Brand Autopsy has an excellent post (hat tip Maggie Fox) and some insightful comments about a recent presentation by David Jones (Global CEO of Euro RSCG) at the Idea Conference, where he goes on a diatribe against the practice. From the selected quotes and edited video it is not entirely certain whether he is railing against agencies for allowing/promoting citizen marketing to flourish or needling the actual citizen marketers themselves.

“What’s been quite a prevalent trend in the lazy agencies over the last two years is to go, ‘I know. Consumers can now create ideas so what we’ll do is get them to come up with the idea.’”

I think the point Mr. Jones is missing is that advertising has now become open mic night and just being an agency type doesn’t necessary mean that you will get the audience – the audience can entertain themselves without us. This is not just hype, it has been happening for quite a while and more everyday. There are two ways to live in this new marketing eco-system:

1. Embrace, Engage and Foster citizen marketing/Consumer-generated media/User-generated content by passionate customers. Create tools for spreading the message and increase the conversation.
2. Raise the bar on creative and develop advertisements that are not insulting or a waste of time.

Point (David Jones)

“If you look at and go play around on the ‘YouTubes’ and ‘MySpaces’ … well, there are a few entertaining things there but there is so much utter crap there.”

Counter-point (DUSTIN)

“How much of AGM (agency generated media) is crap? I’d wager 90%… and I’m an agency guy.”

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Posted in Advertising Industry Events Issues Opinion by dwalker 1 Comment