Here’s the thing: In marketing, part of winning is understanding your competitors’ weaknesses. Some marketers spend time shooting arrows. Others focus on building and presenting strengths — a less overt negative focus. When I worked at a big NY ad shop with mondo-million dollar budgets, if the client wanted to do a formal acquisition program and use our direct arm, the agency begrudgingly agreed and teamed it up. It wasn’t quite Yankees and Mets — more like Mets and Binghamton Bisons (the farm team.)
As we saunter forth into the digital world we’re seeing more marketing silos grow daily. The silos will come down but it will take a while and a good deal of wealth redistribution in the meantime. Just as media was once siloed (print, TV, radio, OOH) and now better integrated, online and offline will come from one house. Smart business people recognize this and are trying it out. Ouch, they say, as the arrows hit them. Other smart business people are going negative, protecting their silos and they’re making money, if not friends. The web is often about removing boundaries. The sooner siloed ad, digital, direct and PR shops get on board, the sooner client market ROI and ROS (return on strategy) will hockey stick and change will really occur. Peace!