The Great Rush...fasten your seat belts

By Prof. Harmandar Singh aka Ham

First, it was the great reset with the onset of Covid. Now we are busy falling over each other in its wake.

Established tracking methods and all other signals say advertising expenditure has gone through the roof, and we haven’t even factored in digital yet.

Chinese New Year is already in the rear view window, while Raya and Merdeka are quickly looming on the horizon.

Bundle that with a coming General Election, and we are looking at a boom year for the industry.

Marketers are understandably restless and everything is wanted last year. Nothing new here.

While things are looking busy, crazy and probably rosy, I want to say this is the right time to craft our work.

Riding on the tide of countless creative possibilities, let’s not settle for “wallpaper advertising” or marketing mediocrity.

Let’s use this overarching wave of opportunities to bring back the shine in Malaysian creativity.

Spare a little more time thinking about your work, to make it meaningful, different and lasting.

Let’s not rush or get lazy – volume can never replace value.

Because no matter how many hundred times you alternate your messages on Facebook or Twitter (every 3 secs I hear, just to stay in the loop), don’t be caught up catching up.

Because the newly awakened consumer will sense your desperation.

And they are tired of being told they are first (they know marketing is about making money).

Advertising does not make the world go round.

Ideas that touch lives do.

This piece was the Editor’s Note for MARKETING WEEKENDER Issue 321