Interruption, Disruption or Enablement?

We spend an inordinate amount of time doing things that piss off our customers.

Who loves radio ads?  Or TV ads, or whatever, really?  Sure, there are the great ones, but as a whole, most consumers would just assume get rid of them.  At least, I would if I could.

We've made careers out of doing things that our own customers hate.  Maybe they don't hate us, in particular, for them, but did you love McDonald's any extra because of some new tagline? Probably not.

With all this focus on interruption or disruption, maybe we were going for the wrong thing all along.  We never really had to interrupt anybody.  We just had to make it easier for them to do the things they love, and do so in noticeable ways.

We should be working hard on enabling, making things work better than they did before, for the mutual satisfaction of both our brands and our customers.  Is the happy medium really in interrupting their favorite television show, or showing them an ad for no other reason than there may be a couple extra inches of space? 

If branding really is about sales through endearment, maybe our tactics aren't the problem, it's our misplaced goals that lead us to these poor conclusions.