Never get out of the boat

Thursday, March 14, 2013

more texas sharpshooter fallacy

A report from Ebay this week appears to confirm what we have suspected for some time.

That for well-known brands most of the buying up of search terms is largely a waste of time and money and has little effect on sales because the clickers would have found the brand anyway and purchased anyway.

The report, a hefty 25 pager (pdf available here) summises that "Advertising may appear like it is successfully attracting these consumers, when in reality they would have found other channels to the firm's website,".

In several experiments eBay tested removing paid-search keywords using its brand name from Yahoo and Microsoft search engines while maintaining them on Google.

[NB: There is, of course, the possibility that Ebay may take some arch enjoyment from having a pop at Google]

The authors of the report; Thomas Blake, Chris Nosko and Steven Tadelis offer three key take-outs.

'First, “brand” keyword advertising (where firms purchase advertisements on searches for their own brand name), a practice used by many companies, is ineffective because, absent paid search links,consumers simply substitute to (unpaid) organic search links. This implies that brand keyword advertising expenses have neither persuasive nor informative value to well known corporations, and arguably, for other companies as well.

Second, the effectiveness of SEM for non-branded keywords is small for a large and well-known brand like eBay and the channel has been ineffective on average.

Finally, we show that there is a small yet detectable positive impact of SEM on new user acquisition and on informing infrequent users about the value of using eBay.

This last finding supports the informative view of advertising and implies that targeting uninformed users is a critical factor for successful advertising.'

Upon understanding this last point then the shlock-headline baiting of articles such as this one from Business Insider from late last year (yet somehow on a second lease of life) is further testament to the grip that the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy has on marketers and the ROI question.

ComScore 'research' apparently determined that fans of Target on Facebook were 97 percent more likely to spend at Target, and friends of fans were 51 percent more likely than the average population to spend at the retailer (the brand has over 18 million “likes”).

Thus 'proving' 'A Perfect Example Of Why Retailers Should Be Investing In Social Media.'

Whom the 'average population' that are not on Facebook is unclear. As is how on earth those numbers can be quantified.

In short, they would have bought there anyway.

Similarly this week in AdNews comes the revelation from 'Facebook-centric' [natch] marketer Mike Watkins of Mudo Media who calims that every dollar spent on Facebook marketing by his client - teen fashion brand Supre - had delivered $192 in return, again 'proving' that 'Facebook will outperform TV advertising campaigns every time'.

Tellingly Watkins reveals that he is 'sick of Facebook being a marketing bolt-on and wants to be first to the table when it comes to budgets and campaigns.'

Of course he is ;)

There is no doubt that, correctly applied, paid search and Facebook will contribute to the overall effect.

But again the social media experts and prone to inferring the general from the particular and blind to the fact that marketing to existing customers and ergo measuring sales from who would have bought in any case doth not make any case for the replacemenet of this-with-that.

ROI is indirect and fuzzy. In all likelyhood we're no closer to figuring out which 50% of advertising is wasted than we've ever been, and the chances of ever fully figuring it out won't happen any time soon.

And I'm cool with that.

HT Sam

*UPDATE Friday March 15.

From the Wordstream blog, an alternative view.

Dear eBay, Your Ads Don't Work Because They Suck

Thursday, March 07, 2013

take that

This Dilbert came from a post in the Growth Hacking Linked-in group.

It could just as easy be about the agency pitch process (aka the free IP giveaway)

.

inferring the general from the particular

This Amanda Palmer TED talk has been going gangbusters on t'internet.

Obviously, Palmer is a 'performer' and making use those chops in her talk has been a factor in its spread.

If you can't bear to watch; the gist is Palmer arguing that the best way to get people pay for music is to give it to them first then ask them to pay (in cash or in kind) later.

No big revelation here, it's standard 'reciprocation' from the psychology of persuasion.

Just like when you buy someone a coffee there's an unspoken obligation for the recipient to return the favour at some point in the future.

The other key points are about the nature of trust (between artist and fan) and skin in the game - the former flowing directly from the latter.

Palmer's band often couch-surfed on tours etc and used the vulnerability as an up-close tactic with fans.

Then crowd-funded their latest album using Kickstarter.

It's a good talk, as they go.

But I get a shudder at the prospect of this being wheeled out as some sort of kickstarter/social media case study.

Which is a already happening.

Because it's still not about the tools or platforms.

Social media experts love to infer the general from the particular.

This story is just about as particular and un-general as they get.

And what happened for AP is extremely unlikely to happen for your brand/not-for-profit or whatever.

Can you be inspired by Palmers story? Yes.

Because this is a case study in finding a unique voice, connecting with the few who give a shit and perseverance.

Qualities available to all.

Through that lens it's more useful - inferring particular from the general.

Apart from that it doesn't help you much.

And kids, if you are going to be inspired please can you come up with something better than 3rd rate Hazel O'Connor-lite angsty goth dreck.

Tuesday, March 05, 2013

how do you change people's behaviours?

I'm compelled to share this article from the Sustainable Business section in the Guardian yesterday by behaviour change chap Les Robinson.

Les is talking around the topic of sustainability initiatives but the take-aways for any form of communication are clear.

Behaviour change, of course, is one of those terms that currently suffers from being bandied about by every Tom, Dick and douche-bag (in the same manner as the skunk-ification of innovation, big data, and social et al) however these are kind of succinct and simple pieces that will hopefully keep us on the right side of what matters vs the waffle.

Below is a nugget-isation of the key points, paraphrased for an advertising context.

I'd urge a thorough examination of the full article.

And also a note for Sydney and Melbourne based readers - Les is conduction a couple of 2 day workshops in both cities during April.

I shall be doing my best to attend the Melb one.

How do you change people's behaviours?
WHAM! 'It's a delusion we can change peoples' behaviours. Instead, people change their own behaviours. Our role is to create an enabling environment and provide opportunities for people to become inspired by what their peers have achieved'

How to you move beyond "the converted"?
'..instead of asking "How can I make the public share my [brand message/app/content]' we need to ask "how can I be of service to [what matters to them]"

Which behaviour change theory is best?
'The best theory is the one you make yourself by intimately knowing your audience and understanding their needs.'

What if people just aren't interested?
'Don't blame them...immerse yourself in their lives until you figure out how to create solutions that answer their real needs. Good behavioural products sell themselves, but no amount of persuasion or wiz-bang marketing can sell a behaviour that provides no advantages for the adopter.'

(an inconvenient truth)
'The failure of [most advertising] results in a common marketing syndrome, the Just Shout Louder Effect. If people aren't responding to the threat, then Just Shout Louder!'

Do incentives work?
"...incentives tell receivers a story about themselves. Sometimes it's a story that dignifies the receiver, sometimes it humiliates them. So, the question we could ask is: what story does our particular incentive tell the receiver? Does it say, "We recognize your extraordinary motivation." Or, does it say, "We doubt you really care, that's why we're paying you."

How do you create great messages?
"Marketers typically overestimate the power of messages, a syndrome that could be called "message fetish." People are rarely convinced by messages. Usually they are convinced by the inspiring real life examples of their peers".

Can marketers persuade people to do absolutely anything?
We humans resent unwanted advice, especially when it threatens our comfort zones. Denial and resistance are driven by fear and the worst fears are social fears. What will our friends and family think? What if we fail? How will we look to others? It may seem silly but one of the big barriers to women cycling to work is their fear about how their hair will look. We trivialise these fears to our peril. Behaviour change is therefore rarely achieved by persuasion or marketing [alone] but almost always requires modelling how to carry out unfamiliar behaviours with ease, aplomb and dignity."

In conclusion
"We are learning that the business of change requires us to work with humans in their social context, respond to their hopes and fears, recognise the role of power, and understand that behaviour sits in a matrix of technologies, infrastructures, institutions, norms and social structures, all of which need to be the open to strategising and potential modification".

Friday, March 01, 2013

the peak-end rule

This segment from Rocky Balboa is often used as an example for coaching 'motivational' speaking but is also is a great demonstration of the peak–end rule.

With this in your toolbox becomes a lot easier to predict likely responses your advertising ideas, and many creative directors instinctively understand this while perhaps not knowing the actual science around it.

If you wan't to skip ahead, the main piece kicks in at about 1:20

The rule describes how we (the punters) judge experiences (eg advertising) almost entirely on just two factors.

How we feel at the most intense point and then how the experience ends.

Surprisingly, duration is not significantly important, so if it's just 15 seconds or even 2mins the key thing is make sure the ad has an high emotional peak and some sort of a resolution - it can be a cliff-hanger, a call to action but it needs to end properly.

The psychology says that using this rule means we are addressing what Daniel Kahneman calls the two 'selves'.

The 'experiencing self' - this is the part of us that feels things in real-time as it's happening.

And the 'remembering self' - this is the part of us that stores the 'peak' and the 'end' in memory.
The bigger the peak and the better the end then the easier it is for us to recall how we felt.

So in the clip Rocky starts to tell a story, he starts to describe the good times with Rocky Junior, firstly as a baby and then growing up.

Then one day something happened...

'Let me tell you something you already know' - (at this point Rocky jolts us with a bit of an insight)

Blam!, here it comes.

Wait for it....

'It isn’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much can you take and keep moving forward? That’s how winning is done.'

Here's where it really happens - because you feel like it's peaked, you've had a tingle but we're not there yet...

'Now if you know what you’re worth, go out and get what your worth, But you gotta be willing to take the hits. And not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him or her or anybody.

COWARDS DO THAT AND THAT AIN’T YOU!
YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT.'

That's the peak, then it ends with something to DO.

'Until you start believing in yourself you ain't gonna have a life...Don't forget to visit your mother'

There you go. The peak-end rule.

Because if people don't FEEL anything they don't DO anything.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

screwdriver

Ok, I'm late to the party on this one.

But how good is the new Prince thing?

The lesson here is, keep on keepin' on.

Prince has been a bit duff for a while but... (like we said about Elvis)...

'Quality, is a probabilistic function of quantity.'

He's back.

If the talent is there then the goods will come.

Re: 'Dumb Ways To Die and social media bullshit'

An article on Mumbrella on the topic of the 'Dumb Ways To Die' Metro Trains campaign continues to attract opinion and commentary.

The author, Karalee Evans - a digital strategy type and former state government employee with regard to infrastructure and public transport in particular - has ruffled some feathers with her view.

'Metro Trains’ seemingly unchallenged claim that a viral video...led to a 20 percent reduction in risky behavior” is social media bullshit.'

'If Metro...really are claiming that Dumb Ways to Die led to a 20 percent reduction in risky behaviour; e.g. a significant behavioural change in a period of two months, then we really need to see the empirical evidence.'

Some of the criticism has been both harsh, and lacking in insight.

However I'm compelled to say that she's right and wrong at the same time.

Akin to assigning single channel ROI, the notion that a public responding to viewing of single video was directly, measurably responsible for the 20% figure is nonsense.

But calling for empirical evidence is equally foolhardy as the effect is impossible to measure in data points.

However, if the 20% reduction in reported dangerous incidents is a plausible number then the fact that the video exists; and the reduction occurred during the time of it's existence, then there is a likely-hood that there was indeed some effect.

The 'Dumb Ways To Die' video's effectiveness, is manifest in the way it acts as a kind of 'social object'.

Simple social object theory decrees said objects '...as the centerpiece in a dialogue between two or more people. People don’t just talk — they tend to talk “around” objects.'

So Karalee's hypothesis that the video has had little or no effect on behaviour change locally (ie in it's target geo area) because '[in the viral effect] most of these stories, and the links and subsequent viewers, were from outside of Australia let alone the target, Melbourne' is immaterial.

As a 'social object' the real communication effect has happened in the spaces in-between people. For the communication to work there is no necessity for all individuals or groups to have actually viewed the video itself, however the idea (of which the video is the container)is the 'viral' element.

(As is the case with all so-called 'viral' content, by the way.
The media is simply the container of the idea.)

But here's the thing.

The 20% reduction in incidents claim is as much part of the idea as any other element.

How empirically accurate the number is, is not the point.

Everything communicates.

The 20% number acts as 'social proof' that the behaviour has begun to change.

Because in any conditions of uncertainty (ie all the bloody time) we take cues on how to behave from what we see or percieve to be the norm (what others are doing) then the mere description of a shift in behaviour acts as a spur to the continuation of that behaviour.

'Dumb Ways To Die' is as much a piece of brand advertising as it is social media.

The nature of brand advertising is not about the personal, it works as an signal to a mass audience (we) that an idea exists.

The components of the idea were attractive and easy enough to absorb and spread that it caught on.

In the same way that not everything that counts can be counted - and not everything that can be counted counts, looking for the empirical evidence will prove fruitless, it doesn't exist.

(We've talked about the 'Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy'in these pages before - the common foible of social media gurus/experts)

But looking at the bigger picture - incidents before and incidents after - gives more of a clue, and then cummunicating the success (social proof) helps to build the momentum.

Word of the day. Osmosis.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

12XU

In working out what to do it's often helpful to start by articulation of what one will not do.

Then see what you are left with.

See Wire's rules of negative self-definition below.

thx dangerousminds

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

balearic antifragility

I've finally started on Taleb's 'AntiFragile'.

One of the key ideas is that theories are more fragile than practice, meaning theoretical knowledge is of limited use and therefore theory alone often lead to less than satisfactory outcomes.

Through practice we can find what works; without necessarily the need to know why.

Indeed, what often works in practice doesn't work in theory.

A practical example would be the above tune by The Cure; a balearic club classic from back in the day.

Goth-lite whimsy from a bunch of funny looking pixies with big hair, long overcoats and black nail polish doesn't immediately feel like a recipe for get-on-one-matey nights in open roof clubs in Ibiza.

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

Celebration of risk and randomness though is the stock in trade of the balearic-ly inclined.

Friday, February 15, 2013

four ways charity:water gets it

We've enthused about charity:water in these pages before.

They just seem to 'get' communications much more than most.

And as we've noted before they are without doubt the poster child of the not-for-profit world, but the lessons for any brand in any category are there for sure.

This video landed in my inbox this morning.

A 'thank you - we love you' message to supporters for Valentines Day.

It probably cost buttons to produce.

And there's a few reasons why this is so great.

1. Fun.

They fundamentally understand that in order to attract supporters (and move behaviour) it needs to look like a good idea. One of my oft repeated quotes on behaviour change comes from Ed Gillespie of sustainability agency Futerra.

Ed says: 'If you want to subvert the dominant paradigm, you have to have more fun than they are, and let them know while you’re doing it'.

2. Likability.

Amongst all the advertising bollocks we talk a vastly under-rated factor in the success of any communications is basic likeability. The affect heuristic if you prefer. When posed a difficult question - Shall I donate or support charity:water? - We [our system one] responds with an easier answer to a different question - Do I like these people?.

Looking at this clip that features the people who work for the organisation, we just like them.

And, of course, look at the message. THEY LIKE US, TOO.

3.Social proof.

In any conditions of uncertainty - will I? won't I? - we'll take our cues from what we see others around us doing. It doesn't have to be anyone we know or a recommendation from a friend or expert (though this works too) just the general sense of something happening. It's popular. So the charity:water workers calling out the individuals and groups who have helped demonstrates that this is a popular thing.

It's catching on. Momentum.

4. Shareability.

Of course, if I'm one of the supporters being thanked then I'm going to show this to other people. It sends a signal as to the kind of person I am.

Here's another revenue idea for charity:water.

Start an advertising agency and plough the profits into the projects.

They would clean up.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

insurgent country

I do get sad seeing a former client make a hash of things.

NAB have copped some flack for their radio ad which takes the mickey out of a country music stereotype.

So they've publicly pulled the ad and apologised.

The fact that they crumbled at the first sign of unrest from a few outspoken voices from rural Australia is not the saddest part.

The sadder fact remains that they somehow believed, and still believe, that country music isn't cool.

When, of course, it's just about the coolest shit there is.

But country fans are outlaws and outsiders.
A tribe.
They're different from the mainstream.
You could almost say they have decided to 'break-up' from the dominant popular culture.

If only there was a brand that stood for those kind of values?

Rather than taking a smug cheap shot at a easy target cliche, NAB would have been better advised to compared bank fees to X-Factor wannabees or Big Brother nonentities.
Because 'certainly' no-one likes that garbage.

And 'certainly' there would be no customer revolt from hardcore X Factor fans demanding retribution.

Because there is no-one who gives enough of a shit.

But of course NAB have already sponsored those quality additions to the culture.

File this one under Dunning-Kruger Effect.

to be perfectly frankl.

Legendary psychiatrist Viktor Frankl talks about the human search for meaning in this rare clip from 1972.

Perhaps more poignant is his observation about strategy.

When pilots are navigating they need to aim the plane well above their target in order to land in the right place.

This is because of headwinds or something. When they aim directly for the target they miss and end up somewhere wrong.

(If it's easier then imagine Roberto Carlos scoring his famous banana for Brazil against France in the 1998 World Cup)

So to get (at least) good, we had better aim for great.

Because aiming for average means that that you will almost always get shit.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

I'm a poet and I know it. Hope I don't blow it.

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion.

Poetry, beauty, love, romance. These are what we stay alive for.

The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”

From Dead Poets Society, obviously.

After struggling with the writing of a creative brief this week I abandoned the format and summed up the key point of view as a small poem instead.

It wasn't a great poem but it was a much better brief.

school's out

Various Australian news outlets reported this week, that parents in Victoria who let their children miss school without a 'valid' reason may face a $70 fine per absence under a 'planned crackdown next year' by the State government.

How this will be enforced is unclear, but I was reminded of the story in Freakonomics, in which the authors reported on a study examining the day-care centre who charged parents a fine for turning up late to pick up their children.

The study looked at the habits of parents over a ten week period before the introduction of the fine and then for an identical period again after the punishment was introduced.

Surprisingly the results showed that the number of late pickups actually increased after the fine was introduced. So not only did the fines not improve the behaviour, the fine actually made the behaviour worse.

The replacement of a social norm (be on time to pick up the kids) with an economic norm (the fine becomes - in effect - a baby-sitting fee) turned the situation into a market.

Therefore, by market rules a $70 surcharge on, say, a long-weekend - a simple transaction that buys a Friday off school for a kid might be viewed as reasonably good value when weighed up against avoiding weekend traffic to the country/beach or whatever, or offset that against the hikes in hotel prices and flights that coincide with official school holidays and $70 a day is still something of a bargain.

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

a better mousetrap?

'The righter we do the wrong thing, the wronger we become.

When we make a mistake doing the wrong thing and correct it, we become wronger.

When we make a mistake doing the right thing and correct it, we become righter.

Therefore, it is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right.

This is very significant because almost every problem confronting our [industry] is a result of the fact that our [marketers/agencies etc] are doing the wrong things and are trying to do them righter.'

Adapted from Russell Ackoff.

HT Thinkpurpose

no room to rhumba in a sports car

It can legitimately be said that Elvis Presley probably made more terrible records than any other artist in history.

The appalling ‘There's No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car’ - from the soundtrack of 1963’s ‘Fun In Acapulco’ - is certainly one.

But also true is that he also made more truly great records than just about anyone else.

The vast majority of the horrible Elvis records were made during his bad movie period of 1960 – 67, immediately following his stint in the army.

But the pivotal moment for Elvis was what has become known as the ‘68 Comeback Special’.

The show, simply titled ‘Elvis’, went out on December 3, 1968 on the NBC television network.

The back-to-basics and black leather clad Elvis hooked up with some old bandmates from the 56-58 vintage years period in a stripped down rock’n’roll jam session, interspersed with a nod to the ‘future’ grown-up Elvis oeuvre via bigger soulful numbers like ‘In The Ghetto’ and the epic ‘If I Can Dream’.

But here’s the question.

Was it, in fact, a necessary process for Elvis to go through that period of creative failure during 60-67 in order to come out the other side bigger bolder and stronger?

In The Origins of Genius the psychologist Dean Simonton argues that creativity can best be understood as a Darwinian process of variation and selection.

The successful artist generates a ton of ideas, and then subjects these ideas to some sort of judging criteria, then lets loose only those that appear to have the best chance to survive and reproduce.

Then some do and some don’t.

The true test of genius is the ability to bequeath an impressive and influential body of work to future generations.

Simonten argues that ‘Quality, is a probabilistic function of quantity.”

Taking up this argument then, it may indeed follow that the simple difference between Elvis and the thousands of one-hit-wonders or wannabe rock’n’rollers that amounted to nothing much in the fifties and sixties isn’t necessarily that he had a better ratio of hits to misses.

The difference is that the mediocre might have a few half-decent ideas, whereas Elvis was exponentially more prolific in his output.

Because Elvis put out such a vast number of ‘experiments’ it was almost inevitable that some would end up being great.

Simonton’s point is that there is nothing neat and efficient about creativity.

‘The more successes there are, the more failures there are as well’.

The creative person who can pump out more ideas than the rest of us will have far more bad ideas than the rest of us, too. But, critically, they will probably also have more good ideas.

Fluctuation in fortune is ‘regression to the mean’.
In the case of Elvis, the 60-67 mediocrity blip, was indeed a blip.

A strange outcome is usually followed by something much more ordinary.

Unpredictable events (ie Army service) disrupted the average quality of output, then in ’68 normal service resumed.

It’s popular to talk about ‘vulnerability’ in advertising – this notion that campaigns could go either way and total disaster is but a whisker away from outrageous success.

This is somewhat true, INDIVIDUAL successes are hard - perhaps impossibly hard - to predict.
It’s only after-the-fact that it seems TO BE CLEAR why something took off.

To look at a more recent pop example when South Korean rapper/producer Psy and his mates were in the studio cranking out 'Gangnam Style' in 2012, NO WAY were they strategizing for a global phenomenon.

They were hoping for another hit in South Korea, where he was already huge.

If it had flopped globally then it wouldn’t have been the end of the world.

Similarly, PSY knows that his chances repeating the unprecedented phenomenon of ‘Gangnam Style’ is extremely unlikely because of regression to the mean.

It’s important that we understand this in advertising, embracing unpredictability, not getting carried away with huge successes and not worry too much about the odd flop.

But for an advertiser or agency who have the working practices in place that allow them to continually produce quality, they should expect to be able continue to produce quality, if they stay on their game.

In one creative department I worked in – perhaps the most successful in Australia in recent years – operated on this principle (perhaps intuitively, or perhaps there were unspoken Darwinian philosophies at play).

At the end of each day creative teams would file in to present their work to the creative leadership.

They might well have been presenting the greatest idea in the history of advertising but would almost inevitably be sent away to improve it or come back with further ideas the next day. Nothing got by on first (or even second) pass.

If there was time then the work could always be made better.

If there wasn’t time, the suits would make it their business to buy time.

In this spirit, the '68 Special highpoint, ‘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.

The number was a last-minute replacement for a schmaltzy Christmas number that Elvis’s manager, Colonel Parker, had originally wanted.

But the King put his foot down, and ‘…Dream’ became effectively Elvis' post-rock'n'roll career defining moment.

Mediocrity produces fewer ideas, every now and again one may get lucky, but regression to the mean would indicate that the hits will be few and the majority will be like ‘Rhumba in a Sports Car’.

A Darwinian creative approach means producing more ideas, more often knowing the best of them will survive and reproduce.

There must be lights burning brighter somewhere.
Got to be birds flying higher in a sky more blue.

Quality, is a probabilistic function of quantity.

Tuesday, February 05, 2013

why economists get things wrong

This video from Irish economist, broadcaster and author David McWilliams opens with this observation - is it not ridiculous that we should be listening to the economic 'forecasts' from those very same experts who, of course, completely failed to forecast the current crisis coming in the first place?

The core issue being neglected by the 'experts' that as soon as humans are involved (ie always) then standard economic theory goes out the window, and all kinds of foibles and biases come into play.

McWilliams' own flavour of behavioural economics influenced analysis is labelled Punk Economics and this clip is part of a series of films under the same banner. All of which are ably illustrated by Mark Flood and can be viewed via their YouTube channel.

David says 'Economics and economic analysis has become similarly overblown and self-indulgent. Worse still, many (not all) economists have failed to make it simple, easy and comprehensible for the vast majority of people, something economics must be, if it’s to be of any use to us.'

Thursday, January 31, 2013

say what? say what?

I'm filing this note under 'context is king' and possible 'the medium is the message'.

Scientists at universities in the UK and Spain have conducted experiments that appear to prove that the context in which certain foods are presented has a significant effect on how they 'taste'.

In the reported example tests showed that hot chocolate served in an orange coloured cup is percieved to 'taste' better.

This reminded me of the other example from a couple of years back when Coca-Cola drinkers complained that regular Coke presented in seasonal 'silver snowflake' cans for Christmas tasted worse, despite the actual content being no different to the normal red cans.

While this should not be surprising or news to anyone - for example we'll routinely (and happily) pay more for a nice ambience in restaurants, it undoubtably makes the entire dining experience more pleasurable as it occurs, making the food 'taste' better.

And perhaps the tasting experience of coca-cola is connected to a memory component, the colour of can is remembered to be consistently red. So when that 'memory' is disrupted and replaced with a new more recent one the situation has changed and is therefore perceived differently.

I'm guessing the 'neuro' explanation is around sensory perception being multi-sensory. A mutual possession, if you like, but with one dominant agent.

For a laugh and another context on 'context' allow me to recount this tale from my dj days.

This is back in the early 90's, at a club I ran we booked top dj's and producers Rocky and Diesel to do a turn.

Unfortunately the airline had managed to mis-place their record boxes on the flight up from London to Aberdeen and so the guys arrived at the club for their spot sans music.

Fortunately the record boxes of myself and my dj partner were balearic-ly eclectic and cock-full of similar tunes that Rocky and Diesel would have been likely to spin anyway, and If we kept schtum about the lost boxes all would be fine.

Like true pro's the two Darrens played a typically blinding set. Even without their own tunes.

In fact we noted to our delight (and self-validation) that they employed many sequences of tunage that were the same as we did.

I even received envious comments concerning some Johnny Vicious bootleg or other in the box that was highly sought after and hitherto unavailable even to the capital's top spinners.

The surprising thing though was the commentary post-gig from the assembled trainspotters and club boffins.

These experts declared the gig to be the best that the town had witnessed for some considerable time, and noted that the resident dj's (us) should do well to take note from our guests and endeavour to find and play more of that rare deep underground tech-house blah blah tunage, the likes of which had never been heard in provincial Aberdeen before. Ever.

Heh.

An early lesson that content is important but the context in which the content is delivered is everything for perception.

Say what?

Thursday, January 24, 2013

plastic bags and customer journey models

Many years ago I was involved in an indie record shop.

For the benefit of younger readers we were purveyors of 12inch diameter round pieces of plastic on which a groove was etched. When activated these grooves produced music.

If you've seen or read High Fidelity then this will give you something of a flavour.

It was a bit of a shambolic operation at the best of times but I only got an actual bollocking once from the owner.

Post-bollocking I never made the same mistake again.

It wasn't for ordering too much stock of some obscure Italian jazz-house oddity.

It wasn't for not opening up until mid-day because of some hangover or other.

Nor was it for keeping the best promo's for myself (I was also a club dj of some repute).

The only thing I ever got it in the neck for was allowing us to run out of the 12" plastic bags wuith the shop logo emblazoned on them.

Because one Saturday morning when the cool kids were coming in to snap up the latest imports, white labels and other hard-to-find underground tunes and bootlegs I had to put them in 'blank' bags instead.

And as they wandered round town or went to the pub in the afternoon to show their mates what they had procured it was vital to us that they pulled their purchases out of one of our branded bags.

We never advertised, and this was pre-internet days people. We had no website. Our only drivers of custom were our knowledge, service, our ability to get the shit the kids wanted first.

And the subsequent word of mouth/general coolness factor.

Social proof, if you prefer.

So when I see an article like this one in Adage - 'Follow Customers as They Actually Behave' - I get interested.

While this is a nice try - and at least a significant improvement on any traditional funnel metaphor - there is one tiny flaw which renders it only half useful.

'Most customers tell us that when they're open to discovering new products and services, they rely on mass-reach channels such as TV ads, search engines and word of mouth. When they want to explore products in more detail, they use depth channels like marketers' websites and retail stores. (They turn to these same channels when completing purchases.) When they want to engage with their favorite brands, they use relationship channels -- signing up for email lists or loyalty programs, or liking a brand on Facebook.'

The author illustrates with a neat diagram outlining many customer 'touchpoints' categorised as those pertaining to 'Reach' 'Depth' and 'Relationship'.

The basic flaw of the theory is simple.

Despite it's thoroughness the map is still based on the notion of the (singular) 'consumer' on an independent journey making independent choices as to when and where to 'engage' (sic) with the 'brand'.

So it's still marketing as something 'we' do TO customers.

But the author said 'Follow Customers as the Actually Behave'?

The truth is that in just about any given market people who are in any way unsure what the appropriate behavior for the situation is, they will look around at other people for cues.

These cues are in the spaces between the touchpoints on a channel plan. But they are in there none the less.

I'm not trashing the RDaR model, it's a useful component but not a whole picture by any stretch.

Ignore what happens in the spaces in between at your peril.

For the most part our job in the 21st century is not about building the 'better mousetrap' and IS much more about helping people (customers) to do stuff to and with each other.

That's what my plastic bags were for, likewise the first time you noticed white earbuds. Or even the first time you saw people doing a silly dance like riding a horse...

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

big data miracle drug

We've pondered the implications of 'big data' in these pages on several occasions and come to at least one simple conclusion, namely that more (ie big) data does not necessarily mean 'better' and that the more data one has will often actually make it harder to find the required information to distill into insight.

With that in mind, find of the week is this article by Scott Brinkner entitled 'The Big Data Bubble'.

Scott says 'Now, I love data as much as the next techy-geeky-marketing-wonk-with-a-blog. But what strikes me about all this explosive data chatter — in no small part, driven by the peaking hype cycle of big data as a miracle drug — is how little recognition is being given to the operational implications of actually using data.'

And from an agency person perspective I almost feel that Scott has observed some of the big agency CEO 'predictions' for 2013 that have been appearing.

Whereas two years ago the key buzzwords* would have included 'social', then 'possibly 'mobile' the new phrase to drop in assessment of challenges or opportunities is clearly 'big data'.

Quite why this is an opportunity though is sadly absent from this commentary.

Scott has neatly encapsulated the chunking of this percieved 'opportunity' thus...

1. Analyze data — preferably big data.
2. ???
3. Profit.
Huzzah!

The pesky bit in the middle is the bit that, for the most part, few have yet to approach a grasping distance.

Fortunately Brinkler outlines a potential 1-2-3 approach neatly.

1. Big Data. Collect and organize data to extract information and insight. This is the part that big data has to offer. But some of the most valuable output from such data analytics will be mere hypotheses — interesting correlations of factors and behaviors

2. Big Testing. Take those hypotheses and be able to quickly and effectively test them to prove cause-and-effect: that those factors can indeed be leveraged to influence customer behavior.

3. Big Experience. Apply your targeted data and proven tests towards delivering better customer experiences, to many different customer segments.

Read the full article here.

*note: the hapless CEO's are clearly subject to intuitizzle heuristics at this stage and as we all know, all heuristics are equal, but 'availablity' is more equal than others.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

intuitizzle heuristics

Now here's yesterday's Daniel Kahneman quote again - the one about pulling insights from one's own behaviour rather than looking for said insight in facts about things in general.

This time, however, I've copied the text from my original post after it had been through the gizoogle filter.

Somehow i prefer the new interpretation.

"Muthafuckas whoz ass is taught surprisin statistical facts bout human behavior may be impressed ta tha point of spittin some lyrics ta they playaz bout what tha fuck they have heard yo, but dis do not mean dat they understandin of tha ghetto has straight-up chizzled...

Da test...is whether yo' understandin of situations you encounter has chizzled, not whether you have hustled a freshly smoked up fact...

There be a thugged-out deep gap between our thankin bout statistics n' our thankin bout individual cases. Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass. Statistical thangs up in dis biatch wit a cold-ass lil causal interpretation gots a stronger effect on our thankin than noncausal deetz...

But even compellin causal statistics aint gonna chizzle long-held beliefs and beliefs rooted up in underground experience...

Yo ass is mo' likely ta learn somethang by findin surprises up in yo' own behavior than by hearin surprisin facts bout gangstas up in general".

Your turn. http://gizoogle.net

Monday, January 21, 2013

if facebook was a country blah blah blah

Once upon a time I was that douchebag.

The one who trotted out 'facts' and stats about social media or whatever was the thing at the time. To be fair I never used the 'if facebook was a country' one but it's one of the most 'available' examples that most of us recognise.

Until an old boss of mine forced me to reconsider this behaviour.

Every time I quoted some number or other he challenged me with the same question.

'So what?'

To illustrate, the following is an excerpt from TFAS that I've pulled from my Kindle highlights and one which has been rattling round my head this weekend.

The core of DK's schtick is, of course, intuitive heuristics - meaning that when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an another, easier, question instead, usually without even noticing what we did.

"People who are taught surprising statistical facts about human behavior may be impressed to the point of telling their friends about what they have heard, but this does not mean that their understanding of the world has really changed...

The test...is whether your understanding of situations you encounter has changed, not whether you have learned a new fact...

There is a deep gap between our thinking about statistics and our thinking about individual cases. Statistical results with a causal interpretation have a stronger effect on our thinking than noncausal information...

But even compelling causal statistics will not change long-held beliefs or beliefs rooted in personal experience...

You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general".

Friday, January 18, 2013

three guys walk into a bar...

By way off offsetting the last post here's a point of view from the great Mr William Bernbach that it's worth considering more frequently than we probably do.

Bonus content.

Three guys walk into a bar...

What if it was Bill Bernbach, Steve Jobs and Marshall McLuhan...

un-useless

'Chindogu' is the japanese word coined for the art of the un-useless idea.

Something that sort-of works but possibly only solves a problem that it has created itself.

I used some examples recently to describe some of the digital 'marketing' activities that keep agencies busy these days...

As if by magic a couple of other examples have popped into my stream in the last couple of days.

TrackMyMacca's.

Apparently “The TrackMyMacca’s app is a world first for McDonald’s and we’re really happy to...deliver this our customers around the country.Using GPS technology partnered with augmented reality, any Australian with an iPhone, iPad or iTouch can now use the app and track where different ingredients of the specific meal they are having has come from.”

One question. Why?

Next up...

Moisturizing Jeans.

From Wrangler (yep) 'diffusion' brand DenimSpa "The pioneering skinny-fit style, incorporates high-performance skincare ingredients to protect your legs from the dehydrating effects of denim."

As The Atlantic correctly points out:

'The dehydrating effects of denim! Which is a problem I had no idea existed, but one that must exist given that it now has a high-tech solution!'

Stand by in 2013 for more un-useless gubbins.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

in the ghetto - part 17

So, according to this statement by Forrester, 2013 is the year when we will finally see 'digital' is set to lose its prefix and just be referred to as 'marketing' as 'all marketers’ output will become 'inherently digital' over the coming months.

I've complained about the existence of the digital ghetto, and the subservient self-commodification by the digerati, often enough in the past so would, of course, welcome this trend.

In a twitter discussion Jason Moriber informed me that companies and agencies he is dealing with (presumably in his 'hood, NY/USA) are indeed dropping the 'digital' from departments and job titles.

As an analogy/example of why this is important consider please the beginning of this interview that one Steven Morrisey conducted with the great Joni Mitchell back in 1996 (courtesy of Dangerous Minds).

Morrissey: Do they still refer to you as a female songwriter?...it's become such a ludicrous title because to be called a female songwriter....

Joni: ...It implies limitations.

Morrissey: Well, it implies that it's not a 'real' songwriter.

Joni: Yeah.

Morrissey: I mean, you couldn't imagine, for instance, saying Paul McCartney's a great 'male' songwriter.'

Yep.

I wrote the following in July 2011 but had been wrestling with the conundrum for some considerable time until that point.

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.

My irk is that 'the digital' is invariably 'other'.
By labelling it digital it's somehow SEPARATE from 'proper' planning or 'proper' creative.
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 stuff.
The nice-to-have.
'...Lets get the basics right first then do some digital...'
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.

And don't even get me started on this subsequent question that his Mozz-ness poses further into the interview...

Morrissey: Don't you find that if your music...aims towards being intellectual, that you have to explain yourself repeatedly and in much more depth than anybody who makes nonsensical, throw-away, useless music?

Thursday, January 10, 2013

train in vain

The Bigjigs wooden toy company's pitch to take over the UK's West Coast mainline rail franchise is an early contender for pr/marketing genius stroke of the year.

The franchise was up for proposals, contenders included Firstgroup and eventual winners Virgin.

In a letter written by Bigjigs to the Department for Transport, the company proposed a 'free' rail service run on 'enjoyment'. Also included was one of Bigjigs toy trains.

To the credit of Dft they responded to the proposal formally, albiet with a decline.

Transport Minister Patrick McLoughlin's private secretary - Mark Reach - responded with this assessment.

'While perfect for the in-home market, wooden carriages are unlikely to meet modern crashworthiness standards for operation on the heavy rail network.'

For the price of a letter and stamp, and one wooden train Bigjigs managed to scoop front page on the BBC News website - and 3rd most shared item of the day - plus articles on just about every British newspaper site, and many more news sites and blogs.

Aside from the PR value from the jape, on a more serious side they were able to do a significant bit of branding alongsde it.

The 'free rail service built on enjoyment' piece was well reported, as was this values statement by Bigjigs MD George Poole.

"The message I have for the DfT is this: We need to put some love back into the train journey. At the minute the commuters get a pretty rough deal: increasing fares, delayed services, overcrowded carriages etc. The train used to be a great mode of transport for all to enjoy, we want/need to get back to when we used to see the train as a fun way to travel."

Genius.

BBC report here.

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

messi behaviour

Here's an interesting observation from Gavin Levey, Head of the Aberdeen FC Youth Academy following a visit to FC Barcelona see how youth coaching done in Spain.

It turns out that the Spanish kids train roughly the same amount of hours as the Scottish ones and the actual training facilities at Barcelona are broadly similar.

Yet, somehow Barca produce a conveyor belt of young superstars who can compete on any stage.

Gavin notes:

'The main thing that is different is a joined up philosophy from the U8s right through to the first team. The drills seven, eight, nine year olds are doing are the same as the ones the first team would be doing.'

"They are also taught good habits. The young kids at eight years are treated like the first team.

[In youth matches] both teams walk out onto the pitch as if it was a Champions League game together.

Before the game they then walk up and down shaking hands with each other like the first team do.

They come over to the side of the pitch and clap the parents after the game like the first team do.

Just little things, but it was very impressive.

"You look at their first team and see how many players have come through, that is because they know what they are looking for in their youth players.

That is not something that costs money, it is just people having the same belief in what they are looking for when they are producing players.

Tru dat. Shaping behaviour first is the best way to shape minds.

Emotional stimulation with direct behavioral reactions - these youngsters do the same behaviours as the top players so they feel like first-teamers - meaning over time they start to have the attitudes of top players.

Apart from the obvious connection to what we do in advertising - shaping behaviour - this also highlights the constant challenge for the small agency among the big agencies.

Maybe just acting big is at the start of being big?

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

B is for Buddha and Baudrillard

Dealing with obstacles...
In this instance a giant potato.

1. Complain about the obstacle, and canvas others to confirm it is indeed an obstacle.

2. Try and get the obstacle to submit to your will.

Give up. Submit to the obstacle.

Remove the obstacle's power. By not recognising the giant potato as an obstacle it's no longer an obstacle.

Once we lose the fear of systems, conventions, giant potatoes or obstacles, they lose the hold they have over us.

HT BuddhismNow

don't take five (take what you want)

If we're waiting until things or circumstances are perfect before doing something that matters then we'll have a long wait because, unfortunately, that day never comes.

Most of the time we must just use what we have.

Be inspired by these kids.

Happy new year to all, let's go.

HT and finders fee to @johnniemoore

Friday, December 21, 2012

father christmas, give us your money

In keeping with tradition the last message posted here this side of Christmas is a seasonal tune.

This year we're going out with a lesser known nugget from the Kinks ouvre which appeared in 1977.

For Ray Davies and co it was something of a punky power pop slight-return to the Kinks garage-ey roots and very much in tune with the sound of '77.

So, once again thanks to everyone who's read, shared, commented, tweeted, liked and +1'd throughout the year.

In case you're wondering, during the break I shall be devouring Guy Kawasaki's new book APE which he kindly forwarded me the other week.

In the book Guy and co-author Shawn Welch outline their approach to 'artisanal publishing.'

'Artisanal publishing features writers who love their craft, and who control every aspect of the process from beginning to end. In this new approach, writers are no longer at the mercy of large, traditional publishers, and readers will have more books to read.'

This dropped at just the right time as part of the plan for 2013 is to finally publish the book that I've been promising.

The working title is 'He Split from the whole f*ckin' Program', and we're at the hacking-down-to-amanageable-first-draft stage.

Thanks again, see you after the break.

Assuming that the end of the world doesn't happen at some point today, obviously.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

don't stop - give it all you got!

This week sees the 10th anniversary of the death of Joe Strummer.

It's on Saturday 22nd, but as we'll be closing down for the holiday here on 21st we've decided to post our tribute today.

I'm oft to remark that in the midst of not paying attention at school I learned much of what I know about politics, geography and sociology/culture from the Clash.

From the Sandinistas to Brigade Rosse, the Vietnam war to Martin Scorcese.

Not to mention significantly broadening my young teenage musical landscape to incorporate everything from Joe Ely to Grandmaster Flash and Dr Alimantado.

On top of that, Joe was a great rent-a-quote.

This one is a favourite.

“And so now I'd like to say - people can change anything they want to. And that means everything in the world.

People are running about following their little tracks - I am one of them. But we've all got to stop just following our own little mouse trail.

People can do anything - this is something that I'm beginning to learn.

People are out there doing bad things to each other. That's because they've been dehumanised. It's time to take the humanity back into the center of the ring and follow that for a time.

Greed, it ain't going anywhere. They should have that in a big billboard across Times Square.

Without people you're nothing. That's my spiel.”

the icarus deception

A favourite quote of the year round these parts, and an idea we have adopted, came from John Dodds recently.

Doddsy correctly pointed out that platforms such as Kickstarter have another principle advantage alongside the clear and present benefit of getting one's creative project crowd-funded.

And it's no co-incidence that this benefit has been word-of-the-year at Boat HQ.

Momentum.

'Momentum that's derived from proof of concept; momentum that's derived from building a tribe of promoter-users who are incentivised via the range of prizes on offer; and momentum that's derived from being able to leverage critical mass with future investors, distributors and customers.

Most people see it solely as a fund-raising exercise and that's great, but they shouldn't overlook the baked-in marketing. That's priceless.'

One Kickstarter project that we participated in was Seth Godin's launch of his new book 'The Icarus Deception'.

A large box arrived at Boat HQ the other day containing 8 copies of the book, amongst other project related items (see pic).

Of the 8 copies of the book itself, I'm keeping two (one of which I will be reading over the Christmas break), I'm going to distribute 4 copies round the Sputnik office and I'm offering two copies up to the first two Australian readers of this blog who express their interest by leaving an affirmative in the form of a comment on this post.

Sorry to readers from overseas but petty cash is a bit short at the moment (always) so postage costs need to be kept to a minimum.

Who wants one?

big data bollocks

A couple of things I've learned from speaking at ad industry events over the past few years are these.

The first thing is to try and make your 15-20 mins as entertaining as you can. A story to back up your points is more important than graphs and charts, and the stories will be the thing that audience members will take away, more often than not.

The second thing is to be mindful that most events will have a hashtag connected via which delegates will tweet the bits and pieces that resonate.

A controversial or otherwise interesting 'blanket' statement about this or that will often get tweeted so it's always a good idea to structure a few of your points to be tweetable.

Also I've found that it is unlikely you will have the whole crowd nodding in agreement with you and quite often there will be significant disagreement. Don't worry about that, trying to appeal to every point of view inevitably ends up in appealing to no-one.

To that last point, I've had a few bits of feedback from delegates at last weeks AIMIA Future of Digital bash.

In my final section I proposed that 2013 may be the year in which we see the bubble burst in the whole big data situation.

There was equal parts agreement and dismay among those present.

The thought was thus; the value of big data is vastly overrated.

This is not to say that there is no value but rather that the value is derived from the processing and analysis of said data and it's conversion into important information.

For those familiar with the DIKW model, that information requires further distillation in order to come out the other end as Wisdom.

In adland parlance we would call wisdom 'insight'.

The data in itself may indeed be the new 'oil' however it is crude oil at best.

The other thing is that more data does not necessarily mean better.

In fact the more data one has will often make it harder to find the patterns that become the required information to distill into insight.

Better means better.

Having dealt with many businesses over the years who cannot even make sense of their own opted-in customer database, more data is not going to help them in any shape or form.

The other point is that any data set needs human beings to interpret it.

And knowing how as humans we are subject to no small amount of foibles and biases is testament to the difficulty of this task.

To illustrate I quoted this oft repeated psychology experiment (to add, we have conducted one of these ourselves and achieved remarkably similar results to those experiments of a similar nature from academia).

We asked two groups of financial services employees to assess their likelyhood to approve a credit card application from a recent graduate.

The applicant had creditworthy history, and was gainfully employed with an above average salary etc.

However, with the first group we gave them one extra data point to consider.

The applicant had an outstanding student loan of circa $5000.

With the second group we gave two data points.

The applicant had an outstanding student loan of between $5000 and $12500.

This second group were given an extra option in there assessment process. Either approve or decline the application. Or await further information about the extent of the outstanding debt.

Not surprisingly the majority of group two asked for further information.

We then revealed that the debt was actually very close to the $5000 number.

In group one around 70% declined the application for credit.

In group two only around 30% declined.

This is despite both groups having nearly identical data in the end.

By firstly anchoring group two on the $12500 number, the $5000 debt didn't feel so bad.

The point being that humans have clear difficulty with making consistent assessments when faced with only two pieces of data.

Good data has long been the lifeblood of marketing (ask any direct marketer) but at this point in time perhaps we don't necessarily need more data but better data, and there's a criminal shortage in the advertising industry today of the actual human skills needed to interpret, distill and convert into insight.

Friday, December 14, 2012

AIMIA future of digital event

AIMIA December 2012 Future of Digital from eaon pritchard

Here's the deck from yesterdays AIMIA 'Future of Digital' morning in Sydney.

A thoroughly enjoyable half day with a great bunch of diverse opinions and presentations.

Luke Steele from Samsung gave us a glimpse of Samsung's connected world.

Phones, tablets, TV, fridges and air-con all talking to each other. Fascinating stuff.

Ciaran Norris from Mindshare lifted the hood on the hidden depths of Google search and some points of view on do-not-track.

Kelly Slessor from BanterMob gave us some mobile trends to watch and some points of view on mobile ad formats, embracing the flow of content rather than interrupting it.

There were some splendid examples of kinnect style interactive installation type stuff from Grant Whitehouse of GPJ.

And line of the day came from White Agency's Brian Dargan; 'A picture tells a thousand words - but a picture of your salad tell us f*ck-all'.

Thanks to MC John Butterworth and the AIMIA for a great morning. Let's do it again soon.

the facebook texas sharpshooter fallacy

Our current favourite cognitive bias is the 'Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy'.

Here's the often cited example of the fallacy in action.

If you were to shuffle a deck of cards and draw out 10 cards, the probability of that exact sequence you drew coming up are a squillion to one, no matter what the cards were.

If you drew out an fully ordered suit, it would be pretty remarkable - and 'clearly' contain some mystical properties - but statistically, of course, the chances of that sequence coming out are just the same as any other set of 10 cards.

So the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy describes the cowboy who fires his gun into the barn door and then paints a target around the holes, thus proving his accuracy.

It struck me that the announcement last week by Carolyn Everson – the VP of Global Marketing Solutions at Facebook - that Samsung made a 1200% ROI on a $10 million Facebook ad campaign which directly resulted $129 million worth of Galaxy S III smartphone sales was a tad on the Sharpshooter Fallacy side.

There was plenty of other marketing going on outside of Facebook, not least the sterling work of 72 and Sunny which will be appearing in many 'best-of' 2012 lists, not to mention some pretty serious demand from existing users upgrading whether Samsung had spent a dollar in Facebook or not.

I've no doubt there was some effect but the 1200% ROI statement is clearly a message to calm anxious Facebook investors - by painting the target around the bulletholes - and 'demonstrating' the supposed validity of Facebook as a game-changing advertising platform, along with it's likelihood to deliver a future big bucks return or other.

But the enthusiasm in which this statement 'proving' the effectiveness of Facebook has been received in the social media 'expert' fraternity and the social media tabloid-esque news sites is comical.

So before any of your hapless marketers, bamboozled by their social media expert advisors start spunking next years marketing budget in one Facebook basket, please remind them about Sturgeon's Revelation, as applied to the social media commentary echo chamber.

90% is total bollocks.

acquiescence

Here's a trap that we often find ourselves falling into.
Even when you know this it's hard to stop yourself repeating it.

Take this example.

Your agency has just produced a new piece of work and it's worthy of making a noise about.

So the project leader will send a company wide email asking for support via tweets and Facebook status updates from the group to help spread the word.

All good so far, except usually no-one responds and only very few comply with the request.

It's an example of what is known 'diffusion of responsibility' and is closely related to what psychologists call the 'bystander effect'.

There's many reported examples of incidents where individuals who get into some trouble in public places - being mugged is common example - and despite there being large numbers of witnesses who could have made some sort of intervention, no-one does.

This is because two common things happen.

Everyone looks around at everyone else to see what to do, no-one is doing anything so that feels like the norm, so that's what they do.

Or, everyone assumes that someone else will be calling the police or an ambulance so no-one does anything.

In fact, if one is going to be robbed or have a heart attack in the street, the less people there are around to witness it then the greater the likelihood there is of someone intervening.

So in our pimp-my-agency example the diffusion happens because everyone who receives the mail sees that it is a mass email and therefore assumes that it's someone else's responsibility to do something.

There's no malice involved, no lack of commitment to the team or anything, it just doesn't feel urgent because it's something that someone else will do.

But the sender then gets miffed and wonders why no-one in the group wants to participate.

The project leader then pivots and does what she should have done in the first place and then goes round finding individuals in the group who are the most prolific tweeters etc and asks them individually and personally to post something, which they then happily do.

Similarly with email or other direct message marketing, don't ever be fooled into imagining there's any personalisation in mass communication where the name and salutation has been interchanged to match the names on a list.

While the tools exist to easily do this with a database of thousands lets not kid ourselves that this equates to personalisation of any sort.

If we really want a response there's no substitute for - firstly, having permission - and a truly personal message crafted specifically for the person whom we are talking to.

And flipping the diffusion of responsibility effect work in your favour by explaining in the message how many others like them are willing to help/give/buy or otherwise acquiesce to your request.

Works every time, simple in theory, but hard in practice.

The other good news is that once someone has done you a favour, then they like you more and will be more inclined to help again in the future.

Because we almost always like to act in ways that are consistent with what we've said and done previously.

Thursday, December 06, 2012

no pina colada

For the rarest of commodities 'creativity' is still ranking as the number one attribute that appears on the profiles of individuals on Linked-in.

Ragan report today that 'For the second consecutive year, “creative” earned the dubious title of the most overused buzzword in US LinkedIn profiles. In fact, the top three buzzwords remained unchanged from last year: “creative,” “organizational,” and “effective.”

Creative aside, it's interesting to note that the other qualities in the top ten that users describe themsleves with - and presumably the traits that they imagine will make them most attractive to prospective employers or business leads - are nearly all what one would describe as system 2 functions.

Analytical, problem solving etc.

No mention in that top 10 of anything more system 1-ish like funny, friendly, cheerful, or things we would associate with general like-ability.

Not likely any time soon, methinks.

But in effect, linked-in is kind of like a corporate dating site, and though the conventions forbid it, perhaps it's an idea to perhaps pepper the rational with some more subjective information.

How about pina colada's, getting caught in the rain, not being into yoga, or having half a brain?

make it easy to give #nfp

A mail from charity:water popped into the inbox this morning.

They are pretty much the poster child of nfp marketing so we do tend to pay attention to what they are up to.

This particular mail announced launched some charity:water gifts for Christmas. The gifting thing is a staple of many nfp marketers but this example has a couple of things that caught our eye.

Firstly, the gifts themselves are actually attractive things that one might consider buying.

Choice is kept to a manageable minimum. There's only 3 things to buy. Easy.

Check them; a JamBox ghetto blaster type of thing, a nice scented candle set and a stylish water decanter.

But also charity:water inform us that 'Profits [from the sale of the gifts] support our staff, help us grow and allow us to continue working to solve the water crisis'.

And we can see exactly how much $ of the ticket price the charity will receive.
With a nudge, natch, towards the middle choice, the candle, which sells for $28 with $18 going to charity:water.

Supporters know that 100% of all 'regular' donations go directly to their projects.
This is part of the charity's core proposition.

Whereas this gifting activity initiative is directly and transparently aimed a raising money for operational costs.

This supports their overall strategy of total transparency.

In effect they are segmenting the action of giving on behalf of the donor.

By chunking the 'kind' of donation even regular donors may give twice.

This is very smart.

Monday, December 03, 2012

move over gangnam style

The next dance craze to sweep the globe is straight outta Elgin.

315 views, and rising...

via Dangerous Minds

more on momentum #strategyfail

As someone with a foot in both the creative and planner camps I'm able to see both sides of many of the typical arguments between the two.

Often the strategists will be irked when a creative idea takes something in a direction away from the original strategy.

This is not necessarily a wrong thing, and strategies need to be adaptable.

Add to that the point that many creatives secretly (and sometimes not-so secretly) don't actually see the need for, or value, the contribution of planners in the first place. That's another debate for another time.

However if creatives feel that the planner's role is superfluous, then they need to be able to cover that themselves and in this example, no-one did.

This spot from mental health not-for-profit organisation Beyond Blue is perhaps an interesting example of a great creative idea that is let down by poor strategy.

A couple of people pinged me this over the last few weeks (thanks Kev, who was the first) as, on the surface, it has all the elements of stuff we like at Boat HQ.

The 'left-handed' analogy used to illustrate the ridiculousness of discriminatory behaviour that is faced by young people of sexual orientations outside of what might be described as the 'mainstream', (for want of a better phrase, whether mainstream is an appropriate description of anything in 2012 is debatable) is a splendid creative idea.

However the pay-off at the end, when it is revealed that 'left-handed' is a metaphor, is ultimately a let down.

The spot ends on...Stop - Think - Respect.

It's a nice attempt at chunking, I'll give it that, but the problem lies in imagining that asking homophobic or otherwise prejudiced individuals to 'stop and think' is going to affect any sort of behaviour change.

Attitudes can only be changed by there first being a change (even an enforced change, if necessary) in the behaviour.

There's at least two strategies that could have employed here that might have done justice to the creative idea.

1. This could have been part of a campaign to galvanise support for legislation that makes the illustrated discriminatory behaviour punishable by law.

The out and out ban on smoking in public places for instance has become a social norm very quickly aided by legislation.
This would have been something that supporters could do together.

2. This could have been part of a campaign to demonstrate how the type of prejudice illustrated was something of a bygone age, the domain of un-cool people and how most young people now find it laughable that we used to discriminate in this manner.

Again, something that people with shared values could gather around.

In a nutshell - Beyond Blue would be more effective in influencing behaviour if instead of trying to change the minds of individuals who are opposed to the cause, they focus on creating a sense of momentum among those who are in favour.

Friday, November 30, 2012

two of a kind

One of the many great things about Apple's advertising is the way they make technology look like it's not technology.

In the Steve Jobs biography there's a chapter about his love of industrial design. In particular the Braun products designed by Dieter Rams.

indeed, Jobs vision for Apple products was that of 'appliances' like food mixers etc.

For fellow BE enthusiasts the iPad mini spot above makes splendid, and confident, use of the anchoring effect.

Worth noting also that, again, Apple are also never afraid of a bit of bold, strategic cannibalisation.

Plus the use of 'Two Of A Kind' by Bobby Darin and Johnny Mercer (with Billy May's Big Band) is another masterstroke.

HT to Owen Jenkinson.

keep on keepin' on

I think it was Seth Godin who coined this one.

'If you can't explain your position in 8 words then you don't have a position.'

As we are in a vein of posts with some slight mod-ish connections - and, possibly, testament to some sort of mid life crisis that brings me to revisit my teen period circa late 70's early 80's - I'm recalling the strategy of the mighty Redskins.

In 8 words, with a sort-of double metaphor effect, to boot.

'Walk like the Clash, sing like the Supremes'

Keep on keepin' on, yeah.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

we are the mods #momentum

Thick as Thieves is a new book, that explores the story of The Jam ('the best band in the f****** world') through the collective stories of the fans, and associates of the group.

Authors Stuart Deabill and Ian Snowball describe their work as being 'produced by the fans for the fans'

For me also, the story of the Jam is pretty much the story of growing up in a provincial outpost in the 1970's.

My thanks go to Petar who pointed me to the above 25 minute promo documentary which gives a bit of a flavour of the content of the book, as various fans recount their take on the Jam phenomenon in their own youth.

There's also a couple of pointers/reminders for us from a marketing perspective on how people may come together around an idea.

In 2012 in agency land we still receive the challenge from brand marketers asking us to help 'build a community' around their brand.

My answer is still the same as it was in 2007.

'How about building your brand around communities?' How does the brand fit in people's lives? What role does it play? If any?

About 7 minutes in, journo and 78/79 era mod, Garry Bushell talks about the pivotal moment in 1978 when the Jam headlined at the 11,000 capacity Wembley Arena.

This was a major leap in venue size for bands of the broadly 'punk' era.

'Although there had been mods around since '76, in little individual pockets, even as late as 1978 they didn't realise that each other existed.

So by the time we had the Great British Music Festival [in November 1978]...that's the first time that all these Mods, who were consciously calling themselves Mods...that's the first time they realised that there was more than just them...then it really began to crystalise as a movement'

Because - and here's the thing - movements aren’t driven by so-called (or self-anointed) ‘influencers’, but can be sparked by a mass of individuals who influence each other and copy each other.

The key point of this being that when they can see each other, so they can copy each other.

That's how we get momentum and scale.

The Jam didn't invent the movement but they became the focal point that then acted to unify the disparate groups.

In 1978 it was harder for the mods to see each other. It took two years to get from the Marquee club or pubs in Fulham to Wembley Arena (and scale).

Today this can happen in an instant.

So, brands, where are the disparate groups out there that you can serve?

Can you make it so they can see each other?