There is this auction idea integrating with Nike +, the further you run, the bigger your bid. Then there is this low-tech retail idea from Puma. Both absolute genius in their own ways.

It’s not just the sexy brands either. They are killing it on seemingly boring products as well. There’s Scotch-Brite, offering customers at a restaurant a free dinner if they wash their own dishes.

Hellmann’s Mayonnaise is another. When a customer buys Hellmanns a recipe based on other products in your basket gets printed out on the bottom of the receipt.

I don’t believe that these countries are anymore creative than say US, UK or Australia, its just that the concept of creativity is different. This is essentially down to experience, or more specifically a lack of traditional advertising experience.

Generally speaking, their creative communities aren’t bound by previous knowledge or experience in the same way we are in many developed countries. For our markets, being experienced carries baggage and is more often than not a burden.

I do think we are hitting a turning point, but generally speaking we are waiting for a generation to get out of the way.

Some further reading How baby boomers are stifling the marketing revolution?

Thoughts?

This recent survey highlighted that agencies feel like the Australian marketing industry is too conservative and small minded. I’m not sure that’s totally true.

If your innovative idea is right but they aren’t buying it, then you haven’t adequately helped them understand the possibility of said innovative idea.

A marketing department doesn’t need cool, it needs ideas that work for the lowest possible cost AND effort. This is where the problem, but also the opportunity lies.

We need to make innovation easier for clients to understand and execute, even when it’s actually increasingly the opposite. Anything that feels too hard for a return that is only on par or incrementally better will not fly. It gets put in the too hard basket. This is very different to being conservative or small minded.

The great agencies out there doing true innovation are those that give its clients the confidence that it’s the right solution and can be delivered. They also do a good job of showing why any potential pain will be worthwhile.

Rather than just wheeling out you digital strategist, agencies need to learn from technology companies and in particular start-ups to see how they get venture capitalists to part with huge amounts of money. Nick Law of R/GA was recently in Australia at a conference and he referenced how VCs would never buy a conceptual idea in the same way brands often do. VCs want to at least see prototypes and feasibility studies.

Not only is this interesting it’s also a fundamental shift in process, skillset and business model. Selling the best above the line campaign is very different to selling a business changing innovation.

So the next time you hear yourself saying that your client isn’t innovative, maybe you haven’t done the idea justice.

Image via Seth1492

Ratings and ranking systems are a part of almost every industry these days. From finance and media to sport and music, people lap these things up.

I can’t stand them myself. In my humble opinion they make people behave all weird. Like moths attracted to a burning hot light bulb. They know it might end in 3^rd degree burns, but they just can’t help themselves.

On the one hand ratings make a lot of sense. Rating things attempts to show what’s good and what’s bad and what’s popular and what’s not. This allows people and companies to make more informed decisions. The problem is they are easily manipulated and arguably driven by rather shady motivations.

Whether it’s buying the latest single, making a bet, an investment or spending marketing budget, various forms of ratings heavily influence what people do.

You only have to look at the financial crisis to highlight how pointless they are.

Millions of dodgy sub-prime mortgages were given goodratings by official organisations just to keep the money rolling in. This Time quote pretty much sums things up:

“But ratings also became a stamp of actuarial approval that often let investors and regulators skimp on their own due diligence”

Now I’m know financial whizz, I work in advertising, but how does USA have a perfect credit rating despite being one of the most in-debt countries in the world, coming a whisker away from defaulting?

Media buying around TV ratings is another example of how reality is distorted. Brands spend billions buying up the ad breaks of the highest rating shows. Now I’m not against TV advertising I just think it’s way over priced for its impact.

TV has never been a better medium for advertising the media agencies and networks will tell you. Ratings are up, and more and more people are watching TV (this is true). As a result one 30 second spot in The Voice will cost you $100K to ‘reach’ approximately 2m Australian.

Why do companies do it? It’s supposedly the quickest and easiest way to reach a lot of people with your gospel. Again this is fundamentally flawed.

It’s projected. It assumes that people are actually watching the ad. You only pay for the actual TARPs/GRPs I hear you say. Have you ever met anyone that actually has one of those mythical little boxes that records the sound of the show to check you have watched the ads – of course not, but that’s beside the point. And just because it’s recorded the sound it still does not mean I have watched the ad break let alone remembered it.

Marketers aren’t very good a observing their own behaviour. The front room is full of distractions. I could have checked my emails, sent a tweet, checked my Facebook account, played Angry Birds or God forbid spoke to my Wife, made a cup of tea or had a number two.

Media agencies are even peddling this point of view about time-shifted viewing not really affecting the situation; they are just watching more TV. Who does not fast forward ads on shows you have recorded? In fact there are so many ads on some shows I have to record it because it’s impossible to watch it at the set time.

Again not to say TV isn’t a good medium, just don’t always follow the high rating shows. There is a better way. The problem is that people don’t get sacked for creating TV ads to plonk in the highest rating shows. It’s not their fault if it doesn’t work, it must be the creative, and after all media buying and TV ratings is all scientific like. Well it’s not, it’s designed to keep people in Jags and I’m amazed how the industry just takes it.

Ratings completely mislead industries and make organisations take its eyes of the bigger problem and ultimately the prize. Australian networks are more interested in driving prime time ratings on one or two shows to sell ads than creating content people want to watch.

Brands and agencies spend way too much time and money trying to fill these breaks rather actually making stuff people want.

Ratings give people an overinflated confidence and should only be used as I guide. You need to ask the tough questions even if you can’t measure stuff 100%. Take them on face value and you will get fixated on the wrong goal.

To be honest I’d whack it on the remote just to make it even easier.

Via Rubbishcorp

It’s also a very good read and to be honest, I’m still quite partial to thumbing the fine stock of a well made publication. It’s called the Smith Journal.a and a vailable at all good newsagents (I imagine), I throughly recommend it.

In a recent article on Wired, Jonah Lehrer highlights why the human brain can struggle to solve hard creative problems.

It also implies, at least to me, that if you want creative problem solvers in your business, you might be better off employing people with either brain damage or a drink problem.

Jonah uses this little brainteaser to highlight the point.

Move a single line so this math equation becomes true.

IV = III + III

Not too taxing on the brain right? You just move the Roman numeral to the right of V. Well try this one.

III = III + III

A bit harder? If you are in the majority of people that didn’t get this correct, the answer is to move the vertical in the plus horizontally so you create an equals.

The reason we miss the solution to problems is due to our inability to look for answers in different places. We are essentially primed to look for the answer in the familiar rather than unexpected (*cough* 30 sec TVCs…USPs…brand essences).

Well guess what? As always they were right and never has a truer word been said when it comes to agency folk. Particularly planners.

I’m continually amazed by how many types of strategists it takes to change the communications light bulb these days.

A GP doesn’t go; ‘Well that seems like a nasty cold, but let me consult my cold and flu specialist before I make a diagnosis.’

Yes there are times when you should engage a specialist (and I mean real specialists), but I see no reason why a modern brand planner shouldn’t get social media and vice versa. Why shouldn’t account planners know the fundamentals of user experience design and media planning? In fact I’d have it in the job description.

A GP essentially has a working knowledge of the human body. More often than not they can fix it and when they can’t, they know who to call. They don’t wheel out a brain surgeon every time someone walks in with a headache.

This is essentially what still happens in adland. Every time the Internet word gets mentioned in a client meeting all the agencies wheel out their digital and social media strategists. Probably to show they get it, partly because the rest of their team don’t, but mostly because they see it as a new revenue opportunity.

I’d love to see account planners step out of their comfort zone and learn the ins and outs of media. More importantly agencies need to move digital talent upstream and input into brand problems rather than just working on Facebook brand pages and shiny iPhone apps. Some of the best thinking on brands today comes from people with digital backgrounds and not advertising.

Just like the healthcare industry with GPs, can’t we just have smart people that get a lot of different stuff? Do we need to a strategist for every ailment a brand has?

To be honest much of this is caused by gaps in people’s knowledge and the companies they work for. You don’t know what you don’t know right? However it’s easily fixed. Keep learning new stuff and go and work in different kinds of agencies or on different projects. Trust me it’s fun.

A large sporting event apparently.

Putting the quality of this year’s advertising in and around the Super Bowl to one side. Why does it take huge sporting events to motivate brands to create communications that people are actually willing to watch? And not only watch, but seek them out.

Creating communications that people are willing to spend time with seems like an obvious mandatory that should be in any brief, no?

Admittedly most of the ads are essentially gags or emotional cinematic pieces but at least it adds to the experience rather takes away from it. Have you tried watching anything on free to air TV in Australia these days? It’s absolutely impossible to get into any show and follow the story. I’d rather wait for it to finish and buy the box set.

I’d love to see networks place some rules around the quality of what goes into the ad break. After all it’s in their interest to keep people interested isn’t it?

To be good you need a squillion dollars I hear you say? Ludicrous Super Bowl rates aside, not really, check this out from Field Notes.

Perhaps the reason for this sudden change in inertia is that the big cheeses suddenly take an interest and who wants to be the CMO with the least popular ad?

However rather than a future of planning essay, I felt it much more appropriate to write a ‘future of planners’ piece. Mostly because I don’t believe the next generation of potential planners are as attracted to our industry as they once were.

Yes, the golden era of planning, or the days of the planner as the advertising rock star are well and truly over.

Hence I didn’t think it was worth entering, I’ll just blog about it here instead (and it’s less work and carries no fear of failure. In my head I have won). So here it is.

It’s probably best to broach this subject by starting with a question. If you were graduating now, all bright eyed, ambitious and hoping to change the world, which companies would you be applying to? Mine certainly wouldn’t be the ones I originally applied to about 10 years ago.

Whilst there might be a few agencies in the mix (such as where I work obviously), it’s now filled up by companies such as Apple, Google, Intel, Pixar or Facebook, potentially even consultancies, or IDEO and Frog over a traditional agency. The options for smart, analytical, creative and curious people are in abundance.

One of which is starting a venture of your own. Whilst more ventures will fail than succeed, the general feeling of the moment is that anything is possible. It’s all very Silicon Valley and it might just be me, or the economy but the amount of smart and not so smart people leaving the ad industry to pursue a personal venture is increasing rapidly.

A lot of this comes down to experience and the fact it isn’t really seen as necessary anymore. This is a bit of sweeping statement and there are many exceptions to the rule, but when I meet ‘experienced’ ad or marketing people they are generally long in the tooth and the very people that are making the industry less innovative.

Experience is still valuable, but it isn’t something that young people feel like they need to wait for in order to succeed. Gone are the days of having to work your way up from the mailroom (yes this does still happen) or being the research dogs body, you can just get on and do it, you don’t need permission.

Even client side is becoming sexier and its not just to work on brands such as the Nikes of this world. Take P&G with its ‘Inspired by purpose’ positioning and focus on design strategy.

For me at least, that sounds way cooler and meaningful than running groups and writing briefs for ads, even for great ones. It takes you much higher up the food chain and closer to the making of stuff and most importantly a difference. (And you don’t have to deal with precious creative directors, which is always nice).

Agencies also used to hold all the cards. If a brand wanted to drive sales, the easiest thing to do was to create some adverts and book some media. Brands needed agencies to do that for them. That is obviously no longer the case. There are more ways to skin a cat and its increasingly possible, easier, cheaper and more effective to do things in house and through other channels and partners.

That’s not to say that all innovation will or should happen in house, or that agencies won’t be required, but any planner with an ambition will look to be at the centre of innovation, at the heart solving real business problems or be on the margins of cutting edge R&D. Advertising still has a future, but it’s no longer the strategic lynchpin in your plan that it used to be, it’s now merely a service.

What would you find more attractive? Transform an industry? Change the world with a new product? Or help create an award-winning ad? Even the coolest integrated, digital, social media thingy isn’t be as cool as a Nike + Fuelband. Yeah it will need advertising, but I’d rather have contributed to the product than the ad.

So what do agencies need to do to attract the next generation of smart people?

The majority of answers to a client’s problem do not lie in advertising, they lie in creating new products, services or even new business models. This is something that young planners will organically follow. Therefore common sense suggests that ad agencies need to focus on the 3 other Ps of marketing and not just promotion.

Agencies need to make more money from developing products and services, and not just ads. It’s critical if they are to survive and also attract the best talent. Ultimately agencies have the potential to create great ideas that can help a business over and above advertising.

BBH is a great example of a ‘traditional agency’ being ahead of where the industry is moving via Zag. I also wish more agencies would put their money where their mouth is, just like Anomaly by creating its own IP.

Agencies need to really get rid of any process that creates divisions around the ownership of an idea and help planners get closer to the making of stuff. Promote entrepreneurialism by getting them to help make things happen. Perhaps even give them a share in any IP they help create?

Spend money on them and help them learn a new skill that’s not just brainstorming, social media or storytelling. I’ve interviewed young planners who know a bit of code. This is cool and something I’d bite my arm off to have learnt when I had more time.

Get them working on something extra curricular that’s not advertising to stretch thinking and bring something new to the table. It might be a Google 20% kind of thing. Let them work on a project that has the potential to create new revenue for the agency but also new ways of thinking.

All in all, we need to learn from other industries to make our industry more attractive to budding planners. Perhaps we are even talking about changing the industry we are in?

Essentially the future of account planning has no future without account planners.