You get what you pay for.

One of the things that strikes me as being one of those lessons very few people “learned in kindergarten” though they should have, is a basic one, that is: Anything worth doing is worth doing well.

Today’s media—social, digital, flash-mobbing, event marketing, etc. can be “done well.” That’s not my point. My point is that in and of themselves they are small--and by themselves do not allow you to promote a brand well. What's more. such messages are not controlled by brands—they succumb to input from all sorts of people, people we call influencers.

Entire wings of the advertising industry attempt to legitimatize these new media entities for two reasons. 1) They are cheap and 2) because they are cheap, people (clients) want to believe--desperately want to believe--that they are effective as principle brand-building mediums.

The Ad Contrarian mentioned the other day that he can’t think of a single brand (outside of ISPs) that has been launched effectively and decisively through online media. This is not likely to change any time soon.

Why? Because brands are built, at least in part, via a group dynamic that builds—not one at a time, but by many people influencing many other people at a time, building critical mass via critical mass.

This means, of course, television or print advertising. It means, if you want a big movements and big mindshare, you have to belly up to the bar and fork it over. There are of course exceptions. But by and large, if you want to be big, you have to act big. And acting big entails doing big advertising. And that means not doing it on the cheap.