Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Communication Strategy, Corporate Evil, Marketing, Marketing Fail
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I saw this at Fulham tube station.
What were they thinking?
Oh I know what they were thinking … they thought this made Aviva look like a company who wanted to help ‘the little people’ be like the successful pin-stripe suit brigade.
But the fact is, when it comes from a company run by the pin-stripe suit brigade, not only does it lose any sense of authenticity, it feels patronising, condescending and as judgmental as hell.
And if you think I’m being a dick, the fact the last line is a cold, hard and harsh ‘capital at risk’ … you know the real goal of this ad is to get more commission than to spread the wealth.
Or maybe that’s just me.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Authenticity, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Devious Strategy, Planners, Planning, Point Of View, Unplanned
One of the things I love is building a planning team who is like a gang.
A bunch of intelligent misfits who all have unique ways of looking at the World but share a common philosophy in terms of what we want to do, change and impact.
I don’t care how people approach their challenges, I don’t mind if people aren’t the best of friends … but it’s important we have each others back and are open to offering opinion, advice and help if needed, even if individually, there is a healthy level of competition to do the best work of the team.
Of course, this is easier to achieve the longer you stay in a company as you can truly stamp your personality on the department but it’s not totally necessary … you just have to be clear in your beliefs, consistent in your actions and lead by example.
Now whether I’ve achieved any of this is something you’d ultimately have to ask the brilliant people who have worked with me at my previous agencies, but as I’ve started a new job at R/GA, I wanted to rally the team around a set of beliefs and language that can start unifying us more closely so I decided to make us all a set of stickers.
Yes, stickers.
I know … R/GA is an agency that wants to make the future … but apart from the fact we’re about creating stuff that comes from culture rather than ignores them, I have a new laptop that needs ‘customising’ so I thought stickers would be a perfect way to kill 2 birds with one stone.
With that in mind, each member of the team has received a set of the stickers above.
17 stickers that convey our philosophy on such matters as what we believe, how we work and what we want to do.
Some are obvious, some are maybe a bit more esoteric … but even if people absolutely hate them, at least I can say I’ve made something that truly has stuck – even if that is literal rather than philosophical – which, I’m sure you’ll agree, makes a pleasant change.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Crap Campaigns In History, Happiness, Jill, Love, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Relationships
So now my life is spent on the tube, I get to look an endless stream of terrible ads.
In the main, the vast majority are basically brochures shoved into a small space.
No thought about the audience.
No interest in capturing the imagination.
Just blatantly taking the piss by ramming down what they want to say regardless of who will be exposed to it.
While the example above for eHarmony.com is not one of the worst, it’s not great.
Putting aside the vast amount of copy on there, I don’t like the idea that their version of love is finding someone who is basically a duplicate of you.
Is that love?
Sure, having things in common is important, but isn’t it the differences that makes things magical?
I know for a fact that Jill has made me a better person simply because she is not me.
Her view of the World.
Her experiences.
Her hopes, dreams and ambitions.
The last person I can think I’d want to be with is another version of me.
OK, so they then end their ad by saying ‘meet that one person you never thought you’d meet’, but even though that gives a nod to your ideal partner having as many differences as commonalities, they’re still selling the idea that there’s only one person in the World right for you … which is not only bollocks, but emotionally manipulative.
But if that’s not bad enough, it’s the fact they say they ask 150 questions for each member.
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY!
Look, I get love is complex, complicated and deeply personal but 150 questions?
Jesus …
I wouldn’t mind, but according to some, you can make anyone fall in love with you if you just ask them 36 questions.
I know there have been a bunch of relationships that have formed because of eHarmony, but I wonder how many of those occurred simply because 2 people were in the right mindset for a relationship rather than because of the answers of their 150 questions.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Emotion, Entertainment, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, Marketing, Planners, Technology
When we moved to the US, we bought a new television.
We hadn’t had a new one for 9 years so when we got a ‘smart TV’, it was a revelation.
Sadly, when we were moving to the UK, we had to get rid of it because it wouldn’t work with the UK power grid.
Anyway, we went out and bought the new version of it – and while it is 65″ of OLED, 4K brilliance – the bit I love the most is that it has a feature that disguises itself as a painting.
I know it’s not the first television to do this, but it’s the first one I’ve had that does – and given it’s amazing picture quality – it’s ability to really give the impression it’s art, not tech is amazing.
It also reminds me of the brilliant work the brilliant Red Associates in NYC did for Samsung years ago.
Years ago, Samsung approached them for help on how to sell more televisions.
Rather than respond with solutions relating to branding or distribution, they came back with a more human focused response.
What they had discovered was that men love to show off their tech.
When they buy it – especially if it is for the home – they want to show it off … make it a focus of their World.
But women are different.
They don’t like things that change the focus and flow of the home.
They love technology but don’t want it to overshadow the people and the interactions that go on between the 4 walls. In essence, they want the technology to enhance the family dynamic, not overshadow it.
And so Red Associates told Samsung that they should be looking at changing the frames the TV’s were held in.
Less black and more shades that suit the colour palette of home decor.
Sure the screen would remain dark, but by changing the frame, it would blend in more with the home than stand out.
And you know what … it worked.
Samsung saw a dramatic increase in brand affinity with women.
Which meant when a family wanted to buy a new TV, Samsung increased their odds of being the one chosen because it understood that purchase decisions were based on more than just the tech, but the way it works when it’s off.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Communication Strategy, Content, Context, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Entertainment, Honesty, Imagination, Insight, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Social Media
So following on from yesterday’s post about how to create content that people actually want to watch rather than run away from, here are the remaining 6 lessons.Remember, they’re not from me, but from a friend of a friend who started a YouTube channel [Kyra.TV] last year that has turned them into one of the most interesting and fastest-growing content creators in London.
Be grateful for that, because this is my version of good content.
Here.
Here.
And Here.
Exactly. Now settle down for the remaining 6 points.
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LESSON SEVEN: This audience loves ‘YouTubers’
When we first started making content for Youtube, I confess we used to turn our noses up at the “YouTubers”.
We learnt that made us idiots.
We couldn’t understand why young people loved them so much and just put it down to one of the mysteries of the internet.
Your Jake Pauls
Your PewdiPies
Your David Dobriks
Your Zoellas
We had watched some of their content, we thought we understood it and we made our minds up. We assumed their audiences came from getting to the platform first and I can’t tell you how wrong we were and how much respect I have for them and their teams now.
What we’ve come to understand over the past year is that some of these creators are nothing shy of complete genius. They are media powerhouses with intricate and refined strategies that are driving levels of engagement never seen before in our industry.
Take Logan Paul.
Say you what you want about the controversy, let’s look at the facts.
In December he generated 320 million video views.
He creates a 15 minute TV Show every single day.
Even his dog has 3.4m Instagram followers and generates 500,000 likes per post …
Let’s take another example.
KSI gained more subscribers than Complex, Vice, Buzzfeed and Vox COMBINED in the last 30 days.
These are some of the most innovative people in the media industry and unlike the past, they’re beginning to realise it as well and are now beginning to seriously monetise it. Every media house in the world right now should be paying attention to them, watching and learning from them every single day.
I know we are.
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LESSON EIGHT: This audience listens to and values people over brands
Leading on from that point …
Since the dawn of media, individuals and influencers have always been at the forefront of entertainment.
Think David Beckham, the Spice Girls, Gordon Ramsay …
Beforehand these figures needed media owners to reach their audiences but today that is definitely not the case.
The Kardashians … the Paul brothers… these are people and media giants rolled into one.
Just two months ago Will Smith started vlogging and has already amassed a huge audience of close to 1 million subscribers on his channel.
I’ve learnt that this generation expects to connect with influencers directly, and if you can facilitate that connection, you will win.
A lot of our business strategy at Kyra is centred around putting people at the forefront of our content proposition.
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LESSON NINE: Your audience is a manifestation of the content you produce
This one is glaringly obvious, but I find it pretty interesting.
If the content you publish is negative, you will breed an audience fuelled by negativity. Haters in the comments. Low sentiment ratios.
If your content is positive, uplifting, inspirational, aspirational, you’re likely to receive the same response from the audience.
If your audience is intelligent and thoughtful, you will see intelligent, thoughtful people gravitating towards it.
And so on, and so on…
It sounds obvious, but for me it was somewhat of a revelation.
In a world where so much is reliant on the kind of audience you attract, this has been a key factor to our success with advertisers and has a huge impact on the kind of content we produce every day.
The proof is out there, go and have a look at video publishers and their comments, I think you’ll agree that their audiences are a direct mirror of what they put out into the world.
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LESSON TEN: Long term value comes from consistent and regular programming
When we first started, we were constantly hunting for a viral hit … the mythical unicorn of the internet that everyone strives for.
But after creating and publishing hundreds of pieces of content consistently for a year, the question I am still asking myself is “does it really build long term value?”
I’m unconvinced.
The conclusion I’ve come to is that what will ultimately win, is creating quality content CONSISTENTLY and incrementally building a passionate army of fans that are unwavering in their loyalty and affinity to your brand, channel or content.
I’d take 200 videos with positive, steady growth over one big Gangnam Style hit any day.
What I’ve basically learnt is: viral hits do not build community and that is essentially all that matters.
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LESSON ELEVEN: This audience has REAL spending power
So many Brand Managers ask me ‘but how much money do these young people really have?’
For PAQ, we set up a Pop Up shop in London and put out some posts online the day before inviting them to come down and check out the shop.
Now to put this in perspective… I had no fucking idea what was going to happen. Up until this point, everything … the followers, the comments, the engagements were just pixels on a screen, ones and zeros.
So I was 100% ready to turn up the next day and find a ghost town.
Well at 7am we had 100 people already queuing outside the shop.
At 9am when we opened it was up to around 500, lines of people queuing around the corner to meet the people they watch every week on our show.
People flew in from Germany, Sweden and even Malaysia just to come to the shop.
My learnings from this were so valuable:
This audience has access to money and they are very much REAL.
I learnt that digital audiences can transcend into real world purchases very easily.
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LESSON TWELVE: Length doesn’t matter to the audience, it matters to the advertiser
I remember when we started producing content, speaking to dozens of people to try and understand what length our videos should be.
So many people told me so many different things.
But here is what I’ve worked out myself over the past 6 months:
It doesn’t matter if your video is 30 seconds, 5 minutes or half an hour.
If the content is good, the audience will watch it.
We have the same view through rates across our content, no matter what the length.
However, the length of the content is very, very important when it comes to making effective branded or sponsored content.
The bottom line is this: The longer you can engage an audience, the more right you have to show them an advertiser’s message.
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Again, there may be stuff in here you knew and stuff you disagree with … but I personally found all this stuff interesting.
The key – as is the case for all successful communication – is know your audience.
Not in terms of just what they do, or where they do it … but why.
That little thing that seems to have fallen out of vogue and yet in the right hands, can still make the difference between good and great.
Of course, the ‘why’ – or the other name for it, insight – isn’t good enough on its own.
For it to really unleash its power you need creative people who are given the time and space to explore, experiment and just be creative … and yet it appears to me that the approach favored by most people in addend – and their clients – is to only make content they want their audience to like rather than what their audience actually wants to watch.
As I wrote ages ago, engagement is not about relevance, but resonance.
Of course, it always used to be that way.
It’s why kids loved Beavis and Butthead but adults hated it … to name one out of a thousand possible examples.
But somewhere along the line, the networks started to focus on scale – meaning they made shows designed to appeal to as many people as possible. Hence we got juggernauts like Friends – shows that were kind-of relevant to everyone without being specific to someone.
This was fine until the internet came.
Then choice was handed back to us.
No longer did we have to put up with the general interest, mainstream TV … suddenly we could choose the things that reflected us.
Our individual tastes, interests, viewpoints.
The content creators who are making things that are changing things get this.
They know their audience and they double down on it.
The content creators who are making rubbish like that Nescafe ‘thing’ that caused this whole stream of posts, don’t.
If adland and clients really want to have a position in culture, then the thing they need to get back to doing is knowing their audience … not in terms of a demographic or even a psychographic … but really know who they are, what they do, what they hate etc etc, because while ‘appealing to everyone’ may sound good to the board of directors, it doesn’t really work then that means you mean nothing to no one.