Never get out of the boat

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

handbags and gladrags #lossaversion

So it goes that the pain of paying an extra fee for checked bags when you arrive at the airport is exasperated by the fact that you have already had to fork out for your ticket and so the additional cost of your luggage fee adds up as two separate losses.

Although the cost would be roughly the same one feels less aggrieved when paying for both at the same time on booking the ticket.

It's one loss.

So, two losses separately are more painful than if they were joined together, and likewise two gains separately are more enjoyable than when they are experienced together.

One little nudge to offset the pain of a loss is to bundle in a small gain following the original loss.

This is also know as the 'silver lining' effect.

Car dealers that offer 'cashback' as part of the deal know this.

In fact if one wants to dive deep into behavioural economics then go spend a few days in a car dealership, those guys have been practicing many of the principles for years, they just didn't have a name for it.

However my intuition tells me that the people who put up this sign need to do a bit more work on their subtleties....

hedonic boosts part 2

Legend has it that the website banner ad was born on or around October 27, 1994 with HotWired.com, and among those first hosted ads were placements from Volvo, AT&T,and 1-800-Collect.

In those early days click rates could be anything up to 80%.

Fast forward to today when an industry average is something closer to 0.05% and a campaign result of anything above that number is call for a party.

I'm all for the maxim that in order to achieve success one needs to learn to love failure but there comes a point...

One description of what psychologists call system justification bias tells us that '[its] effects are exacerbated when people are under psychological threat or when they feel their outcomes are especially dependent on the system that is being justified'.

Such is life in agencies.

In the interim perhaps we should be thankful for those 0.12% hedonic boosts, and keep making those banner ads.

Monday, August 13, 2012

the adoption paradigm

The old paradigm was 'targeting' - the new paradigm is 'adoption'.

To those for whom the message relevant, it's all good.

They adopt, then then they tell everyone else.

It's a simple equation.

My friend Harshal Gajria pointed me to this ad for the Mumbai Mirror newspaper - 'I am Mumbai' - and we wondered if perhaps all this pro-social, cultural critique, emotional advertising is getting too much.

In the old paradigm one would possiblly answer 'yes'.

In the new paradigm we can summise that - in fact - it's the only way.

Friday, August 10, 2012

it's about the behaviours, not the tools

It's surprising that in 2012 there is still so much focus, effort and money spent on trying to work out how the deployment of social media technologies and tools will impact on the performance of marketing strategies.

Every week there's another Pinterest webinar or 'how-to' leverage Linked-in conference.

And countless articles speculating and instructing about this or that of Facebook and Twitter.

However the important thing is working out what's important.

Social media tools have been adopted principally because they allow us to do stuff we've always liked to do, easier and with more people.

We share things...
Talk about things...
Create our art...
See what others are saying, doing and yes, buying...
We can argue, agree, copy...
We can demonstrate how smart, connected or philanthropic we are...

What's actually important is getting a hang of people - and how they behave - to inform, develop and implement strategy.

Somehow this insightful cartoon that I found in an old Dr Feelgood tour program from something like 1978 seems to nail the problem.

Anyone can pick the guitar, plug it in to the amp and make a noise.

And many companies and brands are doing this.

Not many are making us move like Wilco and co.

It's about the people and behaviours, not the tools.

Thursday, August 09, 2012

hedonic adaptation

As if by magic, I had just began to understand this idea of hedonic adaptation.

We get used to things and novelty wears off.

We get used to ourselves too, so a process in which the repetition of small positive experiences - rituals, if you like - such as doing some exercise, just putting on a happy face or pulling on your Levis, can actually have a long lasting effect on our general well-being.

Behaviour shaping how we feel and think.

We want to feel good about ourselves and so we use stuff that makes us feel good about ourselves.

Of course we inherently know this, without necessarily knowing.

So marketing and advertising that provide customers with 'hedonic boosts', little reminders of the feelings that we had when we first used a product, for instance, can be super effective.

That's one of the simple insights here.

And a brand’s attribute associations are stronger when we view ourselves as having as having those personal attributes.

What I can't get my head round is that after many years of being the 'digital' guy, the communications that I'm getting most excited about these days are not digital ideas at all.

Monday, August 06, 2012

we all scream for ice cream

This spot from Little Babies Ice Cream out of the US is great advertising.

It's pure emotive thus highly memorable and, of course, talk-about-able and shareable.
Not a USP in sight, simply an unsettling, surreal mixture of fear, surprise and disgust.

Considering most other ice cream advertising goes after the happiness angle it's doubly surprising.

The makers clearly know this, hence the tag line 'ice cream is a feeling'.

Top marks.

Thursday, August 02, 2012

sunk cost fallacy

I have a hunch that the team on this account are double agents working covert for the other 3 Aussie banks on a mission to systematically destroy the CommBank brand.

I can't embed the ad 'Bomb Hoax', it's now been removed from YouTube, but it can still be viewed over on Campaign Brief.

Suffice to say it's the latest instalment of a campaign that just when you thought it had hit its dumbest point, it keeps on getting dumber.

From a psychology point of view one can only summise that this is a classic case of 'sunk cost fallacy' or 'escalation of commitment bias'.

This is the phenomenon whereby people or an organisation will justify increased investment in something, based on the cumulative prior investment and despite evidence clearly suggesting that the cost of continuing the decision now outweighs any anticipated benefit.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

blackadder and behavioural economics

I recall an anecdote from a conversation several years ago with representatives of the late, and much lamented, COI - the UK government's policy objectives and public services marketing body which sadly closed it's doors for the final time in the early part of 2012.

The agency I worked for at the time were assisting the UK Department of Health on a number of initiatives including some of the anti smoking activity.

The COI were early champions of much of the thinking that we now broadly associate with behavioural economics and were therefore right on the ball with recognising that the dominant paradigm in communications theory that placed disproportionate importance on the notion that independent thinking and rational decision making were the principle influence on the choices we make was not 100% correct.

While those factors are often significant in short-term decision making - I choose brand x baked beans because they are on special offer - they do not explain longer term behaviours, much of which are far more affected by how we see others behave, habits we've formed and our general inability to compute things like financial costs and benefits.

Anyway, research material that COI provided us to inform the work we were doing with DoH indicated that the frightening messaging on cigarette packets intended to make people think about stopping smoking (smoke these and you will die etc) was in fact having a somewhat opposite effect.

The COI psychologists were becoming concerned that the results indicated that these warnings were actually more of an encouragement to smoke because the emotional response was more akin to an 'excitement' that one would attribute to activities such as bungee jumping or other extreme sports.

Essentially extrinsic factors overpowering intrinsic motivations.

I did a short talk last night to the members of the Institute of Analytics professionals and used the following example from Blackadder to add a bit of flavour to my argument that the data industry can best complement the creative industry by concentrating effort on finding the right information and helping us all continue to qualify and quantify at least some of the following matters, because it's all there in the data and patterns.

- How other people's behaviour affects our own
- How and why habits are formed
- Fundamental motives (survival, reproduction)
- Why we are bad at simple sums

Captain Blackadder:
You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war two great super-armies developed. Us, the Russians and the French on one side, Germany and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea being that each army would act as the other's deterrent. That way, there could never be a war.

Private Baldrick:
Except, this is sort of a war, isn't it?

Captain Blackadder:
That's right. There was one tiny flaw in the plan.

Private Baldrick:
Oh,what was that?

Captain Blackadder:
It was bollocks.

I used Professor Kahneman's 'bat and ball' experiment on the crowd.

Remember this was 150 or so analytics professionals, data geeks and mathematics heads.

A bat and ball costs one dollar and ten cents to buy.
The bat costs a dollar more than the ball.
How much does the ball cost?

Just about everyone nodded when I asked if ten cents came to mind.

So the idea that independent thinking and rational decision making are the principle influence on the choices we make has one tiny teeny flaw.

It is complete bollocks.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

notes on insight

Those of you who know me will also know that it takes very little persuasion to get me to stand up on a stage ond pontificate about this, that and the other in our world of communications conundrums.

I'm not a pro by any stretch but give it a good go.
The more I do it the better I get, one day soon I'll have it down so stand by for that.

On the occasions when I've been on a roll, I'll often chat with delegates and audience members afterwards and (though not as often as I'd like) sometimes they will leave me with a handshake and 'thanks for the insights'.

Of course, I'm happy to accept these thanks but I feel like I should say 'thanks but there were, in fact, no insights in what you just heard'.

There will have been stories, some facts, many observations and even more opinions but not necessarily any insights.

I say this because we should be mindful of not undermining the term 'insight' in our work.
Real insight is a rare and precious thing, and should be valued accordingly.

Here's one of the the best descriptions of insight that I've encountered.
A good benchmark by which to evaluate whether something is, in fact, insight or simply observation.

[That's not to say observation isn't valuable but it's a step in the process to uncovering insight]

'Insight is the act or result of apprehending the inner nature of things or seeing intuitively'

(I'm not sure where that definition comes from. Point me if you know)

For us communicators we should understand the goal of insight.
Insight informs how we identify highest level emotional need in any given situation.

How to uncover insight?
These five steps are a good place to start.

1. Ask difficult questions. Most of these start with 'why?'
2. Look below the surface.
3. Reframe stuff (TV is the second screen, for example).
4. Trust your 'gut', your instinctive self. Under-think it.
5. Observe acutely and understand your own and others behaviours.

Of course there is also product insight, category insight, business insight and many others. But key to uncovering these is starting with 'why' not 'how'.

Friday, July 06, 2012

disbelieving is hard work

So, last week I gave a short talk for AIMIA to the assembled agency digerati, at KPMG's auditorium up in Melbourne CBD. The theme of the morning was 'Digital Agencies of The Future'. Here's a synopsis of the key points I hoped to communicate.

2012 was a record year for Australian Agencies at Cannes.
59 Lions were awarded in total, that's up from circa 40 or so last year and about 45 the year before (also the previous record).

Interestingly, Australian agencies recieved precisely Zero Lions in either the Cyber (what a ridiculous name for a category btw) or Mobile categories.

There's two ways to look at these statistics.
Either we as a nation are useless at digital advertising.
Or
Single channel executions are a thing of a bygone age, and it's only integrated campaigns and activities that actually matter, anyway.

I'm on the side of the latter.

But...

Among the many Australian integrated efforts that did well, GPY&R's Mobile Medic which picked up Lions in 3 different categories, Naked's fantastic 'Steal Banksy' effort which took out a Gold in PR and even CumminsRoss's Agassi films pulled a Bronze in brand ed content, NONE OF THESE THINGS WERE CREATED BY DIGITAL AGENCIES.

Next I showed a lovely picture of a chicken and avocado sandwich.

'Digital agencies, this is your lunch'.

The bad news is that the advertising agencies are coming to eat it.

In their delusion the BDAs think they can do what you do, digital agencies.
They can't.

BUT they are better at convincing the clients that they can, than you can.
And that's your problem.

Listen.

As far as the big ad agencies, the media agencies and - most worryingly for the digital community - clients are concerned...

Digital = production.
Digital equals = making what you are told to by the big boys.

Brothers and sisters, you are in the ghetto.
This ghetto is a creation of your own minds, and if you don't get out of it soon I fear for the future of your agencies.

'Once you have accepted a theory and used it as a tool in your thinking, it is extraordinarily difficult to notice its flaws. If you come upon an observation that does not seem to fit the model, you assume that there must be a perfectly good explanation that you are somehow missing. You give the theory the benefit of the doubt, trusting the community of experts who have accepted it.'

'In mixed gambles, where both a gain and a loss are possible, loss aversion causes extremely risk-averse choices.'

(Both quotes via Daniel Kahneman)

Of course, it appears a mixed gamble.

But according to McKinsey, this year...
- 67% of digital agencies think they have strong strategic capability
- 16% of their clients agree

That should be frightening.
What are you going to do about it?

Wednesday, July 04, 2012

the man in the chair

Apparently, the below is one of the best known, and most oft quoted examples of advertising advertising.

Not so for me, I only came across it last week as I plough through The Intention Economy, the latest book from Doc Searls, of Cluetrain and Project VRM fame.

Created for The McGraw-Hill Business Publications Company in 1958, 'The Man in the Chair' ad is revered as one of the most effective and influential works in the genre. In a 2012 context, there is still much to be gleaned from its message.

I don’t know who you are.
I don’t know your company.
I don’t know your company’s products.
I don’t know what your company stands for.
I don’t know your company’s record.
I don’t know your company’s reputation.
Now, what was it you wanted to sell me?

Doc says:
'The true lodestar of advertising has always been the customers.
This is why the [McGraw-Hill] ad was so important. It was a signal sent by McGraw-Hill to advertisers on behalf of its readers. It spoke of the company’s relationship with those readers and said to advertisers that it stood on the readers’ side.
It demanded substance, relevance, and earned reputation from its advertisers. It said relationships were possible, but only when customers sat with companies at the same table, at the same level.'

What this ad is about resonates with me when placed in the context of the great digital divide - ie, on the one hand, the school of advertising - online in particular - that favours the hyper-targeted, 'personal' and data-driven tactics that are manifest in the near subterfuge of cookies, surveillance/tracking and all manner of 'behavioural' targeting.

And on the other the approach that favours strategies that contain content, usefulness, values-based communication, involvement, storytelling etc to name but a few. Where salience (ie visibility, sharability) and social proof are the drivers.

In many ways being objective about the value and values of good advertising one could surmise that - for the most part - our industry is still often short of the mark and has perhaps lost its way compared to one humble, yet somehow futuristic, b2b print execution from 1958.

Friday, June 08, 2012

The technology always comes first: part 2

I'll be interested to watch Xbox Smart Glass develop.

Unveiled at E3 2012, it's, indeed, a pretty smart next iteration on multi screen interaction for gaming but i can also easily envisage some equally smart people picking up on this technology as a platform and doing something with it for any form of entertainment, and advertising of course...

Don't get hung up on the Microsoft guy's slightly hammy presentation.

Remember kids...The technology always comes first.

Then the creative people come along and make something with it.

Artists never invented oil paint, or the movie camera but they saw the opportunity the technology gave for creativity and messed with it.

HT TMac

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

empire state chicken burger

Andy Warhol’s influence on culture and of course advertising continues to be apparent.

There’s plenty written on this subject so I’m not going too far down that rabbit hole, but there’s two examples from the advertising world that I’ve noticed this week, one fairly explicit and other less so.

Firstly ‘Which Warhol’s Warhol’s’ is a challenge for guests staying at Melbourne’s Art Series hotels. The winner get’s to go home with a genuine $20,000 Andy Warhol print providing that they can pick the ‘real’ Warhol from one of the 10 ‘Warhols’ displayed in the hotels between May and August.

The other 9 are forgeries created by art forger Tony Tetro.

I love this idea.

Perhaps more than any other artist Warhol’s pieces are social objects – conversational in nature both from a subject point of view (what is or isn’t appropriate content for ‘art’ – death, disaster etc) And from an objective view point. His industrial methods of production and low-touch involvement in the production process itself.

‘Which Warhol’s Warhol’s’ plays to both of these conversational elements, and is inherently high in involvement and experience. It’s almost impossible to encounter the ‘campaign’ and not have something to say about it.

Art Series Hotel Group CEO Will Deague is also reported as saying that the other purpose of the intervention is to stimulate discussion and debate around the production of replica art and it’s impact on working artists.

This is a great example of creating a bit of culture first then advertising the idea.

As opposed to an advertising idea.

Which segues neatly into the next example.
The current advertising for ‘Hungry Jacks’, the Aussie Burger King.

But firstly some notes on one of Warhol’s most noteable journeys into the film medium.

Officially, the only way to see the Andy Warhol’s 1964 film Empire, an epic eight and a half hour stationary shot of the Empire State Building in New York is to borrow a copy from the MoMA.

It has never had any distribution on video or dvd, nor is it available online. Any screenings that happen are usually in museums or galleries.

The film itself has no script, and other than the Empire State Building itself, no characters (if one discounts the momentary flashes of Warhol and cinematographer Jonas Mekas as reflection in the window of the Time-Life building from which the film was shot) and, of course, no traditional narrative.

In effect the movie is more an academic exercise in the medium of film rather than anything that is meant to be ‘watched’ in the traditional sense.

The only narrative events are more like non-events - a twinkling light at the top of a nearby building marks the passing of time. According to Warhol, the point of this film is simply to ‘see time go by.’

Despite being a movie that few people have ever seen it’s one of Warhol’s most iconic works.

The Hungry Jack’s ‘Nothing naughty about it’ ad for its ‘chicken’ burger range has also certain Warholian characteristics. But is closer in nature to the Empire movie in it’s unintentional celebration of the banal.

The spot is based around it’s own non-event, a rock chick eats a chicken burger, turns into a ‘nice’ girl to the horror of here rock band mates.

The observation here is that, like the Warhol ‘forgeries’ this ad is an advertising forgery.

It’s a facsimile of advertising.
For all intents and purposes it has all of the appearance and stylistic attributes of advertising.
It looks and behaves like an ad.
It has a message of sorts.
A look and feel.
Some logos.
A notional ‘audience’.
A ‘gag’ of sorts (like a gag except not funny)

But it’s somehow empty.
A replica.
It’s not even trying to be an idea.
Devoid of any inspiration or insight - it's pure construct. It’s a pure excercise in the stylistic conventions of advertising without actually being advertising.

Warhols famously, and somewhat archly said ‘If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, there I am. There's nothing behind it'.

To that point the only thing more banal than the Hungry Jacks campaign is the commentary around it that arose yesterday on the industry blogs.

This is not a rant against TV advertising, by the way.
Film is still the greatest storytelling medium. Provided you have a story.
Compare Hungry Jacks to the Proctor and Gamble film 'Best Job' for the 2012 Olympics.
Then let's have a conversation about values, inspiration and insight.

Monday, May 28, 2012

[review] can't/can: talkin' loud, sayin' nothing.

Following its seven day 'teaser' run up, the 'Can't' campaign revealed itself on the weekend and, as just about everyone who was paying any attention predicted, was indeed the relaunch/rebadging of the Commonwealth Bank.

CommBank binned their longstanding agency partner, San Francisco based Goodby Silverstein & Partners, back in February and 'Can't/Can' is the first major effort from M&C Saatchi Sydney who won the account back for Australia as it were.

Whilst every man and his dog in the advertising biz has a view on the executional merits of the relaunch I thought it might be interesting to have a look through a brand innovation lens and chuck in a couple of other thoughts on the overall position of the thing.

Still pretty much the defacto word on brand innovation is John Grant's tome from 2006. The principle hypothesis behind the need for brand innovation being that the nature of communications has fundamentally shifted in the connected age in one simple way.

- From: targeting messages at passive audiences

- To ideas being adopted by (or co-created with) groups for whom they are relevant.

Despite the hoo-ha the 'Can't/Can' campaign is firmly embedded in the former, as we shall see.

The build up of 'Can't' existed initially through the use of prominent billboards with the message 'CAN'T' and the url whatiscant.com.

Should a viewer be tickled by this the idea was further extended at the website with further oblique 'Can't' messages.

As the week progressed other 'Can't' stunts emerged such as lollipop ladies with 'Can't' on the end of their sticks and a truck with huge letters spelling 'Can't' driving round iconic landmarks in Sydney etc.

If this is starting to sound familiar then yes, you are on the right track.
It's an almost tactic-for-tactic replication of the NAB 'Break Up' intervention from 2011.

More on that in a minute.

On the web the @whoiscant twitter bot seemed to be present in various twitter streams including conversations around The Voice tv show and the rugby, again inserting #cant into the streams with various degrees of relevance, mostly thin.

On Sunday the message then switched to 'Can' with a fairly contrived twitter 'reveal' and a 60sec video fronted by actress Toni Collette reciting a poem 'An ode to Can' reputedly penned by M&C Saatchi around the word 'Can'.

The similarity to 'Break Up' from a tactical viewpoint is very apparent. What 'Can't/Can' principally lacks, however, is an IDEA.

Whilst 'Break Up' took a stand alongside banking customers against the industry, an idea that people could get involved with, 'Can't' seems to be CommBank navel gazing and deep in Mott The Hoople Syndrome territory (ie talking about themselves, to themselves). There's plenty of 'image' but precious little 'innovation'.

The whole campaign hangs off a single consistent 'message' but there's little involvement.

For an idea to spread the intended spreaders need to want it to spread.
If no-one knows what it is, then it's chances are significantly hampered.

Indeed the principle spreaders of 'Can't' were firstly Heritage Bank, then Greenpeace and also ANZ Bank who all newsjacked 'Can't' for their own purposes.

Consequently 'Can't' was therefore a fairly static notion, other than one directional messaging dressed as stunts there were no dynamics or currency to speak of. The lack of agility by either the bank or the agency left it wide open for more nimble competitors or agitators to ambush.

'Experience' was also limited, bearing in mind again that no one really knew what the idea was about.
There was nothing to DO. We were somehow supposed to THINK first, which is a serious strategic miscalculation in this day and age.

How 'authentic' is the idea? It's hard to call on that one, we shall see as the the rebrand manifests itself over time. The actual policies and practices of the bank will dictate that one.

In terms of 'culture' versus advertising then one has to say that it's been 100% an advertising construct, and not a particularly smart one. It's not difficult to imagine the entire campaign being built from the award video submission outwards. Maybe that's just the cynic in me.

Though in fairness one could summise that 'Can' is the germ of some positive value-driven story, whether it will inspire people to take action or bears any resemblance to a truth that CommBank will live and breath remains to be seen.

Overall it seems to be a case of talkin' loud, sayin' nothing, however.

Friday, May 25, 2012

winning the story wars

Here's a inspirational clip, it's a promo for the book 'Winning the Story Wars' by Jonah Sachs.

The message is that 'Brands that tell value-driven stories can change the world'.

We've been believers in the Purpose Idea round here for some considerable time, so this is more fuel to the fire.

Sachs's mantra is Be Interesting, Tell the Truth and Live the Truth.

Contrary to popular opinion the proliferation of social media tools and digital platforms does not make marketing in the connected age more complicated.

No matter how many logo splattered charts and info graphics may suggest so.

It's actually very simple.

Inspire people to take action with positive value-driven stories.

App of the month: PEEK *exclusive sneak peek

PEEK is an iPhone app that allows it's user to share photos that self‐destruct in 30seconds, and are protected from full screen capture and copying.

The encrypted pictures are viewed in what Peek calls 'torchmode'.

This means the entire picture is never fully visible, the recipient literally only gets a peek through the 'mask'.

To play, simply capture or select a photo from your phone's albums, send the encrypted pic via MMS or email, and Peek will unlock the photo for the recipient for 30seconds so they can have a look.

The great thing about PEEK as an idea is that it obviously exists in response to an existing behaviour. Whatever one may think about the sensibleness of that behaviour, it is clearly a something that is going on. It is difficult if not impossible to enforce any legal measures that prevent private communications from being misused and making it onto dubious Tumblrs and so on, the next best thing is to make it safer.

Because images are never uploaded to PEEK's server they stay between the sender and recipient.

PEEK makes it somewhat safer to play, for those who arre of the inclination, and keeps things private.

Have a peek at PEEK.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

value propositions

I've been in a number of discussions on the nature of value propositions lately. In the agency this debate has been principally fuelled by our current obsession with all things lean and subsequently the ideas of lean godfather Steve Blank.

In a recent article Blank has pointed to the idea that there are in fact only two fundamental value propositions (ie the 'why') available to any brand, company, product or service.

These are:

1. It solves a problem. It is functional.
Things like electricity, toothbrushes, washing powder or paracetamol tablets would often fall into this bucket.

or

2. It fulfils a human social need.
Human social needs being things like entertainment, connection, friendship and so forth.

Blank argues, and we agree, that the functional value proposition is clearly the lesser of the two in terms of creative potential.

Having a purely problem solving value proposition is also risky, for instance, though not exclusively, for the fact that if Brand Y comes along and can fix the same problem cheaper or faster then Brand X is vulnerable.

Then competing on price is a race to the bottom, particularly if Brand X is also competing on scale.

Whereas there is a huge market for companies that can fulfil social human needs. Facebook, Zynga, Google, Nike, Virgin, Vogue or Manchester United etc etc are testament to this.

As a lens this is useful for quickly evaluating the nature of advertising campaigns.

Which brings me to this current campaign for erstwhile iconic Aussie workwear brand Hard Yakka.

I've noticed this poster over the road on my drive to work over the past couple of weeks and it's irked me but I've not been able to pin down exactly why, but here goes...

The line 'Jeans you won't wear out' seems to me to be so mundane and functional in it's 'value proposition' that I've been scratching my head to see if there's some irony or something that I am just simply not 'getting'.

The double whammy is the kinda subtext which is that - not only but also - you will not wear these denims 'out', in non building site situations such as social occasions, either.

So not only is the value proposition purely functional and commodity but it also goes one step further and negates any potential social fulfillment, or even simply further utility, by imlpicity stating 'problems' that the product will not solve.

I'm all about pragmatism but this strikes me as dull in the extreme.

Of course, the alternative extreme is 'liquid linkage to big fat fertile spaces' but for a 'genuine' brand like Hard Yakka one has to mark this card as disappointing, unimaginative and generally must work harder.

Hard Yakka is a former client at my previous agency, so think of this as tough love.

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

the commercial benefits outweigh integrity?

Slightly saddened by the total crushing mediocrity of the miserable quote below from Kilmarnock chairman Michael Johnston regarding the Glasgow Rangers situation.

As a recap Rangers have come a cropper and been under administration since February following the can of financial mismanagement worms being opened and revelations appeared detailing how the club used non-payment and evasion of tax to obtain an unfair financial and sporting advantage over every other club for at least the last 10-12 years.

Rangers future is still in limbo following the collapse of a take-over bid from American trucking 'tycoon' Bill Miller. Miller had planned a transfer of the club's assets to an 'incubator' company ( a 'newco') while 'issues relating to the existing business are resolved, with the intention of combining the two concerns at a later date' (ie: never)

By rights any newco would be stripped of SPL status and would need to apply for a vacancy in the SFL (the lower divisions body) and then play their way up from the Third Division.

However the integrity of the sport does not seem to be top of the agenda in the boardrooms of SPL member chairpersons.

Someone should point them to the principles of Lean Startup, in particular the chapters about finding a sustainable business model. About learning quickly what works, and discard what doesn't.

The SPL staus quo may on the surface seem to be a product with great features (of which Rangers FC may be asuumed to be one) - but you have to figure out if there is a market for it. Declining attendances and lack of perceived competition due to the domination (by fair means or foul) of Celtic and Rangers, may indeed point to a model that was clearly broken and not actually sustainable.

Kilmarnock chairman Johnston is quoted on the BBC Sport website thus:

"[SPL] Members see the commercial benefits of having Rangers, even as a newco, the clubs are mindful of a sporting integrity aspect but the commercial benefits may outweigh that."

Mindful of sporting integrity? My arse.

Mr Johnson and the other SPL member clubs would de well to heed the old adage 'If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything'.

If Johnson's view is shared by the other member clubs then the race to the bottom for Scottish football has just kicked in another gear.

Monday, May 07, 2012

eu estou sempre soprando bolhas

I remember reading recently, and being somewhat surprised to say the least, about the popularity of long lost east-end bootboy combo - and West Ham United crew - The Cockney Rejects, in Brazil, of all places.

Apparently Stinky Turner and the boys are the toast of Torcidas organizadas, and West Ham tops are de rigeur in the punk rock clubs from Rio De Janeiro to Sau Paulo.

This phenomenon may or may not be connected to a web application called Demand It! from Eventful.

Demand It! users can 'demand' events, (eg concerts by now obscure east-end Oi-sters) and if they enough support can be galvanised, then they can bring these events to their town.

It's a simple VRM-esqe notion, meaning the fans get what they want by pulling together, reducing the risk for concert promoters (who may, or may not even be involved) and meaning that bands outside of the mainstream (whatever that is in 2012) can find their audience, wherever it may be.

Eventful founder, Brian Dear explained to Fred Wilson aka AVC:

'I remember US bands shocked to discover they had throngs of fans in distant places like Finland and Uruguay and Japan, and so they'd go tour there because it turned out their Demand it! numbers in those places were big enough to get gigs that would be profitable.'

Wilson himself remarks at the end of the article:

'With the Facebook IPO on everyone's mind, the topic du jour seems to be valuations, revenues, and profits. But the most impactful thing about social media is not the dollar value of these platforms, it is the people power of them.'

Venha sobre vós ferros.

which agency knows the 'brand' best?

One of the conundrums when making the switch from big agency land to small agency land is realising that the business development boot has landed squarely on the other foot.

In my big agency days I quite happily trotted out the following statement to clients who's account was with said big agency [me], but whose heads were occasionally being turned by the advances of smaller boutique or specialist agencies who had a sniff of one or more parts of the client's marketing budget [them].

'We [big agency] understand the brand. Why would [client] risk handing over any part of the marketing to [small agency]? They don't get the brand.'

The reality of this statement, looking at it now from the challenger viewpoint rather than the incumbent viewpoint, is that it is utter tosh.

If the brand manager and the big agency are the only parties who 'get' the brand, who 'understand ' the brand, then clearly they have not been doing their jobs properly.

If they had been doing it properly then everyone should understand the brand.

Everyone should be clear on the values, meaning, purpose, image and voice of the brand.

If they - brand manager and incumbent agency - have been doing their jobs properly then there can be no doubt about what the brand idea is, so the door would therefore open for any agency to have a valid point of view on how those values, meaning, purpose, image and communications should best be expressed.

In this scenario then, it's clear that best relationships, people and then best strategies and ideas should win.

For [big agency] to claim that the criteria for keeping the account is that they are the only agency to really understand the brand, is the best case I've heard for them to be fired, immediately.