A moment of silence for the "Age of Advertising"

First a little history: Traditionally, people bought goods produced locally; often by their neighbors. So they could predict which products would be good and which would not based on personal knowledge of who was producing them.

As transportation and packaging improved throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, it became feasible to buy products made far away. In this expanded environment, people rarely knew who had produced what they were buying. Soon manufacturers began “branding” their products in order to create a trusting relationship similar to what people used to have on a local level.

For example, if you were just buying generic laundry powder by the scoop out of an unmarked barrel, there was no telling how well it would clean. But if you knew that Tide detergent was good, and your laundry powder came in a box with the now famous target logo on it…well, you get the idea.

So far, so good. But the rise of regional and national communication channels led to abuse of branding. Manufacturers quickly began advertising to communicate their products’ benefits, and it didn’t take them long to discover that with enough advertising they could create demand that owed relatively little to their products’ intrinsic quality.

Since consumers had no comparably loud “voice” to refute inaccurate or misleading advertising claims, manufacturers could pump up profits by substituting marketing dollars for product quality.

Then came the internet, which made it easy to search out the exact product that would best meet their need. Freed from the necessity for big advertising budgets, choices proliferated. And consumers quickly forged a collective voice that first matched, and then overwhelmed advertising. At this point, anyone can access an enormous body of consumer experiences that generally allows them to form a much more accurate and objective opinion regarding product quality than they get from manufacturer advertising.

My point (finally): With advertising “neutralized,” manufacturers need to return to branding basics. Honing product features and improving quality are once again the primary way to increase sales, and branding is important primarily to make sure that consumers associate those features and that quality with the correct product.

As it always has been, advertising is important to create awareness, but its unprecedented ability to drive demand has been transferred to the internationally available word-of-mouth network created by the internet. [note: this very word-of-mouth network is now your very best resource for product development…]

If you want to discuss prospering without advertising, I can help. Let’s talk!