For the last three years, my new years resolution has been to start writing a comedy based on adland. Looks like I’ve been beaten to it. Shoulda woulda coulda ‘n all that. Here is some commentary from Campaign. (Perhaps there may be room for another attempt after all?)
However, on closer inspection, they seem to have missed a trick. I’m really surprised that they didn’t extend the concept and the characters online. Think of the fake Peep Show characters on twitter from last year. Tom Davenport created eight of the characters from the show and wrote storylines allowing people to follow the characters interactions on twitter. This was an unofficial little experiment but imagine if it had been fully integrated into the content? Cumulatively the characters on twitter had amassed 25,000 followers (admittedly, a lot of those will be the same people- the world is crying out for twitter data analysts but that’s a different post!) so how could the show makers have rewarded these die hard fans- another opportunity overlooked?
Had the writers of ‘The Persuasionists’ extended their concept beyond the traditional 6 x 30min format, I think they would have done their original thought much more justice.
It would have brought so much more depth to the characters and the storylines which lend themselves so much to a parallel online narrative. In doing this, it would have provided a real opportunity to engage a potential huge online audience into a huge online fanbase (particularly in an industry of people who probably heavily over index in online multimedia consumption!) and would have garnered more interest and goodwill before, during and after the series.
Many Alternate Reality Gaming’ ‘programmes’ or viral marketing strategies, the types we are seeing being produced by companies like 42entertainment for the launch of Batman ‘The Dark Knight’ often begin with a strategy which looks to engage an existing fanbase or affinity group (e.g. comic book geeks) and these have proven hugely successful.
The opportunity and platforms are there now for brands as well as programme makers to harness similar thinking…
I went to a Social Media Mafia event today (thanks to Rosie for the tip off).
It’s one of those events which are called ‘camps’.
This was my first ‘camp’. I now know what it is. I think it’s basically an event where people can talk over the speaker until they become the speaker. I liked it. It reminded me of growing up in a house as one of five kids. No hair-pulling or dead-arms today though.
Instead, there was some very clever people passionate about social media and coming at it from a variety of different angles- not just marketing. This made for a very interesting conversation (and why I think events like this are far more worthwhile than conferences where people share a powerpoint presentation for £679 a ticket which is on Slideshare the next day- separate post needed on that I think).
Anyway, I digress.
At a ‘camp’, you get to nominate and lead a discussion. Sylvie from 1000 Heads nominated social media ethics (she is their full-time ethicist!).
There was a lot of chat we’ve had before from a branding perspective about (n)etiquette; transparency, privacy, content, control etc. The conversation then turned to values and internal communications as a key driver for how ethics are communicated and indeed carried out.
My thoughts then turned to a recent white paper the COI released about ‘Communications and behaviour change which is essentially a nod in the direction of the very trendy and hotly debated ‘behavioural economics’ (“BE” is going to be BIG in 2010 if Rory Sutherland has anything to do with it).
On page 16 of the report, there is a line of enquiry discussing the ‘Value Action Gap’. It basically describes those situations where a person holds values that are inconsistent with their behaviour. It’s particularly evident in people’s attitudes towards the environment- we have the knowledge but when it comes to actually doing something about it, other factors take greater presidence e.g. economic. Or an example of when attitudes can precede behaviour; smoking, we know it’s bad for us and we want to live a long and healthy life but we still do it.
Is this the social web magnifying this ‘gap’ between a companys’ ‘values’ and their ‘actions’?
Putting ethics to one side, is the foremost recommendation for any digital communicator to be able to challenge any at say Proctor and Gamble, Clark’s, Nike, Whole Foods, Casio employee and be able to identify the values the company has through their actions? After all, it’s the people who make a business and consequently it’s identity, event before social media came along.
Because social media has given a voice to anyone, rather than attempt to clamp down on employees speaking out of turn or providing ’social media guidelines’ or creating ‘engagement ethics’ etc- are resources best not focused on getting everyone who works in an organisation empowered to represent the brand in and out of work- through sharing the values of the company from top to bottom and expecting everyone employed by the company to adhere to them? If they don’t adhere- ship ‘em out, if they do- encourage and incentivise them to decrease the company’s ‘value action gap’.
Are we not as marketers in a state of ‘cognitive dissonance‘ like smokers? In the COI report, the authors suggest smokers seek to reduce the dissonance by either giving up or by finding new ways to justify their habit e.g. it makes me slimmer.
Are marketers not just finding new ways to justify our habit? i.e. of selling advertising space/ making an ad/ producing a press release/ blogger outreach yada yada? How do we stub out our own cigarette?
With the wave of thinking about ‘marketing as a service‘ and ‘it’s what you do, not what you say‘, should therefore, the future role of the agency be helping those willing to embrace this new model; those focused on closing their ‘value action gap’, by ‘actioning’ their values- doing stuff that communicates what they are about through the best channel going- the people who work in the company. Will the successful businesses of tomorrow be ones with no ‘values action gap’ having realised the best way of marketing their brand is through the people that make up the brand. Case in point; Zappos
Right, I’m off for a fag.
Thoughts most welcome.
We‘ve just done this.
The 'Floyd' on Primrose Hill
Why? To publicise the fact that Sky Arts 1 HD were screening the Floyd’s 1994 Earl’s Court ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ performance , we recreating the ‘Dark side of the moon’ album cover on Primrose Hill on Thursday evening.
The Primrose version of the prism has graced the pages of The Telegraph, Guardian, Sun, Daily Record and Evening Standard over the past few days, not to mention in various places and guises online.
And this is how we did it.
Oh, and it’s caused quite a stir in the online Floyd community too… make of that what you will if you’re one of these.
These ads have caused a bit of a stir within the industry over the last few days. I saw them for the first time on Friday night on the way home after four pints of the black stuff. It made me smile and compelled me even to lean over the bloke below this photo and take a photo of the ad (at this point, I think most people on the carriage thought I was a bit simple) and eventually write a blog post on it.
The ads have been devised by the clever folk at M&C Saatchi and Creative Review err reviewed the creative here. Ruth Mortimer from Marketing Week then had a wee pop at the strategy and today it got a bit of coverage in the Telegraph.
So I thought I’d wade in too.
I like the tone of these ads because they are based around the thought that the brand is honest enough to acknowledge it’s current perception and place within people’s lives. It’s brutally honest… and clever. Because it’s honest, it’s credible. And because it’s credible I’m just that little bit more likely to listen to them or at least not turn the page quite so quickly the next time they try to speak to me.
Our whole industry is based on exaggeration, hyperbole, claim, dramatisation, one-up-manship and amplifying/creating propositions. So how bloody marvellous is this rather understated campaign born out of an acknowledgement of true consumer behaviour; generally, we shop around. The brand and client’s business does not operate in a vacuum. People are not that loyal. Particularly when in the market for consumer electronics.
Ruth Mortimer worries about the long term brand equity given that the ad compares Dixons to other electronic retailers. She is concerned that Dixons may come across cheap however I think it speaks value and shows a true understanding for who their customer is and how they differ from those of the retailers they mock. It says, we know you’re canny, we know you’re savvy, so we’re not going to try to bullshit you. For sure, they’ll never have the customer service of an offline retailer but that’s not Dixons business and it’s not what makes a sale for Dixons.co.uk at present.
This self deprecation and acknowledgement of the savvy shopper is a nice juxtaposition to what the rest of the market is saying to people. As a result, it’s cutting through. I hope also, there are a bundle of stunt ideas and quirky advertising that will lead from this strategy and this tone of voice. There’s plenty to play with. And, already the campaign has generated a fair bit of coverage because of this starkly honest view on their and their customer’s world.
Working in a PR environment, you occasionally hear of the odd ‘horror story’ anecdote from a colleague who had to try and “PR an ad”. However, the honesty in this campaign means you could potentially pitch this as a legitimate story successfully. To journalists and a bloke on the tube.
It seems now, honesty is pretty much the only policy.
From Bud Caddell who works at ‘digital thinktank’ Undercurrent. I’ll let him take it away. Cracking.
Evening.
So it’s been a bit quiet around here of late. A direct correlation with it all kicking off outside of blogland. A quick update;
1) I now work here instead of here. It’s cracking. If you’re interested enough to want to know why I left and what I do now, please feel free to get in touch.
2) I drove from Calais to Rome in a £150 20 year old Volvo 480 in an organised rally. That again, was a good thing that happened. Here is Scarlet in action. (By action, I mean on the side of the road with one of us topping up the radiator. A familiar scene on the trip).
3) I got invited to go to Butlin’s in Bognor Regis on an organised ‘tweetup’.
This is a bit of a weird story.But probably one with a few lessons.
A few months ago, I signed up to a site called Fuelmyblog out of curosity as to what it could offer potential clients. It’s run by a chap called Kevin Dixie who I was lucky enough to meet at said tweetup. He knows his apples. I’m not entirely sure how I managed to get invited to this, as the majority of my readership is marketing folk and the majority of Butlin’s core market probably aren’t. Moleskine wielding types, not the first association you would make with Butlins really.
When I got there, it appeared the others who had been invited were a pretty mixed bag but all had their routes in tech blogging and web 2.0 start-ups; contributing tech editor at the Telegraph and now Techcrunch Europe and also of Michael Jackson flashmob tribute fame Milo, Paul Carr, a guardian and Techcrunch columnist and about ten other bloggers working in various fields, all of whom very nice.
However, media planning wise, not very, err, Butlins.
Perhaps that’s what the brief was? Let’s do a familiarisation trip with some guys who would never consider Butlins? To tap into a bit of Butlins redcoat post-modern nostalgia? To broaden Butlins to a wider market, to reintroduce the staycation to the ‘burbs and the Nathan Barleys? To generate some online chatter; get the link love going… maybe.
Here is a resulting piece of coverage from Paul’s column. A must read. Hmmm.
And here is a nice video that Milo put together.
Our particular highlight was having a giant inflatable penis thrust in my friend’s face by some lovely ladies from Romford. Luckily, Bradley from S Club 7 was on hand to deal with the large member- he autographed it… Magic.
In all, perhaps not the ‘key messaging’ that the guys at Butlins were after.
Finally, here is the tweet a few weeks later from the lovely Sara-Jane, then of Butlin’s PR team;
(Thankfully, it now looks like she’s got a great new job.)
Now, it must be said, that although the media planning was pretty shaky which resulted in some pretty scathing coverage and a redundancy, personally I had a pretty good weekend. We were treated very well, accomodation good, food was half decent and the entertainment was err 911 and Sonia (which went down well though with us ironic ‘meeja’ lot). There appears to be some other good reviews coming in from the parenting blogger community too (though similar concerns as to who the activity was targeting).
However, I don’t believe Butlins needed to embark on this ‘blogger outreach strategy’.
Butlins to me are sitting on dynamite. And most of it is wearing a red jacket.
It’s a simple formula. Get people who are passionate about Butlins, talking to other people who are enthusiastic about Butlins and reward those who grow that enthusiasm in others. The web is good at that.
In this instance ‘blogger outreach’ perhaps isn’t the answer therefore. Empowering their employees to speak on behalf of the brand could be? In today’s transparent environment, having a workforce that wholeheartedly believes in the product they peddle, is really quite a powerful communication tool, especially online. Sometimes, the PR function has to focus on facilitation of the conversation, allowing the amplification to follow.
Very nice. Hat tip OgilvyOne massive.
Next question… can brands who finance this functionality, make it pay for itself by selling the application to local vendors to be featured? If I’m selling strawberries and ice cream just near Henman Hill, I’m sure it would be a great way to improve your chances of being found and chosen particularly if you ran a promotion. Incorporating a voucher incentive scheme (the voucher redeemable when you showed your IBM map on your phone for example) could tell you exactly how many strawberries and cream sales have been converted and driven by the ad I’ve placed within the IBM map.
Oh yes, and lest we forget, activity like this (with a story), google normally says ‘yes’ to:
