One of my favorite things to do in presentations about mobile and the future of marketing is to replay the scene above from the movie Minority Report (play above), in which Tom Cruise walks through a subway station and is bombarded with personalized 3-D ad units that scan his pupils and attempt to entice him to buy one of many products. Director Steven Spielberg actually got help from the MIT Media Lab to come up with the advertising concepts used in the movie. The movie was set in 2054, but here, today, aggressive companies want to make it a reality now. They dream of a world where our mobile devices are alerted to coupons, deals, and promotions as we walk by store fronts. Last week AT&T showed off such a mobile couponing concept at its Tech Showcase. But here’s the reality for today and tomorrow: These ideas will fail completely.

At the link below you can see a very short video of the AT&T concept, which is consistent with an idea that dozens of futurists, entrepreneurs, and big marketers hope will come true one day:

Next time you hear someone claim that this is the future of advertising, kindly beg to differ. The big problem with this concept is that people don’t like to be interrupted by advertising! I know, I know; it’s hard for us lifelong marketers to deal with, but it is absolutely true. To put this in perspective, let’s imagine that you could give out your home phone number to any number of marketers, and when these marketers have a “great deal” for you, they could call your home phone and speak to you when you answer, or leave you a voice mail message. Sounds great, right? Not really. In fact, more than 76% of Americans have registered their home phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, which shows two problems with this future scenario.

First, the telephone is a very personal tool that people are extremely protective of. We look at the phone as our window to the world, our way of communicating with the people who we want to talk to. We own our phones and our numbers; we even pay to keep these numbers by moving them from phone to phone and address to address. It is literally a lifeline in some cases. When Congress overwhelmingly passed the Do Not Call Registry legislation, they established the fact that a telephone line is something that the homeowner “owns,” rather than a public space such as the street in front of your house. And this and other laws have ingrained the “right to phone control” in people’s lives.

The second major issue is the fact that when we let marketers start sending “valuable” messages, it’s highly likely to be completely irrelevant and annoying. Let’s use email as the analogy in this case. Soon after marketers gained the ability to send email to customers and prospects, they discovered that they could reach many, many people at the push of a button and at near zero cost. When you have freedom to advertise at no cost, the result is unbridled junk. And despite great data about the value of personalization, most marketers are lazy and would rather just spam millions and hope that some small percentage opens the email and buys a product. And I’m talking about big, reputable marketers here, not just the common spammers.

Doubt me? Well, take a read of my post on how Banana Republic is sending me emails about women’s boots. In this Minority Report world, why would Banana Republic do anything differently? In this AT&T future, when I walk by its store in the mall they will send me the same irrelevant offers that they’re sending me now. And it will take only a handful of these lazy, valueless messages before I unsubscribe to this entire mobile marketing app or end my contract with whatever mobile service is pushing it on me. And even if they do something personalized (say for men’s shirts), the chances that I will be in the mood to stop in the store when I am going about my life and trying to get things done is extremely small. Sure, one walk by out of 100 might find me in the buying mood, but that means 99 messages will simply annoy me.

This brings me to some of the special reasons that mobile is the last place such a service could succeed. The mobile phone is even more personal and private, and people are scared to death that it will be taken over by marketers. A few data points from recent studies by ACNielsen:

• Mobile marketing was judged to be the “least trusted” form of advertising by consumers in 47 countries.
• Only 10% of people responded to ads in a test.
• 67% of people found it unacceptable to have ads on their mobile device.

We consumers really shouldn’t worry about the interruptive mobile future, because it faces two giant barriers. First, the mobile-service providers know that it would be suicide to force such an advertising medium on their customers. Thankfully, we have several choices in which company we go with for service. If any one of them starts spamming, then the move to alternatives would be swift. And there’s just not a ton of money for the AT&Ts of the world to reap from advertising, either. They make $50 to $100 per month on service. But at even a CPM rate of $100 for this “high quality impression,” you would have to hit people with many, many ads for this to earn a few bucks per month.

The second barrier to this future is the highly likely legislation that governments would pass to prevent this from happening. The Do Not Call Registry was the biggest slam-dunk bill passed during George Bush’s eight years. Congress loves to pick on advertisers because their constituents are sick of 3,000 ad interruptions per day, and very few people are going to defend the rights of a group that is respected at about the level of used-car salesmen.

Finally, let’s remember the barrier to all of the greatest ideas in the present and future of marketing: It takes forever for businesses to try something new. People envision a service like this to be a boon to small businesses, but here’s the reality: Small businesses don’t have a lot of marketing dollars, and they are the last to try new marketing. I love how one sandwich place near our office started using Facebook to spread the news of its daily specials. But these are few and far between. Not to mention the fact that they have been using a very, very low-tech way to share offers and promotions with people as they walk by: the sign!

So as much as we marketing geeks think it would be cool to intercept potential customers as they stroll by our stores, this idea is DOA. I think the only possibility for it to work is for services that are completely opt-in. Foursquare is one company that hopes people who have time to kill and want to see some offers will open its app. This is going in the much more meaningful direction, as it means the consumer is choosing to engage. That said, this is an idea on the small side. A store might get one person a week who has the app, logs into the app, sees a special he likes, walks in, and decides to buy.

I’m an enormous believer in the potential for mobile to connect customers and marketers in meaningful ways. But let’s file the Minority Report future somewhere along flying cars and remember to put ourselves in the customers’ mindset first.

A few weeks ago I was having a beer with a friend at a local watering hole, and something caught my eye in the background. It was a YouTube logo that flashed on the screen of the Golden Tee virtual golf video game machine behind our table. Being a passionate meaningful marketer and always on the lookout for a new blog entry, I ran over to the game to check it out. I discovered a very cool add-on to this ever-popular bar game.

One of my personal goals in my job as head of strategy at digital agency Bridge Worldwide is to convince my clients that they don’t necessarily need a “social-media strategy.” Yes, heretical as it might sound, social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are all important and offer great marketing opportunities, but that does not necessitate a specific “strategy.” Rather, we should stick to strong overall marketing strategies, and discover ways in which new social-media tools might fulfill a need or take advantage of an opportunity. A few months ago I made this point here and used an example from New York’s Museum of Modern Art to show how great social-media ideas can deliver on a solid marketing strategy. Let me try that exercise again here in an effort to continue to make my case.

Background

Golden Tee is a coin-operated (i.e., arcade-style) golfing game that was introduced in 1989 . The game is produced by Incredible Technologies, the largest producer of these types of games in the world. Golden Tee is its biggest platform, and there is an update to the game system each year. Just like producers of home sports games such as Madden NFL and Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Golden Tee must add must-have features to its game system each year in order to keep players and bars interested.

Business Objective

Like real-world golf, Golden Tee (GT) is not for everyone. It is played in bars, standing up, with loud music in your ears. It takes some time and skill to master the roller ball used to hit the ball. It also sucks a lot more quarters from your pocket than what casual users are used to. In my personal experience, it normally attracts two or three guys who spend hours at a time on the machine pumping dollars into it.

My assumption would be that the company has a very thin number of customers who are responsible for a vast majority of the playing time. So GT’s business objective is likely something close to: Increase the playing time and occasions among regular customers. This puts more dollars into the machines for GT, and bars love their share of the cut and added drink and food sales, ensuring that they make the move to the annual game upgrade. And it is a business objective that is very easy to measure.

Customer Insights

First, these regular players are very competitive. They spend hours on the game going against close friends, and I’ve seen rampant wagering (often for the next round of brews). There is even a national tournament for GT players. One thing you have to know about competitive players of ANY game is that they love to remember and share the stories of their greatest feats. Basketball players remember their greatest shots. Regular golfers love to talk about their longest drive or first birdie. I will never forget taking the lead for my team at 5 a.m. in the Bourbon Chase run a few weeks ago. That’s the key insight for passionate players of any game or sport. The more we remember and share, the more the game becomes a special part of our lives, and the more we will (pay to) play.

Strategy/Execution

Put these together and the strategy is simple: Find ways to help regular users remember and share their greatest shots. But how do we deliver on this idea? Back in my days of playing at arcades this would be a real head-scratcher. The closest thing I can remember from those days was that Activision had a program in which if you got a certain high score on one of its Atari 2600 games, you could take a photo, develop it, and mail a copy to the company, and months later they would send you a commemorative patch. I still have a towel that I sewed all my patches on somewhere (unless my mom or wife has disposed of it by now).

Here’s where digital and social media come in: They give marketers unprecedented tools that allow them to deliver on strategies in amazingly rich and cost-effective ways. Golden Tee now flags certain “Great Shots” in the game (holes in one, for example) and provides players with a code that they can use to see and save a replay of the shot on their computers back at home. GT uses YouTube, a free, ubiquitous service that allows the company to organize all of its videos and provides players with a way to share them on their personal websites and social-networking profiles. Here’s one completely random example of a Great Shot from a player named “sixfootsixbrad”:

Results

The folks at Golden Tee have not shared results that I can find about the program or how it has affected their sales, but that won’t stop me from trying to measure it. On the Golden Tee YouTube channel, more than 58,000 videos have been uploaded by players. Most videos have anywhere between a handful and 100 views, and the most-viewed one has more than 7,000. My guess would be that there have been at least 1 million collective views of these user-generated videos in the year or so that the tool has been in use. If this is compared to the many other user-generated video contests, it would be at or near the top in terms of total participation and views. Not bad at all.

More evidence of success of the program is seen in the recent upgrade to Golden Tee 2010. Now the game maker has added the ability to update your Facebook status through the game itself.

The Lesson

The folks at Golden Tee might or might not have gone through my specific steps to come up with the idea of integrating with YouTube. However, I would bet a lot of quarters that they also didn’t pay an agency to “come up with a social-media strategy.” The company might very well have simply come up with this idea out of the blue, but it was a deep understanding of their marketing strategy and consumer needs that led them in this direction.

Brand managers don’t need a social-media strategy. They need to understand what social media is and what it can do for brands and their customers. Then, by laying out strong marketing strategies, they might find new and powerful ways to deliver on them.

If you are going to call out the iPhone for its shortcomings, you better bring a great product and the marketing cavalry. Unfortunately, I have to say that while the technology might deliver on the brand promise for Android, the “Droid Does” campaign is not delivering on meaningful marketing quite yet.

As a technologist, I was very excited to see Verizon’s Droid Does campaign surface on television a couple weeks ago. Finally, competition that is so confident about its product that it is directly taking on the iPhone. Though I own an iPhone, I also own a G1—the first release of the Android phone. The first release of the Android phone wasn’t exactly a consumer-ready device. However, with the release of the Droid Does campaign and Android 2.0, I was anticipating some strong competition for Apple, which needs a strong competitor to hasten upgrades to the iPhone. I was assured through the bold statements and the nature of the commercial that this device is ready to deliver.

Then I visited droiddoes.com, the call to action on the television spot. Verizon piqued my interest, I came to its website, and I was fully engaged. I’m the exactly the visitor Verizon wants blogging about the next release of the Android platform. I was hoping for something meaningful. But…

Verizon did not deliver anything meaningful. When I visited the site, there was an email sign-up box, circa 2000, to get updates on availability. DroidDoes.com missed the opportunity to send me wistfully into their purchasing funnel. I committed my time to visiting their site and even signed up for the newsletter, but was underwhelmed from the marketing experience. I wanted to be sold. I wanted something meaningful.  To be competitive in this space, brands must remember that they are trying to attract converts and early adopters. So what might a meaningful effort have looked like in this space?

Provide the opportunity to join a revolution.

The iPhone isn’t simply a phone; it’s a cultural icon. From the headphones on down, it is an absolute status symbol. There are many buyers who want another option—a better option for their specific needs. Help us believe, Verizon. We want to be part of an early-adoption revolution. Allow us to take a blog badge, join a Facebook group, or leave a comment about what I want by joining the Android revolution. As I am writing this post, a tweet came across from Adam Kmiec, “So want a Palm Pre or Pixi. Wish Palm had a program for people to trade in their iphones for a pre/pixi.” We all want options and an alternative to the iPhone; capitalize on it.

Use all of the energy and comments in the social-media space to share features about the Android.

Alternatively, allow iPhone users to download an iPhone app that posts what they want from the Android. Solicit feedback about what people are really looking forward to from the Google product to help build buzz and then share this content out to social networks. The people who are visiting Droid Does are early adopters and converts, but there is not a method to harness their energy to build Android momentum.

Show the anatomy of a “Droid.”

I can easily Google “Android phone” and find video, features, functions, and more content than is delivered on the website. Verizon has an opportunity to show us the latest, greatest, and best of its product offering, yet it has given the responsibility over to other consumers. If we have to rely on other consumers more than the brand itself for product information, then there’s work to do. Again, the company has not delivered a meaningful experience or even (simply) information. At this same time I might recommend that Verizon use the opportunity to clear up why its service is different than T-Mobile’s G-Phone product. Consumers in the United States (unless you are an iPhone user) tend to shop by carrier first, and phone second. This is more FAQ content and does not even really engage the user, but is a step toward being useful, if not meaningful.

To quote Jim Croce, “You don’t step on Superman’s cape.” You are calling Apple into the fight. You are telling the world you are better. If you are better, you have to deliver. Every phase of your plan must be on point, meaningful, and executed to take on a market leader. At some point, the Google phone will make inroads into the Apple iPhone’s world. At minimum, I am expecting some of the market forces to hasten upgrades to the iPhone itself. If you are going to compete with Apple, your products better deliver on the brand promise and start with meaningful marketing experiences.

Marty Boyer is an Associate Director of Technology at Bridge Worldwide. He leads interactive solutions for his P&G brand efforts. Outside of work you will find him engaged in the social-media space, blogging, and in the Twitter-verse.

Last week I wrote a recap about how BlackBerry bombed in its “love” for the band U2. At the end of that post I praised U2 both for putting on a great show and for giving it away for free on YouTube. Today I wanted to share the story of how a band at the other end of the musical spectrum, Phish, continues to draw loyal fans by adding fun experiences to the period leading up to its shows. Phish’s annual Halloween act shows how entertainment properties must keep their act fresh, and I believe there are lessons for any brand in how to be meaningful by just having fun with your fans.

Jessi Link, one of our search stars, clued me into the Phish Halloween experience recently and I was very impressed. Every year the band plays a “festival” in which it is the only band. It usually goes over a few days around Halloween and there is a buildup for very loyal fans around where they will play and what they will play.

For this, the 8th year, Phish decided to have a little more fun with their audience. The band started out by putting up a map of the U.S. and an announcement to “Save the Dates” of October 30 through November 1. On the Phish: Festival 8 website, the band gradually removed states from the map over a series of days to narrow down where they would actually be playing. Of course the removal had to be done in Phish style; for example, some were carried away by ants, others were turned over by Vanna White, and one floated off with a hot-air balloon. You can see one screenshot of the map in progress below. Eventually the state of California was unveiled as well as the specific venue: the Empire Polo Fields in the city of Indio.

But that was not the only suspense around the annual Phish fest. Another Halloween tradition of the band is to play what they call a “musical costume” each year, which is an entire set from another band’s specific album. Past show “costumes” have included The Who’s Quadrophenia and The Beatles White Album. Like the disappearing-states act, Phish put up 100 different albums on a virtual board and gradually “killed” them until there was only one “left alive.” After some teasing around Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Saturday night the band played The Rolling Stones’ 1972 double album, Exile on Main St.

Reports say that around 40,000 fans attended the Phish event Halloween night. Not bad for a band that has played thousands of times and doesn’t have a single major hit record or song. Instead, Phish plays great music for a loyal following, and understands that the more they have fun with their shows and their fans, the more successful they will be.

Over the weekend my wife and I took a break from everyday life to head out to Las Vegas for a long weekend featuring the U2 concert on Friday night. Your dedicated blogger took the opportunity to spend a little time sampling BlackBerry’s enormous sponsorship of the band’s 360 Tour, and what I found is Marketing Without Meaning.

By now you have probably seen BlackBerry’s splashy, sexy TV commercials featuring U2 and the tagline “BlackBerry Loves U2.” The concert arena in Las Vegas had plenty of banners put up (like the above) announcing the brand’s love for the band. BlackBerry reportedly paid up to $150 million for the rights to love U2 in public and brag about it in a massive advertising campaign. Here’s the thing: Who cares if BlackBerry loves U2?

For one thing, let’s take a step back and think about how the tables have completely turned in the sponsorship world. Today, celebrities are in so much demand by desperate brands that they don’t even have to really support the products that pay them! It’s not “U2 loves BlackBerry,” but the other way around. Heck, I love U2 and I didn’t have to pay anything more than $200 for a concert ticket. This reminds me of a raft of other examples that I wrote about a few months ago; for example, the AT&T commercials with TOMS Shoes in which the guy from TOMS never once praises or mentions AT&T.

There are also lots of issues around BlackBerry trying to gain popular acceptance and credibility with a wider audience by borrowing interest. Slate magazine does a great job of hacking away at the brand’s strategy, suggesting that it’s much better off sticking to its positioning as a more serious business tool, rather than trying to become as cool as Apple.

BlackBerry did create one piece of meaningful marketing as part of its U2 tie-in: The U2 Mobile Album, an app for BlackBerry only that includes music, videos, news, and a way to see where other app users are at a concert. It’s interesting but not exactly a news-maker. I believe that it was a mistake to not create the app for the iPhone platform as well as its own. It might seem odd to do something for competing phone owners, but by doing this BlackBerry could show iPhone users that it has cool apps, too, and win over some who are tired of AT&T’s poor service, for example.

It looks like a big waste of money, and the early results suggest this is in fact the case. In parent company Research In Motion’s 2nd quarter financial report in September, sales came in weaker than expected and the company might now have to cut prices.

So now that we’ve established that BlackBerry is pursuing a meaningless path, let’s turn the tables and examine how U2 is fairing from the deal. Financially it’s difficult to argue that this was anything less than genius in the short term. The band pocketed many millions in sponsorship dollars and every ad featuring the band was more free marketing for its music and concerts.

But many seem to believe that U2 is taking a brand equity hit from “selling out” to a brand that doesn’t build the U2 equity. Most of the doubts and complaints come from the band’s technology partnership switch from Apple to BlackBerry. The Apple tie-ins, which helped in the launch of the iPod, felt good on all sides: a great, creative band and a great, creative brand to match. The co-branded U2 iPod was a coup, and Steve Jobs and Bono are buddies; it was a great match. But by switching to BlackBerry, a brand most popular with financial types, felt like U2 was just selling out to the new highest bidder. The lack of anything very interesting and positive for the U2 fans from BlackBerry makes this connection even weaker.

That said, band brand fans are pretty forgiving, and the incredible music and history of the group will likely overcome any short-term dint from this tie-in. I will conclude by adding that I enjoyed how U2 allowed its concert fans to take unlimited pictures, video, and audio of the show. Last year I went to a Bruce Springsteen concert in Cincinnati and the bouncers were pulling camera phones out of people’s hands like they used to pull lit joints away years ago. I’m not sure if this was an official U2 acceptance policy or if we’ve reached a point in society that you just cannot prevent people from pulling out their phones. Either way, it gave me and the other 40,000-plus fans a chance to take away a few visual memories to share with friends.

UPDATE: Over Halloween weekend I turned on my TiVo and saw that I could watch the band’s Rose Bowl show, which took place a few days after the Vegas one.  After walking my kids around the neighborhood for trick-or-treating I settled in and watched this entire show for free on my TiVo thanks to YouTube and U2.  Very, very cool!

In that spirit, check out a few photos that I snapped (with my iPhone) during the show, including one of my wife and me having a blast. Thanks, U2.

Today I want to share the second of two articles that I was asked to write for Entrepreneur magazine. In the first article from a few weeks ago, I explained the Marketing with Meaning concept to the small-business audience.

In this piece, I write about how two brands or businesses can partner up to do more meaningful marketing for their combined audiences. Joint marketing between brands can also reduce costs for both sides, allow for brands to gain the direct attention of new customers, and increase the chance to stand out in a very crowded marketplace.

Although I am writing for the small-business audience in this article, it’s a concept that any business can benefit from today. This is a topic that I also blow out more in my book, and you can check out the article here.

A few weeks ago, one of the most re-tweeted links among us marketing geeks was The Onion’s article claiming “Pepsi to Cease Advertising.” The article is a classic, hilarious piece from the online newspaper equivalent of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, and many of us had a short chuckle and went back to work. But on second thought, maybe this article isn’t so crazy after all….

This week I got to spend some time with Frederic Colas, Chief Strategic Officer for giant European digital agency, FullSIX. We both are former P&G guys who left to take similar roles in digital agencies. We were talking about our concept of Marketing with Meaning, and Frederic brought up this Onion article as something that was suggesting what meaningful marketing is all about: dumping the traditional, interruptive model  and moving all funds to something that consumers actually care about. As Frederic wisely said, “Any good satire has a kernel of truth and believability.”

So what if Pepsi started from scratch on its marketing budget and adopted an entirely new approach? What if it decided that the purpose of its marketing was not to simply remind people that the brand exists, is refreshing, and is something that celebrities love to (get paid to) drink?

What if, instead, the brand chose to put its marketing dollars into something that its consumers choose to engage with, and marketing that itself adds value to people’s lives? Imagine what the company could do to inject joy into people’s lives through marketing, rather than mentally brainwashing them into thinking that a sip of Pepsi will produce said joy. By creating real joy, Pepsi has a much better chance of earning loyalty beyond reason for life. As for where to put these dollars, I envision everything from social gaming to enormous global cause projects.

Pepsi certainly could use something different. Revenue for PepsiCo fell by 1.5% in the most recent quarter, which was worse than analysts expected. Brands such as Gatorade have struggled as the old model of catchy ad campaigns have failed in this new economy with this new consumer. On the other hand, the beverage unit could learn and embed lessons that are coming from its Frito-Lay division, where brands such as Doritos and SunChips are experiencing sales growth and tighter consumer bonds through meaningful marketing.

I wonder what the conversations were in the halls of PepsiCo when this article made the rounds through email. If even a handful of its marketers paused to consider this article as a possibility, then the seeds of revolution might have been sown.

One of the promises of digital marketing that has kept our industry excited and optimistic for the past 10-plus years has been the opportunity to learn about individual consumers and serve them relevant advertisements. The hypothesis is that more relevant interruptions will be more engaging, incite positive action, and reduce waste. Aside from behavioral targeting, which uses cookies to help websites personalize banner ads for individual site visitors, social-media services such as Facebook have promised to open up further opportunities by reading into what people are posting about themselves. Even cable companies are experimenting with personally addressable TV commercials.

But despite all of the hope and hype, targeted ads have not become the revolution that we digital marketers have longed for. Not only are people ignoring highly targeted ads just as much as they do all other banners, but new research suggests that many consumers are outright rejecting the idea of personalized marketing.

I’m a few weeks late in catching the results of a new survey by professors at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley in which represents one of the first pieces of research not done by digital marketers (who have an understandable bias). In their telephone survey of 1,000 adults nationwide, they asked: Do you want websites you visit to show you ads, discounts, or news tailored to your interests? Before getting to the results, let me first say that this is an excellent way to word the question. It does not introduce the idea of cookies or other privacy third-rails. If anything, this question format seems to emphasize the positive aspects of advertising and content targeting.

Even as a hardened digital marketer I was surprised at the results: 67% of Americans do not want advertisements that are tailored to their interests. A further 51% reject personalized discounts and 58% don’t even want tailored news. Again, this is without seeding survey respondents with doubt and questions about how their personal information is captured and turned into tailored ads. This is a very, very bad sign for the digital advertising industry and website content creators.

What’s worse, when the researchers started describing how their information was tracked, even more people rejected the idea of personalization. From The New York Times:

“The respondents’ aversion to tailored ads increased once they learned about targeting methods. In addition to the original 66 percent that said tailored ads were ‘not O.K.,’ an additional 7 percent said such ads were not O.K. when they were tracked on the site. An additional 18 percent said it was not O.K. when they were tracked via other Web sites, and an additional 20 percent said it was not O.K. when they were tracked offline.”

Some believe that this data has little impact on the industry; sure, people will always say that they hate advertising, they say. Others add that people will protest ads until they learn that it’s the only way they will get free content. The problem is that the government is getting very close to stepping in and regulating targeted advertising. David Vladeck, the new head of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, has promised to look closely at such online ad targeting, and has already publicly called some tactics “Orwellian.”

Here’s the problem for marketers: No one is going to stand up and tell the FTC to back off us. We advertisers as an industry have punished consumers for years with meaningless messages pressed against their eyeballs by the thousands each day. Because we can, we have hit them with ads everywhere from their email inboxes to elevators and gas pumps. Our level of society respect lies with used-car salesmen. Who is going to protest in favor of more advertising, even when we threaten that we’ll take away our free content?

With data like this study, Vladeck and the FTC essentially have a mandate to act against personalized targeting. It gives them impartial proof that the people don’t value personalized offers, and their job is to, well, do what the people want. Lawmakers and the FTC can also recall how the National Do Not Call Registry unanimously sailed through Congress and home phone numbers have been registered by more than 70% of Americans. The Direct Marketing PACs could do nothing to stop that legislation and there is little hope that we can stop this, either.

Look, I’m an executive at a digital marketing agency and I will feel the pain like anyone else in this business if this legislation goes through. But I also realize that you can’t force people to view or accept your advertising. This is why I am so passionate about the concept of Marketing with Meaning. I fundamentally believe that the only thing we can do to survive in this business is to create marketing that people choose to engage with and advertising that adds value to people’s lives.

So, people don’t like and genuinely fear personalized advertising. I take that as a sign that we’ve got move on to something that they do value. That is why I believe in creating content that people choose to view, read, or listen to. That is why I believe the future of digital, and marketing overall, lies much more in creating services and positive social movements. So while my company and I still make a lot of banner ads, we are also driving ourselves and our clients to create more meaningful marketing.

Isn’t it time we as an industry stop trying to fight against public opinion and do everything we can to make the public embrace our brands?

Many brands offer products that can ladder up to a higher-level benefit. A good online banking service can make people feel more confident about their financial choices. A reliable, comfortable diaper for babies helps new mothers feel that they are doing the right thing for their newborns. Really good food and service at a fine restaurant can kindle romance (and maybe another newborn). These are the “higher-level benefits” that many of our brands aspire to reach, and we can only hope to reach them by understanding how our products and marketing fit into the overall experience of people’s lives.

One of the best illustrations of this comes from my team on the Fixodent brand, which just launched an impressive new meaningful marketing program. I know, I know: The denture-adhesive category probably doesn’t seem like it would offer the richest source of new insights, but it is a great example of how by starting from scratch and really getting inside our consumer’s mind (and life), we were able to uncover now-obvious insights that inspired a new, meaningful marketing approach.

Most of you probably picture denture wearers as a fit, smiling, well-dressed, gray-haired couple roaming a beach with a golden Labrador retriever; after all, that’s the message we’ve been served by advertisers for decades. Because our business objective was to win over new buyers, and, by helping them early in the process, win their loyalty for life, we felt we needed to test this cliché and make sure that’s who we were really talking to—and revisit what more we might do for denture wearers.

We began by conducting new research that focused on people who had recently gone through the process of being fitted for their first pair of dentures. From our first consumer interview, we were stunned to learn that the dental surgery and denture-fitting process are, in fact, very frightening, and that our target audience was quite different from whom we had imagined. Despite improvements in cleaning products and dentistry, and fluoride in water, some people are losing the majority of their teeth by age 35; they are often completely unprepared to deal with the reality of dentures and—whether age 35 or 65—feel a great deal of embarrassment about it. Many, in fact, suffer in silence with tooth pain for some time, lacking the funds to undergo measures that can correct problems before it is too late. When lower-income people are eventually forced to visit a dentist, often due to excruciating pain, many are sent to a “chop shop” where their full set of teeth is pulled and dentures are fitted in a matter of hours (a process that really should happen over a few weeks for the least amount of suffering and the best fit). Unfortunately, some dentists at the bottom of the market see the denture wearer as “the end of the line”—a customer who will never return—so the level of education and service tends to be basic, at best.

Even after people are fitted with dentures, they frequently feel ongoing shame and embarrassment. One woman in our research said that she had never let her husband of 40 years see her without her dentures on. Another sad fact that we learned from denture wearers is that they often stop smiling in photographs. This struck a personal chord with me, as I remembered that my grandfather, who wore dentures, always spurned the camera for this reason.

Through our research process, we narrowed our focus to a single, invaluable insight: Denture wearers feel like they have nowhere to turn for help and advice in this embarrassing and painful experience. We saw opportunities to be a reliable source of information that could be accessed without embarrassment, a place where they could learn about everything from preparing for oral surgery to handling the discomfort afterward. And we saw a crystal-clear opportunity for the Fixodent brand to present this solution—to add value through its marketing.

The result of this insight is Denture Living, an online resource for new denture wearers that provides specific information for visitors depending on where they are in the denture-wearing process (pre-wearers, new wearers, and experienced wearers). Helpful features include a guide to prepare visitors for discussions with their dentists, and a calendar that annotates just what new wearers might experience during their first month.

Denture Living also includes real stories from real people who have gone through the process, and offers a message board where visitors can ask questions, including ones that they are too ashamed to ask elsewhere. After only a few weeks, we are already seeing some intensely personal stories being shared in these boards. Information for friends and family is also provided, so that they can be informed and lend their support.

The site puts a priority on information and solutions, while clearly presenting Fixodent as the trusted source of the guidance. In addition to making a positive brand association for the new denture wearer, the site provides a platform for product news and promotions. Instead of simple beach scenes of smiling 60-somethings, the Fixodent brand is bringing real solutions to people who need the help the most. And let’s face it: If a denture-adhesive brand can uncover applicable insights, any brand can.

I am extremely proud of this work by our agency and client team. Congrats on a very meaningful marketing program, gang!

Last Friday I had a spur of the moment opportunity to be interviewed by ABC News NOW for a segment promoting my book, The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning. I believe it aired live on some ABC stations, and of course the video segment is available online at ABCNews.com.

I’m pretty happy with how the interview turned out. (My wife says I need to smile more.) I got to hit most of the key points I hoped to, and was able to pull out a wide range of examples. I have to say that the experience of interviewing via satellite like this was very odd. I was basically sitting in a dark, empty studio in Cincinnati, staring at a TV camera lens and listening to an audio feed of the ABC News show in my ear. You have to make it look like you’re in the middle of a real, face-to-face conversation but it couldn’t be further from that. Anyway, check out the video by clicking here and let me know what you think!