Challenging Behaviour

Where’s your head at? Over 14million people’s smart phone screens if you’re a 21 year old from Houston, Texas! That’s because her operation was featured in a groundbreaking as-it-happens Tweet-a-logue from the States.

Not squeamish? You could immerse yourself in the whole experience with ‘rapid play-by-play’ updates. It was multi-channel too – with pics on Pinterest, videos on YouTube and a webinar with the surgeons. And, of course, it was all hugely viral with viewers jumping at the chance to share via Facebook.

There were a few hitches. Check out the ‘DELAYED PHOTO due to Twitter technical feed’. Let’s hope they didn’t put the operation on hold to keep everything in real-time!

Okay, so far… so medicinal. What can us marketers learn?

Well, there’s the seamless roll-out across multiple-channels; fully utilising their respective strengths. But it’s the language that impresses. There’s no dumbing down. Who could have imagined such a clear and straightforward exegesis of taking someone’s head apart and putting it back together again?

At this rate there might even be hope for the EU cookie law makers.

Check out your DIY guide to brain surgery at the site:

http://www.memorialhermann.org/locations/texasmedicalcenter/brain-surgery-live-tweet/

Here’s one of the videos – GPS for the brain!

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Some of the world’s brightest and most influential marketers gathered at the Festival of Media Global event in Switzerland last month.

Naturally, the opportunities and threats of digital media featured heavily in discussions. And a prominent theme was the risk of marketers over-investing in platforms that are not appropriate for their business.

It’s a challenge facing brands large and small alike in today’s fast-paced, customer-empowered world. How do you select the best platforms to communicate with your audiences?

Part of the answer is to get back to basics.

Before the rise of digital, good marketing always began with customer insight: what type of person would use your product, why would they choose yours over a competitor’s, how do you persuade them to come to you, which is the best medium to communicate with them?

We didn’t always have all the answers right away. But we could make an educated guess. Sometimes we got good results first time. Most of the time we would keep testing and learning, tweaking the proposition, exploring different media. The upshot was a virtuous cycle where – on the whole – communications became more precise and more effective over time.

Adopting this approach in the new world makes a lot of sense. Change happens quickly and intuitive, energetic test-and-learn strategies can help marketers keep a finger on the pulse.

I believe the biggest challenge facing marketers today is finding ways to walk the line between long-term strategic objectives and the dynamic day-to-day rhythms of the media.

We need to keep the long-term goals in mind, but have the flexibility to adapt what we are doing along the journey. It’s the difference between riding the crest of the wave and establishing a model for enduring success. Ongoing testing and learning plays a vital part in this – it means emerging opportunities can be explored, but reduces the risk of over-investing in the wrong platforms.

Darwin’s Survival of the Fittest theory says that those who thrive are not necessarily the strongest, but the most adaptable. This insight has never been truer for the marketing industry.

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I was reading John Hegarty’s book the other week and among the many interesting things contained within was his definition of Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s creative essence.

If one essential ingredient characterised their approach it was ‘irreverence’.

And this struck me when I saw the TV ad they had just produced for Virgin Media’s TiVo service. It stars David Tennant and features Sir Richard Branson and a time machine. The ad is entitled ‘best of me’ but is now known as the ‘Doctor Who’ ad.

It’s a gem, beautifully performed and with its tongue planted very firmly in its cheek. It’s very humorous and, well… Irreverent. BBC Worldwide weren’t so enamoured by it though and the ad has been withdrawn. The BBC complained that ex-Gallifreyan Time Lords do not endorse TiVo.

It’s nice to know that 30 years after John Hegarty started the agency, BBH are still practicing what they preach.

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Everything’s about ‘dialogue’ these days. No more lecturing from on high. Just listening, taking heed and constantly reformulating to meet customers’ changing expectations. But this doesn’t mean being timid and tepid. Take an innovative new Aussie Facebook app from Dove, for instance. This gives women – and men – the power to replace body-bashing and insecurity-preying ads with new empowering ones. Perhaps the originals are clever ‘plants’? Who knows, but now you can rebuild your battered self-esteem with feelgood messages like, ‘The perfect bum is the one you’re sitting on’.

This fun ‘ad makeover’ is just the latest iteration of Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. To be honest, I’m still torn with this positioning. It’s either bold and empowering or even more cynical than the body-shaming ads it seeks to expose. One might even say that it’s a tad condescending. I guess there’s always going to be an element of ‘cringe’ – given that it’s from the same industry it’s lampooning. However, if it’s fostering dialogue and debate that’s a start… isn’t it?

Check it out for yourself…

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We all know people fiddle with their smart phones whilst watching TV. Indeed, new social apps like Zeebox are successfully capitalising on it – inviting us to rate the new ‘hottie’ on TOWIE or chat about the latest wannabes on Britain’s Got Talent…. at the same time we’re watching it.

But what about our tablets? They’re the ‘inbetweeners’ of the gadget world which makes them altogether more interesting. They do a lot of what our other gadgets and PCs do – so the question is always ‘will they supplant my other device or complement it… or something less clear-cut?’

A new report from Forrester.com is rather enlightening on the subject. Their major finding is that 85% of US tablet owners use their tablets while watching TV and point to the tablet’s complementary nature as giving ‘a raison d’etre to “second screen” apps that engage consumers in conversation and content related to what’s on the big screen.’

Ironically, this could signal the death blow for ‘smart TVs’. That’s because consumers are plugging their tablets into the back of the telly – because they think their tablets are even smarter. So, some of the time, they’re watching content from the small screen on the big screen; if you follow me.

The final finding was that, ‘tablets displace small TVs, but also introduce “new place” scenarios for TV’. So, whilst owners aren’t likely to buy any more small screen TVs, they’re using their tablets as personal TVs all over the house, the train, the airport etc.

It’s too soon to tell how it’ll play out. Will there be a single omnipotent device? Or are we happy to spread our multi-media load? One thing’s for sure… the TV/tablet relationship offers huge untapped opportunities for creative marketing.

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“The last six pitches we did were for clients that complained of terrible service elsewhere.”

This comment from UM London’s head honcho in last week’s Campaign should get agencies everywhere sitting up and taking notice.

It’s an indicator of where the industry could be heading if we don’t reassess the value of good old fashioned client servicing.

Some might argue that good service is a hygiene factor, something that clients should be able to take as a given. And most agency-selection criteria focus on strategic insight and creative calibre. Not how well relationships are managed and nurtured. But the reality is that relationships are the oil that greases the wheels of great marketing. When they break down, everything is at risk of grinding to a halt.

The problem is partly down to procurement’s ongoing commoditisation of marketing. Customer service is often side-lined and undervalued. So some agencies, in a bid to drive down costs, might see it as an obvious cut-back. Why invest in something that is not valued by procurers and potential clients?

But in the end, scrimping on customer service is a false economy. Especially if the client ditches you after six months because it’s so difficult to work with you.

Perhaps there is a misconception that these skills should come naturally to employees – but effective client handling is an art that needs to be refined and perfected. Simply training and advising client-facing staff on how to develop relationships and find ways to keep their clients happy is a good starting point. It might be as simple as finding out the best time of day to contact them on the phone. Or perhaps asking when they’re planning to take a summer holiday, so you don’t bombard them with a deluge of very important approvals on the day they’re clearing their desk and yearning for a lounger in the sun.

Good servicing doesn’t have to involve bending over backwards for clients – not all the time anyway. But it is about establishing a partnership, and proactively seeking ways to make working relationships less stressful and more enjoyable. And it can go further than that – if I was a client, I’d be far more likely to sign off that braver, breakthrough proposition if it came from an agency that I liked, trusted and enjoyed working with.

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We all know that data is everything. But not if it’s a week out of date – especially in the wonderful world of digital. It’s virtually worthless. A nice little history lesson, but only of use for the next campaign. Nowadays we demand the ability to tweak our campaigns in real-time; engage in the ongoing conversation with our customers and go where they’re going. So it’s perhaps surprising that social media goliath Facebook has been left wanting with its own feedback. In fact, one cheeky website actually logs how long the Insight lag is, in real-time, of course… www.WhyIsFacebookInsightsNotWorking.com and gives you the chance to share it (not via Facebook though). So, how fast are the updates? Well, you’re now looking at every 5 to 10 minutes rather than weeks. Of course, with better analytics, you’ll now be more tempted to buy from Facebook’s latest ad formats and test Timeline for Brand. But, and here’s the key point, faster data is only valuable if you use it! How many brands run all kinds of analytics but are simply too scared to act on the data? And, if they do, the moment has often passed and the bandwagon has left town. With superfast Facebook feedback the onus will now be on us marketers. It’s all about acting quickly – moving posts around, changing posts, removing posts. This could be the real-time brand/customer conversation we dreamed of. Are you ready for it?

A report issued by the CIM at the end of 2011 advised companies to merge their sales and marketing functions. Otherwise, it claimed, they would risk damaging bottom line growth.

The report sparked some hot debate. Most people would agree that better integration and reduced conflict between sales and marketing departments would be a good thing. But merging the two into one? It’s a step too far.

You only need to look at the issues facing many ‘medium’ sized SMEs. Typically these companies allocate marketing responsibility to a senior salesperson: a ‘sales and marketing director’. The problem is that in most cases the person is a salesperson, and not a marketer. Sales and marketing need to be aligned, but they are not the same thing. They require different skillsets and – often – fundamentally different approaches.

It’s my belief that many SME sales and marketing directors are in a pretty lonely position. They know in their hearts that they don’t really ‘get’ marketing, yet it is an intrinsic part of their job description.

That isn’t so bad if the board is enlightened enough to realise that marketing is a strategic discipline. In this case the ‘marketing’ part of the job description can be outsourced and managed by the sales and marketing director. He or she can attend board meetings armed with jargon-free key performance indicators to communicate progress.

But if everyone thinks that marketing begins and ends with the company brochure, growth will be stunted at best.

Marketing needs to be treated as an interdependent function. It needs to be accountable across other functions (like sales) at a board level, and deliver demonstrable return on investment. This is true of the largest corporations and SMEs alike.

Businesses that recognise this and establish or appoint a dedicated marketing team – then put pressure on them to deliver results – will be best placed to thrive in this ongoing economic uncertainty.

A simple nudge. Sometimes that’s all its takes to transform people’s behaviour on a grand scale. In past blogs I’ve shown how everyone is getting in on the game – from the Cabinet Office to Minnesotan tax collectors and even good old Mr Obama. Now it’s the environmentalists’ turn.

Too often we hear about our negative impact on the planet – and, quite rightly too. But sadly, clobbering people over the head with their ‘badness’ is not always the best way to inspire them into action. It also provides fodder for the Clarksons of the world to cry ‘Nanny State’. Anyway, this week’s Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2108015,00.html is shouting about ’10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life’. One of these bright thoughts is ‘Handprints’, and the argument goes like this, ‘…environmental footprints are only half the picture. The other half is just coming into view. It’s called a handprint, and it measures the positive impacts we can make, simply by changing the way we do things, at home, and at work.’

It’s the brainchild of Gregory Norris, a lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health. He was dismayed by the way that current ‘footprint maths’ was telling his students that, after calculating their life-cycle assessment, the world would have been better off if they hadn’t been born. Maybe true, but unremittingly depressing and far from inspiring!

Norris has created a beta website, www.handprinter.org, and apps to show your, ‘…handprint’s ripple effect as it spreads across the globe through social connections’. Okay, it might just be semantics. A glib rephrasing of what we should all be doing anyway. However, the current messaging simply isn’t getting through. If you overplay the negative message, people just descend into bleak acceptance. So why shouldn’t we use a positive approach to inspire positive action? Nudging the world back from the brink.

If you asked any 100 marketing managers about their long-term goals, I reckon 99 would mention engaging customers and building enduring relationships with them.

If you asked the same 100 marketers about the aim of a single campaign or project, most of them would probably talk about changing customers’ behaviour.

The notion of changing – or challenging – customers’ behaviour whilst trying to build a relationship is an interesting one.

In real life, most of us realise that successful relationships require give and take. You need to let someone in, take risks and make compromises to make it work. As you begin to trust each other, your confidence grows and the relationship flourishes. And each of you changes, to a greater or lesser degree, during the journey.

Why then, do so many marketers who profess they want better relationships, hold customers at arms’ length and try to change them? Perhaps it is the brands themselves who need to have their behaviour challenged and changed in the first instance.

Let’s consider one organisation who famously doesn’t keep customers at arm’s length: Starbucks. Love or hate the Starbucks brand, you have to admit that its crowdsourcing strategy, centred on www.mystarbucksidea.com is inspiring. This online sounding board elicits loads of comments and suggestions from customers. Then in-house Starbucks Idea Partners deal with the posts, some of which are taken to senior decision makers and potentially adopted as brand policy.

It’s risky, isn’t it? What if people were to post negative comments?

Well, some people do. But in the wider context of the ongoing conversations (with ongoing being the operative word, this is a long-term commitment from the brand) negative feedback just doesn’t seem that harmful. What you get is an overwhelming sense that Starbucks and its customers have an honest, healthy relationship.

This sort of approach is relatively straightforward in a retail context. But how can brands in other sectors make it work for them? What if you offer a service rather than a product?

It might not be as clear-cut, but with careful thought and planning you might just uncover a breakthrough idea. And with a little more thought and planning, that idea could enable your marketing to read like a novel where your customers play a lead role – rather than a series of disjointed short stories, some of which would have been better left unwritten.

So, how might this ethos be adopted in the most heavily regulated and risk-averse of sectors: the financial services industry?

NatWest has taken a step in the right direction with its customer charter. As part of its mission to become Britain’s Most Helpful Bank, it made 14 promises based on feedback from customers. People can post further comments and questions to an online ‘ideas bank’.

It is a nice idea. But, for me, it doesn’t quite go far enough.

For instance, instead of simply posting the customer charter update online, why not go one step further and set up a microsite where customers can comment on progress and make more suggestions.

Yes, there would probably be negative as well as positive feedback, but this could be dealt with and responded to in public on the forum. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to see a bank listening to its customers and responding as if they are actually having a conversation, rather than simply posting staccato replies?

The rise of digital has given us the tools to enable customers to get closer, but we need to have the confidence to let them in. And as part of that we need to monitor social media – and use it appropriately for relevant, substance-rich conversations.

Let’s hope that more brands can challenge their own conventions and learn from the Starbucks example. Marketing should be about stimulating dynamic customer relationships, not static box-ticking exercises.

What are your thoughts on brands that have had the courage to let customers be part of their story? Or on those that have nearly got there, but not quite gone the distance?

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