Yes you heard me right. Even advertising.

Now, some of you no doubt subscribe to the view that mass media is a dying breed. Social media and all the new shiny toys like Facebook and Twitter are going to rule the future.

Others believe that advertising will stage a dramatic comeback and destroy these upstarts.

Still others believe that it’s about an all or nothing battle either on the side of digital marketing and campaigns; or in favour of traditional advertising and marketing efforts.

Seriously - why does it have to be quite so cut and dried? Isn’t it really about balance?

Think about it - sometimes you actually need an advertisement. Other times, a great word of mouth campaign will rock it. Still other occasions demand a good ol’ fashioned meet-the-public effort that allows you to look your customers in the eye and say “I’m here. Talk to Me.”

I would however add that as you set out to develop your next campaign - or even when looking at what you have out there already - you need to ask yourself a couple of questions.

These include:

- what am I getting for my dollar?

- are there tangible results or am I paying for something as vague as ‘branding’ and ‘presence’ without a way to tie it back to sales or some other more tangible measurement?

- if I am advertising, is my choice of media being guided by blind faith in an agency and th circulation numbers they offer? would I be better served by perhaps niche slicing my campaign and actually following my customers rather than trying to get them to follow me?

- do I really have to advertise at all? can I transfer some of that expensive campaign spend into more cost effective public relations, digital and search engine campaigns?

The list can go on and on. But you get the picture.

Ask a couple of questions. Look for a little more balance and your marketing campaigns will feel much healthier for it!

So, what campaigns or companies have you seen that seem to have their act all balanced out?

If you’re reading this elsewhere, check out Journeys Through The Line (http://www.arciscommunications.com/blog) for more thoughts and ramblings from Stephen P Francis of Arcis Communications.

The reason this is preying on my mind is that I’m in the midst of getting an idea of the ground.

For the past 18 months, I’ve been fortunate enough to be in the company of people who aren’t afraid to try new things.

To look at a need and then try and fill it. Kind of like the guys who invented the light bulb, automobile, airplanes, great consumer brands like Sony and Apple, Internet leaders like Google and yes, even software giants like SAP and Microsoft.

Granted, I’m not saying that we’re saving the planet here - but we are doing something that we think will matter to some people. People like you and me. Consumers.

So we’ve identified a need. We’re working on filling it. With a little luck - and a whole lot of help - we’ll even launch it for our friends, associates and acquaintances to play with it a little in about a month … give or take a couple of weeks for the gremlins to be worked out of the system.

And yet, we’re surrounded by people who are telling us we should be afraid.

That this isn’t the time to try something new. That there are “oh so many websites and services out there so why bother launching something new.” That we would be better off waiting and watching and continuing to do nothing instead of risking our time, money and hope on something.

This irritates me. It makes me mad. And it should make you even angrier.

If I - or anyone for that matter - believed in such “reasoning” then where would we be? We should just give up on innovation and settle for mediocrity.

I mean - why bother inventing new gizmos, gadgets, machines, software or anything else for that matter?

After all - what if it fails? Why not do nothing instead!

Don’t do nothing. Nothing is important as a means towards something. Do something and Nothing will instead be important as a footnote to your success.

This rings true whether its the development of a new service, product, level of customer satisfaction, innovative and relevant public relations campaign or something as simple as the sharing of an idea.

So why is nothing important - because being aware of the danger of it, you’ll do something. The only thing that you could do that would be worst than trying and failing - is to do nothing.

What challenges have you overcome in your fight to do something rather than nothing?

Vague as that sounds, cast it against the backdrop of your marketing, public relations, branding, advertising or web campaign’s and see what you find.

The reason I ask this is simple (but not easy) - if you don’t know what you want, how can you make sure you get it?

The seed of this line of thinking was a series of recent meetings where ideas were bounced, campaigns planned, metrics set … all without a clear understanding of the end goal. The only thing that happened was that no matter what happened down the line no one was satisfied. No one. Some expected more. Some wanted more focus on particular aspects of their campaign. Others just felt that parts of it should have been run - or not.

On the other hand, when planning was done upfront - the results were easier to accomplish, satisfaction was felt and it was more effective. Tweaking a campaign for greater ROI was also easier when you knew what you were tweaking it for.

So, when planning your campaigns have clear, measurable objectives in mind. Simple enough and yet something that we oftentimes forget to do.

So, what are your objectives and how have you accomplished them cost effectively and with a touch of style?

If maintaining a brand - the essence of it, what it stands for, the culture and the quality - are not something that the brand manager gets and is willing to stand for … then why do it? Worse, anything you do try will either be (i) vetoed or (ii) mangled.

If a brand is to be built, maintained and survive/ thrive then you have to have passion both inside it (the people who work for the brand) and outside it (the agencies, consultants, consumers, communities)

Save the effort for brands that care about themselves. Thankfully there are enough companies, individuals and organisations out there that are literally waiting for someone to help them.

Go work with / for them instead - you’re happy, they’re happy and most importantly, the consumer’s who support the brand get some additional value for their money.

Businesses typically have a choice of deciding where they spend their marketing dollars. This is great if you’re a great big company with endless budgets toplay with - you just spend it everywhere and eventually something sticks. The smarter ones take the time to make sure it all sticks … but you get what I mean.

But what if you’re a small or medium sized business? A non-profit? An educational institution? Cause related? What then? Do you go for volume or influence.

If you had to choose, where would you lean to - finding the 10 people who really matter and courting them, or talking to a 1000 and hoping you hit the right spot from time to time?

Now, there are numerous descriptions and opinions around these terms but for the sake of this post let’s use the following:

Volume would be the amount of noise you create. Online, offline and through the line - regardless of whether its paid advertising, free publicity courtesy of word of mouth or media coverage, or even ground marketing events for that matter.

Influence or Value would be the actual audiences or people you speak to - and who listen and maybe even speak back.

So here’s an example - you have two sites. They’re both bloggers. One has 10000 visitors a month. Very active indeed from that point of view. Another has 1000.

Easy as pie to decide which one is the better site right - or is it?

After all, what if the 1000 people on the second site were actual consumers, decision makers, fully engaged and involved participants in the blog’s community? What if they were in turn influencers and able to help other people use products or services from that company?

Granted, the first angle of volume would also give you some sales. Create some buzz. Drive value.

So, it brings us back to the question of Volume or Value.

Personally, I think Apple, Nike and Toyota’s Prius line of cars are good examples of brands that have to some extent struck a balance between volume and value.

Which do you think works better and more importantly, can we have both? Do you have examples of these?

Consider for a moment the huge amounts of money we’re pouring into handling consumer’s complaints. Malaysia as a country is particularly well placed in the area of unhappy-customer-management.

Malaysia was ranked the 3rd most attractive investment destination by AT Kearney and McKinsey in 2005, and five Malaysian outsourcing companies made it onto the Global Services 100 list, a capabilities-driven assessment of IT and IT enabled service providers globally. The global worldwide SSO market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15 per cent over the next few years, reaching USD 1.43 trillion by 2009 as compared to USD 930 billion in 2006. ICT services such as SSO contributed RM2.8 billion to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product of RM495.6 billion. That’s a lot of money that’s really being spent to answer questions and handle complaints.

What this means is that we’re a great place to place a call center. And yes, there are numerous other support functions performed by these excellent world class firms - but there is a fair amount of their work that goes towards taking, recording and responding to complaints as well. But are there hotlines to record how great the service was for a company?

That’s the bit we’re interested in.

The reason I was thinking about this was that over the past fortnight I’ve had the pleasure of being looked after by some amazing people.

Now, I normally have at least one halfway decent encounter with service staff every week or so - and by this I mean that they make a dreary day better, or make a rough day feel a little lighter through their smiles or just being plain friendly. But once in a while, you come across some amazing service levels - and this has been happening fairly frequently recently. First at the hotel where we were working on a project, and then in the carpark after the project, local vendors and over the past couple of weeks at some of the local eateries that we were trying.

Challenge is - how do I make sure that the people actually responsible for that great experience receive my thanks?

For instance - when you tell your waiter that you thought the food was excellent, how do you know if they did or did not tell the cooks? Or you’re organising a hugely sensitive event and the hotel’s staff go above and beyond both their job scope as well as their duties to make sure you have absolutely everything you could possibly need?

Sure, I could write a letter to the hotel and thank them for the great service - which I did. I could name the people in question … chances are the hotel’s PR person may get back with a response - but did the people who did the work really know how appreciated they were? And what about the times when you can’t thank the people directly?

Reading Fast Company recently, I was inspired by an article there to think about this again and what do you know - it IS hard to say thank you!

And it’s just sad. People crave appreciation. Look around you and you’ll be amazed just how obvious it is when you’re looking for it.

People will come for the money, but they stay for the recognition and relationship

Consider the joy on someone’s face when you simply thank them for doing something well. Or how you feel when your boss or colleagues acknowledge the work and the time you’re putting into your job. How you have that extra special spring in your step when someone compliments you on a doing something well or looking especially good.

They’re all part and parcel of the same human desire for appreciation, recognition and affection in some cases. Globally, the direct selling or multi level marketing industry, is a booming one. Amway. Mary Kay. Shaklee. GoldQuest. I bet you could name a hundred if not a thousand more like them. Different products. Different audiences. Different geographies.

But they all thrive on a business model built around rewarding an individual for work put in through (i) money and (ii) praise/ recognition. And based on years of looking at the direct selling industry from both sides of the fence, I have to say that the praise and recognition is often what people stay for - not just the money.

Imagine if you will what would happen if you made amazing products, or delivered great services that were recognised for being great -  now what if you could make sure the people who were responsible for that great product or service were able to hear that point of view from real customers?

Wouldn’t it be easier to attract and retain the best talent there was? And wouldn’t this inspire an ever greater level of customer service and satisfaction?

I know for a fact that whenever we get a thank you from our clients it helps raise the team’s spirit by just that much more. Now imagine if you could help happy customers easily tell you they were happy.

So what is your company doing to help customers say thank you to your people? Surveys, hotlines and email sent to a marketing or complaints department doesn’t count by the way.

Think about the possibilities - sure you’ll still hear complaints.

But instead of being constant streams of negativity, these support centres, help lines, emails and survey points might actually (i) let you know what you’re doing right; (ii) help your employees know that they matter and; (iii) help customers feel better about themselves for having done something nice for someone else.

Do you have an example of companies who make it easy for you to give them great feedback - as easily as they make it for you to complain?