Q&A: Bob Garfield on the future of marketing and ‘masturbating thieves’

A columnist, critic, host, writer, analyst and panelist, Bob Garfield is an advertising legend who has written for publications including The Washington Post, The Guardian, the New York Times, CBS, CNBC, Sports Illustrated, Wired and Playboy.

Garfield has been a columnist and critic for Advertising Age for 25 years. For the last 10 years, he has co-hosted National Public Radio’s radio program, On the Media, as well appearing on various advertising panels in 31 countries on five continents.

Over the past decade, he has chronicled the digital revolution, culminating in his 2009 book, The Chaos Scenario. His previous book, the 2003 manifesto on advertising And Now a Few Words from Me, has been published in eight languages.

Memeburn caught up with Garfield in a quick fire interview to hear his thoughts about the world of marketing. Garfield expresses the belief that “the ongoing collapse of mass media” has led public relations becoming “vastly more important than ever before” and “harder to do”.

Garfield will take to the ring at The Digital Edge Live an event, which bills itself as “the ultimate showdown in digital marketing”.

Memeburn: Media websites generally have ten times the readership of print, yet a tenth of the revenue. We’re more than ten years on, why is this still the case?

Bob Garfield: A simple matter of supply and demand. In a world of infinite content, and therefore infinite ad inventory, the value of the advertising will be pushed inexorably downward. This will not get better. It will get worse.

MB: Is the online advertising revenue model broken?

BG: You can’t break what was never intact. The supply-and-demand problem is and always has been structural. Then there is the second structural fact: Given the opportunity to avoid advertising, people always will. That’s why the click-through-rate is below one percent.

MB: What are some of the roles that marketing and advertising plays in a mobile and app driven environment?

BG: Location is the obvious killer dimension, but there can be but a few winners.

MB: What’s the biggest travesty in the advertising industry today?

BG: Oh my god, where does one begin? We are discussing a world of travesty. But I suppose you could start with ongoing structural conflict of interest.

MB: How does social media affect the practice of public relations, when everyone has an opinion and mechanisms to spread it?

BG: With the ongoing collapse of mass media, PR is now vastly more important than ever before. With the ongoing collapse of mass media, PR is vastly harder to do.

MB: Does advertising belong in the social media world?

BG: Barely. Advertising will not disappear. It will play a steadily diminishing role in the marketing ecosystem.

MB: Is advertising on social media platforms a bit overhyped?

BG: Yes.

MB: What do you say to clients and marketers who are aiming at winning awards for creativity and not for moving product?

BG: I’d say what I’d say to any masturbating thief: Does your mom know what you do for a living?

MB: What is the biggest marketing challenge facing business today and how do we navigate it?

BG: How to shift from the old mass-media structures to micro-media structure.

MB: In an ideal situation, what should the spend split between digital and offline marketing be? (50/50, 70/30, etc) And how realistic a target is that split?

BG: I don’t think there is any general answer to this question.

MB: Where is the connected world going to take marketing in your opinion?

BG: It is going to take us to a place where accruing good relationships is everything. Mass selling via advertising in mass media was great while it lasted — for about 300 years. But that’s all but over.

MB: What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using mobile coupons and vouchers as a marketing tool?

BG: The advantage is traffic and trial. The disadvantage, like all couponing, is that it by definition attracts the least loyal consumers.

MB: Because online advertising is so segmented and targeted, do you think marketers are getting lazy with their creative executions because half the battle is won, or is the art being replaced by a far less creative science?

BG: I think creativity in terms of writing and art direction has become increasingly irrelevant. The creativity belongs in working in a world increasingly without scale.

MB: Recent stats from Flurry.com state that in-app mobile ad spend will surpass online ad spend by the end of this year, do you agree?

BG: Could be. Surely this will happen soon.

MB: What are some of the most successful mobile marketing campaigns that have come out this year?

BG: Dunno

MB: What are your predictions for online advertising in the next couple of years?

BG: Lots of money thrown at mobile. Lots of money squandered. Lots of hope. Lots of disappointment. Lots of fraud. Lots of hiring and firing. Lots of learning. Lots of despair.

*Questions contributed by Graeme Lipschitz and Jonathan Houston

Image credit: New Hampshire Public Radio