Comments on: Interruption Marketing: Rumors of its Death have been Greatly Exaggerated

By: I wonder how the software channel is coping with the crisis | Avangate Blog - Software Business Blog

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:03:34 +0000

[...] to produce something different, not just a boring ad… but rather à la @Neil Davidson in his interruption marketing post. Well, we didn’t quite match Napoleon & the Hemorrhoids, nevertheless we did come up with [...]

By: Neil Davidson

Neil Davidson — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:10:14 +0000

Seth,

Thank you for the reply! Both, of course, very good points.

- Neil

By: Stewart Rogers

Stewart Rogers — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:31:38 +0000

While I agree that interruption marketing is the preferred route, it cannot be the only strategy. The goal should be opt-in email lists, web ads based on search results, RSS feeds and many other clever approaches. The reality is that I don’t visit the Coke website, nor am I on an email distribution list or read any Coke blogs… I do however get flogged with Coke Zero placements way too often (probably more times than I can count). How else would I know that it taste great and is zero calories?

re: The Air New Zealand advert… perhaps a marketing person gets it… but most (all!) people (especially cat people) are not zipping home to book a trip to New Zealand based on that board.

By: Bob Cramblitt

Bob Cramblitt — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:26:34 +0000

Good reminder, Neil. In every form of communication, whether conversation or interruption, we need to make people laugh, think, empathize or join. If you can do that well and consistently — if you can delight — the delivery mechanism doesn’t matter.

By: Jason Cohen

Jason Cohen — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:56:58 +0000

I’m not sure people ever “want to be interrupted” in the active sense. That is, take a poll of people asking if they “want” to see a commercial in their TV show and most say “no.”

In these examples, perhaps it’s not interruption at all. The Charmin’ example isn’t interruption — it’s solving a pain. The Napoleon example is (mostly) entertainment rather than a pitch.

I agree that people who say “advertising is dead” have it wrong, and most traditional advertising is probably not worth the return on investment as Seth points out.

I love your main message: That you have to be interesting, and that advertising that’s interesting is still interesting, even today. Also I share your annoyance at the blanket “old marketing is dead, long live new marketing” statements that dominate nowadays.

Thanks for a great post!

By: Seth Godin

Seth Godin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:11:38 +0000

Thanks Neil

good post. Two comments.

1. You wrote: Interrupt people when they want to be interrupted. I’d argue that if you want to be interrupted, it’s not spam, it’s a form of permission.

and

2. The problem with the clever billboards and such you mentioned i s that they don’t pay for themselves the way they used to. If they did, the New Zealand tourist board would run millions of them. Media costs are based on an old level of attention, one that has plummeted.