08Mar / 2011

Everything is advertising

Jess Greenwood at the recent Circus Festival brilliantly summed up how I feel these days by saying that everything is essentially advertising. Not just a TVC, but every single interaction with a customer should be treated as an opportunity to advertise in the truest sense of the word. A case in point.

Then I came across this interview with Johnny Vulkan of Anomaly where he talks about something I’ve mentioned here before. Marketing isn’t just about the promotion. There are three other forgotten Ps we should be considering as advertising. Promotion has kind of become like crack to brands and agencies, but we are undoubtedly starting to see a shift to the other stuff.

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04Mar / 2011

Austerity and creativity

I’m going to try to refrain from complaining about David Cameron in this post and be optimistic. Whilst there’s not much you can do about the coalition for a few years, austerity, at least in some circles, could be a good thing.

A lot has been said about the negative impact of the ‘austerity’ measures – The Guardian has a good blog dedicated to it. However not much has been said about the positives. How resourceful and creative will people become solving everyday problems? What kind of new counter-culture will bubble to the surface? How many new businesses and business models might be created that go on to really change industries?

Here’s one small example, but I love it. In a small village in Somerset, both the mobile library service and the phone box was about to be taken away due to cuts. So what do they do? Turn the phone box into a book exchange. Simple but genius.

Mark Hudson, in this Telegraph article, discusses whether hard times actually better inspire the arts and goes on to say: “The coming hard times, it is widely believed, will separate the wheat from the chaff, winnowing the work that has real purpose and need to exist – which will, it is said, always surface no matter how steep the odds – from a kind of ponderous, puffy official art that has thrived over the prosperity of the last two decades, created by people whose talents are for form-filling rather than self-expression, work whose disappearance few will miss, let alone lament”.

Here’s to creativity in times of austerity.

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28Feb / 2011

Thoughts on Circus Festival 2011

One of the things I miss professionally about home is the high standard of industry events and speakers. There is always something on to keep your brain stimulated and generally challenge the industry’s often institutionalised way of doing things.

Now I’ve been in Australia three years, so I think I can say this, but I’ve generally been underwhelmed with most conferences. No offence, but it’s the same people, talking about the past, or passing off creds as thought pieces.

So last week wasn’t just an improvement, it was a huge success thanks to The Communications Council. The first ‘Circus – Festival of commercial creativity’ was actually worth the money thanks to an awesome bunch of speakers.

So here were my highlights in no particular order.

Rob Campbell of W+K was both refreshingly honest and inspirational. If clients and agencies follow his call to arms, I think the industry will be in a good spot. Here’s his presentation, but without the F-bombs and candor it doesn’t quite have the same impact.

Despite the ironic tech issues (Prezzi is cool, but not that practical) Marvin Chow of Google gave a good insight into how the organisation approaches marketing. As an engineering company the cliché of creativity coming from anywhere actually seems to be true thanks to process and beliefs. Substantiated by the fact that the ‘Life in a Day’ project came from the mind of marketing co-coordinator in London and not a highly awarded Creative Director and advertising agency.

Jess Greenwood of Contagious not only had nice feet, she took us through some of the themes that are bubbling around the world of marketing -I particularly loved her statement that ‘everything is advertising’. Never a truer word said.

Agnello Dias was very humble talking about his work with The Times of India. Whilst I think he was a bit modest putting it down to luck, Dias demonstrated how agencies can lead the agenda for brands.

Josh Spear and Jeffery Cole were also fantastic. It’s great to see people talk about digital with some rigor and genuine insights. The whole concept of behaviour changing due to technology is fascinating and probably widely underestimated by people still concentrating on pumping out ads.

Charles Wigley was also great talking about the biggest problem in our industry – The marketing wind tunnel. The reason most advertising these days is either ineffective or homogenous is because of the process we all go through is essentially the same and unenlightening. You can read it here.

All up a great few days and I can’t wait for next year.

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15Nov / 2010

Is a good product the new advertising?

I can’t remember where I recently read a quote saying something along the lines of advertising now being a tactic used to address defects in a product (if it’s you let me know, I’ll give you a HT).

But it’s true, with the exception of leading brands the majority of categories essentially tell people the opposite of what the desired audience believes. From finance to automotive, brands have spent the last few decades generally asking people questions like: “What’s your issue with said brand and/or category?” Then they spend stacks developing ads that address the said ‘insight’. If they’re marginally smarter they will create a helpful online tool or cool piece of content that is intended to make people forget about the problem in the first place. Why? Because it’s much cheaper and quicker than addressing the actual problem with the product.

This Adage article highlights the trend of marketers taking money out of product development and ploughing it into advertising at the expensive of the product quality.

“For decades, the focus of many companies has been taking cost out of their products, often to invest in marketing and always to increase profit.

“It all raises the question of whether efforts to cut production costs have gone too far and whether marketers would be better off putting more money back into quality control — even if it means spending less on marketing”.

I believe we have gone back to the days where the strongest brand survives. The best products will generate the most conversations and therefore the most sales. In today’s networked economy it’s no longer possible to get away with an average product that has its cracks covered up by half decent advertising.

Being more optimistic, the rules are now slightly different. We are seeing product and marketing essentially becoming one in the same thing. Technology increasingly allows us to not only improve the product but do it in a way that’s actually networked. Think Nike Grid, Visa’s Right Cliq, iTunes Ping, Starbucks and Foursquare to name a few.

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28Oct / 2010

Have brands forgotten how communication works?

I’ve long held the belief that marketing, when in the right hands, is a genuinely exciting industry to work in. And without sounding too lofty, I also think it makes the world a better place.

However in the wrong hands it’s anti – social, shouty, samey, artificial, inefficient and in many instances misleading.

To be honest, marketing’s main problem is that it’s forgotten how communication works. How and why do people communicate? How do people obtain value from the things we develop? Products, brands, advertising, social media or otherwise.

It’s evolved into an unnecessarily complex system with rules, beliefs, conventions, layers and many unhelpful and irrational motivations. Many of which have no relation to how people communicate and their relationship with brands.

I’m optimistic though. There is a bubbling under current of common sense and perhaps there is a straw about to break the marketing camel’s back. I hope so.

First Faris sparked some debate with this post about all market research being wrong. The headlines being 1) we don’t know why we do what we do. So why ask them, you’ll just be led up the garden path. Then 2) the gulf between claimed attitudes and actual behaviour is vast.

Then BBH Labs (an increasingly great agency blog) challenged that the reason we misuse our metrics is because of cultural issues that marketing departments and agencies have developed over time.

Finally Umair Haque summed it all up by stating ‘Marketing can do better’. Essentially Umair questions why the fundamental assumptions of marketing haven’t changed for decades.

I feel a series of posts brewing. Something about ‘it’s how we communicate stupid’.

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28Jul / 2010

Does the world need better Strategists?

Over at Naked NYC’s blog there’s a provactive post about whether the world needs Digital Strategists. As one, I actually agree with much of the post. I agree with the fact that de-centralising strategy is not a good thing.

However one thing that concerns me about some comments, is the air that digital strategy is somehow subordinate to traditional planning and it’s just a skill you can pick up by spending time on the Internet. Or that Digital Strategists don’t get brands or can’t generate insights as well as traditional planners.

I do believe that putting it in a silo is unhelpful, but lets not forget how it came about and why it still exists. As professionals who are paid to understand people/culture/media on behalf of brands the vast majority of planners have dropped the ball and not delivered. Hence digital strategists. You can’t blame people for filling voids and creating opportunities that you have allowed to exist.

My gut says that in the not too distant future digital strategists, won’t exist, but they will be running strategy or marketing departments.

Give the same problem to the best ‘digital strategist’ in the world and the best ‘traditional planner’ in the world and I’d have my money on the former.

So I’d re-phrase their post to ‘Does the world need better strategists?’

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01Jul / 2010

Planning stuff and doing stuff

I’m in the rather unfortunate position to have the word ‘strategy’ in my job title. I say that for a couple of reasons. One, I feel like a tosser when introducing myself to people. And two, the word is a bit on the nebulous side. Perhaps that’s why I feel like a tosser?

I hate to say it, but I will. In marketing land ‘strategy’ is too detached from the doing. I’m not saying planners should also be ideas people, but being good at generating insights and storytelling isn’t really cutting it with me. A planner today needs to be much closer to helping solutions see the light of day and making them happen.

Here are two; not so much contrasting views, but they highlight my point. To be honest I agree with them both, but if you asked me who I would prefer to employ it’s the person that ‘sweats the small stuff’ than tells the stories.

Rory Sutherland articulates the problem perfectly: “The big stuff is done magnificently well, what you might call the small stuff is done spectacularly badly. There’s a complete gridlock in solving these solutions. The people that can actually solve them are too powerful and pre-occupied with what they call strategy to actually solve them”.

1. Rory Sutherland. Sweat the small stuff

2. Skills of the Rockstar Planner: Communicating Ideas

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24Jun / 2010

Big seeds AND little seeds

Having worked on both sides of this fence, I’m convinced that the argument over mass reach marketing versus niche ‘influencing the influencers’ is nothing more than a pissing contest. It’s about how both of these work together and to be honest it always has been, but now we can see the relationships through the abundance of data at our finger tips. Here’s a neat explantion of the fallacy of niche targeting courtesy of the Viral Ad Network

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01Jun / 2010

Information Gaps

It doesn’t happen often enough, but once in a while it’s nice to discover a new blog that keeps you interested. So if you haven’t been to Jeff Monday’s blog yet, Mondaydots you should. To summise, Jeff explains sometimes complex theories simply. Which is good for people like me, who have the attention span of a 4 year old.

One of his most recent posts is on information gaps.

In his words: “It works like this: when we come across something new that is not explained by our previous knowledge or experiences, an information gap is formed. If you are a designer, creator or communicator, understanding how to use this gap will have great rewards.

It amazes me how many new product developers, marketers, and advertisers create the wrong sized gap. They either create a “me too” product or service which creates an information gap that is too small and uninteresting. Or they let their engineers and creatives add wild, bloated, and unnecessary “features”, and create a huge information gap that inspires fear over the size of the gap and size of the of the learning curve”.

I love this because it’s so bloody true. I know I keep using Apple analogies here [sorry] but they are very good at introducing new technologies that create medium sized information gaps, the iPad being it’s latest example. It’s like a laptop but different. It’s like a netbook but different. It’s like a magazine but different. It’s like your Mac book or iPhone but again different in some way.

At the other end of the scale you have Microsoft creating information gaps that are too small with minor product iterations (Natal excluded) and Google are arguablly creating ones that are too big like Buzz and putting everything in the cloud [100% stolen/inspired by Wired]

Then there are those that create information that are so big you can’t compare it to anything.

Think of Internet service providers and telcos banging on about how many gigabytes I can get. Now I know 1 isn’t much and 150 is a hell of a lot more than 1, but what does that actually give me? How many movies can I download? How much talktime can I get on Skype?

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The Communications Room

Category Archives: Advertising

Austerity and creativity

Thoughts on Circus Festival 2011

Is a good product the new advertising?

Have brands forgotten how communication works?

Does the world need better Strategists?

Planning stuff and doing stuff

Big seeds AND little seeds

Information Gaps

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