Another year, another blog; welcome to 2022; the Cog Blog\u2019s ninth year of (almost) weekly witterings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fashionable thing to do would be to fill this post with forecasts of the year to come. I don\u2019t do this for two reasons. First, things are so topsy-turvy who knows, secondly it\u2019s easy to check back 12 months later to my embarrassment and everyone else\u2019s general merriment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
More of us should check back on the accuracy of the predictions that those braver (or more foolhardy) than me choose to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So \u2013 no predictions. But like everyone I have hopes, ambitions for the industry. Things that I would like to see happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are some hopes for 2022 \u2013 future posts will build on these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hope 1: We get back to simplicity, to being creative.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We enter 2022 at a pretty low ebb. Advertising is generally not liked by those to whom it is supposed to appeal. The main reason for this \u2013 to my untutored creative eye – is that most of it, especially the online stuff is shit. Not clever, not creative, not appealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the search for excessively narrow targeting, reach, frequency caps, clicks, likes and other largely irrelevant concepts we\u2019ve forgotten what \u2018creativity\u2019 looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve forgotten the appeal of simplicity; we overcomplicate. We seem to think our value lies in speaking in a language understood by the very few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hope 2: Less prattle, more precision.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Next up, we\u2019ve forgotten to ask what things mean. Take \u2018frequency caps\u2019, the notion that consumers can indeed get tired of seeing the same thing over and over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what do we mean by \u2018seen\u2019? Or indeed \u2018get tired of\u2019? Or (come to that) \u2018consumers\u2019?<\/p>\n\n\n\n My time with Millward Brown taught me that ads wear-out amongst brand teams far faster than amongst consumers; true wear-out (in old-fashioned media) is rare as the budget necessary to achieve such an outcome would be beyond most brands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mind you, it may very well be that having your online experience disrupted by yet another ad for the very thing you bought last week may make wear-out a thing. We\u2019ll know when some \u2018digital expert\u2019 thinks of a new term for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hope 3: Less self-interest, more collaboration to deliver business goals.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Next, the concept of NIMS. NIMS is a relation of NIMBY; it stands for Not In My Specialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A state of NIMS is achieved when everyone talks about collaborating, but on condition that their particular specialism drives the collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take online evangelists, many of whom preach the benefits of working with creative people, but only as long as their obsession with clicks and likes remains sacrosanct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Media agencies are guilty too: they\u2019re all for that 90-second video spectacular as long as there are 5-second cut-downs to ensure the targets measured by the auditor are hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We should focus more on business results. Media numbers are a means to an end, not an end in themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n