Challenging Behaviour

“If you see an illness and you don’t call the industry to arms to try and cure it then you are just going to die along with the rest of the industry.”
- Andy Hart, European VP for advertising and online at Microsoft (Marketing 21/03/13)

Mr Hart’s pronouncement on the dire state of the online ad industry is strangely reminiscent of the ‘Crime is a disease. Meet the cure’ strapline from Sylvester Stallone’s Cobra. It’s maybe equally as overblown. But I have to say that I do like the cut of his rhetoric; especially if it shocks us into action.

When I say ‘us’, I’m obviously not referring to you and me – purveyors of high quality, creative and relevant online advertising content. But I am talking about the other guys. The ones who see online as a cheap free-for-all. Where they can shout their wares at us for the umpteenth time and then stalk us around the internet in the hope that we’ll eventually give in to their demands.

According to Matthew Chapman’s recent news report, Mr Hart’s overriding fear is that we’re ‘training consumers to avoid ads’. It seems to be a strongly founded one too. The relative inexpensiveness of the medium often means that little creative integrity goes into the production of content. Yes, there are some wonderful exceptions, but they are few and far between. Can we self-regulate? Well, yes, but we’re rarely the offenders. It’s the fly-by-nighters who already have complete disregard for the industry.

Even if there was a desire, can we really police a global medium in the same way that we regulate domestic TV and radio? And, most importantly, who would sit on the panel that judges which ads are the most ‘beautiful, useful and relevant’? The danger is that the online fly-tippers would carry on regardless and cutting-edge creativity would be compromised.

So, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has put the kibosh on working from home.

For her, the main reason is that innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s the face-to-face bouncing of thoughts and ideas that leads to breakthroughs and change.

I agree. Partly. Probably because our agency is precisely that kind of place. But isn’t it a bit idealistic though? To think that all company buildings are buzzing hives of collaborative innovation? After all, even when some employees are in close proximity to one another, you’ll still find them pinging emails rather than talking; or not even sharing eye contact, let alone a new theory of general relativity.

The fact is that there’s no reason for an ‘all or nothing’ approach to home v work.

Isn’t the truth that – home or workplace – it depends on the individual as to how productive they are? The driven employee will always deliver the goods. And the slacker will always, well, slack. Show me one chap buried away for hours in their home office and I’ll show you another wiling away ‘work hours’ with Loose Women.

Surely ‘in-the-office’ time isn’t always productive either, is it Marissa? Just because someone’s face is there, doesn’t mean there heart is too. And, those people who are always buzzing around might actually be achieving very little – other than making a power play for promotion.

Home. Office. It’s an irrelevance. It’s a question of trust. The focus should be on hiring talented people you can depend on to get the job done; whether it’s in the shed, the local Starbucks or the number 534 bus to Putney.

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Our industry is built on data. We spend our lives extracting and extrapolating it. We’re experts at sifting and siphoning to reach the people we need with the message we want. In fact, only last week I wrote about a new algorithm that purports to predict the next ‘Gangnam Style’ viral.

So far, so obvious. But what about applying these skills to our personal lives?

If you’re single you’ve probably already got ‘up close and personal’ with a mega algorithm. Don’t worry, it was probably called Soul Searchers or FindMeADateWhoLovesMeForTheBeautifulPersonIAm.com, or the like.

Because that’s what they are. Giant algorithms. Which are only as good as the data that’s inputed. And, given that people tend to project stylised more interesting versions of themselves online, it’s no wonder that the outputs aren’t always Mr or Miss Right.

It’s also why a data analyst called Amy Webb decided to take matters into her own hands in ‘Data, a love story’

She turned the whole game on its head by creating her own dating algorithm and then using it to exploit the dating sites. In a good way, of course.

She talks about ‘reverse engineering’ her profile. At its simplest, this meant coming up with archetypes of her ideal men, posing as them on dating sites and then cataloguing the initial online interactions with women; picking up tips on how the most popular competition presented themselves e.g. leading with hobbies, not trying to be funny in print (because it would come across as sarcasm) and leaving a time lag of at least 23 hours before emailing back.

Watch Amy’s TED talk

This was used to create a super profile. Not a false one, just the best articulation of who she was for that particular medium. And, lo and behold, she went on to find her ideal man!

The moral of the story? Don’t give up on finding the ‘one’ and, no matter how big and complex your algorithm, it’s only as good as the data you put in it.

“Let’s do a viral vid! Yes, just like that one I saw the other day. 500 trillion people watched that. It only cost 53p to make too”

Yes, it’s the seemingly micro cost way to global brand mega-stardom.

But you could be foiled before you’ve even begun.

The best virals frequently share a lack of contrivance. A seemingly random happening – captured by random people. The stars are unwitting. There’s an in-joke, a pratfall that urges us to send it on.

You could disguise the contrivance.

But you’ll risk the wrath of your audience when they discover they’re actually internet brand mules.

Well fear not. There’s a new algorithm on the block. Yes, another one. And it’s secret too.

It’s from Unruly Media and claims to help you ‘accurately predict the ‘share-ability’ of a video, before it is even launched.’ and ‘…gain insight into the psychological, social and content triggers that affect the success of your video content.’

Perhaps it does. Who knows?

But how different is it from the algorithm ticking over in any good Creative’s head? You know, the one that takes a little bit of insight, a sprinkling of empathy and a leap of conceptual audacity.

Science will only take you so far.

By its very nature an algorithm must be based on a mass of accumulated data. Stuff that’s gone before. Fine if you want to predict the next Grand National winner. But would it truly foretell the 70million, and counting, views of ‘Sittin On Tha Toilet’.

It’s probably better than nothing. However, with something as unpredictable as video virability, not necessarily a magical guarantee of success.

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Tom de Castella’s latest article on BBC News Magazine is rather revealing.  It references a new survey carried out by the ASA on people’s reactions to ads. It turns out that, ‘Many participants felt that some charity adverts contained offensive content that went too far in seeking to make people feel uncomfortable or guilty, or used imagery that was considered too distressing despite being for a worthwhile cause’. Castella goes on to mention that some, ‘…stated their frustration at wanting to help the cause but feeling powerless to do so’ and the ‘…charity areas most commonly cited as generally causing distress were international aid, animal welfare and child protection’. Pretty much all of charity advertising then!

So what do you think?

Is it that the great British public can’t handle the truth? That they resent their social media/Sky TV bubble being popped by the harsh realities of life? Or does their resentment stem from a deeper sense of being manipulated by the advertising itself? Ad or issue? Issue or ad? Well, perhaps obviously, there’s no easy answer… it depends on the ad itself.

Personally I’m only offended by bad advertising. How many times have we seen gong-hungry creatives grabbing hold of a good cause and creating their mini-masterpiece – only to totally miss the underlying humanity and message? In effect, they stick a massive great conceptual boulder between donor and need. Some of the best charity advertising often has a lightness of touch. Allowing the cause to speak, but not getting in its way. A bottle of perfume needs conceptual garnish; child abuse and famine doesn’t.

Yes, certainly there’s the argument for creating cut-through in today’s multi-channel cluttered world. But not always via cheap shock tactics. These are weapons to use sparingly – so as not to blunt their effect.  The greatest warning to any creative is not to be seduced by one’s own reaction to the cause. Time and time again we see self-indulgent diatribes in advertising. Ones which wrench every last drop of shocking detail from a cause – but purely as an exercise in voyeurism… rather than pragmatically positing a solution and asking for help.

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DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

First GM pulled back on Facebook advertising. Then the high-profile FB flotation stumbled. The vultures began to circle. But now a new comScore study could herald an about turn. Or, at least, give us food for thought. It shows that fans and friends-of-fans were more likely to buy a product they cherished than not. Which seems to have some blindly obvious circular logic to it! Specifically, the people exposed to one company’s message on FB were almost 40% more likely than a typical user to make a purchase in the following month.

There are holes in the methodology and doubts over impartiality – Facebook co-commissioned it!? The key point to take out of it is not to use the obsessional amassing of fans as your one and only and simplistic metric. A lot of people will manipulate the button anyway to get their freebies – and then ‘unlike’ you in a flash. It’s just the beginning of the engagement process and you’ll need to be a lot cannier now that the novelty days of FB are over.

Here are some of the key findings from comScore, but please do read the whole report to make your own mind up:

• Brands can maximize the impact of their social marketing programs on Facebook by leveraging a framework that helps them move beyond Fan acquisition to delivering reach, impact, and measurable marketing ROI. Using the Brand Page as a control panel for creating social marketing programs, brands should focus on benchmarking and optimizing on the following dimensions to deliver against their broader marketing objectives.
  • Fan Reach Exposure in the News Feed
  • Engagement – Fans interacting with Brand Page marketing content
  • Amplification – viral delivery of marketing content from Fans to Friends of Fans
• Most leading brands on Facebook achieve a monthly Amplification Ratio of between 0.5 and 2.0, meaning that they extend the reach of their earned media exposure of Fans to Friends of Fans by 50-200%.
• Facebook represents a unique marketing channel that enables Paid, Earned and Owned Media to be leveraged to create a virtuous cycle of brand impact.
• Concentrated social media campaigns, such as those performed during important marketing promotions, can significantly amplify the reach of earned media exposure.
• Exposure to Facebook Premium Ads also drove statistically significant lifts in both online and in-store purchase incidence for a major retailer over a four-week post-exposure period.www.thisistda.com

Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s DRTV ad for charity Missing People confounded me.

What looks like it will be an ad for the Samaritans turns into something else entirely.

At first it feels like it’s in familiar fundraising territory: the rain, the leeched out colour and the moody atmosphere.

We are instructed to turn our phones on at the beginning of the ad, and at the crucial moment in the narrative the ad stops and we ‘see’ a phone conversation. If you want to hear what is being said you have to phone a number on the screen.

Curiosity and the sense of being left out of something important got me dialling. I felt a bit uneasy listening in to something that was personal and intimate. But it hammered home the message – as an interactive technique, it was knockout. Integrating the two media in this way is brave, but it works.

The direction, coupled with the performance of the son and his mother, make this ad intensely moving and engaging. I hadn’t heard of Missing People before, but this has definitely put them on my radar. What a great way to raise awareness of the charity’s new Freephone number – and to lay the groundwork for future fundraising.

Take a look and see what you think:

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News that we are in the grips of a double-dip recession makes gloomy reading for everyone.

Luckily, most seasoned marketers were already expecting this year to be tough, and are well prepared to weather the storm a little longer.

But marketing students expecting to graduate this summer could be forgiven for feeling a bit pessimistic about their future. So, what can marketing agencies do to make sure the brightest new grads don’t get switched off?

I think that you get what you give when it comes to nurturing young talent. Take work placement students. A little input and trust goes a long way to ensuring their experience is worthwhile. And it helps them become a welcome, valued addition to the team for the duration of their stay.

We have a handful of students on board at TDA at the moment, and I have to say I am really impressed with their attitude and approach. They are full of good ideas, but also prepared to listen and learn. They have a great rapport with the team and are a genuine asset.

Traditionally, students on the marketing courses at our local Uni have vied for placements with us. One girl, who has become the stuff of legend, made a large, gooey chocolate cake and popped in to present it to the team as she dropped off her CV.

But this year’s standout approach came from Matty, who is currently shadowing our digital team. He checked out our website and began a conversation with us over Twitter. We in turn checked out his Twitter profile, followed a link to his own website, realised he was pretty switched on and invited him in for a chat. A few days later he had his feet under the desk for a two-day job shadow…and he’s still here a week later.

I think the best young marketers will always find a way to get a foot in the door. They will use their initiative and intuitively seek ways to unlock opportunities, recession or no recession.

But as an industry we need to make sure we open to their approaches. If we can’t offer them a job, perhaps we can offer them a week of work experience. Or even take some time to give feedback on their CV. We can also get wholeheartedly behind initiatives like the brilliant Graeme Robertson Trust Awards (which are still open for entries, by the way).

The world hasn’t stopped because we are in a recession. We still need bright young things to inject new life into the sector. So let’s all try to love a grad this summer, and play a small part in securing the future of the industry.

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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