Filed under: Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Bank Ads, Communication Strategy, Context, Corporate Evil, Culture, Customer Service, Loyalty, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Money, Perspective
Another day … another rant.
Whereas yesterday I went off at a brand I love/d, today is different.
It’s a bank.
Not just any bank … but a bank who once made me fly from Singapore to Sydney because they insisted they could check my passport ‘by sight’ before they released our funds for us to buy our house.
I should point out they weren’t our mortgage lender … they just wanted to make life very difficult for us and when I rang their ‘helpline’, I was told:
“No one is going to help you here”
Yes ladies and gentlemen, I’m talking about ANZ Australia.
A bank only second to my nemesis – HSBC – for terrible behaviour, which for anyone who knows the hell that HSBC put us through when we lived in China, will know this means ANZ Australia aren’t too crash hot in my opinion.
So what have they done this time? This …
Why the hell are they writing like they’re doing their customers a massive favour saying they’ll keep paying them interest – “even if you make a withdrawal or can’t make a deposit that month” – when your base rate is 0.01%.
ZERO POINT ZERO ONE PERCENT.
To put that in context, if you had AU$10,000,000 … you’d make $1,000 over a year.
Banks charge you for holding your money.
They charge you for using your money.
They close branches to give worse customer service.
They ask you to deal with your own financial issues via the internet.
They find any reason and way to be able to increase their fees.
Many got bailed out – or helped – by our tax dollars.
And then they offer you an interest rate that is so below the current rate of inflation that their ‘financial advice’ equates to literally having less money than you started with and they act like you should be grateful to them for it.
What the fuck?
Either they don’t care or they’re totally delusional.
No wonder people are open to things like crypto … because however much of a risk it is, at least there’s a chance – however small – you may get something out of it, which 0.01% is not going to offer.
Seriously ANZ Australia … stop taking your customers for fools.
As the old adage states, ‘action speaks louder then words’ and your actions continually reinforce you’re about the money not the service. And you know what, I think everyone would have a better opinion of you if you just owned up to that.
We need you and you will charge us for that privilege.
I get it. And – ironically – I’d think more of you for doing that than this ‘helpful and considerate’ tone you’re trying to present. Or even more bizarrely, maybe believe.
I get no one wants to admit they’re an asshole, but regardless what your ‘brand tracking’ and focus groups say, most people think you’re a great dump of calculator catastrophe.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Distinction, Effectiveness, Embarrassing Moments, Emotion, Empathy, Fake Attitude, Government, Insight, Internet, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Nike, Planners, Point Of View
OK, I’m back.
Again.
And this time, I’m not going to be going away for …. hmmmmm, actually let’s not go there.
Let’s move on shall we?
So before I start, there’s 2 things to say.
1. Some may have seen this before, because I accidentally put the wrong publish date on it.
2. This is a week of long and – for me – serious posts. So don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The good news is that on Friday, you’ll be rewarded for it, with some news that benefits you as much as it does me.
Kinda.
Maybe.
OK, so one thing that drives me nuts is when brands talk in totally different voices to different audiences.
But there’s something that gets to me more, and that’s when the brand in question has tried to position themselves as some sort of ‘brand of the people’.
Case in point, Reddit …
I really like Reddit.
I think their ‘front-page of the internet’ is a brilliant place to play.
And then I saw this …
‘Where Engagement Meets Results’.
What the fuck is that about?
Oh I know what some will say …
“They’re trying to reach business people who discount Reddit as a commercially valuable platform”.
And maybe they are. But the irony is the easiest way to discount Reddit as a commercially valuable platform is having clients on there who only can communicate in the corporate monotone of the meaningless mission statement.
How insincere is a brand who speaks to their customers one way and business another?
How crazy is it that some think business people are a different species to ‘normal’ people?
How badly will Reddit’s audience react to work from companies who only speak business?
Now some may think I’m going over-the-top … they will remind me that we all ‘change’ our tone and personality dependent on who we are talking to.
And that’s true … to an extent.
But this isn’t a tonal change, this is character.
I read that and it’s a brand I don’t recognise …
Feels more like they should be called Beigeit rather than Reddit.
The ability to adapt your voice to different audiences shouldn’t mean changing who you are.
People who play golf have a dramatically different view to sport than those who play football … but Nike still do it in a way where you know and feel it’s them. Just like CTO’s in major corporations has different requirements to those who want a laptop for home … but you never feel Apple changes who they are to communicate with them.
Brands who fundamentally change their personality in a bid to engage different audiences literally don’t know who they are. Worse, their customers may start to question that too.
Reddit are amazing.
Their audience is diverse, engaged and productive.
And while I appreciate some in business may not understand that, if you have to alter who you are, do you want them anyway?
Years ago I was doing work for Triple J … a government funded, youth radio station in Australia.
Unlike other ‘government funded’ media, Triple J was someone with real credibility, driven by championing and breaking new artists, discussing topics commercial radio wouldn’t touch with a barge pole and absolutely no advertising.
So when they came to us asking for help, we knew straight away that whatever we did had to ensure their current audience didn’t feel Triple J was selling out by advertising for more listeners.
While you may think this meant we went niche, we did the opposite.
Built off an idea we called, ‘enemy of the average’ … we went into mainstream media with messages that challenged audiences about the mediocrity they were engaging with.
Radio.
Newspapers.
Cinema.
Magazines.
Nightclubs.
Television.
Wherever mainstream audiences were, we were there too.
And while many hated our work [it was even discussed in Australian Parliament] it not only attracted the largest audience increase in Triple J’s history, it reinvigorated their existing audience because they saw the brand they love stay true to who they are, despite wanting what they didn’t have.
I get we’re in different times.
I appreciate the idea of any risk is unpalatable for so many.
But nothing is as dangerous as changing who you are to attract people who aren’t your audience.
The brand voice is more than how you talk. Or look. It’s how you look at the world … and if you’re consistent with that, then you can express yourself in a million different ways and always be yourself.
But too many brands, despite what they say, don’t want to be distinct.
They see it as having the potential to alienate an audience.
To which I say this …
While you may think being something to anyone means you can engage more people, the fact is, the most power to build the value of your brand is when you are everything to someone.
Filed under: Advertising, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Cannes, Colleagues, Communication Strategy, Content, Context, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Experience, Fake Attitude, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Point Of View, Professionalism, Relationships, Resonance, Respect, Standards, Toxic Positivity | Tags: om
Obviously I have a soft spot for Google.
From cynic to Colenso, they’ve been a constant in my professional as well as personal life.
They are intimately involved in so much of what I do every single day and I appreciate the possibilities they have enabled me to embrace because of them existing.
I know … that sounds unbelievably gushing doesn’t it.
That doesn’t mean there’s not stuff that drives me nuts …
From the way some of their products work [Google Slides, I’m looking at you] through to the passive behaviour they are increasingly showing in the face of challenges that their smarts/money/tech could fundamentally change for the benefit of millions – if not billions – of people. However even with all that, it pales into comparison to this:
What. The. Hell?
Not only is it an absolutely terrible attempt to make a terrible pun, I still don’t know what ‘the new way to cloud’ is. Or means. Or why I should give a second of attention to it.
For a company so full of smart people, how can this happen?
Seriously, this sort of work does the absolute opposite of what Google want.
It makes people question how smart the company is.
It makes people ask if Google know how to talk to people.
It makes people wonder if Google know how to make tech that understands our needs.
It makes people ask if this is the sort of organisation we should trust to shape our future.
Sure, it’s just a random billboard … but for a brand that once represented humanities hope for ensuring technology enabled and empowered a better, brighter, more equal future for all, this work feels more like a politician pretending to smile while they’re busy oppressing us.
I know this isn’t the case, but bloody hell, it’s rubbish.
Which leads me to this.
I don’t know who is behind it. I don’t know if it’s an agency or an internal group. But I have to believe this was made because senior people mandated it or influenced it. Either directly, or indirectly. Which serves as a really good reminder about the dangers of corporate structures.
As Martin, Paula and I said in our Cannes talk, toxic positivity is ruining brands and people.
The idea that ‘team’ is now interpreted as blind complicity and conformity is insane.
But it’s happening. We all see it or have experienced it.
Worse, there’s an underlying attitude that the only way to get ahead is manage up. What I mean is that rather than do the right thing for your audience, you do the right thing by your boss. Doesn’t matter if it makes no sense. Doesn’t matter if it actively confuses the people it is actually designed to communicate to. As long as it hits the ‘cues’ your boss likes, you’re good.
As I wrote recently, toxic positivity is leading to the systematic destruction of knowledge and experience. Great ideas and people are literally being moved out of organisations to be replaced by conformists and pleasers.
Yes, company culture is important.
It has an incredible power to achieve great things.
But here’s the thing too many companies just don’t seem to get.
If you’re mandating it, you don’t have it.
Because real company culture is born from the people within the company. Yes, the people at the top shape and influence it – often through beliefs and a way to look at the world – but the moment you try to dictate or define it, you lose it.
But here’s the thing …
Even when a company gives you something to believe in, they know the real key is to give every employee the power to feel they can be themselves. That they trust them to want to make things better, rather than break things apart.
Which is why they encourage debate.
They value different opinions and ideas.
Because as long as it’s not in a self-serving, divisive manner … it’s almost the ultimate demonstration you want to help make things better.
There are a lot of companies who get this.
There’s sadly far more who don’t.
And everyone loses because of it. Because if companies stopped thinking of company culture in-terms of efficiency and optimisation – and more about standards and quality control – we would all get to better places faster.
Or at the very least, less ads that say everything by saying absolutely nothing.
Filed under: Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Communication Strategy, Context, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Emotion, Empathy, Honesty, Insight, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Professionalism, Relevance, Research, Resonance, Respect, Trust, Truth
Back in 2021 – on April 1 no less, even though it was not a joke – I wrote how I had spoken to a hostage negotiator.
Among the many things he said to me, one that stood out most was this:
“If you have clients that think words – and how you say them – don’t matter, bring them to me. After all, my job is marketing too”.
Of course, the idea hostage negotiating is similar to marketing is absurd … but what I guess they were trying to say is that by understanding the needs, triggers and context of your ‘audience’, you increase the odds of being successful.
Please note the words ‘increasing the odds’.
I say that because the way our industry talks about ‘certainty’ is disturbing.
That doesn’t mean we’re a stupid risk.
Nor does it mean we can’t be more successful than anyone hoped.
But if you’re working with someone ‘guaranteeing’ the outcome, then they’re either downgrading the metrics and criteria for what they classify as success. Messing with the numbers to suit their own needs. Or just bullshiting.
And there’s a lot of bullshitting out there …
Because so much of what we do is only notionally focused on the needs of the audience.
The reality is the vast amount of attention is directed on the wants of our clients.
On one level, I get it. Our job is to help our clients be more successful than they dared imagine. But often we’re not given the chance to do that, because context and criteria has been set. Using data that is has been focused only on the point of purchase … as if there is absolutely no interest whatsoever in who they are, how they feel, the tensions they face and the situations they deal with.
Said another way … how they live, not just how they buy.
And that’s why the comment from the hostage negotiator was really what they thought marketing should be, rather what it often ends up being.
Which is why the real opportunity for us is to learn from them, not the other way around.
Because they’re proof the more you understand your audience – rather than just what you want your audience to do – the more you can make a difference, rather than just make a sale.
To prove that, I encourage you to watch this.
It’s long. But – as is the case with anything you emotionally engage with – it’s worth it.
Especially when you see how much it means to the negotiators. Let alone the hostages.
Which challenges you to think when was the last time you worked with someone who cared so much about who they served, rather than what they could sell them.
Who knows, it might just change your life or career. Or even save it.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Communication Strategy, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creativity, Culture, Embarrassing Moments, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Music
First of all, this is the last post for a week.
I’m away next week for a talk – I know, I know – and not back till Thursday evening so you can go into the weekend with an extra big smile on your face. Assholes.
Anyway, back to the post.
Over the years, this industry has shown an alarming lack of judgement in how it presents itself.
However, of all the terrible ideas, the absolute worst has to be when they decide to show how ‘fun’ they are through the art of song.
There’s been so many examples.
Sapient Nitro – remember them? – started it with something I can’t remember.
Then Mindshare Amsterdam got in the act saying they ‘work hard for your money’.
Not to be left out … Leo Burnett Sydney did – I think – a Sister Sledge song for a pitch.
Then Ogilvy Athens wrote a ‘ballad’ dedicated to David Ogilvy.
And then – one of my car-crash favourites – the Singapore Media Development Authority did a rap that, rumour has it, almost stopped Eminem wanting to continue his career. Maybe.
Despite having written a few times about these symphonies of shit, the reason there are so few links is because over the years, the guilty parties realised it made them look like a bunch of lunatic impersonator ‘entertainers’ appearing on a revival of Stars in Their Eyes.
Which is why I’m so happy that someone has decided to revive the trend with an epic re-write of Elton John’s ‘I’m Still Standing’ … filmed where the original video was shot. Cannes.
Better yet … at Cannes while I believe the festival was on.
Now, to be fair, it is way, way better than the other films mentioned and shown in this post.
That doesn’t mean much given they were worse than the worst musical duo on Britain’s Got Talent musical duo in history, but beggars can’t be choosers.
But I still can’t grasp why anyone would do this.
Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to take yourself seriously while still taking what you do seriously … but to decide you have to ‘show’ you’re fun outside the context of how you’d actually interact with a client seems crazy. Almost as crazy as thinking this shows you’re ‘fun’.
And remember, this is coming from me … who did iPod Singing and wear birkenstocks!!!
So with that, let me send you off to your weekend with this rendition of I’m Still Standing … which still you might think is a joke but I can assure you isn’t as bad as sitting in the Majestic during the festival and watching people pour 2 grand bottles of champagne down their throat while publicly banging on about the economic crisis facing them and their clients.
Happy weekend.