So I’m half way through Al Gore’s exceptionally well researched book ‘The Future’ and one of the many, many issues he talks about is the problem with measuring progress through objectives such as GDP, that in his words are ‘illusory in their simplicity’.
Now I’m not an economist, sociologist or any other kind of ‘ist’ for that matter, but when you think about it GDP is a ridiculously stupid measurement to have driving the World forward.
It’s essentially a relatively easily tracked number relating to how much stuff a Country can sell in order to give confidence, or more accurately the illusion that it’s progressing.
This metric that has almost no reflection on anything that’s a genuine signal of good, sustainable progress such as employment, debt, equality, health, crime, education, happiness or the environment to name a few.
Not only are goals like GDP too simplistic and misleading, they ultimately obstruct you from understanding the real picture. Admittedly in the case of GDP that is exactly what Governments, banks and corporations want.
GDP can in essence go up whilst many of the important things mentioned above go to shit. In many Countries such as UK, US this is in fact the case.
If you then accept that a silly goal like GDP has such a destructive influence on many complex economies around the World, it’s also fair to say that the same is true in terms of the way we measure the health of brands and the effectiveness of communications.
Sales, awareness, reach, even twaddle like brand love is just a few examples of the illusory simple objectives that drive decisions everyday, create homogenous brands and fail to really help create sustainable businesses that are less reliant on advertising spend.
In John Kay’s book Obliquity he makes a very good point that rather paradoxically states our goals are often best met indirectly.
“Obliquity is necessary because we live in an world of uncertainty and complexity; the problems we encounter aren’t always clear – and we often can’t pinpoint what our goals are anyway; circumstances change; people change – and are infuriatingly hard to predict; and direct approaches are often arrogant and unimaginative”
Then there is all that chatter about conscious capitalism which I do believe is long over due, but let’s be honest it’s not just about being good corporate citizens, it’s about being a smarter in where we need to aim. I’m pretty sure the marketing boardroom has rewired us to fundamentally revert to the most direct and simplistic goals in the quest for quarterly capitalism, or perhaps its organisations and people with the vested interests in it being that way that’s the problem.
Either way, there must be plenty of other ways of measuring progress? I particularly like Added Value’s new methodology into what it’s calling Cultural Traction. Surely this is a more helpful goal than direct sales, reach and awareness? Maybe not for bog paper but it’s a better starting point.
Even big organising visions such as Google’s relating to information and its focus on ensuring that all product decisions made ultimately have to benefit the user. The fact that Google has kept advertising off its homepage for its entire lifetime is a testament to both of those. Many big brands with shareholders will obviously say they have these but very few really treat them as anything more than slogans in ads.
Humans are funny things and marketers are no different. Our almost pathological pursuit of shallow and unhelpful goals that are essentially meaningless is not only destructive, it stops us from really doing things that matter.
