Monthly Archives: November 2013

advertising, storytelling

Of BBQs, Basting and Bears: Lessons in the power of multi-channel storytelling from this year’s crop of festive campaigns

this week on the Addington Bugle-sponsored PHDcast we talk the future of retail and Christmas ads. obviously. it being five weeks(ish) out from the big day thoughts turn to Santa’s sack, goodwill amongst people, and GRPs – after all who wouldn’t want a healthy carryover of adstock into the week before Christmas.

and so it came to pass that this was the week that Aussie retailers launched the slings and arrows of their Chrimbo adverts. first up we have Coles and Woolies going head to head with Curtis Stone basting food porn in the red corner, and in the green corner newcomer Jamie Oliver throwing a BBQ for Aussies in London (a deliberate choice of location we’re sure).

meanwhile the department stores give us the art of giving from Myer and, well, I’m not sure what from David Jones (B&T go with ‘a DJ’s branded Christmas cracker exploding to reveal a colourful array of gifts’, which is good enough for me).

of course the daddy of Christmas ads is John Lewis, who (as you’ll already know as the YouTube video is past 6.1m views already) this year unleashed a Lily Allen soundtracked Disney-inspired tale of the Bear who gets woken by a Hare for Christmas.

its amazing. of course. but where John Lewis genuinely stands out is not the creative solution, but the media infrastructure build around their story. the Lily Allen soundtrack (which has the chance of keeping a reality-TV winner off the Chrimbo #1 spot), the interactive eBook narrated by Lauren Laverne, the digital Christmas card maker, and of course activation of the ideas in stores … all add up to a genuinely integrated effort to deploy a story into the pre-Christmas season rather than just an ad.

its a valuable and timely lesson in the power of story; told elegantly, across multiple platforms, both broadcast and demanded, which stretches from awareness and salience all the way through to retail engagement – and all without a hero product shot in sight.

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broadcasting, measuring, phdcast, television

Surviving the Crucible: Why We All Need to Calm Down, Back Off, and GIve Wake Up A Fair Go

in the latest PHDcast Nic, Stew, Zee (we’re still experimenting with the nickname – bear with us) and I talk Melbourne Cup brand activations Twitter’s flotation, the point of branded urls, strategy job titles … and the first week of Ten’s new breakfast show – which it’s fair to say has been watched very closely … by Adnews, B&T, and via a Mumbrella ratings game and by an article or two in the SMH.

Ten-WakeUp-presenters

the context into which Wake Up was born has been unfairly hostile, unduly challenging and way too immediately judgmental. to say that both Wake Up (and Studio 10 which follows it) launched into a crucible is perhaps an understatement, a crucible with multiple drivers:

one, the Ten financial pressure

Wake Up has been given birth by a parent with, it’s fair to say, some financial challenges. last month Network Ten reported a $285m loss and calls for $200m loan over four years to rebuild the product. TV is a cyclical game and networks will at some times be stronger than at others – but there’s no doubt the pressure is on.

two, the predecessor

launched in February 2012, Wake Up’s predecessor was Breakfast fronted by Kiwi Paul Henry, Kathryn Robinson, Andrew Rochford and Magdalena Roze.

Ten-Breakfast-presenters

Breakfast was axed in November of the same year after the show failed to steal ratings share from Seven and Nine. the show also came in for particular criticism of Paul Henry, who I always liked … he was, it always seemed to me deliberately divisive, callous and radically honest – which if you were in on the joke was actually rather entertaining.

whichever way you took Paul Henry, the debate and fate of Wake Up’s predecessor casts a considerable shadow over it’s launch. but in many ways the challenge that Henry in particular was tasked with addressing is the same one that Wake Up faces, that of being different …

the need to be breaking (bad) conventions

because Wake Up is also dealing with the clear and present need to challenge, break and redefine the conventions of morning TV. the opportunity isn’t to be an also-run breakfast show; another desk with other bright shiny people giving away other prize money to viewers just for being conscious and chatting about the latest political non-announcement. rather the opportunity is to create a genuinely different and distinctive morning TV offering … advertisers absolutely want it and there’s no reason to think that viewers don’t want it too.

in many ways I think this a crystallization of Ten’s current predicament: they need to be different enough to create reasons for viewers and advertisers to go with the smallest mainstream offering, but they need to stay mainstream enough to attract the largest possible (monetise-able) audience.

it’s a fine line to tread and its going to take time. time that the industry, with predictable scorning cynical superiority, isn’t looking to give the show and it’s team. it’s disheartening; as Nicola comments in the PHDcast, “I’m really disappointed, again, in the expected critique.  people wanted it to fail … its a week old”.

the truth is that you could have written last week’s commentary six months ago. it was that predictable. time now to step back and give the show and it’s team the time and space they need to craft a third way for commercial breakfast TV in Australia. viewers and advertisers alike need it, it’s our choice whether or not we give Wake Up the opportunity to survive its crucible.

enjoy the PHDcast … here’s team strategy PHDcasters enjoying an awesome afternoon at Melbourne Cup. it is after all the podcast that stops a nation …

PHDcast at the races

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content creating, praising

“Don’t act like you’re not impressed”: Lessons From Ron Burgundy On The Importance Of Being An Extension of Product, Not a Signpost To It

so I’m loving the marketing for Anchorman 2 which is seeing Ron Burgundy comment from his newsdesk on current events. Pete (hey Pete) sent around the above, in which Ron comments on the Melbourne Cup, part of the #bestdayever earlier this week … I also caught Ron taking over the Telstra-sponsored ‘please switch off your phone’ message on a trip to see Thor 2 (which was Thorsome) on Sunday.

it’s a great example of something I touched on several times both on this blog but in a ton of client conversations over the last few years … product-out communications.

the working paradigm for the broadcast age was that marketing worked as communications that were pushed out to consumers to make them aware of a product or service (and subsequently drive interest, desire and ultimately action). comms were a signpost to the product. a wealth of research, theory, evidence and smarts has evolved that paradigm to where we are today …

Ron’s message isn’t a broadcast-out signpost to increase awareness of the movie. instead Burgundy’s commentary is a great example of a product-out approach … of the product extending itself out to create value or utility (in this case entertainment). the fact that content exists for Aussie cinemas and the Melbourne Cup suggests that it’s a localised content strategy that could well be playing out in every major country in which the movie is being released. which is very smart.

all in all a great lesson in Paid being used as Owned media which (judging by the media and sharing pick-up) has generated a very respectable amount of Earned media on the way … nice work Paramount on a very elegant execution of a strategy which should pay dividends … after all, as Ron would say, “they’ve done studies, you know. 60 percent of the time, it works every time.”

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buying, debating, phdcast

PHDcast – The Letter D and Number 92 Episode: Departures, Diets and Discounts in Medialand

the PHDcast this week is brought to you by the letter D and the number 92. D stands for Dieting, as Pink Media announces a partnership between Fitness First and Mardi Gras; Departures, as Kyle and Jackie announce their departure from SCA’s airwaves and Discounts, as Adnews reports talk of an unprecedented 92% discount being offered by a media agency.

the discount, alleged to be on TV rates, marks an escalation in a bidding war that is arguably as old as media departments and then agencies themselves. but a perfect storm in recent years has seen a potent mix of procurement driving down client costs, an over-serviced marketplace, and the consolidation of holding groups (which increases buying power placing pressure on media owners).

that potent mix has resulted in run-away discounting and the radical commoditisation of media impacts … and they’re just the direct implications. the indirect implications spin into agency client resourcing, the extent to which media thinking and ideas are valued, media owner revenues (so ultimately impacting quality of broadcast content), and transparency and media neutrality … as agencies are forced to explore other higher margin areas to off-set the margin losses in the core business. I could go on.

so how do we stop the runaway train on which we find ourselves? one of the key problems is that everyone is implicated … everyone has something to gain from the current storm and much to lose by any attempted unravelling.

the money starts with clients. they’ve never had it so good from a CPM perspective … with agencies falling over RFPs to buy media cheaper (and cheaper media). questions of media quality become secondary to cost-saving and value extraction. their walk-away is to pay more for a supplier’s product – which would be brave by anyone’s standards.

from an agency’s perspective, guaranteeing radical discounts rates keeps and gets clients’ billings in the door which maintains the platform for value extraction with media owners on one hand and clients on the other. their walk-away is to explain that a price is as low as they can go and decline the businesses – another brave call given the demands for any major agency and group to demonstrate growth.

the money (in theory) ends up with a media owner … they are the ones at the sharp end of the deal but its a deal in which they’ve had no choice to be complicit. for them to put on the brakes could cost them 20-30% of revenues if a major buying group turns off the taps (a move for which there are precedents in other markets).

it’s stalemate.

of course my question on how we stop the train has an implicit assumption … that everyone wants to. I’m not naive enough to think for a second that everyone is sat bemoaning media buying’s current conundrum. ultimately the only reason the stalemate exists is that enough businesses are making enough money for it to be sustained.

new models already no doubt exist and will emerge. necessity is the mother of invention … in which case I can’t think that the need for inventors has ever been greater.

to be continued …

PHDcast011113

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