Marketing Dissed Content

Permission Denied

Late last year, the decision-maker behind the world’s largest advertising budget made a pronouncement about the future of the industry. Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer for Procter & Gamble, heralded a new age of personalised relevant communication he calls ‘mass one to one’:

“It’s not as reliant on mass marketing, it’s not reliant on mass advertising, it’s much more reliant on connecting with her — and then him, because dad becomes part of that process. I think that’s the future.”

This fusion of intimacy and scale is to be delivered by personalised content, informed by data and enabled by technology. Not coincidentally, these were the three pillars of Sir Martin Sorrell’s vision for the future of agencies, adapting to service the needs of their biggest clients. At least before his ‘extraction’ from WPP.

Since then he said

“the world’s largest corporations, such as P&G, now want advertising partners that can respond to briefs in an agile manner, free from the legacy constraints of ‘old media’”

which is the most recent reminder of the adage that our beliefs often seem tied to our business model.

Mr Pritchard understands that ‘mass one to one’ is direct marketing, not advertising, but his statement seems to belie his role as champion of P&G’s brands. Brands are not simply assemblages of customers’ experiences of companies because they exist at a sociocultural level. That’s why broadcast…