Surprise: ads aren’t brands (still)

"Brands are no longer built through advertising but through an amalgamation of interactions that consumers have across a complex web of touch points." - Brian Whipple, CEO Accenture Interactive.

With all due respect, no shit. Brands have ALWAYS been the sum total of all touch points. 

Yes, there was a golden age of TV-ad brand building in the past 60 years, when Phillip Morris could reach 65% of the US with a single ad on I Love Lucy.

And yes, TV is still a great brand-building tool. Even Amazon, Google & Facebook — "digital" companies — will spend a couple billion this year on TV.

But most people have never seen an ad for many of the brands they buy. And yet (shocker!) they buy the brand and even have a sense of what the brand is!

Folks like Oxo, Design Within Reach, Uber, Pyrex, and every hair salon in America already know that their brand is the sum total of how people experience it.

Look, I know Whipple was making a point about why Accenture Interactive bought Droga5. But he should read a little Stephen King (the ad guy, not the Shining guy) or David Aaker. 

Steve Olenski. One-on-one with Brian Whipple, CEO of Accenture Interactive. 7.13.2018. Forbes