Rebirth of advertising: Kris Hoet at TEDxLiege
The speaker argues that advertising needs a rebirth by shifting its focus from being an intrusive interruption to an enabler of stories, which must start by linking back to the core product's function. This shift requires businesses to embrace a systems-level transformation that incorporates both product excellence and social currency, resisting the urge to control unpredictable consumer networks. The speaker recommends planning for the unknown rather than creating static, long-term campaigns. ## Speakers & Context - Presenter (Role not specified) — presenting a theory on advertising. - Audience — people interested in advertising. - Setting, occasion of the talk — Presentation titled "The Rebirth of advertising." - Speaker's initial framing — To convince the audience that advertising can be reborn and is interesting; plans to show no advertising during the presentation. - Geographical Focus — Belgium is suggested as a location "on the verge, or we will be a big significant part of where this rebirth of advertisement will come from." ## Theses & Positions - Advertising can be reborn; it is "actually pretty interesting." - Advertising's core function should be "enabling stories to be told," encompassing brand, product, or consumer stories. - The fundamental shift requires that communication must be inherently linked to what the product actually does, rather than being a layer on top. - The best businesses are those "rethinking the whole system, the whole product, the whole business all together," not just improving communication. - The approach must prioritize "Social Currency"—content designed to trigger people to talk about it—over direct storytelling control. - Planning must pivot from fixed timelines (e.g., 6 months or 3 years) to planning for the unknown. - Treating advertising as an interruption is a failing mindset that prevents the industry from realizing its potential. ## Concepts & Definitions - **Advertising (Speaker's Definition):** "About enabling stories to be told, whether it is brand stories, product stories, consumers stories." - **Brand's Purpose:** Answering the question, "How is it going to make my life better?" - **Storytelling:** A traditional, more one-way form of advertising where brands tell the narrative. - **Social Currency:** A newer advertising mechanism defined as "let's do something that we hope will trigger people to talk about it," emphasizing a need for "no control." - **Organic Reach:** The metric showing reach from all Facebook pages, measured over the last 6 months, which has decreased from 12% (6 months ago) to 6% (now) for average pages. ## Mechanisms & Processes - **Early Commerce:** Producers and consumers traded with each other; consumers were for each other. - **Business Growth Impact:** Business growth made it increasingly difficult for consumers to complain or ask questions of a business. - **Advertising Corruption:** The relationship was twisted such that departments creating stories had "no connection with the people who actually made the product." - **Consumer Circumvention:** People created technology to consume content "as if there were no advertising in there," citing recording, skipping, or downloading content. - **Consumer Networking:** People with similar interests/requests find each other via the Internet, scaling up "in a very different way than businesses would." - **Business Innovation Barrier:** Large businesses possess an "immune system" that naturally resists innovation. - **Hero-Brand Exercise:** An exercise used to determine "what a brand's game is," which is interpreted as the brand's role in society or purpose. - **Data Analysis:** Analyzing available consumer data day-by-day allows for superior insights (e.g., Amazon's potential coffee launch success). ## Timeline & Events - **Long Ago:** Shops and consumers were similar, operating on direct trade between producers. - **Historical Shift:** The relationship between businesses and consumers changed as businesses grew in power. - **Super Bowl Comparison:** Comparing the number of tweets during the actual 5-hour Super Bowl to the total number of tweets overall showed massive differences. - **Amazon Hypothetical:** A prediction that Amazon launching a coffee industry would initially fail for 6 to 12 months before succeeding. ## Named Entities - **Cannes Lions:** International advertising festival awarding best cases in creative or innovative advertising globally. - **Google:** Company that derives revenue primarily from search advertising; its goal is to organize all world information for use and improvement. - **Nike:** Brand built on the belief that all people can achieve greatness. - **Duval Guillaume:** Organization that created the "hero-brand" exercise 18 years ago. ## Tools, Tech & Products - **Nike+:** A product developed by an advertising agency that specifically addresses the need for networking and value creation among consumers. - **Android:** Example of a product embodying the principle of "Build to evolve." - **Facebook:** Platform used to show declining organic reach metrics. - **Skype:** Cited as an example of technology not invented by a large telecommunication company. - **Spotify:** Cited as an example of technology not invented by a large player in the music industry. ## Numbers & Data - **18 years ago:** Time when Duval Guillaume founded the "hero-brand" exercise. - **12%:** Average organic reach from all Facebook pages 6 months ago. - **6%:** Current average organic reach for a Facebook page. - **4% to 2%:** Decline range for a large Facebook page (over half a million fans). - **5 hours:** Duration of the Super Bowl event for comparative data. - **6 to 12 months:** Predicted time frame for Amazon to potentially succeed after initial struggles. ## Examples & Cases - **Corner Shop Experience:** Shop owner remembering a customer and keeping a desired magazine issue aside for them. - **Telephone Company Example:** Illustrating difficulty reaching a big company via numbered dialing sequences (e.g., dial 1, then 5, then 7, returning to the start). - **KLM Advertisement:** Example post showing the Eiffel Tower with the question, "Which city this is?" - **Google's Function:** Organizing all world information for users and improving its capability. - **Nike's Belief:** Strong belief that all people can find greatness and improve themselves. - **Amazon Coffee Industry:** Hypothetical case demonstrating future success driven by accumulated data. - **Steve Jobs Quote:** "Design is how it works, not what it looks like." - **Android:** Example of evolving product design over time. - **Super Bowl Tweet Comparison:** Comparing tweets during the 5-hour show to overall tweet volume. ## Trade-offs & Alternatives - **Old Commerce Model:** Direct exchange where shops and consumers were similar producers/exchangers. - **Modern Advertising:** Moving from purely manipulative noise to enabling genuine narratives. - **Storytelling vs. Social Currency:** The trade-off between controlled messaging (telling a story) and unpredictable user-generated buzz (triggering conversation). - **"Build to last" vs. "Build to evolve":** The strategy choice between creating static, durable products versus adaptable, evolving ones. - **Crowdsourcing vs. Listening:** The alternative to asking 1,000 people for ideas; instead, listening to actual consumer data. ## Counterarguments & Caveats - The presentation is not intended to be a lecture. - Short-term solutions for advertising involved creating technology to skip or record ads. - The decline in Facebook's organic reach is attributed both to Facebook's pursuit of ad revenue and consumer attempts to control content. - The system will break if advertisers try to control what is uncontrollable. - A digital transformation in communication alone is insufficient; the change must affect the entire business structure. - The speaker rejects the premise of crowdsourcing as a viable idea generator. ## Methodology - Analyzing historical changes in consumer-business relationships. - Using the Cannes Lions per capita metrics mapped against national size to gauge relative performance. - Analyzing consumer behavior data (e.g., Facebook organic reach trends). - Examining index scores (Dow Jones Index vs. design index) to prove design's value in value creation. - Comparing event data (Super Bowl tweets) to highlight scale differences in communication. ## References Cited - **Cannes Lions:** Used for comparative analysis of advertising performance. - **Steve Jobs:** Source for the quote: "Design is how it works, not what it looks like." - **Android:** Used as an example proving the "Build to evolve" strategy is superior to "build to last." ## Conclusions & Recommendations - Advertising must start with the product, fulfilling the brand's purpose, and this must be structurally integrated into the organization. - Brands need a clear social vision for how they aim to improve society to make advertising easier. - Campaigns must be designed to be open and flexible, allowing for evolution rather than locking into a fixed message. - The strategy must incorporate both structured storytelling and unstructured social currency to drive relevance. - Always plan for the unknown while maintaining a clear purpose and target audience. ## Implications & Consequences - Continual viewing of advertising as an "annoying thing that comes in between" the consumer experience is detrimental to the industry's evolution. - Companies that successfully rethink the entire system (product, business, communication) will be the leaders. - Adopting a product-first mindset—where communication supports the inherent product value—is key to overcoming market saturation. ## Open Questions - The precise methodology to define the "perfect" balance point between brand purpose, product utility, and story delivery. ## Verbatim Moments - *"The Rebirth of advertising."* - *"I'm hopefully going to convince you that it is actually worth looking at advertising as something that can be reborn, and that it's actually pretty interesting."* - *"this flat country of mine."* - *"If you go back long enough, we would actually be the same. We'd all be producing things that we would use to trade with somebody else who would make something else."* - *"You know, that magazine that you like, it's just coming in."* - *"it takes you a bit of time to find a telephone number, only then to land on a number where you have to dial 1, and then 5, and then 7, and then it looks like you end up at the start again."* - *"The relationship became such that because of the power of advertising and the size of the business, these became several departments, and the people who came up with the story saying: 'This is what our product is good for,' have no connection with the people who actually made the product."* - *"design is how it works, not what it looks like."* - *"Build to evolve" instead of "build to last."* - *"We've got to plan for the unknown."*