30Nov / 2009

This year’s thoughts on marketing next year – Models, madness and measurement

As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. But unfortunately this year has probably delivered the reality check that some of the hardened traditionalists needed. The key things that need shaking up as I see it are the big game changers – the way we operate, the way we think and the way we measure. If we get that right, next year will be a walk in the park.

It’s not about starting to use Twitter or creating an iPhone app. It’s the areas we all know that need changing, they just get put in the too hard basket. Undoubtedly there will be some blood, sweat and tears, but it’s increasingly becoming necessary. So the problems as I see it are…

Models
Clients and their agencies need to reorganise and recalibrate themselves around people and how they actually behave and interact with brands in the 21st Century . First of all we need to scrap silos that don’t talk to each or pump one message out into several channels. We need a bunch of multiple coherent ideas that can be achieved by creating more converged doing roles. Let’s get excited and make things.

In my opinion many roles in agencies and within marketing departments operate in isolation and aren’t about doing, they are more about managing and controlling. We need a lot more Chief Culture Officers, Conversation Economists, creative technologists and Experience Designers

Madness
This one is aimed more at agencies, although brands need to take some of the blame as they believe a lot of rhetoric that comes from them. But essentially no single agency has the right to own an idea or relationship. As we increasingly encroach on each other’s territory due to the convergence of media, it’s going to be the survival of the fittest, not he who shouts loudest. As Amelia Torode recently said, or was that Tweeted: “The best idea is the one with the biggest impact.”

The next point is our problem with binary thinking. We see things too black and white and it’s always a case of yes or no. What about the grey area in the middle where real life actually happens. No single media channel is better than another, they’re different and much more powerful when complementing each other.

Measurement
I’ve mentioned this before, but essentially you are what you measure. In an increasingly social and hyper connected world why are we still using broadcast metrics to evaluate our performance? Let’s face it, in the major markets of the world digital is not only here to stay, it is used by the majority rather than the minority. We need to measure accordingly rather than hiding under rock hoping it will go away.

Due to the penetration levels reaching a high level we can begin to understand how people are actually behaving rather than things being projected. Take this recent stat from ComScore – ‘8% of users make 85% of the clicks when it comes to display advertising’. Now I have no reason to believe that the same isn’t true for TV. Think about it, only 8% of your projected reach is probably watching an ad break and that is being generous. The answer isn’t to spend millions increasing the frequency (this is a poor argument from agencies and publishers to protect revenue) and use that as a brand effect metric, but engaging the other 92% with stuff other than ads, then adapting the metrics accordingly.

The next post in this series of rambles is going to be on marketing to networks, I think.

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26Nov / 2009

Marketing like Viagra…it’s not big and it’s not clever

Some brands are getting it right…others on the other hand are still marketing like those dodgy Viagra pills. And just to clarify when I say getting it right, I’m talking about brands not using social media to just pretty much spam a heap of people.

Starting with the ones that are getting it right, Ikea recently used Facebook’s photo tagging function to give away products from their show room. They created a profile for the store manager and he uploaded some photos of the show room. The first people to tag an item with their name on won it. Awesome..the full details are below.

The second is Toys ‘R’ Us who rewarded friend’s of the brand’s fan page by giving them exclusive mystery deals. Simple, but nice and it’s also solicited.

Now for the ones that that don’t. I’ve mentioned Moonfruit before and despite what some people think, it is not a shining example of using Twitter, but Westfield has almost topped it launching its ‘Win a $10,000 Gift Card’ promotion through Facebook. Essentially you update your status by saying ‘All I want for Christmas is a Westfield Gift Card’ and you get entered into a prize draw, whilst spamming your friends at the same time.

The main differences are…

People want the Macbook not Moonfruit and people want the $10K, not the Westfield Gift Card. It’s a meaningless relationship that have got people wanting and talking about the wrong thing, unlike the Ikea and Toys ‘R’ Us examples. The latter’s products and brand experience are part of their communication.

Moonfruit and Westfield have also got the mechanics wrong. Larger groups benefit with Ikea and Toy ‘R’ Us, not just a handful of individuals. They are essentially marketing to networks of people rather than just applying prize draw tactics learnt in the ‘push’ world. You need to be more inclusive rather than exclusive marketing to networks.

You could argue that Moonfruit and Westfield are playing a numbers game which might be true. These promotions wouldn’t have cost much to execute and less than a 0.5% conversion might make them money, but it is still seen as unsolicited spam, albeit indirectly through my friends. And let’s be honest, if I start getting a friend spamalanche, I won’t be using FB et al that much. This might work for Viagra, but do you really want to market like that?

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25Nov / 2009

This year’s thoughts on marketing next year: The prelude

There’s been a lot percolating in my head over the last and it’s about time I got it out in a series of posts relating to marketing as I’ve seen it this year. Hopefully you’ll find it mildly helpful and interesting…and not too rambly.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I think anyone who works in a digital agency probably spent most of last year trying to demonstrate how modern marketing needs a distinctive and somewhat evolved approach to work in digital I daren’t say different because that merely feeds the binary decision making and black or white thinking that hinders many organisations. But as Eric Schmidt highlights, we do need to stop making a distinction between media.

That’s not to say that brands aren’t doing good things, it’s probably the most exciting time to be doing what we do. However things are still broken on a vast scale and the problems lie in systems, business models, metrics and marketers being outpaced by how people are using technology.

To use a Mark Zuckerberg quote: “A lot of this (change) is just social norms catching up with what technology is capable of.” The problem is of course, social norms are way ahead of most brands thanks to said technology.

My esteemed colleague Iain McDonald likes to use this little thought experiment to highlight how ridiculous some of our thinking actually is when you look at life through a digital lens.

First of all imagine if the Internet, as it is today, came before TV. Then someone said to you we are going to put a big box in the corner of your living room. You can only watch certain programmes when we say you can and then every 15 minutes we are going to show you half a dozen ads that are 9 times out of ten, irrelevant and uninteresting. We will then repeat many programmes that you have already seen throughout the year. You would obviously tell them to get stuffed.

Online behaviour and the use of technology is changing people’s expectations of brands and how they actually behave in the real world. I will cover a few things before the year is out that will hopefully help you for the next – a fresh start and all that guff.

Things like the re-calibrating of businesses, forgetting what you know, the great digital realisation that people don’t care about brands, marketing to networks, convergence of media, media slices rather than chunks, the system of objects, innovative research and measurement. Next post to come shortly…I hope.

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23Nov / 2009

Feed: The 2009 Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report

It’s that time of year again. Razorfish (where I work) has released Feed: The 2009 Digital Brand Experience Report. You can download the full report here.

Enjoy and please spread the love

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20Nov / 2009

Digital campaigns that caught my eye this week

I’ve been running around like a fly with a blue backside the last few weeks. However after a bit of down time today I came across two great campaigns that I would hold up as shining examples of great digital work.

The first one is Sony’s Fantasy Festival partnership with Last.fm. You have an imaginary $1M to spend on your fantasy festival line up and the winner is the person whose selection has the most buzz online- kind of like Fantasy Football for music. Here’s my effort…

Why do I like this?

The communication is tied into a product. Once I’ve picked my line up and named my festival I can listen to it on Last.fm and share it with friends. Simple idea but cool.

It’s a genuine experience not just a prize draw. I spent ages battling with my consciousness. Do I put some super bands like Muse in that have a lot of buzz even though I don’t like them, or ‘keep it real’ and stick to my favourites. Seriously have a go, you have to make some brutal decisions.

The second campaign is from HP who is raising the awareness of the Global clean water crisis by supporting a team of climbers looking to reach the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro.

They don’t start till January but you can track their progress via a website that is the equivalent height of Mt Kilimanjaro in pixels – check out the scroll bar! Neat idea from Goodby

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05Nov / 2009

A socially social campaign fuelled by social – Why Movember works?

[Sorry, I had to use all the various meanings of the word just to ensure there was no misunderstanding as to what this post is about]

At the moment my Mo looks more like I’ve drunk 10 cans of Coke and licked my top lip, but it is still early days. However this isn’t about me and my Mo, although you can sponsor me here should you wish, it’s about why Movember is a perfect example of marketing in a social world.

It has social object

OK it’s for a good cause and bog paper might struggle to emulate this, but it demonstrates the need to unite people around something compelling enough. In this instance it happens to be a good cause, but it could just be a good idea.

Secondly raising awareness and funds for Men’s health is arguably under represented compared too many other causes; you could say it’s a challenger. Everyone wants to support the challenger.

It gives people something to do

It’s not just a Facebook group where you sign up and forget about it or where you change your Twitter avatar and feel pleased with yourself. It requires people to actually commit to doing something. We all know actions speak louder than words these days.

It makes things spread

It unites groups of people with some real social fuel. There is something to talk about, it’s highly competitive and narcissistic (in a weird and slightly perverse way). Nobody wants to be told they have a dirty lip now do they.

It visualises things happening within groups. People copy each other and the more people that grow a Mo, the more people will a) find it acceptable to grow one or b) Feel left out if they don’t and follow the crowd. Nobody wants to be the first person at the party, so brands need to try and visualise activity and interactions happening, so people feel like everyone else is doing it.

Movember relies on both strong AND weak ties. In order for it to gain significant traction with the population in a short space of time, the ‘handful of influencers’ need to be exposed to the masses – the Mo being the social lubricant and object that is shared across these groups. Brands should ensure that they don’t spend all their efforts on the clump of interconnected cool kids and remember Joe Public needs to be exposed to what is happening.

Social mechanisms

It obviously has the standard Facebook, Twitter and email options so you can spread the word and generate donations, but there is more to the way they feed the fire.

It gives you the tools and reminders to upload and document your progress – as well as fundraising rankings. This keeps you promoting yourself and pushing your efforts through your networks. Brands need to give people something to follow and talk about in order to keep people interested.

Movember gives Mo growers rewards for raising money, including a tickets to the end of campaign party. It inspires people to really push for more money through the month rather than just an email at the beginning. Brands should reward people on a regular basis for giving up their time for you.

Last but not least – it’s useful

For those of us unfamiliar with growing facial hair there is a full on style guide and grooming tips. This should come in handy when rectifying my dirty lip.

Visit Movember and track down your friends and fellow Mo growers

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The Communications Room

Monthly Archives: November 2009

This year’s thoughts on marketing next year – Models, madness and measurement

This year’s thoughts on marketing next year: The prelude

Feed: The 2009 Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report

Digital campaigns that caught my eye this week

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