Which wagon now you’re asking yourself.  The truth wagon.  Martin Lindstrom, author of Brandwashed and Buyology, says that telling the truth to the consumer is the only real way forward in the current age.

I of course agree with him in this respect (Tell the Truth – Honesty is your most powerful marketing tool is my book with co-author marketing consultant Jonathan Salem Baskin out this spring http://www.amazon.com/Tell-Truth-Honesty-Powerful-Marketing/dp/1936661462/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328610166&sr=8-1)

Lindstrom was speaking to Charlie Crowe CEO of C-Squared.  He was on a panel earlier this month with MediaCom’s  Head of Strategy and Freshness EMEA, Matthew Mee and Tiffany Bissey, Head of Global Digital and Emerging Media at Dell.

You can watch them debate at http://www.mediacom.com/en/news–insights/the-insider/webcast/live-stream.aspx.

The panel urged marketers and their agencies to take action now to ensure that their communication strategies acknowledge that the consumer is more connected than ever – to each other, to sources of information and expertise, and of course to price comparisons.

With rumours abounding that some retailers are proposing blocking mobile signals inside their own stores in order to suppress the ability of consumers to check relative prices using their mobiles, it is increasingly clear that in this time of the empowered consumer if you don’t have a plan to deal with the new realities then you don’t have a plan.

picture source: wikipedia

There’s one question for which everyone will give the same affirmative answer at the moment.

Do you need more innovation in your business?

Imagine saying “No, we have more than enough innovation, in fact we’ve got more innovation than we can manage”.

You wouldn’t be much of a manager in this day and age if that was your answer would you?

(It’s a bit like asking someone at the tail end of the Christmas season if they’d like to be healthier.  You just know everyone will say Yes which is why health drinks and gyms do so well in January.)

So the answer is Yes, but in truth we need to be more careful with the question as Innovation has many meanings.

A love of Innovation is nothing new.  According to Armand D’Angour (Classics Fellow and Tutor at Jesus Oxford) the term was coined by comic playwright Aristophanes in 422 BC.   (http://www.historytoday.com/armand-d%E2%80%99angour/innovation-classical-greece ). But it is a term that needs precise definition.  Aristotle (different Ancient Greek chap – see picture, philosopher, genius, said it all, or most of it anyway, back in 384-322 BC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle) pointed out that innovation means different things depending on the area it is applied to.

Political innovation is very different from technical innovation, or cultural innovation (or innovation in reaching teenagers with some advertising.)

An innovative solution to a problem may be to apply some old or conventional thinking to an unconventional area rather than to cook up something new.

We’re hard wired to love innovation.  At its most basic that’s why we have evolved as a human race to the point we are at now… if the first humans hadn’t found fire and cooking food as an innovative solution to cold and hunger then we wouldn’t be watching Jamie Oliver cook up a feast on the TV whilst warming our ready meals in the microwave. (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Made-Human/dp/184668286X/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327943766&sr=8-1-fkmr2).

Any successful business must be very precise about what kind of innovation is necessary and how fast it can deliver real change.  A love of the new must not drive out our ability to deliver the best of the now.  Don’t be afraid to run away from innovation if it is in an area that you don’t need it in.  Don’t focus the entire workforce on watching for or adopting new trends when applying expertise and experience is actually what is needed.

Picture source: 74thoakstreet.com

The latest Group M forecasts for 2012 for the UK arrived on my desk early last week.  There’s been a bit of publicity for the headlines, although not much has changed since the summer edition.  (http://www.groupm.com/pressandnews/details/733 , contact : publications.london@groupm.com)

Despite the continued doldrums in which consumer confidence is mired the document is reasonably optimistic.  Growth of 3% is predicted for the UK although that depends on the Eurozone crisis being contained.  Points of growth lie in TV, outdoor of course in what the report calls “an unusually outdoorsy year which includes the Euro football, the summer Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee” and online.

Embedded in the report, perhaps hidden by the stability of the overall numbers, there lie the seeds of a revolution. 

The National Newspaper section (this year net media £ -6%, next year -3%) contains a call for a new trading model.  It suggests that there is room for a new system that introduces optimisation and makes the market more efficient. 

A new model would be likely to “change the relationship between vendor, agency and client from the existing linear and sometimes adversarial one into a more collaborative triangular partnership” with the outcomes including improved rates for advertisers, but perhaps winners and losers amongst publishers.

There is a new ceo at the Newspaper Marketing Agency (http://www.nmauk.co.uk/nma/do/live/homePopulate)  – Rufus Olins (http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/1111761/Trading-places-weeks-people-moves/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH).  I wonder whether his mandate includes instigating a trading revolution ?

picture source : strifeofcloud.com

It is not the Year of the mobile.  Lots of people have smart phones, tablets etc.  Nearly everything will be QR coded or the equivalent (yesterday I walked past a building site with a QR code the size of a window.  My companion asked “How is anyone going to scan that into their phone?”  The better question is will anyone bother?)  HTML5 will make the user experience of advertising rock.  Increased use of geo-location targeting will make relevancy more spiky.

It is not the Year of connected televisions.  There are lots of connected TVs in the home and lots more in the shops now.  If you buy a new expensive TV these days it is impossible to buy one which does not connect to the internet in fact.  This week’s CES show in Vegas features lots of internet connected TVs including the “future-proof” voice controlled, internet connected TV from Samsung with facial recognition, voice recognition (in more than 20 languages) and free access to a whole channel dedicated to Angry Birds !  (Other exciting product development news from CES includes “Body Media” and “Escort Live” – calm down Spearmint Rhino aficionados they are healthcare and traffic products).

It is not the Year of Celebrations – although the UK is set to party.  With the Jubilee, Euro 2012, the Olympics and a general swing to home entertaining there will be plenty of parties.  IPC Connect MD Fiona Dent has described the heightened need to celebrate that she has seen in her readers.  If the economy is depressed then why not party with friends to cheer yourself up?  After all it is easier than ever to arrange to get together.

So what is 2012?  2012 is in fact the Year of People Power. 

It is the year when people can find out what they want to find out with a few touches of their smart phones, whenever they want to and wherever they are.  It’s the year when the opinions of people like us influence what we think more than ever thanks to social media and new apps like Zeebox.  When we can buy a brand that appeals to us instantly and dismiss a brand that has let us down publically.  When according to Arif people set the news agenda via Twitter rather than press barons (http://arifdurrani.mediaweek.co.uk/2012/01/09/murdoch-no-longer-sets-the-news-agenda-twitter-does/) .   2012 is the year people become more demanding of good service and experiences and less tolerant than ever of inconvenience or dull corporate spin.

See Trendwatching.com’s top 12 trends for 2012 which include “Point and know” – instant visual information gratification and “Flawsome” which describes the competitive advantage that lies in adding authenticity to communications this year.  http://trendwatching.com/

2012 is the Year of People Power.

At around this time of year Esteemed Media Pundits have been predicting “Next year is the year of the mobile” for at least 5 years.

I was on a panel recently at the Mobile Advertising World Conference. My co-panellist Simon Andrews upped the game. He’s calling it the “Decade of the mobile”.

Well he might be right, although the particular device you connect to the web with will continue to diversify, and of course what you call it might change.

There used to be a regular annual prediction about convergence, so that you would use one device for all entertainment, calls, web etc. That hasn’t happened. I didn’t think I’d have a use for an iPad as well as a Blackberry and an Android phone but I seem to need to carry all three around with me.

And last time I watched TV with my kids,  daughter 1 was on her iPhone, daughter 2 was bbming and I was looking at Zeebox.

The best remark came not from anyone on the panel but from Hugh Fletcher, National Digital Manager from Audi (who was there to speak about the fantastic Audi app which was the only one pre loaded onto my iPad when I was given it as a birthday present in the summer). He wondered why mobile media men were making it all so complicated, and how we can expect senior marketers who know and understand the power of TV, print, outdoor etc to know or care about a whole new set of jargon.

If it is to be the year (decade) of the mobile next year we’d better keep it simple.