THE BRAD JAKEMAN BRAND

This post is really about what the marketing industry should be doing, just like Brad Jakeman’s keynote presentation this week at the Association of National Advertising’s annual “Masters of Marketing” conference. But just like Brad’s presentation/rant, it’s hijacked by another topic: the Brad Jakeman brand.

Points I Agree With:

1. “Digital marketing is a ridiculous term”^[1]
As Brad said (sort of), marketing is marketing and some, most or all of it is in the digital media, depending on what’s best for the specific brand and business situation. Digital should not be siloed or considered a marketing specialty. You go Brad!

2. “Global alignment agency is a dinosaur concept”
The concept only really exists in the global brand world, where Brad has clearly spent most of his career. Global brands need the efficiency of global strategy, creative and media, but they don’t need to use the same agency in every market—they just need to determine (with their agency partners) what global marketing assets need to be used in the local market.

3. “My particular peeve is (skipable) pre-roll. I hate it.”
Brad has an easy fix for this—he can stop approving and paying for this type of digital marketing. Pre-roll ads should be short, non-skipable and optionally linked to longer content. It’s the skipable part that I think is wrong.

Points I Disagree With:

1. “White straight males can’t sell a brand to women”
My paraphrasing is a bit harsh in this case—the comment that included the idea above closed more eloquently with, “Innovation and disruption does not come from homogeneous groups of people”. First of all, when was the last time he was in a room full of advertising (marketing?) agency people that were all straight white guys? He must have poor eyesight and exceptional gaydar. And to the real point, smart agency people can read the research, write the brief and come up with the best creative and media campaign for the target group. As Sir Laurence Olivier said in the context of being perplexed by Dustin Hoffman’s method acting during the making of Marathon Man^[2], “Dear boy, it’s called acting.”

2. “(media) measurement systems are out-dated”
Brad’s explanation of this point seems to be that all measurement is still based on 30-second TV spot thinking (presumably, another dinosaur concept). I see the problem differently. There are too many complicated new measurement systems in the digital media world and they don’t integrate well with traditional media measurement. What we need is integration of the best measurement systems we already have in all media, and then we keep improving an integrated model from there. This is the best way to allow you determine your optimal marketing mix based on ROI.

3. “Can we stop using the term advertising, which is based on this model of polluting [content]?”
The polluting content part came up earlier in the pre-roll discussion. Clearly, Brad dreams of a world of brand-building free content from consumers. I’m surprised he chose to be so transparent on that. Yes, advertising would be better termed marketing communications, for the same reason we shouldn’t make digital marketing a totally different discipline than traditional marketing. But we need to embrace the idea that consumers, even Millennials, will accept interruptive commercial messages if they are done well and presented at the right time. And all marketing communication (by my definition) is interruptive. Our job is to make the interruption worth it.

4. “Have we done anything with our brands that is in any way as remarkable as the way Caitlin Jenner, and that phenomenon, has been managed?”
This was the telling closer comment. It must have had something to do with trying to pay off the ostensible title of Brad’s presentation, “Designing for Disruption”. The very last part of the above comment refers to his earlier comment that Caitlin “managed her transition… figuratively and literally as a brand.”

Well, she certainly did and Brad was clearly managing his brand with this presentation. I understand a little exaggeration and theatre makes for an more interesting story, but there is no sensible or constructive comparison between the Caitlin Jenner brand and the marketing of commercial brands.

Presenting from the The Glass Podium
One more comment in what has become a bit of a rant on my part. What does Brad’s company sell? I can’t remember the brand name but the main product is sugar water sold to kids in an age of childhood and young-adult obesity, and sky-rocketing diabetes levels in North America, where it’s been in business (along with its major competitor) the longest. Brad’s biggest complaint about the advertising (marketing?—I’m totally confused now) industry is that it hasn’t kept pace with necessary change. He’s right on that, but his company needs to heed the same advice since it’s causing real harm in a much more significant way. The agency world is just wasting Brad’s marketing spend.

Characterising the marketing industry as polluters is more than a little bit dangerous for a guy whose company’s packaging is (inadvertently) one of the world’s iconic sources of litter.

All in, I agree with almost half of what Brad Jakeman said in this presentation, but I’m actually embarrassed to admit that because Brad seemed to be channelling it all through his inner Donald Trump (brand). And I have a big problem with that.

Notes and references: