A client of mine asked to go to
L'Escargot last month for lunch. It was a very popular media
haunt at one point, although I didn't spot anyone I knew there on
this recent occasion. At the height of its popularity I never
actually went because I was so fond of my personal L'Escargot
joke. Basically a lunch date would suggest going there; I
would say (hilariously) that I had heard that the service was quite
slow (geddit?) They never did get it, they'd assume that the
service really was slow and we'd end up going somewhere else.
The service by the way was excellent the other week.
The Slow Food movement was founded in
the 1980s with the intention of ensuring that fast food and global
chains didn't have it all their own way. You don't hear as
much about it these days, perhaps because it succeeded in ensuring
that we all value taste and the time dedicated to a well executed
slow cooked recipe as well as enjoying fast food sometimes
too.
Every trend arguably needs a counter
trend to test it.
Fast strategy is becoming the norm in
media agencies. Current communications thinking is about more
data, analysed faster and more frequently course corrected with
real time planning methods - with weekly, daily or even hourly
tactical amendments.
Maybe in addition to appreciating the
benefits of this we also need to consider slowing things down
too.
Jonathan Salem Baskin (the co-author
of my soon to be published first book) has blogged about slowing
things down from a marketing perspective here in AdAge.
Slow media is about taking time to
come up with a really good idea that's exactly right for the brand
and sticking to it despite the vicissitudes of the new data
onslaught.
There must be a balance between
reacting to new information and sticking to what you first
developed.
Reacting to new information has its
place, but so does sticking with what you believe in order to allow
the situation you're in to mature.
Sometimes a media strategy should
change with the data wind. Sometimes it's worth persisting
with what you set out to do because it will take time to capture
the imagination of the target audience.
Fast strategy has its place. But
let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. The slow
media movement starts here.
First published here on Sue Unerman's blog.