The advertising revolution will not be televised anymore. Smart minds, smart mouths, smart phones, smart thumbs, and smart messaging are the essence of the New School multi-screen scene. The revolution will be devised by advertisers who can act like rappers, and crack stats like mathematicians.

1. A E S T R O
Market
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Jonathan (Bilal)
A.J. Wilson
Academic Programme
Director, Postgraduate
suite in Marketing
University of Greenwich,
London UK
Editor: Journal of Islamic
Marketing
The advertising revolution will not be
televised anymore
“The advertising revolution will not be televised
anymore. Smart minds, smart mouths, smart
phones, smart thumbs, and smart messaging
are the essence of the New School multi-
screen scene. The revolution will be devised
by advertisers who can act like rappers, and
crack stats like mathematicians. The mission:
being hip to the pop, enticing consumers with
concision, and dropping the right zeitgeist.
Learn the art of science, and chart the science
of art - engineer unconscious compliance and
avoid consumer defiance.”
I decided to loosen the tie, kick back and write something with the swagger I used to rock in the 90’s, when I
wasn’t writing MBA assignments - but was working for DMA Design/Rockstar Games on the video game Grand
Theft Auto, thumping my bass guitar, and busting mics on tour. If you wanna get your marketing on fleek, then
why not drop in a touch of hip poetic pop-speak? While you read my piece, fire up YouTube and listen to the
1970’s Gil Scott-Heron song:‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’. Plug-in and bug out!
The Old School Dinosaurs
Traditional approaches to Consumer behaviour
study individuals’:
• Thoughts (rational)
• Feelings (emotional)
• Actions (behavioural).
Customer segments are classified according to:
• Demographics
• Geographics
• Psychographics
• Behaviourals.
The role of advertising is to elicit a favourable
response to a message and enhance desired traits.
Science fiction is fact
Whilst there’s more competition and noise than
ever before, the potential to track, engineer consent
and verify effectiveness has increased.
What seemed like science fiction in Steven Spiel-
berg’s 2002 Minority Report film is now science
fact. Remember those scenes of consumers walking
through malls with personalised real-time messages
and triggers. Also, like Tom Cruise’s character,
we’re looking to plug those gaps and report on the
minority scenarios – that make or break consumer
engagement.
Whilst globalisation has homogenised certain
consumption patterns, consumer segments still
hold onto nuanced cultural traits that present expo-
nential opportunities if understood, or deal breakers
if overlooked.
Globalisation has pulled minority traits into the
mainstream, diversity is a reality for the majority.
For example if we take ethnicity, it’s no longer skin
deep, or merely a demographic trait. In today’s
markets, ethnicity is more about a state of mind and
identifying a shared set of cultural values, which
permeate other traits - linked to geographic, psycho-
graphic and behavioural segmentation criteria.
New School Cats
And the marketer-consumer relationship has
changed. Consumers are more savvy and sceptical
of traditional advertising approaches – acquies-
cence of that which interrupts their experience.
This is pulling everyone towards the age of user-
generated content – content that consumers know
how to sniff out nonsense. Citizen journalism;
co-creation; increased desire for personalised
messages; impressing your peers with pimped-
out personalised product and service offerings –
offering the initiated a hand in the land of personal
branding.

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3. A E S T R O
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It would be a mistake to assume that this means
shouting louder. Just like in the story of Goldilocks,
there has to be a ‘just right’. Right place, right time,
and right dose.
It’s about creating a level sophistication, subtlety
and secret signalling - to avoid wearing out and
advertising alienation. Advertising dinosaurs rub
their sores as vloggers soar in popularity - steering
peers with their interactivity and matter-of-fact
congeniality.
Start to preach, and they zone out or reach for
another screen. The television, tablet, smartphone
and laptop are on standby – dry advertising eye-
candy can stand by as consumers’ eyes try and
dodge the bland in search for what’s on-demand.
The invasive has to make way for the immersive
– we’re going native. Advertising keyhole surgery.
Have you got game?
Old School Marketing and Communications was
about broadcasting and staying ‘on topic’. Now it’s
about sharing information and insight, in any field,
and claiming that space.
Think of it like this: before marketers were
archers, firing arrows towards targets – praying that
they pinned down their prey. Big game hunting is
so passé – you can’t make that play. Stop bawling,
get in the lane, bring your A-game and call on the
ballers. Now we’re playing basketball, volleyball
or squash. It takes several moves, deflections, and
willing opponents if you want to win points, and
hopefully the game, set and match. These passes,
reactions, deflections, hits and rallies are important.
Hello immersive advertising.
Get in the groove and think about how much
more fun and engaging the game is when there is
a rally. Sure, you sweat more, but you learn more,
grow stronger, and it draws in the crowds. People
remember those rallies and they become the theatre
where people get to show their personalities and
emotions more. Advertising has to be immersive
and experience-driven. Brands are those anchors
and punctuation for advertising signals. Together,
their language and narrative needs to ooze charisma,
cool, authenticity and cultural zeitgeists.
Brands are discovered
Brands are the memes that convey and signal,
salience and relevance. They are meaning creators,
language shapers, and game changers.
This is the age of play and seduction. Brands that
are discovered elicit euphoria and a pull to share.
Amongst all of this we have to uncover what
conscious, unconscious, implicit, explicit and tacit
factors really make people tick?
These bonds are dynamic, contextual, perishable,
nuanced, and as fluid as quicksilver. But can you
deliver that silver bullet?
The Buzz – taking pollen
and turning it into honey
Surfing a trend is cool, but business cats want
fishes. Advertising is your rod and marketing
oxygen, but fishes live longer if you put them back
in the water. Us cats need to get in, swim, and
oughta avoid polluting the water. Your brand is the
bait. Brand building is about fishing: landing clans
that can execute your strategic plan - the story-
telling, associating and linking your identity within
networks and communities; and then allowing
people to respond.
So hold up: maybe we should be like bees? The
advertising buzz is about taking pollen and turning
it into honey. That’s where the money is, honey.
Live hives where we change lives and don’t just
jump to trick chumps into best buys based upon
celebrity lies.
If advertising is to resonate and deliver salience,
then it has to absorb, collate and rank a series of
variables and deliver native, authentic, and cultur-
ally centric content.
Establish a hierarchy and consumer decision-
making tree, then map this alongside real-time
experiences and events, to allow a form of cultural
osmosis to occur. Cut through the blur, rub up the
static - and test that posit with Socratic questions
which embrace fuzzy-logic.
Blend deductive and inductive methods, attempt
intuitive trial closes and capture real human experi-
ences and new data points. From this, watch out for
the switch - behavioural change can be identified
and worked on, so that new touch-points, pleasure-
centres, and pathways can be created.
Understanding and identifying response are often
the end goal of most campaigns – but is this the
same as insight? This is only the beginning. My
approach advocates the concept of surrogacy. Just
like the adoption of a new family member as your
own, or the grafting of two different species of
plants together – take these analogies as the genesis
for some new thinking.
“The end goal is to create an ecosystem where
brands and consumers form strong bonds of
association, where each embrace adoption with
meaning; and there is a culture of both seeking to
adopt and being adopted.”
The advertising revolution will not be televised
anymore. We saw advertising dinosaurs paw over
television audiences: no more my brothers and
sisters - they’re stone cold bored, and we’re getting
ignored. It’s time for smart minds, smart mouths,
smart phones, smart thumbs, and smart messaging.
Keep them guessing and they’ll push the button -
this is the age of play and seduction.