May 13th. The day when the science of Brand Management is touted to be born.

Brand management. The cornerstone of advertising.

So maybe it is opportune to showcase this message today.

Q: When you were a kid- What did you want to be when you grew up?

Some people try to answer this question. And ironically so- through an ad!

Monster.com and their ad agency made this ad sometime back as an answer to this question

[youtube myG8hq1Mk00]

What followed was a slew of other ads- many user generated. A few of them focussed at advertising

Like this one:

[youtube KpqwrEdlo4s]

This apparently won a National ADDY Award back in 2001 or 2002, created by an agency in Des Moines, Iowa- called the Meyocks Group.

You can sense the sarcasm and the irony in these videos. Though the videos were obviously made by people in advertising themselves, there are some points to ponder why this business is losing its pride.

The things mentioned in the videos are not “reasons”- they are just symptoms and symbols. 

I don’t know the answers to the cause myself.  But I’ll have my own crude Digital marketing take on this-

1. The commoditization of advertising: Has there been a templatization of advertising over the past few decades? Is that a result of continuous pressure to win business with limited resources? 
2. Silo-ization: Actually not only is there a silo-ization by Media/Creative agency structures, there even is inter departmental differentiation. Locking horns is inevitable with different factions forming and being on the warpath. (Planning Vs Interactive Vs something else)
3. Projection over talent: Oversmart, loud and full of attitude. Tick. Projecting that you have talent is better than actually having talent. Projection gets rewarded in advertising business like no other.
4. Elephant Vs the ant: Have the big monopolies supressed formation of smaller set ups and with it the culture of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovatiness as the hallmark of advertising?
5. Do Brands encourage and leverage upon smaller setups- or do they prefer the structured and ‘safe’ approach of the bigger names?

There are many questions playing in my mind as I write this piece. And then again, this wave of restructuring is getting more and more prominent.

thumnail attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smatkins/2176768481/sizes/m/