Scott Galloway has sounded the death knell for broadcast advertising and urged CMOs and young people who rely upon the broadcast advertising ecosystem to think carefully about their careers choices.
Speaking on the latest episode of Jon Evans’ Uncensored CMO podcast, Galloway said the traditional media and advertising ecosystem has been disrupted by the arrival of streamers like Netflix and Amazon Prime, as well as social media platforms like Meta, Google and TikTok, to such an extent that successful business can ill afford to rely on broadcast advertising.
“The CMO that survives is a chief strategy officer, chief supply chain officer, but the era of cheap broadcast advertising (is over). The sword that built Nike, Estee Lauder, Unilever, P&G is getting duller and duller,” said Galloway, who has previously sounded warnings for CMOs about advertising and brand.
“The world has changed so dramatically that I think Don Draper’s been drawn and quartered.
If you look at every company that has built more than $100 billion dollars in market cap within a three-year period in the last 20 years, they have one thing in common, they spend almost no money on traditional advertising.”
Some of the largest companies in the world, such as Amazon, Google, Apple and Meta still spend a huge sums on advertising, but increasingly more is being taken out of broadcast buckets and spread across multiple channels and consumer touch points.
Galloway, a professor of marketing at NYU Stern, believes the best way companies can successfully build brand is by, “leveraging AI to have a much more robust forward-leaning accessible customer service.”
He also believes that the role of the CMO must adapt to stay relevant. Although he admits he left the marketing sphere a while ago because he “got sick of selling needless shit to people”, he said that he still experiences too many CMOs who either come from an advertising background are looking for that next great breakthrough campaign.
“(CMOs need to think) what can I find inside the company that is literally going to do the best job of innovation and cementing us as a ‘great brand’ and it’s probably not going to be broadcast advertising or the logo or hiring and firing an agency,” he said.
“Think of yourself as the chief internal strategy officer or the chief internal consultant. And that might be how do we get the best margin, how do we get unfair advantage and that might be through really boring shit.”
He also warned young people working in the ad-supported ecosystem.
“Advertising is the tax that the poor and technologically illiterate pay. How do you know you are rich, you’re not subjected to advertising. Everything I watch is subscription,” he said.
“If you are in the ad supported ecosystem, those dollars are going to one of a small number of direct players and to other means of building those associations with consumers.”
In the latest episode of the Uncensored CMO, Galloway also shares his views about the Netflix show Adolescence, how he deals with online abuse, the importance of strategy and how marketers should approach AI.
