Dave Trott's blogs on Brand Republic are always interesting and today's was no exception - in it he recounted how a tube driver's amusing announcements cheered up his day and outshone the majority of D&AD ad entries that he reviewed that day - in his words "What he did started my day off really nicely. There was no reason to do it. He wouldn’t get paid anymore for it. None of us would buy more tube tickets because of it. There was no financial benefit. No material incentive. So, in advertising terms, why do it? It couldn’t be justified. And we don’t do anything that can’t be justified, ultimately, in financial terms" His point was that maybe is not always about selling but rather that "word-of-mouth is the best media you can get".

Shock horror .....an advertising God acknowledges that there are often stronger routes than advertising.- albeit unknowingly. It reminded of a quote from another Ad God -Don Draper in Mad Men - ""I sell products not advertising" - back in those days there were only a small number of channels to reach an audience and advertising was about shouting at people to buy a product - whilst this has changed beyond all recognition the objective is still the same ultimately we do always sell it is just about considering the channel for delivering the message. This is precisely why it is not always about shouting at people but rather a considered and consultative approach relying on the understanding and subtley of the messenger. Call me a cynic ..who knows? maybe the tube driver was told to cheer people up to deliver better customer service and extol the virtues of the much derided tube or maybe he had a postive feeling about TfL because of better HR - the point is now we need to consider every touchpoint to ensure that the consumer has no reason for negativity and that includes every level of the chain - after all the new World of Marketing means there are now so many places to talk positively or negatively about a brand maybe even the great Don would be presenting a WOM campaign !