New thinking from the old school

Some smart thinking this week from people that might be deemed old school by some.

First JWT have announced  a relaunch with a new logo and a creative partnership contract that all their 8000 people will have to sign. Its first words are;

"We passionately believe advertising has a future but only if we stop interrupting what people are interested in and BE what people are interested in."

Thanks to James for bringing this to our attention.

The Don of US media thinking Erwin Ephron writes about the Uninvited;

"Today half of prime time viewers opt out. They are willing to switch channels to avoid being detained by a parade of commercial messages.Today inattention and commercial avoidance, PVR’s and TiVo are raising serious questions about the future viability of ad supported TV and Radio."

The whole article is well worth reading.

And this week Proctor & Gamble announced a mobile phone game as part of their marketing for Head & Shoulders in France. Actually P&G are really active in new marketing; they're big players on the web, they have done lots of experimenting with interactive TV and with Tremor, they are writing the book on word of mouth as a marketing tool.

We're reassured that so many smart people recognise the issues with traditional marketing - yet other than P&G are actually matching words with action. That has to change.