One size does not fit all

A picture of lots of shoes (lame metaphor)

A while back, the excellent Ad Contrarian wrote this great post The End Of The World, which got us to thinking why do people in the advertising business persist in jumping, lemming-like, onto a new way of thinking or idea, exclaiming "Everything's all about this now!"?

Every year there seems to be some new thing that is going to be THE big thing forever - that everyone needs to put their marketing money into right now and for ever more or risk withering away like a withery thing.

Here is a, by no means exhaustive, list of Things that were going to be the next big thing forever that we can remember over here in the UK the last few years...

Guerrilla Marketing
Experiential Marketing
Social Networks
User generated content
Branded content
The Red button
Buzz Marketing

Also, it's now apparent that I've written this list that these all have stupid, bullshitty names, no doubt coined to make them sound modern and scientific.
But at one point or another, marketers were being told that they should shove all their money into each of these. How silly.

Currently doing the rounds are two NEW! things - 1. Digital is going to make everything else defunct, 2. That advertising is now all about entertaining, or 'emotional messages' rather than any kind of rational product message.

Honestly, do none of you people out there feel even the slightest bit stupid?

When will people realise that there will always be lots of different ways of solving lots of very different problems for clients. That new things and new thinking is great, but it doesn't mean that all old things are now wrong. That trying to fit every client and every problem into one way of thinking, or one media channel, is incredibly stupid.