Superficiality

My favorite definition of superficiality is appearing to be true or real only until examined more closely. In the business world, and perhaps even more sadly, the personal one, I have found that superficiality rules.


Over time, I have heard people say that they had made a really "deep dive" into a particular topic. Dig a bit deeper into their "analysis" and it is clear that the analysis they provided was superficial at best. At the same time, if you try to examine a topic from many sides, people are annoyed. I once had a boss who would ask me a question and he would stop to interrupt me and tell me to give him "the bottom line." Sometimes it was okay, but often the issue and my recommendation or analysis was next to impossible to articulate in 30 seconds. I took to sending him a long memorandum as a follow-up. He must have had a reverence for the written word as he would devour it and pass it on to others in top management. I believe it really helped my career and also discovered that he was not a master of discretion. So, after a few years, I would hand him a memo and plead that it would be "for his eyes only." My Machiavellian tactic worked great as, within 24 hours, six or seven people would tell me they had read my confidential report and liked it. I did not do this often but it helped my career and gave me a reputation as being thoughtful.

So these days and for maybe the past two decades, I try to surround an issue. If I am exploring a new topic, I often read five-six books about it. Invariably, my initial thought is wrong. As a follow-up, I always look for articles or new books that refute the position that I have taken after taking the initial plunge in to the topic. I realize that this takes time and often, in business, you have to pull a lot of information together and make a fairly quick decision. All too often, however, people make their initial decision and never revisit or explore new data a year or 10 years later when the landscape has likely changed.  With things happening at warp speed in the new world of media, I am really surprised by what I hear, see and read from alleged media professionals these days. A few examples:

—someone whom I never worked with but have known for years, sent me a draft of a media plan for an important client of his. I read it and initially was impressed by what a carefully crafted analysis he had made. As I worked toward the end, my blood pressure surely must have been rising. He provided TV performance estimates (i.e., reach & frequency projections) that were sky high and would have been questionable 20 years ago. When I confronted him with my concern, he said that it did not matter as people wanted to believe the unrealistic projections. I went in to a long monologue about how today milennials (his target, by the way) rarely watch TV without another device going. So, all performance estimates have to be wildly overstated today as they do not and never have really captured commercial attentiveness which now has to be at an all time low. He left the numbers in and sold the plan.

—more than one person has said that they will not test mobile executions until it gets to a 10% share of advertising expenditures. It will not be too late but why wait and think of what you might learn about this emerging medium in the meantime?

—all too many people still spend a great deal of their budgets in the U.S. even though there are countries where they have solid growth and distribution that have economies expanding at a rate at least twice that of the United States. I never say stop spending at home but with the tremendous wealth shift from the West to the East, this seems very shortsighted.

—in general, many are using media cliches from 20-30 years that no longer apply in today’s world of commercial avoidance and many new platforms.

My friends and acquaintances need to work a bit harder and take an authentic “deep dive” in to a host of issues. One fellow told me that I am too intense and I should imitate him and “coast to retirement.” That is not I and it is not a good way to go out.

If you would like to contact Don Cole directly, you may reach him at doncolemedia@gmail.com