Mediaboss Marketing

Coming out of what maywell be the greatest year of self-reflection for all of society, the ad industry had a huge opportunity -- and it blew it. Instead of learning the lesson of what makes a brand most relevant in thethroes of an existential crisis like a global pandemic, the industry has chosen not to think about the impact on its customers, but on itself.

How do I know this? Because the Association ofNational Advertisers this morning announced that -- according to results of an annual poll of its members -- the "Marketing Word-of-the-Year" for 2020 is "pivot."

While that's a powerful businessterm for early-stage businesses, and one normally associated with startups that failed to deliver on their initial "product/market fit" and pivot to a different one in order to find a new pathway tosuccess -- or at least another round of funding -- it's not one that should sum up how the world's greatest marketers reflected on one of the world's greatest existential threats.

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On the plusside, it shows that Madison Avenue has embraced some of the positive attributes of Silicon Valley, especially the concept of "agility," which, along with "resiliency" and "virtual," were runners-upfor 2020's marketing word-of-the-year.

On the downside, it shows that the world's leading marketers are far more introspective than I would have thought, and that they failed to identify themost important element of 2020 from a consumer perspective: the need to show how and why brands care for their customers -- not themselves -- during an existential crisis.

Frankly, I'm alittle surprised by this, because over the past nine months I've seen and reported on reams of marketing research and consumer polls showing that very thing -- from Ipsos to Mindshare to Kantar toNielsen to Wavemaker to you-just-about-name it. They all identified that what consumers most wanted during this unprecedented time was for brands to show customers they care about what they weregoing through and how they could help, even if it was just offering words of support, diversionary content -- or even better, some solutions to the problems they were coping with.

Pandemic andeconomic crisis aside, it was also a year of self-reflection for marketers grappling with responses to an outpouring of racial injustice and their own role in responding to it, as well as diversity intheir organizations and marketing programs.

That's why I was eagerly awaiting the ANA's annual release -- and even made a little side bet with myself to see if they would "get" it -- andidentify that the most important marketing word of the year for 2020 was "empathy."

That's the word I heard most from marketers, agencies and some of the best consumer researchers in the worldexpress as their takeaway from 2020. While it's not always an easy one to deliver on, it is the word that should focus everything organizations do during, and coming out of, a global pandemic.

In fact, it is a word that came up time and time again, while MediaPost went through our annual exercise of reviewing and considering candidates for our annual agency, client and suppliers of theyear for 2020. I will tell you it was an important factor for picking several of them.

While I applaud the ad industry's ability to adapt, be flexible, find new product/market fits, and yes,pivot, during unprecedented times, all of those business maneuvers should be at the service of the people they serve -- including their own organizations, those of their partners, and especiallycustomers, which are the reason for their very existence in the first place.

Link:
What The Marketing Word of the Year Should Be, For Those Who Care 12/14/2020 - MediaPost Communications