Innovation and Interaction

In an interview with the Times this weekend, Arianna Huffington claimed that ‘self-expression is the new entertainment. In the past, people just sat on the couch watching TV’.

The notion of ‘cognitive surplus’ was originally made famous by Clay Shirky. This is the idea that when applied to other endeavours, the time normally spent watching TV can be highly productive. Shirky also argued that we’re now living in a time when people enjoy producing, just as much, if not more than consuming.

A recent report from Trendwatching outlined a whole host of innovative ideas not just from big brands, but also small businesses. A high number of these innovations demand active consumer involvement, as opposed to passive consumption. The Swedish retailer Papercut is offering discounts on a variety of items through its website speedsale.se. There is one small catch, however – shoppers must avail of the reduced price within 4 seconds, or the offer is gone forever. Meanwhile, the ‘Google Wallet’ allows android users to make payments for products and services through their smartphone after downloading the app. NFC technology allows payments to be made through shoppers’ Mastercard accounts.

These examples show that consumers are willing to spend time interacting with new technology if the benefits are great enough. With advertising, while consumers still spend time passively consuming media, the amount of time spent interacting with ads, whether they’re outdoor, online, or on mobile, is on the rise.

As technology advances, shoppers are becoming more and more empowered. Nowadays the role of the consumer has changed, and we’re playing more of an active role in our purchasing decisions. The bar has been raised, as greater challenges lie ahead for marketers.

-Carly

The Power of the Crowd

The Golden Pages recently announced that it’s making significant changes to its online offering. An interactive website has been launched, as well as a new app for both iPhone and Android devices. As part of the new website, consumers are invited to rate businesses listed in the directory, forming a database of customer views and experiences. This is a great example of how the traditional model of direct communication by businesses to their customers is increasingly being replaced by dialogue.

More and more, consumers are making their voices heard. Several brands have actively recruited members of the public to play a role in the production of a high-profile marketing campaign. Glenisk teamed up with Ray D’Arcy and Today FM to search for a piece of music to accompany their new TV ad. After a shortlist of entries was compiled, listeners were encouraged to vote for their favourite on Facebook. Guinness took a different tack and recruited rugby fans instead of actors to appear in ads for ‘This is Rugby Country’. The goal was to give a more authentic feel to the campaign and bring about the sense of pride that unites rugby enthusiasts.

Making the public part of a major marketing campaign is a great way of creating an emotional connection. Despite this, crowdsourcing is only one of a number of tools at hand to any brand manager. The challenge that lies ahead for marketers considering using crowdsourcing is finding a way of successfully integrating consumer ideas, feedback or even faces into a campaign. While it seems that this has been successful for many, will it work for everyone? Or is it just a way for cash-strapped companies to save money on ad campaigns?

-Carly

Brand Survival

Charles Darwin was a misunderstood man. But perhaps his most misunderstood line was the supposed doctrine of the ‘survival of the fittest’, by which he meant fittest for purpose rather than the largest or fastest. “It is not the strongest of the species that survives,” he said, ‘nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

As in nature, so in marketing. The speed of technology and changes in society means those responsive marketing beings sensitive to the changing commercial habitat have most to gain from changing consumer trends. With tough times ahead, the Irish marketplace is packed with brands facing threats to their very survival. Almost inevitably, a few dinosaurs will fall away. Yet it need not happen. With insight into the needs of clients and consumers, companies not only survive, but prosper in the ever-changing environment.

It was all on show last week in Lisbon, at the OMD EMEA Insight Conference. This is where our European counterparts were falling over each other in an effort to showcase inspiring examples of how they are responding to their own market conditions. In Lithuania, the OMD office faced a very specific challenge. The beer company Utenos, spotting a gap in the market for a dark beer for female drinkers, wanted to fill it with their own brand Utenos Tamsus Lengvas, (Dark Light). The campaign kicked off with a huge display of lanterns, lit up by members of the public and then sent into the night sky. The event sparked a campaign across traditional media including  tv and print using images from the event. An emotional connection with the target was made, and sales went through the roof.

Smart insights are needed now more than ever. Tough economic circumstances and changing technologies mean it’s a fight for survival. Firms who respond to their changing surroundings will come out in a better position than before. Ask Darwin.

-Carly

The Growth of Targeted Marketing

         

An exciting development in marketing which has emerged recently is that of geo-fencing. This new technology allows for consumers to be informed of special offers on their favourite brands based on personal information and location. In the UK, Starbucks and L’Oreal are now a part of geo-fencing. This means that once a consumer who has signed up for the service is within half a mile of a Starbucks store, for example, he or she will receive a text offer for a particular type of coffee. Similarly, once near a stockist of L’Oreal products, the consumer will be sent a text with information about a specific deal or money-off offer.

          It seems that marketing is becoming more and more targeted as time goes on. Technology is allowing for this to happen, with Google AdWords already having emerged as a powerful tool in reaching a target audience. It could be argued that targeted marketing works well because it seeks to match individual needs as opposed to merely getting the name of a product known in the hope of generating sales. It ties into the idea that each one of us has a sense of identity, which is different to the identity of every single other person out there. In other words, we see ourselves as having needs different to those of others. We like it when big brands recognise this. It makes us feel special.

          Big brands need to be reminded, however, that each and every one of us is not only an individual, but also a social being. How we define ourselves is very much dependent on the groups we are a part of. A group could be anything from a family unit to a football team. A campaign can be just as successful when it is about sharing something with others as it is when it’s set up to target individuals based on personal details. A good example of this is Guinness’ Arthur’s Day which was based on the idea of celebrating a moment with others and being part of one massive group.

          In advertising, there is a place not only for targeted ads, but also for big branding exercises. It is vital that both individual needs and the concept of social identity are understood by marketers, so that a campaign is allowed to make the best connection possible with the consumer.

Carly

Inspired by the gift of a golden voice

I’ve been thinking about inspiration of late, inspired myself by the following paragraph that Harry Eyres recently wrote:

‘Artists, and others, are reluctant nowadays to talk about inspiration. It sounds highfalutin and vague, like some mysterious essence which floats above the earth. But inspiration in its deepest sense, far from being vague or abstract, is very intimate, physical and personal. There is nothing more intimate, physical and personal than breathing, or breathing in, which is the literal meaning of inspiration. An inspiring place is one that lets you breathe.’

There are some obvious places and platforms for inspiration. The world of TED.com is a favoured destination. We frequently refer to the brand that is Jamie Oliver and his TED talk is rightly filed under the heading of inspiring. As is Matt Ridley’s piece on ‘When ideas have sex’ – definitely worth a watch over a lunchtime sandwich.

At OMD we start our week with our Ignition 5, where Vanessa and co inspire us with some cool things they’ve seen from around the world. This week’s post, shared on this blog, includes washing powder with in-built GPS tracking – an idea that could certainly be ‘borrowed with pride’ in other categories.

I think Harry is right when he refers to the personal nature of inspiration but paradoxically we in the communications business try and create that intimate relationship on a mass scale. This is probably easier to achieve than it sounds. I had the great pleasure of seeing Leonard Cohen play at Lissadell House recently watching the sun set behind Benbulben listening to his ‘gift of a golden voice’. A personal moment for me, sure, but one I shared with 10,000 others. Brands can behave in the same way and at an obvious level the development of social communities as part of marketing programmes and brand experiences is a sign of this. One of our favourites here is the Irish Blood Transfusion Service donor community on facebook.

A few of us are reading Paul Arden’s book ‘It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be.’ He finishes with a few quotes which can be inspiring in themselves. A little scary perhaps as when Grand Prix driver Mario Andretti states ‘If everything seems under control you’re not going fast enough’!

If all else fails, maybe we should follow the inspirational words of Dr Scholl: ‘Early to bed. Early to rise. Work like hell and advertise.’

Tim

Renault ZE (Zero Emissions)

(check it out – no exhausts)

Yesterday I had the privilege of being one of the first people in Ireland to test drive the new range of electric vehicles from Renault.  The test vehicles are proto-types, not yet factory produced and are therefore one-offs, worth about a million euro each.  The event was out in Carton House and we got to drive through the estate, out onto the public road, up to a roundabout and back again.  The two vehicles they had were the Kangoo (van) and the Fluence (an executive saloon).

What are they like?  Long story short, they’re just cars, with a different engine.  Driving-wise the biggest difference was they’re left hand drive (weird enough) and they’re set up like an automatic, with just drive, park and reverse (which I’ve never driven before).  Those differences were much more noticeable to me than the difference between a petrol and an electric engine.  Which probably says it all. 

They’re also silent.  Can you imagine a city centre, like Dublin, without the roar of traffic?  I was going to say it’d be like going back to pre-combustion engine days, but actually, there were noisy, smelly horses clip-clopping around and relieving themselves all over the place back then.  This would be a breath of fresh-air and completely noise-free.  In fact, that’s one of the challenges of electric vehicles – they’ve to put an artificial noise into them for pedestrian safety.  Who’d have thought we’d have been trying to make cars noisier? 

The Gardai and Emergency Services were also out there getting training on how to deal with any potential road accidents involving an electric car (tip: don’t try putting out fires with water…).

Yesterday was a glimpse of the future.  Electric Vehicles may not be mainstream, mass-produced, today, tomorrow, next year, in the next 3 or 4 years.  But in 5, 10 or 15 years time, we’ll all be driving them.  And I wish that was now, because it’d be a far better place.

In other respects, we’ve already arrived at the future.  Car companies like Renault are now inviting as many bloggers and online publishers as traditional journalists to these kind of things.  I was sitting beside the blogger behind a new motor site called http://smokerspack.com/ (@smokerspack).  He’s a micro-blogger who reviews individual cars that individual dealers have for sale.  So for example you could look up a second hand Golf on his site which he’s reviewed and then call down to the dealer and try it yourself.

Then when I got back to the office I tweeted a few photos of the electric vehicles and hash-tagged #Renault and #Fluence.  2 minutes later I got a direct message from @RenaultZE complimenting me on my pictures.  Now I’m following them so I get to hear the news and developments around their ZE. 

Good to see some brands trying to get to the future first, both with what they do and how they talk to you about it – after all, first tends to get all the credit.

The future is bright, the future is messy

In theory, dictatorships make a lot of sense.

As governance models go, they offer efficiency, continuity and effective task completion. Dictators get things done. Democracy wastes time and money. It clunks along, swaying left and right and back to the middle.  There are too many voices, too many agendas, too many disparate perspectives which all need to be accommodated. Yet we choose this messy way of governing our society. Because we recognize the importance of all those viewpoints in creating the type of world we want to live in. What we lose in simplicity we gain in wisdom.

In theory, going back to the full-service creative agency also makes a lot of sense.

One brand guardian who can implement a clear and consistent strategy. One team without overlapping roles. One contact for the client who is clear on the brief and can take responsibility for campaign success.

In modern agency land, many of us find ourselves working on client business with a wide roster of other agencies. And it’s very messy. There are too many voices, too many competing agendas and too many disparate perspectives. We know that integration is essential, that we need to meet and collaborate – but often there isn’t the physical space for us to sit around the same boardroom table together.

Add into this heated mix a very real competition. Each agency partner in today’s scenario has a business reality. Their survival hinges on the client shepherding a portion of the marketing budget in their direction. Cooperation is essential, as long as it’s not at the expense of your company.  In a full service model, people may have different specialties, but when it comes down to it, they’re all playing for the same team. In theory, you should get the best of both worlds with full-service – specialist expertise, coordinated by a central leader.

In practice, the best work is emerging from much messier setups. And my money is on a marketing future, which will continue to be messy.

Just like the brand world, which is no longer tightly created and controlled. Or the content world, where the old gatekeepers have been turned upside down by the Internet. The advertising industry finds itself in circumstances, which require innovation, specialization and an openness to adapt.

And if this is the case, we need to start thinking practically about how it’s all going to work. We need answers to these questions:

How can marketers develop a sense of shared purpose and vision across a wide spectrum of agency partners?

How can marketers mine all the talent and ideas from their agencies, and ensure they’re tapping into the best thinking each agency has to offer?

And most crucially, how can we create a remuneration structure, which makes it advantageous for agencies to cooperate rather than compete?

Neasa

Go on go on go on – Ambush the World Cup

How clever…36 women dressed in orange Bavaria dresses close to TV cameras in the Netherlands v Denmark World Cup game.

I have a funny feeling that a lot of the influential’s blog activity in the next few weeks will be World Cup related…

So here goes another one.

I’m always a supporter of the underdog, and luckily so, because, I pulled Paraguay out of the hat in the €5 work sweepstakes. And they drew with Italy on Monday so you never know! Believe it and it will happen…

The big brand sponsors/partners of the Fifa World Cup include Budweiser, Mc Donalds, Adidas, Visa and about 15 others. And they pay very highly for the privilege.

So this year, Fifa are acting uber strict and clamping down on unofficial advertisers who try to forge an association with the games without forking out the cash.

Bavaria, for example, the underdogs in advertising spend terms, embarked on a very clever guerrilla marketing campaign this week. 36 camera friendly, nicely positioned women dressed in Bavaria branded orange dresses were kicked out of one of the World Cup stadiums during the Netherlands V Denmark game.

Fifa are considering legal action against the dutch brand for stealing the limelight from their official beer partner. But it may be too late as the marketing teams work is done. The cameras captured the image, word is out there, and we are talking more about Bavaria than we are Budweiser. And all for a very very small point zero zero percent of the price.

It’s a thin line though – what about advertisers who run promobikes outside GAA games? What about food brands that sample outside Taste of Dublin?? What about Flashmobs that dance in Dundrum town centre? And what about Walkers current ‘Flavour World Cup’ campaign?

I support the clever ambushers. Most advertisers don’t have massive sponsorship budgets so we need to think smartly about what we can do to generate interest and word or mouth. And more and more often these days, this interest is surrounding events and capitalising on these…

Meanwhile Paraguay play Slovakia on Sunday. Fingers crossed!

Vanessa

Who Invited the Devil’s Advocate?

 

Seth Godin mentioned the devil’s advocate recently, and it hit a nerve. I do it all the time; I say…”I’m just playing devils advocate, but ….”, by which, of course, I mean, “I’m about to be really negative, i’m going to undermine what you just said, and please don’t take this the wrong way…BUT…..” .

I’m not alone in this; we all do it. For the most part, we feel like we are doing a service; often it’s a ‘Phew!’ moment, when we think, “Man! We might have developed that idea and got it really far before we thought of that problem! What a waste that would have been!”

I’ve talked about ideas quite a bit here, and the danger of bottling them up or restraining them for whatever reason. Often, I’ve realised that it’s the devil’s advocate that’s at fault. He’s not called the devil’s advocate without reason; The Devil is dangerous, and being too afraid of failure is dangerous too. Jump, I say. Take a risk, let your mind roam free without inviting the devil’s advocate in. Not always, and not forever. But for a while at least.

The point at which we bring in the devil’s advocate into the process is really the key. If we bring him in too early, we restrain the flow too much and cut off avenues that deserve exploration. If we bring him in too late, we risk all that time wasting we fear so much. Let’s not uninvite the devil’s advocate altogether – maybe just tell him the party starts a little later, and that he’s welcome then.

Claire

All Good Things Come Indirectly

In a climate where most Irish companies are rife with anxiety about their bottom line, you’d be forgiven for thinking that a focus on profit, is the best way to create a profitable business. Yet paradoxically, this isn’t always the case.

The most successful and profitable companies are not necessarily the companies most focused on profit. Compare these mission statements:

Lehman Brothers: Our mission is to build unrivaled partnerships with and value for our clients, through the knowledge, creativity, and dedication of our people, leading to superior results for our shareholders.

Google: To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Whereas Lehman Brothers’ mission as a company is ultimately to deliver shareholder value, we saw very plainly, the fallout from a business culture based around monetary greed. Google’s company mission, by contrast, is to create the best damn informational service around, for their users (thanks to our new search manager Steph for this insight).

The fact that Google has become one of the most lucrative companies of the twenty first century, is a byproduct of this goal. It isn’t the goal itself.

Similarly, when we look to Marketing, the coolest and slickest brands aren’t out there trying to be cool and slick. They are focused on other more important things, like product innovation or design excellence. We see a glimpse of this philosophy from Apple COO Tim Cook:

“We believe that we’re on the face of the Earth to make great products, and that’s not changing. We’re constantly focusing on innovating …  And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change. And I think, regardless of who is in what job, those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well”

This thought is as true for individuals as it is for companies. The people who excel professionally, those who earn the most money, are rarely focused on their salaries. They are driven by intrinsic motivation, not short term monetary rewards. Their focus is on doing their work to the best of their ability. Success and money come as a byproduct.

When was the last time you had a good night out, by trying to have fun? Like most of the worthwhile goals in life, all good things come indirectly.

Neasa