Randall Rothenberg’s book, Where the Suckers Moon was instrumental for me at the beginning of my ad career, probably because the book’s release (October 25, 1994) and my interest in the business coincided.
Today, Rothenberg is President of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). As such, he’s concerned with the lack of creativity in Interactive media.
The four enemies of online branding:
A direct-marketing culture and tradition that devalues creativity and its long-term effect on brands An interactive agency business model that disincentivizes greatness and fails to penalize mediocrity An unwillingness by mainstream agencies to integrate technologists as full partners in the advertising creative team Media industry values and habits that malign and depreciate our own products, and by extension our customers’
Damn, the man comes to the plate swinging some heavy lumber. Impressive.
He ends the essay with this anti-data centric clincher: “Let’s return to a time when advertising and media conversation was owned by the creatives, the editors, and the impresarios — when it was dominated by debates about the craft of persuasion, about what moves people. After all, isn’t that the reason we’re in this business?”
