Maurice Saatchi Weighs In On The Value Of SEM

Marketers may believe search ads based on data about consumers is the new ad model, but consumers are more complex than the sum of their buying habits, according to Maurice Saatchi, executive director of M&C Saatchi in an article written by the advertising icon for the Financial Times. "People do not know what they want until a brilliant person shows them," he writes. "Henry Ford confirmed the point. Asked if he had carried out research before he invented the Model T Ford, he replied: 'If I had asked people what they wanted, I would have built a faster horse.'

He goes on to say:

Human nature is not amenable to prediction based on the trends or tendencies prevailing at the time. It is amenable to startling creativity of the kind practised by great artists, directors, writers, musicians, actors, who know how to touch a chord in humans everywhere. They are the people that are needed to help advertisers navigate the internet because, as Aristotle knew 2,000 years ago: “Fire burns both here and in Persia. But what is thought just changes before our eyes. The decision rests with perception.”