Great post on Advertising Age website titled: Why Interruption Still Trumps Engagement [click for .pdf to avoid onerous login].
The key to the blog is the closing and I think it is worth your read because it gives yet another view of social media’s critics.
The author, Mr. Jonathan Salem Baskin, states the social-media revolution is based on 3 assumptions:
- ads aren’t credible so they can’t play a meaningful role in our conversations with consumers
- consumers don’t want to be bothered or intruded
- entertainment is an alternative to selling
The premise he revisits is that social media delivers what consumers truly want: to engage with customers, instead of get interrupted by advertisers and brands.
Mr. Baskin believes social media does not address consumer needs. Namely, what consumers need to know, but may not have asked for, such as:
- relevance
- immediacy
- meaning
He goes on to state that brands have always managed consumer needs through their conversations, conversations delivered most strongly through broadcast TV.
He ends the blog with this: ”I’d choose effective interruption over pointless engagement anytime. Why wouldn’t you?”
That’s a weak closing argument. There is very little compelling point to make when you rest your premise with “pointless engagement is not effective”.
Of course any strategy that relies on manipulation and half-truths, whether brand marketing’s traditional channels or social media’s channels, should never indict the tool, but indict the manipulator.
To me, he has not come close to make a case that interruption marketing does, indeed, trump engagement marketing models of social media.
Lastly, always consider the source. In this case the source of this blog is Advertising Age and guess who benefits with the whole social media is a farce argument: deep pocket brands and channels struggling to provide value? Who do you think Advertising Age reader demographic are?
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Have I engaged you? What are your thoughts?
Mr. Baskin has really. Is his case clearly made? Well, you give it a once-over…
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