Joe Jaffe, author of Life after the 30 Second Spot, gives one of the lunchtime talks at the Boston Ad Club. [As always, this is a rough, abbreviated paraphrase.]

Change is the only constant in marketing, he says. Marketers resist it. Technology is the change agent. “I don’t believe customers are empowered at all.” We like to be entertained. Nevertheless, marketers are powerless. “Top of mind” is being replaced by “top of page” (where Google is the page). The “funnel of interest” is being replaced by the “funnel of trust.” Prime time is being replaced with my time.

The Four P’s are becoming commoditized. You can’t own a position for decades any more. Pricing is commoditized. Place is now the world. Promotion can’t make it through the mass clutter.

Chief Marketing Officers have an average tenure of 22.9 nmonths, compared to 53.8 for CEOs.

Marketing is paying more for ads and getting less exposure.

We have to be more “consumer-centric.”

It’s time to kill the 30-second ad. We need a fresh start. We need to reintroduce “consumers” to ads. Budweiser is talking about “Bud TV” that will go straight to consumers. If we don’t do our job, we may be bypassed.

Advertising is not consumer centric. The entire mass marketing model is not consumer centric. We tell consumers what and where to buy.

Markets are outgrowing their agencies. We’ve gone from ad agencies to media companies to interactives to search engine optimization companies to boutiques. So, clients have 15-20 agencies, competing and making noise. Next the PR companies will take over.

We need to save advertisifng from extinction (S.A.F.E.), which we can only do by not being safe. We need to figure out how to make relevant advertising again. Ads need relevant, utility, entertainment [RUE]. Advertising should be out to involve and demonstrate. Embrace the new marketing.

Who’s doing a great job? We are. “If you’re here today it’s because you’re part of the new wave of leadership.” “We” means we have to let consumers have their say. We’ve moved from one-to-many to one-to-one and then one-from-one (= search). Now we have many to many. “The brand is a part of the conversation.” The conversation was around before the brand was and will outlast it. “At best we can hope to enjoy the conversation, to facilitate, to stimulate, to be invited to participate in the conversation.”

Broadband, networks, wireless and search are transforming marketing: Always on, anywhere, on their terms, connected to everyone. “It used to be fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Now it’s fool me once, screw you…and I’ll tell one million of my closest strangers.” The new paradigm is conversation, permission, involvement…[I missed one of the four members of the new paradigm.]

“The digitization of media is the cause, the effect, the symptom, the cure, the problem, the solution, the by-product, the chicken and the egg.”

In the game Triple Play, the ballpark seems artificial and wrong because the ads hung on the walls are phony. “Advertising is quite comforting.”

Do product placements only when they make sense and fit.

“When consumers view advertising as content everyone wins.”

Consumer generated content is important. Don’t forge it.

Stand for something.

In the future, consumers will pay for content with their time or money. Those who elect to watch ads will be able to customise their “quotas.” We need performance-based pricing.

He points to the Loctite stunt of gluing a monitor to the wall.

[Tags: joe+jaffe advertising marketing]

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