Peter Merholz is having a go at ad agencies:
advertising, as it is widely practiced, is an inherently unethical and, frankly, poisonous endeavor that sees people as sheep to be manipulated, that vaunts style over substance, and deems success to be winning awards.
At ASICS (and in part by working with Merholz’s agency Adaptive Path) we are trying to start from consumer needs. But I also feel that we do so in a way that stems from the brand positioning.
The meaning of the company name, Anima Sana In Corpore Sano, is a marketing choice. It was created in 1977 and wasn’t part of the company’s identity when it was founded in 1949 (it was called Onitsuka Tiger for a long time).
However, it actually is a fair encapsulation of the motivation of the company’s employees, of the way we conduct business, and of the way we create our products.
It is also a profound organizing force in the definition of the new My ASICS service: the type of advice we are giving, and the way we are giving it — all of that genuinely stems from our corporate philosophy.
We have not done this by working with a marketing or an advertising agency. But we did “lead with the brand.”
(Oh and do check out the comments on that Merholz piece: they are hilarious! “This is the most sanctimonious, ivory tower piece of crap I’ve read in a long time.”)
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