HEAD BLOG

I like big statements. I like the way they can underpin books which promise easy access to money and success. I like the way they can position the issuer as an authority and smooth the path towards consultancy; surely the aim of any high flying member of the intelligentsia.

So I relished a statement made via the Twitter Gods, home to all off-the-cuff and unsubstantiated statements, that claimed all marketing had to figure Digital in any strategy.

Let’s first be clear: I love the possibilities afforded by digital campaigns. Technology is a marketing person’s dream, offering, as it does, a slew of measuring mechanisms to keep all but the most cynical of bosses happy. Digital plugs into many lives and the numbers it reaches increases daily.

It’s not, however, a must in every circumstance.

In fact the only real encompassing statement I stick my neck out on is that there is no “must”.

Let’s talk anecdotes.

Earlier in the year I had a meeting where I was urging a prospective client to do more with digital. We all agreed there was more to be done and it felt great.

Then, almost as a side discussion, I was given an insight into the value of a non-digital campaign.

The reasoning began simply with: not everybody has easy access to the web. And even if they do they won’t have the access you and I have. I’m here twelve hours a day and a web-capable device isn’t far from my hand.

It makes sense.

I don’t work behind a till or in a hospital or any of the many jobs that mean a person can’t access the Internet whenever they want to. Access to media can be restricted to a newspaper in backroom between jobs or over a sneaky brew.

Yet these people still lead consumer lives and companies still have reason to urge them to buy during their break times.

In these digital times when it seems everybody is forever on Twitter or Facebook it is all too easy to overlook these people and, in doing so, overlook the effectiveness of what is now called “traditional” media.

Digital is a way forward, not the way forward.

My friend, Gary, is the smartest guy in the world.

Seriously.

Eight years ago we were on our lunch break and walked into the local shopping centre. He’d eaten but had the urge to buy some food. He wanted biscuits.

So we walked up to Millie’s Cookies where he pulled out a double handful of the most random collection of coins you can imagine.

There was no way anyone could tell, at a glance, how much he had. He certainly didn’t know.

But he wanted some cookies.

So he handed the cash over to the poor woman at the counter and asked:

“What can I get for this?”

I wanted to disappear. At the time, it was embarrassing and funny at the same time. I thought he regressed about twenty years. The woman at the counter thought so too. She must have thought I was letting him making his first purchase.

But she kindly counted his money for him and handed over the single cookie and some change.

Millie’s cookies taste great. They are expensive, but they taste great.

Gary was pretty happy.

He’d made the most of his money. He could have bought ten packs of custard creams from Kwik Save but to him, that wasn’t value. That was just spending his money and then eating.

A cookie from Millie’s tastes great. They are expensive, but they taste great.

I work on advertising accounts of all sizes.

The big clients spend a lot on media and buy as much coverage as they can. Which is a lot of coverage.

The smaller clients spend a lot less on the same media and get a lot less coverage.

Why are they buying custard creams?

I can sort of understand the big clients wanting a lot of exposure. There are arguments on what that exposure will do for them but I can understand it.

But the smaller clients… well, would they buy a hundredth of an adshell and be lost next to the ad from the big client?

Why aren’t they buying something else entirely and making the rest of us look with envy at them?

I’ll always remember Gary’s cookie.