I guess the ad agencies are in need of another round of concept reinvention to invigorate client spending. Thus, Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, appeared on CNBC this morning, touting his agency's latest technology, "LoveMarks."
As an aside, is it my imagination, or are ad agency heads who hope to be viewed as super-creative typically bald? I've nothing against bald men, but it does seem sort of iconic, does it not? Roberts put me in mind of Jerry Dela Famina when I saw him on CNBC this morning.
According to Roberts, this new concept is beyond product, beyond branding. It focuses on measuring and establishing emotional connections between products or services, and their customers. As described on their website, LoveMarks possess "mystery, sensuality, and intimacy."
Over the years, listening to many CEOs, I've learned to reserve conferring credibility on senior executives, until they either make sense, perform unequivocally well, or give themselves away as being delusional.
As I listened to Roberts describe McDonalds, I knew he was wrong, and pursuing the delusional path.
First, his throwaway comment that you won't find the "LoveMark" ideas at the B-schools like Wharton, Stanford, et al, is entirely wrong.
The highly-regarded marketing Professor from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, Jerry Wind, was teaching this concept in 1978. I know- I was in his classes, one of his PhD candidates, and one of his teaching assistants.
Sorry Kevin- your ego seems to have totally eclipsed any awareness you may have of the marketing field, absent your own genius.
Second, his characterization of what people want from products, brands, is, I think, at best, representative or characteristic of a tiny slice of consumers. It sounds like one of the (now defunct) Concorde set opining on what his seatmates want in high-end luxury products and services.
The broad masses of consumer goods buyers, however, live very different lives. Products don't always work, they aren't bought exclusively for the lifestyle image, as they are for sheer problem solution.
Listening to him extol McDonalds as an example of a LoveMark brought laughter from me. Roberts claimed that the brand is really about fun and family experiences, not fries, burgers or soft drinks.
Wrong again. First, my daughters won't even set foot in a McDonalds. They judge the fries as inferior to Burger King's. Same with the burgers- it's flame broiled for my brood.
When we travel, we tend to prefer Burger King, but mostly for their superior fast food salads.
I imagine that Roberts and his minions are having another go at the ad agency world's version of the "wheel of retailing." Every few years, one agency develops a 'new' concept, and most of the others soon follow on.
As I recall, the last major concept was integration. Saatchi merged its way to unsustainable size, only to find that clients didn't actually want to share ad agencies with their competitors. And they didn't really trust one global agency with all of their local work, either.
I'd guess LoveMarks is something similar. If Roberts can persuade a few Fortune 500 CEOs with his pitch, it's worth a few major accounts. And, from the sound of it, the package will probably include very involved customer surveys, creative sessions, etc. Should bring tons of billable hours.
Trouble is, as I learned from Jerry Wind those many years ago, not every segmentation scheme, nor product/service differentiator, is applicable to every product/market. Here's an example- do you think there's as much mystery and sensuality in buying dog food and your SO/wife's jewelry? Do you want to explain this to her? I thought not.
These dimensions either limit the concept to products and services which tend toward ego-involving purchases and usage, or they are rendered fairly meaningless as they are applied to items as insignificant as the toothpicks I buy.
Of course, being me, I have to ask.....do "LoveMark" products exhibit consistently superior total returns in the marketplace of investors? If not, or if this can't be measured, then I'm sceptical (hey, it's my blog title) that this concept contains much in the way of new, useful insights into consumer behaviors and corresponding business management.
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