People Don’t Get Behind Conversations, They Get Behind Powerful Ideas

In reading so many thought pieces, white papers, blog posts and Tweets about our industry, it can quickly become a thick white noise in which only the most cliched catchphrases and pseudo-philosophical axioms shine through with irritable frequency.

One of the current trends being hacked to death in Top 10 lists across the web is to say that we’re not in the business of building campaigns, but of fostering conversations within communities.

This kind of talk of mutual exclusivity is very catchy for headlines, but really demonstrates how feeble some “thought leaders” in this field are, who seem all too eager in shifting their responsibility for building effective campaigns to the “crowd” that will apparently solve all woes.

Some would have us believe that on one side we have the bourbon-swigging cast of Mad Men, sealed off from reality in their Madison Avenue skyscrapers, producing campaigns that don’t listen to the public.