owns a $20 million, 155-foot yacht. And he drives a Buick? Highly unlikely.
During the latter part of the last century we finally accepted that the age-old notion of "economic man" -- a rational, single-minded, self-interested entity -- no longer existed. It was abundantly clear that every economic, business and purchasing decision was made by "ethical man" -- an emotionally charged, moral entity that was consumed by the effects on people, their communities, their well-being and their environments. Suddenly, the marketing of "values" and the selling of reputations, products and services had become big business and forever inextricably intertwined.
The marketing communications industry has been warned to prepare for a recession that could be deep and long and which could see some of the weakest agencies and clients going to the wall. With banks reluctant to lend money, industry observers predict that it will be a case of the survival of the fittest. They also expect the credit crunch will speed the migration of advertisers into more measurable media, particularly digital. At first, I thought we were going through a normal cyclical downturn," Bob Willott, the editor of Marketing Services Financial Intelligence, said.
To no one's surprise, the first topic of discussion at Advertising Week's CNBC CEO Summit was the meltdown of the financial markets last week. "You can't talk about the impact in general terms," Andrew Robertson, president-CEO of BBDO Worldwide, told the nearly packed PricewaterhouseCoopers Auditorium in Midtown Manhattan this morning. "You have to look at it on a client-by-client basis. But there are definitely clients where the emphasis is going to switch, and there will be clients for whom the value message is going to become a much bigger component of the overall messaging mix,
Holism is the concept that the whole has a reality independent and greater than the sum of its parts. Marketing people should pay more attention to this concept. Take Tiger Woods' endorsement of Buick. On the surface, this might seem like a good idea. A young, charismatic, world-class athlete drives a Buick. How could this not improve the perception of the brand? But wait. According to Forbes magazine, Tiger Woods made $115 million last year, including $90 million in endorsements. More money than any other athlete in the world. He owns a $20 million, 155-foot yacht. And he drives a Buick? Highly unlikely. 
During the latter part of the last century we finally accepted that the age-old notion of "economic man" -- a rational, single-minded, self-interested entity -- no longer existed. It was abundantly clear that every economic, business and purchasing decision was made by "ethical man" -- an emotionally charged, moral entity that was consumed by the effects on people, their communities, their well-being and their environments. Suddenly, the marketing of "values" and the selling of reputations, products and services had become big business and forever inextricably intertwined. 
The marketing communications industry has been warned to prepare for a recession that could be deep and long and which could see some of the weakest agencies and clients going to the wall. With banks reluctant to lend money, industry observers predict that it will be a case of the survival of the fittest. They also expect the credit crunch will speed the migration of advertisers into more measurable media, particularly digital. At first, I thought we were going through a normal cyclical downturn," Bob Willott, the editor of Marketing Services Financial Intelligence, said. 
To no one's surprise, the first topic of discussion at Advertising Week's CNBC CEO Summit was the meltdown of the financial markets last week. "You can't talk about the impact in general terms," Andrew Robertson, president-CEO of BBDO Worldwide, told the nearly packed PricewaterhouseCoopers Auditorium in Midtown Manhattan this morning. "You have to look at it on a client-by-client basis. But there are definitely clients where the emphasis is going to switch, and there will be clients for whom the value message is going to become a much bigger component of the overall messaging mix, 
