Is it the brand, or is it the brief?

At the British Interactive Media Awards (ps got one for Intel woohoo) last night Nike and AKQA did really well – congratulations to them for an outstanding showing. I was asked by another Client at the event how helpful it is to have Nike as a brand to play with. Poke did well with Orange too, another brand that has a certain award friendliness.

Years ago I was watching a focus group through a glass wall, with the moderator showing some work we had made for a car client. (I’ll keep the names quiet to protect the innocent). Then he showed a host of competitor pieces, and everyone lit up.  We thought, and post-prodded consumers came round to the idea too, I’m pleased to say, that our work was really good. Different, provocative, even.  But it didn’t get a gut reaction.

Chatting to the moderator afterwards, he said, well, it’s the brand, They just see those (dull, bland, ordinary) cars, and when they see the other (cool, sporty, dynamic) cars, they, well, just light up.

I guess it’s all of our concern to create work that sets the long-term values and tonality for brands that give them privileged status with the consumer.  Is it so much harder to win awards with more ‘challenged’ brands?

Brother, can you spare a paradigm?

Has any agency really solved the multi-disciplinary thing yet? On both the demand and supply side of the marketing process, we still stumble over the idea that we might be living under a different paradigm. Much of what I’ve seen about cross-disciplinary thinking is actually effort to keep the problem alive, rather than to solve it once and for all. We aren’t always working with today’s realities about media consumption and consumer choice environments, but on yesterday’s paradigm - to reach as many consumers as possible with a single message.

I’m fascinated by the resurgence of interest in ‘emotional’ decision-making. TV is making a play for comeback through the work of Thinkbox, though its efforts to help educate the latest generation of media people into the art of emotion are falling on deaf ears in the DM agency world. The latter ask the (fair) question of “how come they get £3m to spend on a brand campaign with ‘no roi’ yet I have to justify my 200K mailing effort with actual sales?”  TV enthusiasts say “without any emotional content presented as frequently as possible to everybody, the brand won’t be famous enough to remember. ROI is about the long term, not just the short term.” Ironically, both have a point. Clients ultimately need to decide where to put the money. But agenda free advice is a rare thing.

Digital media doesn’t respect the old model. Nor does it appreciate the effort of the old paradigm to keep it boxed up as ‘just a direct response channel’.  It’s rather more complicated than that. I believe it's as powerful to create emotional experiences that reach right into the hearts and minds of consumers about matters that are important to them on the website as it is in the TV ad. We know it's harder when the exposures aren’t measured in the same way.

Cumulative effect is one way to look at things, and to some extent, the media metrics systems being developed now are beginning to get that. Pretty much every ‘creative’ agency structure, though, still seeks to identify the single effect that each agency is responsible for, and can claim credit for in a credentials later. I’m not sure this is good enough in the new paradigm, where media planning is increasingly about keeping a brand ‘in the air’ not ‘on the air’. 

i am an iams cat

A relaxing Friday night at last watching TV. And I'm confronted with some terrible ads, and one that keeps coming back to haunt us. "I am not an ordinary cat. I am an IAMs cat." The bag is orange, which a charming cat points out. I wonder if any of the cats at orange have seen this one. Meeow.

Flash report from the imedia brand summit

Intel, the BBC, Dell, Coca-Cola, Samsung and Cadbury’s et al presented experiences of interactive capacity and competency in their companies.
I was asked to moderate a panel of experts from the newspaper industry, the BBC, the online travel world and the global advertiser on the state of the nation of the impact digital technique has in the world of communication. A very high quality panel discussed a range of issues, including how businesses are organising themselves for effectiveness in the digital world, and what some of the challenges have been in getting them there.

Peter Ward from WAYN (the travel social network) spoke well about how his business has pushed the limits of technique from the beginning. As with many other social networking sites, WAYN enables its users to create a profile and upload photos. Users can then search for others, and link them to their profiles as friends. If you register it is possible to send and receive messages using email, discussion forums, eCards, SMS and instant messaging. Matt from the BBC spoke about how stakeholder management remains a skillset we need to excel at since the need to get so many interest groups focused on a single strategy around the consumer is as critical in the BBC's world as it is in the world of brand communication.

Simon Shipley from Intel was firm in his belief that delivering digital work required a commitment to learning new skills. Intel has undertaken a serious programme of training internally to digital knowledge. And the ability to develop communities of interest amongst target audiences has been one area of growing effectiveness. Intel runs a programme aimed at IT Managers, a critical audience (in both meanings of the word) called the IT Manager Game. It’s proving to be more and more effective as time spent and quality of content consumed through the game play increases. It’s a completely ‘non-traditional’ activity, which makes it harder to measure in terms of media metrics, but easy to measure in terms of effectiveness of shifting perception and commitment to the Intel brand.

Anne Foster from the Newspaper Marketing Agency reflected on how the demands of advertisers had changed to reflect the audiences, and the mood in the media industry was definitely a focus on sales and ROI rather than brand. Also there were different levels of media need by category. We had talked offline about an increased interest in emotional factors influencing decision making, which, and how we are in danger of too much focus on the short term. It’s inevitable, though, in current forecast market conditions. Anne also presented a strong grip on the statistics of consumer behaviour, how they consume media and what this means.

Measurement remained a big issue for everyone. I put the question to the floor “is anyone happy with their measurement?” and the universal response (although in such an environment it’s natural for people not to give too much away) was “not really.”  There are new dynamics of measuring digital media, and dashboarding gives us a view, but there is a shortage of common currency, both in planning and measurement. For example, the current pressure on ROI and direct response means refocusing on click through, but as consumer behaviour online has adapted to the range of content and browsing behaviour, click through just isn’t enough.

So what’s the answer to that? Again, opinions varied, and the room was divided on what we’re trying to measure. My take is that if we accept the job of the marketer is to be gaining or defending ‘share’, or launching new products, services and variants, then we need to have people with the broad view as well as the detailed ability to pick targets off one by one. Share, of course, is only one aspect. Profitability is another, and sustaining profitable share is the job of everyone, not just the marketer. There is universal need to learn, however, how ‘being part of the conversation’ can be measured in these terms.

Out with the old, in with the new

On the day (most of) Britain celebrates parliament 'not' being blown up by Elizabethan (or more accurately Jamesian) political grievance, we should reflect for a moment on the ballyhoo the new president promises for change. There'll be lots of stuff on the news today about that. Change is good. Promises are motivating. But actually driving change is another matter. It's an age old historical argument - is it the people, or is it the circumstances? Cometh the hour, cometh the man is the ironic Shakespearean statement that springs to mind. Given the economic meltdown going on, it's fair to say that there are forces outside the control of the people setting budget demands and controls all over the world right now. The new RBS Chief Executive has declined to offer forecasts, other than to predict the bank's first ever losses. WPP is surprisingly bullish in its forecasts for 2009. What impact will the new President have? Obama is definitely not George Bush. We know that much. Will he withdraw from Iraq? Will he impose import restrictions on Chinese manufactured goods? Will he imprison those who can be identified as responsible for knowingly selling toxic assets? One thing for sure, we will see it on youtube. We will post opinion about it on our blogs. We will consume and exchange information about it more than any other generation has before. That's the impact technology has had on the political landscape. And I predict a future for people that understand that.

It's not black or white

As America queues at the polls in record numbers to vote for the first non-incumbent for ages, it’s notable that Obama has puts his colour on the table at the last minute urging voters not to vote with race in mind. Sadly, we know many Americans will anyway. I hope it makes no difference. We skirt around the subject of stereotypes in advertising – and it’s right that the IPA should be concerned about diversity, and investigate whether the industry is a reflection of, or product of, or in denial about Britain’s multicultural make up. One underrated stereotype is the aspirational role model. The talented and the determined. Dave Trott used to say 'hard work beats talent every time'. I tend towards 'hard work and talent is unbeatable.' Both Obama and Hamilton are extremely capable, and one is already, and one will be tonight, winners. Talent will out. And more positive role models please. 

Twit or Tweet version 2

Jemima Kiss in the Guardian today picked up on an interesting angle going on in the Social Media monitoring world which Brand Republic’s mini threads of comment remain oblivious to. As the BBC story around Russell and Ross exploded over the past week or so, their websites haven’t. As complaints on the BBC ‘Have Your Say’ website reached the tens of thousands, the response by the BBC’s online world was pretty slow.

As anyone who studies organisational theory can tell you, conflict over remit or mandate leads to corporate screw-ups. In this case, the Venn diagram between corporate communication, corporate product content and corporate product promotion is hopelessly confusing for the general public. All consumers see is the BBC saying different things to itself. I've always said that companies 'take their clothes off' in their online presence, and here is all over again.

In the brand management community, who has the final remit for the online view of the brand? I know it’s irritating to hear the phrase ‘online view’ but it is worth thinking through in a moment of crisis. In theory, the brand team will take the mantle, but in practice the corporate communications people do as well. It’s clear that as everyone ‘puts digital at the heart’ it’s more important than ever to sort out the skills mix required to actually deliver a single (and strong) point of view for the consumer. This applies not only to the Agency supply chain, but also to within Client organisations.