Gordon's Republic

Gordon Macmillan

Guy Murphy JWT talking about a threat to brands.

Quoting research about how much time consumers are willing to spend with brands. Chart with enthusiasm for brands. Indians, Thailand and South Korea love brands at one end and Netherlands, UK, US at the other end (hate brands – gag about Rizzla).

Developed markets love brands less. They fall out of love with brands and if this continues the people in the developing markets will follow suit and people will have no time for brands.

This is a ticking time bomb. It will, he says, blow up in "our planning faces".

Brand Viagra needed to get those people to love brands. There is a way to fix the demise of brands.

The view developing is one from the West. The people in these markets used to be idiots and now they know everything. They are disloyal and polluting the process. Jokes about consumers taking brands to court on Twitter.

New chart. US and UK biggest exporters of marketing/brand consultancy. Says this is why it will become the prevalent view about cynical consumers.

But he says instead of taking the view of marketing from the developed world that has fallen out of love with brands, why not take it from the developing world. Quote from Simon Clift, CMO at Unilever about how Latin America has a belief in the power of brands.

New chart. US and Europe are researched obsessed.

New chart. We sell consultancy and East sells us…toys. We need that fun (does he mean more sweat shops of Chinese produced toys?).

Do we think brands will be saved by coming from fun Brazil or duller Germany?

Brand Play. It isn't all just play, but it should consider this kind of approach to defuse the time bomb.

He suggests every brand should have a toy figure that represents the brand for marketers and agencies to remind people that their brands should be fun and objects of excitement.

Shows what a MasterCard brand toy would look like. It’s a big hitting gorilla.

He is creating the Bobt brand toy. What colour; rational or emotional; loved or liked? Image of buck tooth purple bear comes up.

So you get the idea – fun will save your brands.

Jonathan Mildenhall, VP global advertising, Coca Cola. Says brand's content has to become more relevant and more recent.

This means embracing user generated content and participation.

Five principals in global thinking (oh no chart break down…clock is ticking)

1. Cultural leadership

We must do more than give people more products to buy; we must also stand for cultural change people want. We have to give them not just brand ideas; but brand ideals. Talking about working with Chinese authorities and the bird's nest stadium and its little tweety bird campaign. Cute.

2. Emotional based story telling

Emotions drive rational behaviour. Period. Simple enough.

3. Role of product

Product as functional offering or benefit. Product as an object of desire; product as an embodiment; and product as social connector. He cues up a Fanta campaign with dancing animated kids. Says it is a "beautiful little story about a less serious approach to life. Okay…

Another film – it’s the Coke in the library ad with flirty kids drawing Coke bottles and ice cubes on their arms. Has weird shot of him touching her and her empty Coke bottle filling up on her arm. Eww. "How filthy is that?" he asks. Answer pretty. Did that air?

4. The user experience

What will the consumer see; actually experience; how will consumer behaviour actually drive business.

Another film. This one for Sprite, spriteproject.com about a competition to make a fake trailer. Not actually made to air but made to work to how they could drive consumption and brand advocacy, made by BBH. Movie related; big references to social media. Talks Facebook, texting, forums.

5. Transmedia revenue generation

Marketing comms can generate revenue in its own right; says consumers will pay for (branded) content providing it is as creatively engaging as the best of its competitive genre. He is talking about music. Makes sense. Relates to music. Oh more problems with presentation. He is almost out of time.

These five principles are all interlinked. Be interesting to see how far Coca Cola can go with this branded content.

Will Harris from Nokia is up with his big idea. Nokia has lots of agencies. Problem is no one can work out who is in charge anymore.

He says no one can work out how it works. Whatever Tess Alps (Thinkbox) says, we have relinquished control of the network. It isn't all about TV anymore.

He talks about deference being dead - it is all about reference. Consumers go elsewhere to find out about products.

We no longer control the brand. When we produce a bad product – people find out. All the things we tell people doesn't work anymore. We have to recognize we have lost control of our brands. We have to get it back.

We have to start continuous conversations with our agencies; talks about how Nokia has one agency doing one thing and the others are off doing something similar, but are not connected.

He says Nokia are going to "figuratively" take the people and put all these bright people into a room and work on four strands of conversation. He says he will say to them think of the brand as a magazine and each week we will meet to find out what you are doing and talk ideas to take brand forward.

Gives an example of a hypothetically voting event: the agencies have to present ideas around TV, around social media; radio, newspapers. If the ideas are on message and won't get Nokia in trouble they will try it. If it works, they will do more.

Talks about the win a Finnish Christmas competition in your town; says that was the old fashion bit. The Isle of Wight rang up and said why can't vote for us? And people started voting for the Isle of Wight. They called Worthing up (which was leading the race) and then other towns. Says the whole idea started to bounce around.

People started voting for and following the IoW, which went on to win.

Says this new conversation still involves advertising and media, but other stuff. For the first time says he feels the control is with the agencies. Says he trusts them more than consumers.

It is about the conversations, about the doing. If it works we will roll it out around the world.

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