“We’ve got to PUSH our brand harder” – I assure you, you don’t
To kick things off, I would like to remind you of some dictionary definitions of the word ‘brand’ as provided by Dictionary.com:
- A mark made by burning or otherwise, to indicate kind, grade, make, ownership, etc.
- A mark formerly put upon criminals with a hot iron.
- Any mark of disgrace; stigma.
- To mark with disgrace or infamy; stigmatize.
With this in mind, I am always left wondering why certain brand managers and their traditional advisors and agency representatives insist on continuing their march down the one way street of broadcast communication and PUSHING the (alleged) benefits of the brand.
Why is it so outrageously difficult for them to comprehend that people don’t want to be TOLD that brand X is better than brand Y by brand X itself? – That is like me telling a girl that I am better in bed than the next guy… highly unbelieveable, reasonably offensive and ultimately not going to achieve the end goal.
Message to the aforementioned brand and agency employees: STOP TRYING TO PERMANENTLY ETCH A MESSAGE ON TO A ‘TARGET AUDIENCE’ – IT IS IRRITATING FOR THE PUBLIC AND WASTEFUL OF YOUR COMPANY’S FUNDS.
Here is a simple (and literal) example of branding done badly:
So, is it actually about driving/pushing/building BRAND? Or instead would it not be a better idea to create/encourage/facilitate experiences and opportunities around your product or service?
When was the last time a TV or Print advert generated genuine consumer feedback like this?
“I’m sure this is considered a tourist trap, but it was VERY cool. The tour portion of the brewery was remodeled a couple of years ago, but the building itself is ancient (at least by my standards), and you get a free Guinness with the tour. The picture shows my friends in the Gravity Bar, at the top of the Guinness Brewery.”
Answer: It never has.
The Guinness factory is a great example of how a product can demonstrate it’s values, history and heritage outside of a 30sec spot/Full page ad. The best bit is that Diageo activly monitor online community dialogue and make changes based on feedback.
Facilitate the ability for your target audience to discover the best bits about your offering and they will do the rest.
All you have to do is:
- Create a space for communities to build so fans and adorers can begin a dialogue with each other as well as with the product/service.
- Amplify this online experience by facilitating real world events where all those that share a similar interest (in this instance, your company) can convene.
- Encourage and incentivise word of mouth – There is nothing more powerful than personal recommendation.
Done right, this approach will undoubtedly lead to an increase in whatever metric you are tracking (As previously blogged, only four really matter: Awareness, Engagement, Interaction, Sales).
Your approach must truly embrace the possibilities of new media, it is no longer satisfactory just to have a ‘search’ and ‘display’ aspect to your budget. That will highlight the fact that really… you don’t actually know what to do with all the new opportunities appearing in the digital ecosystem.
Social, Mobile, Location Based and Geo Targetted possibilities are very real, incredibly functional and outrageously scalable – All the people in this space already have put their necks on the line and innovated to the point of pushing the curve, they are on the train but it is still at the station for the time being.
They need the financial support that brands bring in the form of ad-dollars, it will come – I and many others have positioned careers around the fact that it will and when it does the train will leave… the only question is, will you and your brand be on board?
Instead of pushing brand harder, pull the consumer in closer.
Here endeth today’s lesson.
Calling all Data Pimps and SEO Ho’s
All credit to the awesome Mark Fallows at McCann Erickson who blogged this earlier in the week.
Love it.
Awesome new movie – The Crew
I had the opportunity to invest in this production and did not take it. After seeing the trailer I am kicking myself because it looks awesome.
Watch the trailer and keep an eye out for the DVD release.
Very cool.
Yet another reason why Obama won
There has been much coverage of the fantastic efforts Barack Obama’s media team went to in order to win the White House.
Amelia Torode wrote a brilliant post on how Obama successfully monetised the longtail of campaign donations by offering supporters to donate whatever they wished via online transaction – read full piece here.
What I haven’t seen get much coverage in the UK is the awesome personalised viral that my aunt sent me from NYC.
It works as follows:
You receive an email saying “Your friend Cheron Tomkins sent you the following video from CNNBC: “Obama’s Loss Traced To Alistair Crane”.
You click on the link.
You then watch a video consisting of emalgamated newscasts with subject banners along the bottom of the screen and various other media sources tailored to carry your name – All of which blame you for Obama loosing because you didn’t vote.
After watching, you have the chance to send a tailored video to your friends, thus not only facilitating but actively encouraging viral. The pattern continues ad infinitum.
Very, very compelling – this would certainly get even the laziest bums-off-seats.
EXCLUSIVE: A day in the life of Blyk – The good, the bad and the ugly
Yesterday was a major marker in the history of ad-funded MVNO Blyk.
Encouraging news to hear that Timo Ahopelto announced at GSMA Mobile Asia Congress Show that Blyk is currently evaluating the best markets and host networks in the APAC region to support the Blyk business model.
Also, brilliant to hear that these claims of aggressive expansion are well founded (and funded!), having attracted an extra €40M in finance from investors to enable growth internationally. Blyk published a press release earlier today on their blog – read in full here.
I was delighted for them, after all the hard work that has been put in by the amazing team, it ultimately boils down to the investors agreeing to continue to bankroll the venture until enough advertisers get on board to play their part in driving exponential sales growth which is ultimately what is needed to make any ad-funded proposition profitable, Blyk is no exception.
Now, there was one part of the press release that I found a little intriguing and I don’t blame anyone who missed it but there was a massive clue to some kind of shake-up within Blyk. I don’t believe at the time of writing this post that anyone has published the news so here goes an exclusive:
There is a sentence in the press release that reads “However, we like everyone else are feeling the impact of the world’s financial situation. As a result, in parallel to securing the new investment, we’ve taken decisive steps to cut costs and streamline our organization.”
OK, makes sense… but I am a big believer in clarity and therefore wanted to know what was meant by ‘cut costs’ and ‘streamline our organisation’.
I was about to call a few old friends to get the inside track but there was no need, they called me. Shaun Gregory, UK CEO had arranged a company meeting and announced that there were going to be changes made and true to his word, approximately 50% of UK staff received letters consisting of carefully worded corporate speak but ultimately stating that they had been made redundant, I hear it was a similar state of affairs in Helsinki HQ where an identical staff meeting was help at exactly the same time as the UK and the same grim news was given.
While I feel for my ex-colleagues and friends who find themselves on the sharp end of this situation, I think they are in a brilliant position to capitalize on the market thirst for the invaluable experience and knowledge which media companies, small and large, are so interested right now.
So, if you are looking to hire some of the youngest, brightest, most talented people in the mobile/digital/youth media industry then you’re in luck – Feel free to drop me a line and I would be delighted to personally introduce you to creative, planning, insight and sales people who will genuinely drive your business further forward.
I wish all those recently departed from Blyk and all those still within the business every success and encourage you all to keep pushing the agenda and ideals you believe in. You have already played an integral part of bringing positive change to a business, sector and industry as a whole – I’ve no doubt you’ll be able to replicate your successful efforts again.
Onwards and upwards
The Future Of Mobile is OPEN
I was at the Future Of Mobile conference (organised by Carsonified) yesterday and have written about the speakers that interested me for all the right and wrong reasons.
Rudy gave a thorough rundown of the most salient points in mobile right now, touching briefly on what Facebook, Google etc are doing – His presentation can be found here.
Big point from Rudy, everyone has either already adopted or is working on implementing open source commerce – EVERYONE IS WELCOME.
Presence, location and community are the three major categories that organisations are specialising in but no one is doing all three.
Ultimately, everything hinges around User Experience.
Panel session – Hosted by Simon Rockman of Sony Ericsson
Panel consists of Symbian, Purple Labs, Google, Microsoft.
The chap from Microsoft missed the point in a MASSIVE way – He was obviously keen to demonstrate that Microsoft can compete with Apple and announced ‘We have over 18,000 apps available on Windows Mobile. Microsoft might not have brought them to market and made them as easily accessible to users as the iphone but they are there.’
Why don’t these guys get it? It doesn’t matter how many app’s that have been developed for your platform – It matters how many are RELEVANT to the user.
TruTap – Doug Richard
OK, I have been REALLY looking forward to listeining to this guy… I thought he was awesome on Dragons Den.
Developing personality on computer – this is where you build your profile – the phone is a communication extension, not an ideal place to create profile but a good tool to enrich your profile platform.
Social networks are a temporary phenomenon as in they started on a PC. What we need to do is transfer the ‘JOIN’ process on the phone.
Innovation is coming from new users in emerging markets where there is capital, opportunity and no prior base of revenue to hold you back
Doug was truly inspirational. Awesome.
Matt Miller – Adobe, Open Screen Project
Estimates 3Bn connected devices now, growing to 5Bn in 2009 – Growth to come from mobile.
1Bn devices to be flash enabled by 2009.
Matt made it really clear that applications need to be devised on a bespoke basis for each device but also need to be available for each device – Desktop, mobile etc.
Andrew Grill, Mobile Evangelist – 6X6 Bloggers Perspective
First of all, thanks for the shout-out Andrew 🙂
Andrew spoke admirably on the key points of mobile advertising – Permission, Privacy and Preference is key.
He also gave a brilliant example of V.1 Mobile Advertising – Scooters towing billboards asking if his wife to marry him…. she said yes.
Lastly, there was a demo of theawesome Gigafone app – www.tinyurl.com/mobilead.
Vero Pepperrell – That Canadian Girl
Key points to success of Mobile (Marketing, Networking *insert your sector here*) = Respect, Responsibility, Reputation.
Helen Keegan – Beep Marketing
Implementation rather than Application – Hoorah! It’s all about how you use it rather than how it is developed.
James Whatley – Whatleydude
Whatley says hire young people – He couldn’t be more right! This deserves a bigger piece.
Young people are The Future of Mobile, they were born into it – Get them involved and they will give back!
Jemima Kiss – The Guardian
She usesmaps on her phone more than she uses it to makes calls or txts – You don’t know what’s coming next – Keep your eye on NAVTEQ 🙂
Maybe I missed a few speakers because of various calls I had to take during the day, if this relates to you the I do apologise.
Great event, well attended – Thoroughly enjoyed meeting Alexia from Google, Tomi from Tomiahonen.com, Andrew Grill from London Calling, Benedikt Hanswille from 12 Snap, Eliza from AmberGreen and so many others.
Congrats to the organisers at Carsonified for arranging a great event. Long may it continue.
‘Buzz’ factor? What a load of ‘Muff’
I got up at 3:30am to catch the Eurostar to Paris – You do these kind of things when you start a new job. Its all about enthusiasm J.
I shouldn’t moan about my travel arrangements, if you want to see a ridiculously hectic schedule just join Dopplr and have a look at Jonathan MacDonald’s itinerary!
Anyway, I got up bloody early and worked for most of the journey on presentations, managed to finish with 15 mins to go and rewarded myself with a read of the latest MediaWeek. An article entitled Brand Barometer is published frequently and works as follows:
- A different piece of media activity is chosen to analyze – This time it was BT’s consumer campaign featuring Kris Marshall and Esther Hall.
- YouGov provide statistical data collected by surveying members of the public.
- Metrics tracked and reported on are ‘Quality’, ‘Recommend’, ‘Index’ and ‘Buzz’.
- A conclusion is drawn as to whether or not the campaign was successful based on the above factors.
Here is the graph published by MediaWeek:
OK, now here’s the rub – In the past I have always turned the page and chuckled inwardly about what a ridiculous set of data to collect, let alone to take seriously enough to comment on and publish… but this time was different. Due to my early wake-up and therefore distinct lack of sleep from the night before, I felt compelled to publicly and explicitly state that what they are doing is FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG.
Instead of tracking ‘Recommend’ or ‘Buzz’ or ‘Muff’ or any other ridiculous metric you care to dream up, it is actually just about four things (hint: none of them are listed above):
- Awareness
- Engagement
- Interaction
- Sales
I am hardly surprised that brands and agencies have not reached the same conclusions. Let’s stick with BT as the example, a brand that is meant be positioned to embrace technology, understand consumer trends and insight etc, etc.
So, in the past 12 months BT have spent £77,494,991 (I’ve done my homework) on traditional broadcast media – AKA: Paying to push a message to an entire audience regardless of whether they want to hear it or not, and then when it gets there your current/potential consumer base do not even have the most basic ability to communicate back and begin a dialogue.
Let’s put this into context with a simple analogy – Your current/potential consumer (note how I refer to them as an individual… something the brand in question has not done) is walking along the street on his way to work, minding his own business thinking about something a world away from what you would like to sell them.
As they round a corner they are confronted by someone screaming a product offer from the rooftops, obviously hoping that someone will pay them attention This loudmouth is paid £30 for every thousand people that walk within earshot (not that it can be tracked) – Just in case you think I’ve gone mental, this person is a billboard.
You won’t be surprised to learn that your consumer continues walking and pays no attention to the words being shouted, in fact the noise blends into the background hub-bub made by the rush hour traffic.
Needless to say that this person will not buy your product, in fact the majority of the public simply filters out your irrelevant and quite frankly, offensive communication.
MISSION FAILED.
Now, let me give you another analogy.
The same consumer is walking on the same journey to work, he sees someone stood there with a BT logo on his T-Shirt and a placard handing round his neck which reads
‘I can get you the cheapest TV, phone and broadband package, I’ll be here every morning between 8am and 10am and would be happy to talk about the various different packages that might suit you – In fact, I’ll even put you in touch with lots of my current consumers who are happy and you can ask the about the benefits and drawbacks yourself’.
The consumer cant stop at that moment because he has something else on his mind but makes a mental note to stop and chat to the man from BT the next day.
Tomorrow comes and he starts talking to the BT man, he is impressed that the man listens to what he wants and makes tailored recommendations based on his needs. The consumer is almost ready to buy but wants some reassurance, so true to his word the BT man arranges for the consumer to meet some of his current clients and discuss.
Even though a few of the current customers had some negative feedback it became clear that BT had the best product for the money, the current clients had mentioned they used to be with competitors but changed and haven’t looked back – Needless to say that the customer went ahead and bought the most suitable package for him.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
OK, a little bit like Jackanory but here are the salient points:
Advertisers:
- Stop TELLING and start ASKING. Broadcast is dead, your consumers want DIALOGUE and if you won’t facilitate a conversation where you take it in turns to talk and listen then someone else will – YOUR COMPETITORS.
- Please, please, please for the love of anything logical, DIVERSIFY YOUR SPEND, EMBRACE INNOVATION, PUSH THE CURVE.
- And when you do, make sure you are monitoring activity using sensible metrics. Everybody knows the world is going through tough times right now and I am absolutely certain that sales are more important than ‘buzz’. Don’t believe me? Just ask your shareholders.
- If you do not feel 100% comfortable with this it is not a problem, just contract in experts. I would be like a fish out of water fixing the carburettor on my car so I pay a specialist, do the same with your agency selection – If you would like a recommendation please drop me a line on cranealistair at gmail dot com. At the very least invest in some light reading and educate yourself: Every Single One Of Us: The Communication Ideal by Jonathan MacDonald and The Power Of The Network by David Cushman
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing this post but my train has just arrived back at Kings Cross – I am outrageously tired and therefore must sleep before I get the next topic in my digitally telescopic sights.
This is the second ranty post I have written in a short space of time – I promise to write something positive/inspirational next…. I even know what it’s going to be about – Anyone have any thoughts about a centralised profile resource for all of the online communities that you belong to?
Got an idea for an interesting blog post? Leave a comment and I will put the best ones as a vote and work with the winner to publish something we can be proud of J.
Onwards and upwards.
Channel 4 stop selling adverts….. (on mobile)
Are Blyk the only ones to get their act together and actually make any revenue from mobile advertising and therefore warrant financially maintaining a decent sized sales team?
There really is a survival of the fittest going on at the moment in mobile. First Rythm New Media shut down their UK operation, then Courtney Anderson (ex-Digital Sales Director) leaves Orange with no announcement on where he wil reappear and now this from C4 (Looks like Matt White got out at the right time):
Channel 4 is closing the interactive and mobile parts of its advertising sales business, which will result in up to four job losses.
From 31 December, 2008, Channel 4 will no longer offer interactive red button ads. It ceased offering red button options behind content at the end of 2005, but now will no longer offer the option to click through to additional content behind ads.
A Channel 4 spokesperson said: “Over the past 12 months we have seen a steep decline in demand for interactive TV advertising and it is with regret that we are closing this area of business.”
The broadcaster is also ceasing to sell ads around its mobile content. Channel 4 currently produces a 20 minute rolling loop of short form TV content, broadcast across the major mobile networks, which carries advertising.
Shortened versions of programmes like Hollyoaks, Grand Designs and Supernanny all feature on the mobile platform, but from 31 December, these will no longer carry any advertising.
However, unlike the interactive ad business, it is understood that Channel 4 is open to restarting this area of the business, should appetite for mobile content significantly increase.
The closure of these divisions is part of Channel 4’s cost cutting drive, aimed at save £100m over the next two years, which will see 150 job losses in total.
It has already closed down 4DS, its third party digital advertising sales business and withdrawn from digital radio, but remains part of the 4Digitial consortium.
If you find yourself in a similar position to the guys selling C4 mobile then get your CV over to these guys:
Happy birthday to The Hospital
Media moguls and creative gurus members club of choice is turning fours years old on Friday (14th November) – Happy birthday The Hospital!
Film noir is the theme and there will be free drink all night thanks to Bacardi, Glenfiddich and a host of other beverage providers – We are forever in your debt…. well, for the night anyway.
As part of the evenings entertainment there will be a poker room with prizes to be won including bottles of the finest whiskey, meals for four at the outstanding Hospital Club restaurant and even free memberships for those that can beat the mystery guest (aka Pro poker player) – No prizes for guessing where I’ll be spending my time!
See you there.
Arthur Benjamin the mathemagician – Truly amazing
I discovered Ted.com after reading an article written by Mark Boyd from BBH in Campaign Magazine and haven’t looked back since – Every video I have watched on the site has truly astounded me, Just check out this guy.
Advertising should be all or nothing ---- Go Big or Go Home 