You have probably heard all the noise around the importance of
building 'engagement'. In fact, regardless of who you have spoken
and what you have read, this strange word has probably been
difficult to avoid.
The rise (and concomitant confusion) about social media and
digital technology have contributed to its pervasiveness - combined
with a popular (mis)perception of the rapid decline in
effectiveness of the 'old' interruption model of advertising, and a
fundamental confusion about how brands grow. All of a sudden, we
seem to have a new metric with which to benchmark our activities -
and a new temple at which to worship; engagement, not
sales, is how we define success!
However, at GSG, we don't quite believe the fundamental tenets
of marketing are dead just yet. And perhaps the natural hype
surrounding the 'new' can sometimes cloud the truth.
So here we refer you to a well-researched, well-referenced
(!), and well-written exposition on the topic. Written by Martin
Weigel from Wieden + Kennedy (
http://www.wkamst.com/) in
Amsterdam, we think his description says it best:
It really is time to call bullshit on 'engagement'.
Better, to bundle it into a coffin labelled 'Agency Puffery' and
put a nail firmly in it once and for all.
So here for starters, are 9 bad habits of engagement
thinking:
- Assuming engagement is a metric
- Claiming 'engagement' is something entirely
new
- Failing to recognise 'engagement' is an intermediate
measure
- Assuming that interruption is dead
- Assuming that more 'engagement' is the route to more
loyalty
- Overestimating people's appetite for
participation
- Treating 'engagement' as if it had intrinsic
value
- Assuming that people care deeply about brands
- Staring down the wrong end of the telescope
With each point explored in detail, it is a sometimes brutal -
and yet fact-based - dismantling of the fuzzy thinking behind the
newest marketing metric of note. We highly recommend reading
it: