Bidding on rival brand names consigned to Marketing Week’s Room 101
Marketing Week readers have voted to put marketing bullshit, the misuse of awareness as a metric and bidding on other brand names as a search term into Room 101.
Personalisation versus the misuse of awareness as a metric. Bidding on other brand names as a search term, versus double jeopardy. Marketing bullshit versus brand purpose. In the first episode of a new series, three marketing heavyweights put forward their cases for what should be banished to Marketing Week’s Room 101 and then it was over to Marketing Week readers to vote.
Grace Kite, managing director of Magic Numbers put forward the case for an end to bidding on rival brand names as a search term. As well as being “immoral”, she said it is responsible for a “massive waste of advertising money”.
Her second nomination was the marketing law of double jeopardy, which she said is “demoralising” for small businesses and bad for the economy.
With 86% of the vote, bidding on other brand names as a search term got most people’s backs up and has been consigned to Marketing Week’s Room 101.
Peter Weinberg, head of development at LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, nominated personalisation, which he described as the “worst idea in the history of the marketing industry”, and the misuse of awareness as a metric. “People think of awareness in a very generic, one-dimensional way,” he said, which is unhelpful.
It was a close run battle, but the misuse of awareness as a metric has been banished.
Meanwhile, David Wheldon, the former CMO of RBS, put forward brand purpose, which he believes leads many brand managers down a “rabbit hole of ridiculousness”. However, it was his nomination for “marketing bullshit” that ultimately won people’s votes.
“When you write documents why don’t you reread them and see if you would understand them if you take your jargon hat off?” he urged.
For another chance to watch the show, and hear Kite, Weinberg and Wheldon’s rationales, watch the first episode below.
The next episode of Marketing Week’s Room 101 will be happening live at the Festival of Marketing later this week. Festival of Marketing: Transform takes place on 23 to 25 March at The QEII Centre in London and online. There are a number of ticket options. Visit the website for more details and to book your place.
