think story experience

Moving on and moving in

So, big news. I'm officially moving on from my role at Jack Morton in Australia. My last day here is on Friday (3 April).

I'm not going far though (at least not professionally). On Monday 13 April, I'll be starting in my new role as Director of Strategy and Planning for Jack Morton in New York.

The other exciting bit of news is who's replacing me...Katie Chatfield (author of the Get Shouty blog) came on board this morning as our new Creative Strategist here in Australia. All change then, and all good.

Aaaaaaardvark Plumbing

Once upon a time, someone (let's say a plumber) struck upon the clever idea of calling their company something beginning with A. That way, their company name (let's call it A1 Plumbing) would be the first to be listed in the book. Their strategy was not to be the best, the fastest, or the cheapest. It was simply to be top of the list.

But then someone else wised up to their ploy. They called their company AA1. And so on and so on. All the way to Aaaaaaardvark Plumbing.

It's crazy, obviously. Because this is now a world where lists are no longer bureaucratic and alphabetical. Lists are now user-created and hierarchical. They live everywhere from online to in recommendations. And they have no respect for alphabetical cuteness.

It's also a metaphor for the traditional approach to advertising...shout louder, shout more, aim to be 'top of mind'. Don't try to be better, just try to be noisier, more obtrusive, harder to ignore. Make it impossible for the opposition to be heard.

And that's crazy too, obviously. Which makes you wonder why so many brands continue to behave like that. Especially now when money is so tight. Go figure.

Inspired by retail

The Guardian reports on a couple of UK-based retail brands that are thriving despite the global recession. One piece reports that Agent Provocateur has seen sales rise by 8 per cent, while another looks more closely at Superdry, a recent youth fashion phenomenon.

The lessons? Simply that brands can make money in these times...they just have to tell the right story, strike the right note, and construct a relevant value proposition. Nothing new really.

Care about something that matters

There's a profile on Sir Richard Branson today in The Australian newspaper's business magazine, the deal. One section of the piece really stood out for me...

"...he insists that he was never attracted to business - and he still isn't. Business, according to one of the world's best know businessmen, is about paying the bills, a necessary but important evil that lets him get on with his real passion."

""What I love doing is creating things that I'm proud of," he says. "I love people and I love surrounding myself with great people who have a passion for whatever it is we're going to create. Getting every single little detail right, making sure we create something we're really proud of, and all the people working on it are really proud of - it's likecreating a painting and getting all the colours right, getting every little detail on that canvas right.""

In these seriously challenging times it's going to be hard to remember that it's your passion for what you do or make that will secure your future, not your diligent attention to the bottom line. I'm not saying you don't have to care about the latter. It just can't be all that you do. If you don't believe me, listen to Branson.

Two enemies of good thinking

It sounds strange, almost silly to suggest, but two words that at first glance appear crucial to good marketing might just be two of the biggest obstacles. I’m talking about the words ‘campaign’ and ‘budget’.

The word ‘campaign’ is often used in my (experiential marketing) space as an aspirational term. “Think about a campaign not a one-off event”, we will tell our clients. And yet, in the more traditional world of advertising, the word ‘campaign’ has become a big part of the problem. Instead of referring to a long-term, strategic effort…a complex attempt to solve a complex problem…the word ‘campaign’ has come to refer to the media a brand can afford to buy.

So a typical description of an up-coming campaign might go…“it’s an eight-week integrated campaign, front-loaded with a prime-time free-to-air blitz, and supported by a strong online focus”. That’s not a campaign, that’s a media buy.

The problem with the word ‘budget’ is more subtle (and arguably more arguable). I get how budgets are necessary when your idea of marketing is making ads and buying media for those ads. But if you agree with me that good marketing today is about solving problems (whether they are problems of awareness, love, loyalty, experience, design, service, culture, or whatever), then it’s hard to see how allocating a ‘budget’ is the right way to go about doing that.

I just don’t see how the right solution can be so tightly disciplined to a dollar figure. By all means, recognize that a problem has a cost attached to it, and therefore the solution must be limited by that financial context. But that’s an argument for recognizing that a problem that’s worth solving for $5m will not be worth solving if it’s going to cost $50m. What it's not is an argument for why a solution that might cost $1m should be rejected in favour of a far less suitable option, simply because the pre-allocated ‘budget’ was $750,000.

This is not an argument for disrespecting clients’ budgets. Instead, it’s an argument for respecting client’s brands, businesses, and objectives. It’s an argument that relies on the simple fact that creative agencies will often see solutions their clients can’t…that’s what they’re paid for. And, as a consequence of that asymmetry of perspective and insight, clients will often allocate funds inefficiently…at times too much, at times too little.

What’s my answer? Stop thinking about time-limited campaigns and dollar-limited budgets. Start thinking more in terms of the problems you have, when they need to be fixed by, and the dollar-value of getting them fixed. Hand those challenges and big-picture parameters over to your agencies. The truly smart ones will come back with truly smart (and dollar-smart) solutions. Far better surely than offering a specific budget and watching your agencies work hard to spend all of your ‘budget’, as fast as they can, in the name of an integrated ‘campaign’.

Events and conferences in 2015

I was part of an interesting discussion with members of the global Jack Morton community this week. The topic...how will events and conferences look in 2015?

Following are the nine topline thoughts I took away from the discussion. I think there's a lot of relevance beyond the live event and conference space...

EXPERIENTIAL. For years, content was king. Now context is king. Already today it’s the experience that counts most. And, as the ability of technology to deliver content on tap grows exponentially, so the experience will become the only point of difference of a live event. It’s about the ability of experiences to fulfill a human need (the same kind of human need that stops many of us throwing away our vinyl records)…

HUMAN. There are a bunch of human truths that have been around for a thousand years and aren’t likely to change anytime soon. These are needs that experiences have an incredible capacity to fulfill…“Entertain me”, “Immerse me”, “Inspire me”, “Connect me”, “Add value to my life”, “Make me part of something”, “Give me an experience”.

ONGOING. Experiences may prevail, but standalone conferences and big events will die. The future will be about ongoing activity of which a conference (a live experience) is just one piece. The future is about creating live extensions of campaigns (which the brand will pay for), conversations (which brands and participants will pay for), and communities (which participants and partners will pay for). The future is about conferences as live extensions of brands. Brands behaving, if you like.

INTEGRATED. Future conferences and events will be more integrated than ever into campaigns (e.g. sales cycles), conversations, and communities. We will need to get as smart in the B2B and employee engagements spaces as we have traditionally been in the integrated consumer campaign space. That means that the same smart thinking that always has to be applied to consumer experiential…why live over ATL, online?…will have to be applied as rigorously to the role of live experiences within the B2B space. There will no longer be the lazy assumption that a conference will happen. Instead, whether organizer or attendee, you will have to recognize (strategically) and demonstrate (measurably) the value of a conference or event as part of the bigger, ongoing picture.

STRATEGIC. Thinking about the reasons why events happen in 2009 will help us think about the evolution of event towards 2015…so a bunch of stuff that looks the same now will evolve in different directions by 2015. We need to investigate the drivers behind events today to understand the likely reasons for, and shape of, events in 2015.

CUSTOMISED. Live bookmarking. Digital data. Real-time interaction. Active participation. User-generated content. Choose your own adventure. The ability for people to own, influence, and shape their experience is only going to grow. Conferences and events may remain rooted in the live space, responding to human needs, but that doesn’t mean they won’t embrace the latest that technology can offer. They have to.

OFFLINE MEETS ONLINE. Virtual events and conferences have been a topic of conversation for a while. But it’s a dead end. The real point is that as conferences (both online, offline, and hybrid/linked) will be integrated into longer-term, ongoing thinking about campaigns, conversations, and communities. In other words, online and offline will be used (and linked) as appropriate to the strategic need. Right now, conferences happen for a bunch of different reasons, some of those reasons will be better satisfied by virtual activity in the future, some will always need to remain rooted in the live space. It’s about getting smarter and more strategic.

AMPLIFIED. What is certain is that the good stuff that happens in conferences will not get left in the room in the future. Linking in-room participants to remote viewers. Creating events that are experiences by few but witnessed by many. Creating content and conversations that spill out of the live space. Driving PR, pushing things online and above the line. Starting movements, closing campaigns. As conferences and events become more integrated into longer-term, ongoing thinking, what happens in the room will rarely ever stay in the room.

CREATIVE. It’s a cluttered, noisy, fragmented, cynical world we live in. Without some colour and creativity it’s really hard to get noticed. Companies that can find really creative ways to bring their brands and stories to life, staying true to their DNA while responding to human needs, will create the greatest cut through. By 2015, smart conferences will be differentiated by the creativity applied to both content and context, not just good strategic thinking.

Thinking about creative stuff

Some nice quotes lifted from Life's a Pitch, by Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity.

Akio Morita's definition of Sony's corporate philosophy...

"Doing what others did not."

Miles Davis on jazz...

"Don't play what's there. Play what's not."

Billy Wilder on making movies...

"There's one thing you never hear and it's this: "Gee! I must go and see that movie! I hear it came in under budget.""

Bob Dylan, to an audience unhappy at his playing an electric guitar...

"I follow no one."

Thomas Watson, founder of IBM, on success...

"If you want to succeed, double your failure rate."

Sochiro Honda on the same subject...

"Success represents the one per cent of your work that results from the 99 per cent that's called failure."