Museo Rufino Tamayo - Mexico

The view that you can build brands with advertising has always been a myth. This a point that I made in an article published in 2005 reviewed by @karllong here the original has moved to here. The producer of  MEDIA@SAfm had dug this out and invited Brett Morris group creative director at DraftFCB and I to discussed it on this sundays show.

It was surprise when I saw the article lying on the host Ashraf Garda’s desk but I thought that it was really cool, firstly to see how consistent I have been in my views of how marketing works, and although I am into social media and stuff now its still the same philosophy, its just that the tools have become more powerful.

The point is that brands were always built by the experience customers have of the brand, advertising can create expectations but its the real experience that determines the brand. What changes now is the speed at which people can share experiences through their connections and  social networks on the internet and on mobile phones. So the expereinces that they share are even more likely to be real than what the advertiser tells them they should be.

Not that there isn’t a role for Advertising in the future – there is but its a different one.

This is the space in which I launch the new PiKE | The integrated new marketing agency in January.