Never get out of the boat

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

agile planning by R.M. Rilke

”I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

From R.M. Rilke's letters to a young poet .

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language. His haunting images focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety: themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets. - from Wikipedia

Friday, August 12, 2011

the competition

Here's a few things that the competition don't do.

The competition don't buy your product or service.

The competition don't pay your bills.

The competition don't reccomend your product or service to friends, colleagues and family.

The competition don't write positive reviews.

The competition don't point others to information that help them choose you.

The competition don't leave positive comments on your website or blog.

The competition don't wear your t-shirt.

The competition don't get a tattoo of your logo.

The competition don't want to participate in helping you improve your product.

The competition don't share your content/advertising.

The competition don't participate positively on your Facebook group.

The competition don't retweet you.

The competition don't keep buying you when there's cheaper alternatives.

The competition don't want to connect with other people who support you.

There's probably loads more things the competition don't do.

So why do we spend so much time worrying about what the competition is up to, instead of focusing on serving our customers and supporters better?

Thursday, August 11, 2011

if i can dream

This is probably Elvis Presley's finest moment, his performance of 'If I Can Dream' - the jaw-dropping anthemic finale of the 1968 NBC TV Special.

After years in the doldrums of army service, crummy movies and half-baked throwaway hack-pop ditties Elvis reclaimed his position with supreme authenticity, total relevance ('68 USA was still reeling from Vietnam, Watts Riots, JFK, MLK) and pure soul.

This is my only comment on the thoroughly depressing scenes from London, Birmingham, Liverpool and other cities around the UK this week, and the equally depressing knee-jerk reactionary commentary from sections of the blog and twitter-spheres whom I would have thought knew better.

*As an interesting footnote, 'If I Can Dream' was actually written overnight, at the request of Elvis himself the night before the recording of the show, by Walter Earl Brown as a last-minute replacement for a schmaltzy Christmas number that the Colonel had originally wanted.

Whatever your religious persuasion, if Christmas is a time for closing one year, looking forward to the next with hope, faith in the human spirit and some old fashioned optimism, this song says more about that than I'll Be Home For Christmas, for sure.

We could do with bringing a bit of that forward to August this year.

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

insight lesson from david bowie

In a 2002 interview around his album Heathen David Bowie expressed his frustration at having to continually (over) explain certain nuances related to the project.

In particular the photo on the sleeve in which his eyes are replaced by fish eyes.

The fish being the secret symbol for Christians avoiding detection in prejudicial circumstances whilst signifying connection with each other. Ergo Heathen.

For those of us who are looking for those signs and symbols in relation to understanding human behaviour, and motivators thereof, as a profession there's a pointer from Dave, with a nod to the escalation of karaoke culture - the prevailing culture in which there is no responsibility, and instant fame/success can be had for little meaningful effort - which was already well underway even back in 2002.

'People are so fucking dumb. Nobody reads anymore, nobody goes out and looks and explores the society and culture that they were brought up in. People have attention spans of 5 seconds and as much depth as a glass of water.'

squirrels are eating your internet

This just in from Gizmodo.
'Level 3 Communications, a major ISP, has a serious beef with squirrels. It turns out the little rodents have a penchant for chewing through their fiber optic lines. They actually account for 17% of the damages to their 84,000 mile network this year.'

PSFK Future Of Retail Report 2011

PSFK Future Of Retail Report 2011 [Preview]

View more presentations from PSFK

The PSFK Future of Retail report is worth a look, even in the edited free version.

They identify 10 key retail trends that sit within 3 broad themes – what they describe as Online Expectations Offline Experience, Shopper Know-How and Redefined Retail Cartography.

A fancy way of describing the new buyer journey as it continues to evolve.

The PSFK team spoke to the people behind many projects that are transforming the shopper experience, including many senior retail and brand executives.

Worth a peek, at least confirm what we are already understanding about retail, it's mobile, social and local.

The PSFK report in full is also available to purchase with a versioning strategy au naturellement.

Thursday, August 04, 2011

read this before our next meeting

The latest release from Seth Godin's Domino Project is Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli.
He's on a mission to change the way organizations hold meetings, make decisions, and coordinate action.

I'm there with you, matey.

He calls Outlook/Entourage meeting alerts 'weapons of mass interruption'.

Here's the manifesto:

The Modern Meeting supports a decision that has already been made.
The Modern Meeting starts on time, moves fast, and ends on schedule.
The Modern Meeting limits the number of attendees.
The Modern Meeting rejects the unprepared.
The Modern Meeting produces committed action plans.
The Modern Meeting refuses to be informational. Reading memos is mandatory.
The Modern Meeting works only alongside a culture of brainstorming.

The Modern Meetings Revolution from Al Pittampalli on Vimeo.

For a limited time, the Kindle edition is free...

really crap trainers

Some startling insight from Gary, Tank Commander.
Gary is arguing for the necessity of nuclear weapons.

Many companies are essentially using this same rationale for the adoption of Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts.

Gary is a fictional comedy character, unfortunately business is in real-life.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

when is a branded utility not a utility?

When it's a germ magnet.

The Cottonelle toilet roll cover, tin thing. With a lid one has to have to pop off and on before one has washed one's hands.

The broad definition of 'branded utility' being one of 'improving people lives and creating value for the user and the brand'

This?

They didn't think it through, did they?

HT Bud Caddell

proliferating across the earth

Nietzsche's philosophy was regurgitated in a manipulated form by the Nazis in their quest for european/world domination.

Slightly extreme analogy but the message of the digital-social evolution of communications is often regurgitated and manipulated to their own grubby end by the never ending proliferation of social media 'experts' that shows no signs of abating.

Of course with the plethora of sensationalist tech blogs and A-list douchebags to pilfer dogma tweets and content from why bother creating your own stuff? Or cultivating your own point of view?

The process goes INFORMATION > UNDERSTANDING > WISDOM
Getting to wisdom is the goal.

To that point it's worth having a timely reminder of this clip from 2007.
This is a public service post as many of today's social media experts would not have actually been around when this first appeared, anyway.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

what's up doc?

I spotted this toy in the doctor's surgery the other day.
On first look I was convinced it was a star-jumping Osama Bin Laden in a red sweatshirt and flares.

Flip it and it's actually Bugs Bunny.

Phew.

gerd leonhard: the reinvention of advertising

The here and now of advertising explained concisely by Gerd Leonhard in under 8 minutes.
No mean feat. He makes it look easy.
Send this clip to anyone you know who doesn't get it.

the future is thin and bendy?

'This is the future. Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years,'
says Roel Vertegaal, the director of Queen’s University Human Media Lab and creator of PaperPhone - a flexible smartphone.
'This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper.
You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen.'

'Bend it, bend it just a little bit,
Take it easy, show you're likin' it'

As predicted by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch.

Monday, August 01, 2011

shiny objects #2356

Once again Olivier Blanchard is one voice of reason well worth paying attention to in the world of digital-social marketing and branding and an antidote to the plethora of social media experts/enthusiasts/pro-retweeters.

He has penned a fairly comprehensive assessment of Google+ which I suggest you have a look at, it includes this paragraph of uncommon sense amongst other wisdom.

'I caution you against drinking anyone’s koolaid. Shiny object syndrome is a major source of noise on the web these days. Tech bloggers make a good living creating content on their blogs with the purpose of attracting as much traffic as possible in order to make as much advertising revenue as possible (and catch the eye of larger media outlets like Mashable, CNN, etc.) So every tech story they can get their hands on has the potential of earning them stacks of cash. The incentive then isn’t to truly analyze or report (or even wait and see), but to sensationalize every new platform release, from Quora to Google Buzz. There is nothing wrong with it, but just be aware of how the web “thought leadership” and content curation bubbles work. A lot of noise doesn’t mean a whole lot except a feeding frenzy of web traffic and incremental revenue. Right now, Google+ is the big story. A while ago, Google Wave was too.'

in search of excellence - 1 tweet summary

Tom Peters, in response to a tweet, summarises his tome In Search of Excellence - and his philosophy, in less than 140 characters. 127 to be precise.

"Cherish your people, cuddle your customers, wander around, 'try it' beats 'talk about it,' pursue excellence, tell the truth."

Whilst Seth Godin once said:
'If you can't state your position in eight words, you don't have a position.'
Even Seth would probably give Tom a pass on this one.

Monday, July 25, 2011

getabl

You ping out a message saying what you want, vendors ping you back with an offer.
It had to happen.

They say...

'GETABL connects you live to your favorite local businesses, at the moment you are looking for something they provide.

You search for your desired product or service and local merchants are notified instantly via text. Merchants can then respond and present their best deal to you. If you like the deal sent, you can simply walk into their place of business and redeem. Its that easy!

GETABL is a patent pending social utility that unlocks real time deal seeking and assistance capabilities for c*nsumers with unprecedented customer acquisition tools for merchants.'

It seems to only work for USA at the moment. We'll be watching this space...

HT Project VRM mailing list.

UPDATE
See also Zaarly,
'It's a little bit eBay and a little bit Craigslist, but it's mobile, real-time, and location-based'

thanks Niko Herzeg

Friday, July 22, 2011

be reasonable, demand the impossible

I've only just ordered @LukeGWilliams book Disrupt not 30 minutes ago and already I'm getting excited just reading the preview.

'A disruptive hypothesis is an intentionally unreasonable statement...designed to upset your comfortable,
business equilibrium and bring about an accelerated change in your own thinking.

Contrast this with the more traditional definition of “hypothesis,” which is a best-guess explanation that’s based on a set of facts.'

I'm accused of being deliberately unreasonable (as in every day) and my retort is simple.
It's the method.

Be reasonable, demand the impossible!

if it ain't broke (shot by both sides again)

Last month I wrote about the disruptionistas eternal problem, being shot by both sides.

'Being the scourge of both extreme traditionalists, and also the extreme inhabitants of the social media echo-chamber means one has to beware of being shot by both sides.'

And as if by magic I stumbled on the blog of Luke Williams, Author of Disrupt (Amazon order placed, thank you) and co-founder of Frog Design.

'The attitude, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is the enemy.
It’s the seemingly unbroken aspects of a situation that provide the richest opportunities for innovation. They tend to be the things we ignore, precisely because they don’t change.
It’s more effective to start by identifying something in your business that’s not necessarily a problem, in a place where others wouldn’t expect to look. In other words, think about what usually gets ignored, pay attention to what’s not obvious, and start with things that ain’t broke.'

Innovation or disruption doesn't happen with fixing things that are broken, it comes from propelling things that are already working further up the curve than is reasonable to expect.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

there’s a hole in the funnel - redux

This is a newer version on a older theme - much covered in these pages, natch - the changed buyer journey, and the death of the funnel.
This was written for the newsletter of the Australian Marketing Institute, it's coming out next week I think.

___________________________________________________________________

There’s a hole in the funnel

As marketers we’ve all grown up with the ‘funnel’ metaphor as a framework by which we think about a buyer journey.

Customers, or prospects, would start out at the wide end of the funnel then narrow down their potential choices til a sale pops out the other end.

While we could even argue that this metaphor has never really been that accurate, it’s certainly broken now, in the 21st century.

The major spanner in the works has been ‘c*nsumer’ empowerment, enabled by the internet.

We now have almost unprecedented ability to; research and learn about companies, products and services and then make decisions, often independently of marketing and advertising messages, and increasingly following recommendations of other people like us.

In fact, around 60% of the touchpoints we may encounter on a typical journey now come from sources other than the brand.
And a customer journey that might have taken days or weeks in the past can now happen in a matter of minutes thanks to the mobile web.

Think about your own behaviour.
Have you ever googled a restaurant review while standing outside on the pavement?
Check.
Who do you trust more?
A company’s website or customer reviews on Amazon or Trip Advisor?
Check.

This happens at a stage that McKinsey & Co - in their 2009 report The New Customer Decision Journey - called active evaluation.

When the number of brands your customer is considering actually increases when they start poking about online. This is exactly the opposite of the premise of the traditional funnel, which goes from broad to narrow.

Back to that restaurant. The one you are standing outside gets 3 stars but you discover a five star review for Luigi’s, which you never knew about but it’s just round the corner.

This is the stage when we are intent on purchasing and we are actively researching the product.

Here's where the disconnect happens as much of advertising focuses on 'awareness' and trying to get into the 'initial consideration set' then catching sales at the other end with promotions, coupons and the like.
Yet, 'when the c*nsumer reaches out during their active evaluation stage, companies are not providing the right facts and testimonials that the consumer is looking for'.

This is where having a content strategy and leveraging consumer-driven marketing comes into it's own.

Content strategy is not just about being cute with keywords and SEO, it’s also about thinking like a publisher.

Becoming the leading online authority on your category or teaching people how to make best use of your product or service.

Authentic content makes your brand findable, credible and believable during this all important active evaluation phase, where customers are won or lost.

And when 'two thirds of the influence is from consumer driven touchpoints — word of mouth, talking to friends and family, searching on the internet’, what have you got to say that is worth spreading?

Ask yourself what you are doing to support the whole buyer journey.
Where are the opportunities to amplify the voice of the customer?
Can you create those opportunities?
Which are the touch-points of most influence?
Is your biggest issue simply awareness or is it churn?
Added value experiences for customers are no longer just a nice-to-have. Customers are demanding them. Or else voting with their feet.

So, it's official - there's a hole in the funnel.
People no longer make buying decisions in a linear way.
People turn to peers, friends, and other users for advice above other media.
The potential number of choices increases in active evaluation.
The more reasons (value) you can give customers to stick or prospects to switch, you win.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

situations

Here's something I've written for the Digital Pigeon newsletter. It comes out later this week but I thought I'd give a sneak preview here first....

_______________________________________________________

Facebook lessons from the Situationist international

In his 1967 work La Société du spectacle (The Society of the Spectacle) leading Situationist, Guy Debord documented his theory of The Spectacle.

In it, he argued, that through mass media, television, hollywood and emerging technologies, capitalism - perpetrator of The Spectacle - was controlling the conditions of human existence.

In effect, the world we see is not the real world but a world we have been conditioned to see, via an onslaught of images.

The Spectacle's audience simply observe the ‘show’ – ie life - as passive spectators, consumers if you like, without actually participating or experiencing it.

Debord saw the only outcome as Alienation.
The Spectacle made us all spectators. Manipulated into substituting material things for authentic experiences and separated from each other.
Passively consuming the image, the spectacle, together but ultimately isolated from everybody and everything.

Debord and his fellow Situationists felt that "if we can explain how the nightmare works, everyone will wake up!"

However, for the lumpen proletariat to wake up they would need to be active participants in the process.

To that end, a tactic of the Situationist International was the construction of situations.

A constructed situation being a ‘moment of life concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective organization of a unitary ambiance and game of events.’

Ironically, as marketers, as ones who in the past have actively perpetrated the Spectacle, through branding and advertising, there are some learnings from the construction of situations we can apply to marketing in the age of social technologies and connectedness.

As a footnote, Debord et al would doubtless be perplexed by the voluntary reification, or self-commoditisation afforded to individuals by Facebook, but that’s another discussion…

So
A situation is designed to be lived by its participants
It’s not just ambience, it’s an integrated ensemble of behavior.

In regard to Facebook fan pages or any type of community building effort it’s important to note that simply amassing vast numbers of fans or followers (ie buying likes) has little or no value.
It’s also important to remember that the destination in Facebook is not the page but the news feed. This is where content (or objects, to use Facebook parlance) is experienced.

An Object is more likely to show up in your News Feed if
you and people you know have been interacting with it or it’s creator, recently.

So social context and quality of interactions are the most important factors for Facebook engagement.

I repeat: social context and quality of interactions.

To describe our lesson in achieving this comes I’m paraphrasing notes on the construction of situations first described in issue one of Situationist International from 1958.

Situations require:

1. A temporary director or orchestrator.
The orchestrator is responsible for coordinating the basic elements necessary in the construction of the situation, and for conducting certain interventions.

In Facebook these are the page admins.
The interventions are simple. Leave no comment unanswered, leave no contribution unthanked and use every opportunity to connect the participants, or constituents with each other.

2. Direct agents
The direct agents living the situation, who have taken part in creating the collective project and worked on the practical composition of the
ambience.

The reason that 90% of social media marketing efforts fail is down to one simple factor.

Marketers and their agencies are married to the notion of the Spectacle.
Otherwise known as launch-and-leave, the defining trait of advertising.

To grow a community, to grow participation the community needs to be constantly fed, prodded, poked, questioned, invited to participate.
There is nothing ingenuine or inauthentic in using direct agents to agitate.

In fact it’s the opposite.
Why should your customers want to get involved and support a situation that the brand and it’s agencies can’t be bothered to live in?

3. Passive spectators
Passive spectators who have not participated in the constructive work, BUT whom can/should be forced into action.

You should be familiar with Nielsen’s Law of Participation Inequality.
Also known as the 90-9-1 rule.

In any online community:
90% of the community will be passive. They will simply watch, spectate and will not contribute.
They are also known a ‘lurkers’.
In many cases they may not even be fans, particularly if you have employed some sort of bribery tactic to attract ‘likes’.

9% will comment, share and edit/remix/modify content.
Likewise these advocates should be welcomed as direct agents (2)

1% will be the power creators (they will create original content, blog posts, videos etc) – these creators should be developed to become orchestrators (1) wherever possible.

In reference to the earlier statement that simply amassing vast numbers of fans or followers (ie buying likes) has little or no value, the objective of amassing fans is to grow the 9% and the 1%. The bigger the pie then the bigger those slices will be.
We’re wired as humans to follow what looks like a good idea.
Good ideas are more often than not those which everyone seems to be doing.
In marketing terms this is the antithesis of spectacle.

There is no situationist art or situationist music or situationist marketing, but only a situationist use of these mediums.
In this case, can using social technologies as a platform for connectedness and value create situations?

Saturday, July 16, 2011

in the ghetto

A genuine question for ad agency types.

When is a producer not a producer?
When is a planner not a planner?
When is an art director not an art director?

When they are a digital producer/planner/art director, of course.

Look at the credits on any campaign/project on one of the industry blogs.
There will be a Producer listed and an interactive Producer.
A Planner and a digital Planner, perhaps.

While of course the skill sets are different.
A TV producer and a web producer do different things.
An insight planner is different from a crm planner or a social connections planner.

By that rationale of labelling should we then have interruption planners and interactive planners?
If we have one we must have the other.
Instead we just seem to have the other.

My irk is that the digital is invariably other.
By labelling it digital it's somehow SEPARATE from 'proper' planning.
It becomes secondary by it's otherness.
It's down the totem pole.
It's the little brother or sister.
The add-on after the real planning.
The nice-to-have.
'Lets get the basics right first then do some social'.

This is not a pop at the traditionalists per se.
It's the digitalists that are as much the problem, by revelling in their otherness.

My fellow digerati, honestly, until we figure this out we'll always be in the ghetto.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

the boy with the thorn in his side

One little cultural quirk (I'm reluctant to label it a phenomenon) that's dying out with the uptake of smartphones and the querty keyboard is the art of predictive text poetry.
A friend of mine used to be a practitioner, his process involved writing the original poem with pencil and paper then rewriting it using an old school mobile phone, and accepting whatever the phone decided the words were.

If you've got an old phone kicking about give it a try.
A common predictive replacement would be the one where home is interpreted as good.
'I can never go good now' etc

My equivalent now is to stick itunes on shuffle and allow serendipity to take it's course.
My fellow innovationistas, I'm convinced there's some correlation between brain activity and itunes shuffle.

Like his Mozz-ness was reading my mind...

Thursday, July 07, 2011

wheel of concept

Although this tool has only come to light this week, I am absolutely of the view that certain media agencies have had secret access for the last couple of years - it's the only way to explain the box-of-frogs-chuck-enough-shit-at-the-wall-and-some-of-it-is-bound-to-stick idea generation process that they seem to adhere to.

Go on, you want to... http://wheelofconcept.com/

R.A.V.E ON or how to do content strategy like it's the NEW rock'n'roll

Here’s some thoughts for the front end on engagement, types of content, and frequency.
This is not exhaustive by any means but this is the bare bones of what we need to be planning.
I'm using this as a base and building upon it.

This is a cut-down version of a forthcoming e-book Eaon’s Law of Engagement on Social Platforms
Working title: RAVE ON.

R – Relevance
The content and message must be relevant to the recipient around what matters to them.
One part of Seth's Permission triple.
Features and benefits may or may not be relevant, a story and shared worldview will almost always be relevant.
Find the story.

A – Authenticity
People are screaming out for some genuine authenticity, not karaoke-culture bullshit.
People are not stupid, they smell phoneyness a long way off.
Keep it real.

V – Value
Creativity is the process of bringing new ideas into existence that have value.(thx Sir Ken Robinson)
How do we make our constituents smarter, fitter, better connected? (thx @umairh)
See also Eaon's (appropriated) Theory of Value.
Give me some substance.

E – Easy
If we want people to interact make it as easy as possible.
Attention is our biggest cost. If it’s too hard to figure out what to do no-one will do it.
True story.

ON – We are ALWAYS ON
It never stops, we can’t ever take our foot off the gas.
Life happens 24-7-365.
Volume is key. Quality is even key-er.
90% of everything else is shit.

Attention in social media is transient and fleeting.
Strategising for outcomes from one tweet or post is a one way ticket to palooka-ville (it has worked but there's a huge chunk of good fortune when that happens - it's not the rule)
And always ON-POINT. Never compromise our point of view on the world.
We need to work out who’s in and who’s out.

Engagement...

1 – Who?
Nobodies are the new somebodies – we have no idea of the sphere of influence of individuals (thx @guykawasaki)
Treat everyone as VIPs.
Every passive fan converted to active is a win.
We are banking karma for later, every somebody was a nobody once.

2 – When?
Cultivate the relationships, even when it seems like there’s no immediate value (see point 1 bullet 3)
Leave no comment unanswered...
Leave no kind word unthanked...

3 – Speed?
People are used to crummy mediocrity from brands.
Just by being fast to respond we have a point of difference.
Speed doesn't kill, lack of speed kills.
Get on one, matey.

Types of content...

1 – WHAT? - Use every piece of media available.
Facebook – the currency of Facebook is pictures and video, these get the most comments and likes.
Facebook – invite contribution, ask the community to help compile lists (team of the week, best bits of movie dialogue etc etc) etc
Twitter – the currency of Twitter is links – Build the brand with context by pointing them at the right stuff that matters (thx @guykawasaki, again)

2 – REMEMBER WHAT FANS LOVE!
NUMBER ONE - THEMSELVES...
ACCESS TO STUFF THAT THE PLEBS DON’T GET...
TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED...

3 – SELL THE STORY/THE DREAM
People are not stupid – they know what beer/toilet paper/tuna is.
Sell them WHY we do what we do, NOT WHAT WE DO.
The market for something to believe in is infinite (thx @gapingvoid)

Your thoughts, comments and criticisms would be appreciated.

Overall foresight and inspiration Jonathan MacDonald - the Communication Ideal - thanks.

the irefutable law of disruptive innovation

Optimisation improves the performance of existing products, services and structures along the lines of improvements that the mainstream will value.

Disruptive innovation, however, will more often than not often have characteristics that staus quo may not want, probably won't like or even be prepared to accept. In the beginning.

Eventually you win.

Ghandi image courtesy of facevectory.com

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

brand activation lessons from the first 30 seconds of Anarchy in the UK

00.00 - 00.05
RIGHT NOW…

Within the first few seconds of Anarchy in the UK we are irrefutably embedded in the present.
There are only 3 time frames. The past, the present and the future.

This opening statement clearly positions the work in the here and now.
This is not retro or futuristic, this is now-ism.

The most important thing is working out what’s important.
The important work is the work being done right now.

Already I'm starting to get what this is about.
As Pete Townsend famously said 'This is actually happening'.

OK, let's go...

00.06 - 00.21
I am an Antichrist…
I am an Anarchist…

Start delivering the key idea right from the off.

To this day this is still arguably the most powerful couplet EVER delivered in a pop song. A nation of 12 year old kids, with the bed covers pulled over their heads listening to John Peel, confronted with this opening statement, were captivated from the beginning.

A bold statement of purpose - an IDEA.
This wasn't about product features or benefits.
This wasn't 'I am a different kind of pop singer from the ones you may be used to'

It was about IMPACT.

An ORIGINAL story.

The words Anarchist and Antichrist had never appeared in a pop song before...EVER.
Never mind within the the first 20 seconds.

And already the brand story is POLARISING.
By this stage you are either IN or OUT.

00.21 - 00.30
Don't know what I want but I know how to get it
I wanna destroy passerby

Now comes the activation part.
We know now what we are supposed to DO.

The enemy has been identified.
The passer by. The passive consumer.

Within 30 seconds we know WHERE we are in space and time, WHY we are here and WHAT we are supposed to do.

Anarchy in the UK is a proposition, an IDEA we are invited to participate in.
There's bias for action.

It's uncertain - we don't know what we want - but that's what makes it interesting.
The sense of possibility.
This is working without a map. An experiment.
Testing a hypothesis, responding to change as it happens.

And the next day, at school, a quick look around the playground and YOU KNOW JUST BY LOOKING who else had the same moment, under their own duvet, with their own radio, the previous night.

30 seconds of noise on a tinny transistor radio that changed everything.

That's the power of an IDEA.

Monday, July 04, 2011

what's in a name?

What's in a name? In many cases, particularly for the small biz, a memorable brand name can be one of your biggest assets.

If there's not much money around to spend on marketing then an instantly memorable, repeatable and google-able name can have a disproportionate effect to findability.

An unique ownable brand name can often allow you to own the search results.
It's also unlikely that potential customers will confuse you for someone else.
This is what I sometimes call Echo-and-the-Bunnymen syndrome.

The person in the van in front of me in this pic has taken some of this on board, I guess, but has stumbled on one key factor.
If I don't know how to pronounce the name it makes it a helluva lot harder to remember or repeat.
I don't know whether this is some esoteric Francaise-ism (pron: ee-strays) or if he/she's asking us not to stress (pron: why-stress?) about our waterproofing situation.

Either way, I'm not sure if I'll remember him/her when I need my waterproofing and coating (whatever that is...but that's another topic).

window display of the week

I was tempted to title this post Society of The Spectacle but I'll save that for another time.
Here's the window display from EyeGallery on Toorak Road.

There's two main reasons why this is great.
1. The Optitians convention is to talk about two-for-one frames, free sight tests or designers - features, service or price etc.
Instead EyeGallery talk about the other things, the things a customer actually cares about.

- Sunglasses are for looking cool
- Regular specs are for looking smart.

2. You know exactly what EyeGallery are about AS A BRAND by the display.
- They poke fun at Margaret Thatcher and George W Bush, whereas they think Marylin Monroe, Twiggy, Bob Marley and Jim Morrison (out of shot, sorry) are cool.
- The Warhol-esque imagery style also adds to the cool factor.
- And Uncle Bert is obviously cool and smart.

Spec-tacular.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

the best time to tweet

We answer today's burning questions.
When is the best time to tweet?
Some interesting stats in the Twitter section of this chart by Social Media Graphics.

The biggest spike of retweet action - 6% - occurs around 5pm every day, optimum tweet rate is between 1-4 tweets-per-hour and the greatest Twitter CTR spikes at mid-day and 6pm.

As we know, statistics rarely tell the whole story.

In reality the answer is somewhat more fundamental.

The best time to tweet is when you have something interesting to say.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

how to have a viral video hit?

We were commissioned by the Melbourne International Film Festival to make some short promotional films in the run up to the 60th annual Festival, which kicks off on 21st July.

One of the films The Potato Peelers has been a bit of a runaway 'viral' success going from zero to nearly 300,000 views in less than 48 hours.

The Potato Peelers takes the mickey out of the (wrong) notion held by some cinephiles that Eastern European films, in this instance Polish, are a bit grim.

How to have a viral video hit?
Sadly, there's no silver bullet I can impart.
Despite opinions to the contrary I would stand by the view that it is nigh on impossible to strategise for a viral hit.

You can, however, have brilliant writing (thanks to our own Nick Kelly) and beautifully crafted execution.

And looking at the You Tube stats and comments reveals that the the Poles themselves have a fantastic self depreciating humour - on a par with Scotland - as the bulk of the views and comments have come from Poland itself.

Viral, as an effect, being subject to the natural selection of interesting.

Over thinking it, leads to only one thing...mamy przejebane.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

shot by both sides

In the quest for enlightenment extremes of self-indulgence on the one side and self-mortification on the other are not advised by the Buddha. Thus the recommendation, as described by the Noble Eightfold Path, is often called the Middle Way.

Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

Notice there's no specific mention of Right Facebooking and Right Tweeting (though these are covered as subsections of all of the above).

For the new marketing provocateur this, however, presents another problem.
Being the scourge of both extreme traditionalists, and also the extreme inhabitants of the social media echo-chamber means one has to beware of being shot by both sides.

What's so funny 'bout Simplicity of Purpose and Coherent Actions (sic)?
Channels take care of themselves.

I wormed my way into the heart of the crowd
I was shocked to find what was allowed...

what makes you unique?

Jerry Garcia on strategy.

'We did not merely want to be the best of the best,we
wanted to be the only ones who do what we do”

fluff

I'm unashamedly re-posting an entire paragraph from the recent McKinsey report on The Perils of Bad Strategy, as it's the most incisive comment on the prevailing mediocrity I've read in recent weeks, and further testament to the Law of Marketing Inequality.

'A final hallmark of mediocrity and bad strategy is superficial abstraction—a flurry of fluff—designed to mask the absence of thought. Fluff is a restatement of the obvious, combined with a generous sprinkling of buzzwords that masquerade as expertise. Here is a quote from a major retail bank’s internal strategy memoranda: “Our fundamental strategy is one of customer-centric intermediation.” Intermediation means that the company accepts deposits and then lends out the money. In other words, it is a bank. The buzzphrase “customer centric” could mean that the bank competes by offering better terms and service, but an examination of its policies does not reveal any distinction in this regard. The phrase “customer-centric intermediation” is pure fluff. Remove the fluff and you learn that the bank’s fundamental strategy is being a bank'.

Simplicity of purpose over scared insights, indeed.

Monday, June 27, 2011

you are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge

Straight outta adland crazy motherf*cker named Eaon P,
From the gang called Plannaz With Attitude,
When I'm called off, I got blogged off,
Squeeze the twitter and strategies are hauled off,
You too boy, if ya tweet with me,
The suits are gonna hafta come and google me,
Off yo ass that's how I'm goin out,
For the punk creatives that's showin out,
Clients start to mumble, they wanna rumble,
Mix em and cook em in a pot like Tumblr,
Goin off on a agile planner like that,
With a deck that's pointed at yo ass,
So give it up media,
Ain't no tellin when I'm down for a YouTube,
Here's a strategy to keep ya dancin’,
With a klout rank like Chris Brogan,

New Buyer Journey is the tool,
Don't make me act the social media fool,
You can go branded content, no maybe,
I'm knockin suits out tha box, daily,
Yo weekly, monthly and yearly,
Until them dumb motherf*ckers see clearly,
That I'm down with the capital R-O-I,
You can't Google+ with me,
So when I'm in your business unit, you better duck,
Cos Eaon P is agile as f*ck,
As I tweet, believe I'm data,
But when I come back, boy, I'm comin straight outta Melbourne...

Damn, that shit was dope.

Friday, June 24, 2011

friday diptych: oscar wilde on mediocrity

Doing what you believe is right or doing the thing that will be popular are markedly different.
For a start, the popular thing has already been done many times, that's why it's popular.

And popular ideas are only popular until the new popular thing comes along.
And that's now, popularly, about every five minutes.

Unpopular ideas touch a nerve, they are controversial, go against the grain, they zag.
In fact, unpopularity of an idea is often directly proportionate to it's interestingness.

The problem with doing what's popular, is that nearly everyone else is doing it too.

As it's Friday have an Oscar Wilde diptych for your powerpoints:

'Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered...
...to be popular one must be a mediocrity.'

Thursday, June 23, 2011

bruzil

It was great to see Scotland lift a trophy in Europe this week.
The 'Bruzil' campaign for Irn Bru picked up a Gold Lion at Cannes in the Media category.

See all the project elements over here.

Obviously I'm biased, but there's real lessons here about:
- The power of cultural significance in ideas that really connect.
- Estabishing your authentic core story and staying true to it.

Or how having a purpose idea allows a fizzy drink to represent a nation's hopes and dreams (a bit).

Congratulation to The Leith Agency and PHD North.

Filed under Never Mind The Proposition.

return of the mach

Machiavellianism is the term that psychologists use to describe the act of deceiving and manipulating other people for one's personal gain. It's also one of the three personality traits referred to as the dark triad, alongside narcissism and psychopathy.

Unfortunately, working in advertising I wouldn't know anything about that.

I was also pretty sure until recently that Niccolò Machiavelli, was a midfielder for Inter Milan.

Minor personality defects aside the Mac did have a cute repertoire of one-liners, this one being of particular interest to the innovationista:

'He who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things'

That's probably a bit brutal, but testament to the difficulty in effecting necessary and timely change where, on the surface of things, nothing appears to need changing, and in fact everything looks pretty good.

The apparent total flop of the Blackberry Playbook (and it's implications) being case in point.
RIM could have cleaned up years ago but for whatever reason some people chose to snooze, and ultimately, it looks like they are going to lose.

inspired by a timely tweet from @erinyasgar

eaon's law of marketing inequality part 2 : xbox NUads #dumbdumb

This here is one of those strange paradoxical anomalies, if there are such things, that arise from time to time.

It's the latest advertising 'innovation' from Xbox Live Advertising - voice and gesture based interactive ads. They call it NUads (ka-chow) - that means Natural User Interface Ads.

Potentially interesting technology described with extraordinary and excruciatingly DUMB examples that lack any understanding of why and how people share content or are likely to interact with each other and/or brands.

I stopped counting the number of 'this is really cool' mentions after the first minute.
Sorry mate, its not cool at all.

I'll leave you with a piece of one of the (almost universally scathing over numerous pages) comments left on YouTube from the Xbox Live fans...

'Wow, I can not believe I will be able to consume ads in such a unique way. I'm so glad I am paying the 50 dollars a year to receive an ad powered online service. Statistically we would like more ads!!!!'

See also Eaon's Law of Marketing Inequality

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

how to be interesting

Take a tip from Patti Smith.

'I haven't really changed at all since I was 11. I still dress the same. I still have the same manners of study. Like when I was a kid, I wanted to write a poem about Simon Bolivar. I went to the library and read everything I could. I wrote copious notes. I had 40 pages of notes just to write a small poem. So my process hasn't changed much.'

To be interesting, be interested.

Thanks The99Percent.

ka-ciao #cars2

My integration into the Melbourne media glitterati took a step further at the weekend as we attended the local premiere of Cars 2.

It was a tentative experimental manouvre, the first ever visit to the cinema for my wee boy - he's two and a half - so it could have gone either way.

He's a big fan of McQueen, Mater and co so if there was an opportunity to test his attention span, this was it. You'll be relieved to know that the morning passed without incident, even the potential trauma of 3-D glasses didn't prove to be any situation.

While the first Cars movie has a balance of high octane action and the 'human' story that evolves in the interactions of the characters, this one goes full-on power action from the get-go.
Story-wise it's a kind of James Bond meets Cannonball Run meets An Inconvenient Truth.

Mogul Sir Miles Axlerod (a Land Rover voiced by Eddie Izzard) looks to prove the his revolutionary clean fuel invention Allinol as a viable gas substitute by inviting the top race cars from the various genres to compete in three races in Paris, Italy and Japan.

Art Director's note: the scenes in the fictional Italian seaside home of Luigi and Guido are of particular note - ka-ciao.

Meanwhile British secret agents Finn McMissile (the Bond-esque character - an Aston Martin voiced by Michael Caine) and 'Bond-girl' Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) are chasing down a plot to sabotage the races by the evil Petroleum companies baddies.

In the unravelling, Mater becomes an unlikely secret weapon for the goodies, his and McQueen's friendship is cemented and there's the little twist at the end.

The producers have gone for the more-is-more approach for this one, big big big on spectacle while the little gentle touches that made the first film watchable over and over (parents of young children - you get this) was perhaps lacking slightly.

Still pretty cool though.

End of review - I'm not holding my breath for any calls from Film 2011 or Empire Mag - but, hey, being an A-list blogger, thought-leader and influencer has it's rewards [joking].

Thanks to Mandy from PN.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

larry flynt and anthony weiner

Some sections of the blogosphere (I won't name and shame) marvelled at the opportunist stunt pulled by Larry Flynt - 'entertainment' entrepreneur - in offering the stupid ex-US Congressman Anthony Weiner a 'job' following his resignation,

'After having learned of your sudden and compelled resignation from your Congressional post, I would like to make you an offer of employment at Flynt Management Group, LLC in our internet group. As a Congressman, you are known for your intensity and perseverance. I believe that this attitude, combined with your service in the House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce, will make you a valuable asset to this corporation.'

Ha ha.

Despite amassing what amounts to tons of 'free' media in both the tabloids and other media that should know better, I'm compelled to say, it's in the nature of Flynt's grubby, manipulative, exploitative and dumb business that means the very best he can hope for is spin-off attention from gimmicky publicity stunts.

It may work in practice but doesn't work in theory.

File under 90% is shit.

cannes the cannes #winningwithintegrity

As you all know, I don't get too bothered about award shows, but having said that, if you're in it you might as well win it.

And to win it with a project that has complete integrity and authenticity is even better.

This is why I'm particularly pleased to have been part of this situation we created for NAB in Australia, which has earned the recognition of our peers and snaffled the Grand Prix for PR at the Cannes Advertising festival.

Integrity? Authenticity? I hear you ask.

This is why it won.

Know which side of the bed you are lying on.
Decide what you are FOR and AGAINST.
Stand for something your customers care about.
Find out who's IN and who's OUT.
Have a philosophy first, strategy follows naturally.
Have a mission not simply a proposition
Use each piece of media to do what it does best.
Make media slippy not sticky.
Be informal, entertaining but still serious.
Agitate.
Create situations.
Pick a fight with someone.

There's our Exec CD Ant with the statue last night, with a shout out to the creative teams.

Bring the noise.

Friday, June 17, 2011

filter bubble?

As the proliferation of online content continues to grow and human attention reaches full-up, Google, Facebook et al are tailoring services to try pre-filter content for their users in the interest of relevance and preference.

Are their intentions honorable? We hope so.

But Eli Pariser , a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and author of a new book The Filter Bubble, argues that we've simply swapped one set of gatekeepers for another.
In the pre-internet age we took what we were given by broadcasters and publishers.
Then the web came along and opened everything up.

But now things like Google's social search, the 'important' tab in gmail, Facebook EdgeRank are the new gatekeepers. Sorting content and providing us with what they think we want.
Eli thinks that we are in danger of being trapped in a 'filter bubble' limiting the chance of discovering new information and points of view.

Worth a look, if you've not seen it.

smells like award-show spirit

Have a look at the Old Spice twitter page.
In 2011 there's been a total of around 30 or so tweets since January 1.
Basically communication pretty much ceased at the end of November, when the mainstream campaign wound up, with only sporadic updates - principally self-pimpage - between January and May.

There's 125,000 followers on there they could have been activating, but didn't bother.

Funnily enough 'engagement' started again in the last five or six weeks - @oldspice started to reply to fans again after an elongated hiatus.

Quel surprise.
Could it be that award shows are coming around again?

I've no problem with Old Spice cleaning up in Advertising categories, it has great writing, great humour and was perfectly executed as a campaign.

But i'm not buying any 'best-use-of-social-media'.

There's also 1.5 million fans on the Facebook page, loads of likes and comments from fans - I dug around for ten minutes or so and failed to find one single repy or response from Old Spice guy.

Fantastic advertising campaign? - Absolutely.
Best use of social? - Nope.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

eaon's law of marketing inequality

Following yesterday's post on Participation Inequality and Sturgeon's Revelation here's the new law.
Eaon's Law of Marketing Inequality.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

participation inequality and sturgeon's revelation

After many years of batting back attacks on the science fiction genre from critics who asserted that ninety percent of Science Fiction was crap, the American science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon concluded that;

To say 90% of science fiction is crap is meaningless, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms.

In other words, we must judge all other culture by the same yardstick.
It must therefore be argued that 90% of all film, literature, products, marketing, advertising etc is crap.

This insight became known as Sturgeon’s Revelation.

According to Google, more 'content' is posted online in each day, today, than was created in the entire history of the internet pre-2003.

Yet upwards of 90% will, of course, be crap.
That's a lot of crap.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

segmentation

What's the most important thing?
Deciding what's important.

With regard to segmentation in any marketing effort the first and most important step is the one most frequently left out.

Your first segmentation is not by demographic or even psychographic.

It's working out those who are likely to be receptive versus those who are not.

This doesn't completely fix the conundrum around '50% of my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which 50%' but it's a start.

Friday, June 10, 2011

systems with soul

This is a great presentation by Andy Whitlock from Poke in London.

In a nutshell he argues that simply broadcasting in social networks is akin to releasing Zombies.

Ideas need to have life and connectedness to have meaning.
He calls this systems with soul.

DEAD or ALIVE

View more presentations from Andy Whitlock

if the kids are united #connectedness

Every business is a hub surrounded by it's network of customers, partners, suppliers, employees and fans/followers.

That's a given.

There's massive value to be got by connecting those people with each other.
That's another given, however it's one that I'd been finding hard to get across on some occasions.

Until the penny dropped with this equation, the juxtaposition these two laws, and the serendipitous moment of clarity that was revealed unto me when itunes on shuffle threw up Jimmy Pursey and the boys circa 1978.

The two laws.

Metcalfe's Law was the law of the networked age.
If I have a telephone, a connecting device, it offers me no value until there are other telephones to connect to.
As each new telephone is added to the network the value of the network to me grows.
Think of this like an email list. I can communicate on a one-to-one basis with all the members of the list.
This is quite good but limited.

Reed's Law is the law of the connected age.
If I'm connected to David and also to Mark then thats good (in a network age sense), however if all 3 of us are connected to each other then the value of that connection is exponentially greater.

In fact the more that each node in a network is directly connected to another node, the more valuable the ENTIRE network is to everyone in it.

In simple terms this is why something like Twitter, that is open, is infinitely more valuable as a communication platform than either the Television, the telephone network or an email list.

Because of it's inherent shared value properties.

They say it must have been a strong wind on the day that the sound of Bow Bells wafted down to Hersham in Surrey, but that wind imbued wisdom on the young James Pursey esquire as he scribbled the lyrics to If The Kids are United on the back of a packet of Embassy.

'Just take a look around you
What do you see
Kids with feelings like you and me
Understand him, he'll understand you
For you are him, and he is you'

Connectedness has been the great disruptor.
Connectedness has changed everything.

If the kids are united then we'll never be divided.

Thursday, June 09, 2011

bertrand russell said...

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinise it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it.

If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.”

Testament to the current fascination with the reputed new dawn of TV advertising, and also why nobody ever got fired for putting a :30 in Masterchef...

coherence trumps consistency

Breaking news suggests that Rovio are set to publish an egg recipe cookbook as part of the evergrowing Angry Birds franchise.

And why not.

Angry Birds is now a bona fide brand with a bona fide story.
Finding the brand story is the hard part, and they have cracked it. So to speak.

Coherence trumps consistency.
Once you have the story nailed it can go anywhere.

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

it's up to you

Statement of the day.
Pretty self explanatory.

I guess it's a variation on the famous Henry Ford nugget,
'Whatever you think you can or cannot do. You're right.'

I found this one on I [love] marketing, via bud caddell. Thanks.

Friday, June 03, 2011

do little monsters prefer itunes?

So Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' album debuted at Number 1 in the US and sold 1.1 million units in it's first week of release.

Born This Way also set a one-week record for digital sales.

Around 660,000 of the sales were for the digital format, it's now the eighth best-selling US digital album of all time.

Illuminati puppet discussions aside ;) - what's curious is; that although 440,000 units were sold via Amazon's 99cents promotion the remaining 222,000 digital units were sold elsewhere.
Principally via iTunes - at $11.99 a pop.

It says something about the simplicity and integrity of the seamless iTunes-to-iPod/iPhone experience versus the clunky Amazon music experience that a huge chunk of Little Monsters would still rather pay the full whack.

keep taking the tablets

To be fair I'm not sure what an 'insight' is versus an observation.
Is an insight even a thing? Or is insight an attribute or skill one has the ability to use.

A bit like 'digital'. Digital is often described as a thing, a noun when of course 'digital' is an adjective.
One can have a digital watch, for instance. Adjective-noun

Although paradoxically one cannot have a digital strategy. But that's another discussion.

Back to insight/observation and a recent chart of the week, this one from Nielsen, and some interesting numbers around the usage of connected devices (ie devices other than PCs or laptops).

No surprises in that Tablet devices skew heavily towards being the second screen with TV and also likely as e-reader type usage in bed.
E-readers index heavily on in-bed usage also.
The smartphone though re-inforces it's credentials as the universal device with it's usage pretty evenly distributed accross all activities.
Each device has a big chunk around 'other', I'm curious about what those other activities might actually be.

One insight/observation might be that technologies change but people don't change that much.

We like to read in bed.
Watching TV is better as a shared experience.
Travel time and hanging around waiting for things is less boring with something to do.
Connected-ness is a basic human need.

These devices are our personal media spaces.
For marketers who want to be in someone's personal media space?
Play + Social + Utility is a good place to start.

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

don't allow

The Intel Australia 'Museum of Me' Facebook app may even be the greatest Facebook application in the world but I will never find out.

*click* - [Don't Allow]

Like many Facebook apps they fail to tell prospective users what is going to happen if they join in.

They tell me they will access and use my information, my location, my friends information, my photos and movies and they will post on my wall.

Why and to what end, that I do not know.

If you want permission to access my stuff I need to know what's in it for me.

app of the week: social listing

This is the first in a sporadic series of app of the week. It might not be every week but we'll see how it goes.

This weeks featured app comes to you with a bittersweet tinge as it's very similar to something I'd been scribbling in the back of my notebook, but I've missed the boat. Snooze you lose I suppose .

Social Listing is location-based mobile app that connect local buyers and sellers.
Available for both iPhone and Android Social Listing aims to reinvent local 'classified' ads by helping their users to sell anything, socially, locally and in realtime from their mobile device.

To sell something simply take a photo of the item for sale, fix your price, write a description and post it.
It will pop up in the stream of other Social Listing users, with the option to post out to Facebook and Twitter.

To buy something you contact a seller within the app and arrange to meet.

The app is light on features, pretty simple and looks like it does what it says on the tin.
I've fired it up, there's no users in the Melbourne area at the moment, so I guess that makes me an early adopter.

My bargain $2 facemask pollution defence thing (what are those things actually called?) is the only item for sale in town.

In the spirit of nail it and scale it there's probably a number of enhancements.
There's no categorisation for a start.

Einstein said 'Things should be a simple as possible, but no simpler'.
Social Listing falls slightly on the side of simpler at the moment, but has potential.

As a platform it works for other kinds of classifieds too. Dating and Jobs immediately spring to mind.
Of course, Jason Fried of 37 Signals famously recommended software developers should 'think like a drug dealer'.
Social Listing could be handy if one actually is a drug dealer.

One to keep an eye on.

do we even know the problem we are trying to solve?

In many respects certain principles of marketing remain the same as on day 1.
Finding which touch points have most influence in a buyer journey, and working out how you can interact with a buyer at those points.

The internet has been the big disruptor, throwing up a myriad of touchpoints that never existed in the pre-connected age, and also throwing up a whole conundrum around how to affect those touchpoints when many of them are outwith the control of a brand or advertiser.

Even now the vast majority of marketing spend goes towards generating awareness, getting into that initial consideration set and then tipping sales at the business end through promotions or point of sale activities.

This is in spite of the known fact that the majority of influence happens in other parts of a journey.

Those touch points directly influenced by independent reviews, word of mouth and ergo customer advocacy being cases in point.

These are the things people find as they poke about online doing research and evaluation.

The following questions are three that are worth asking yourself at the outset of any marketing program.

What should we be doing to better affect the WHOLE of a buyers decision journey?

Which touchpoints will be most influential in fixing the problem we want to solve?

Do we even know the problem(s) we are trying to solve?

With that in mind listen to Instagram's Kevin Systrom as he talks about how it's not generating solutions to problems which is the hard, but finding the right problem to solve in the first place. That's probably a big factor in how Instagram have won out in the vast sea of mobile photo applications.

'If you delight people, even just a little bit, with a simple solution, it turns out it goes very far'

Finders fee and thanks to Neil Perkin