November 03, 2010

Facts Are Old School

I was recently told an interesting story by a business associate. A woman this guy knows is an executive at one of the world's most well-known corporations.

Although she is very high up, the corporation is so big that there are a substantial number of people at the corporate level who are above her in the pecking order.

Recently she made a presentation to the upper echelon of corporate management. The presentation included a report on the state of media in the US.

Included in her presentation were some of the facts revealed in this blog last month in the post entitled  The Top 10 Double-Secret Unknown Facts About Advertising.

Nobody challenged the facts. Nobody questioned the numbers.

A few days later, however, she got word back from the corporate grapevine that her presentation was received as being "old school."

It is a measure of the state of marketing today that certain kinds of information are no longer evaluated on whether they are true or false. They are evaluated on whether they are "old school" or "new school."

If you adhere to the trendy way of thinking you are "new school." If you rely on facts to inform your judgments you are "old school."

George Orwell said it best, "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

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