advertising, experiencing

The Power of Experience: what Brands can learn from the pressures of supply and demand at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival

some of Mediation's Fringe highlights, from topish down – Pappy's Fun Club, Showstopper the (improvised) musical, the 80s Movie Flashback, Wolfboy, Private Peaceful, A British Subject, Picasso and Heyton on Homicide

on one hand an abundance of supply, with limited budgets to communicate, and a desperate need to stand out. on the other a premium on attention where time si the most valuable commodity and the biggest problem is navigating a plethora of choice.

not a crystallisation of the current media paradigm, but rather a description of the annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where this weekend Mediation ended his summer break with a frenetic 48 hours taking in a dozen shows. from WW1 deserters to 80s movie Flashbacks, taking in on the way a Victorian murder mystery and a musical about repressed teenage sexual tension in which one of the protagonists may or may not be a wolf.

that aside, the Fringe provides us with an interesting microcosm of what in many ways is being debated as we negotiate the future of media and communications. too much supply, not enough time and or attention, and a desperate need to stand out from a vast crowd of other acts…

some principles did however emerge

reputation (1). have one and remind people about it. in a world of massive choice a reminder of what you've done and why you deserve attention helps a lot
reputation (2). acts that were in bigger and respected venues were much more likely to convert. an hour is precious in Edinburgh and rightly or wrongly an act getting into an established venue is seen as a pre-filter of quality. choose carefully where people see you
word of mouth. create some. by far and away the most important factor that determined what I saw (after the fact that my friend was in it) was recommendation. we know this to be true… don't expect it to happen, make it happen… set up the conditions – Pappy's Fun Club for example have a diverse digital presence all aggregated on their website. they make it easy for you to recommend them
be different. no matter what the cost. being right but fading into the background is worthless. if standing out means taking a risk and / or investing a few dollars then do it and make them count. in a world of flyers being given a squidgy coffee cup with the name of an act on it was enough to make me remember and want to go
facilitate engagement. make it easy for people to find you. from thinking about what time you want to be on to shouting the venue on communications made a big difference

but above all I was reminded of how powerful a live experience was. from a play dissecting British Foreign Policy (and occasional apathy) to nationals imprisoned abroad, to a musical made up on the spot based on audience suggestions; the act of creation in a live space is a powerful way to communicate an idea. we should be more often planning for brand comms to have this potency of live experience.

advertising, broadcasting, buying, content creating, converging, measuring, television, viewing

Getting the Nostalgia bug out of our collective systems: how the search for authenticity has created an all too-trodden path

blast from the past; Caramel's Bunny is back (pic source from Kerry Wheelers blog)

you may have noticed them, the old-stlye fonts, the birth dates in shop windows, the retro copy, the return of longed for icons (see above)… yes, it would seem that a whole herd of marketing folk have collectively led adland into nostalgia-ville. and adland not only likes the place but has moved in, made itself at home, and started churning out nostaligia ads like they're going out of fashion. as if.

Hovis kicked everything off last year with this effort – two whole glorious minutes of British history as seen thru the eyes of a boy with a loaf of bread…

very shortly after this I can imagine 'make me a Hovis' was heard in meeting room in and around the capital. a sentiment no doubt encouraged by the worsening economic climate. in a world of increasing uncertainty, a reminder that a brand had been around for a bit was a reassuring thing indeed.

then came Virgin's lovely effort in which we recalled the gloriousness that was 1984. brick-shaped cell phones, mullets, Wimpy bore witness to a pilot and his crew who reminded us in no uncertain terms that Virgin were still red hot after a quarter century.

but it's this year that the nostalgia train really started ploughing down the tracks. Dirt is Good was abandoned by Persil in favour of reminding us that they're been Tough but Gentle for 100 years…

…and then May saw not one but two retail giants battle it out for the nostalgia crown – with Sainsbury's reminding us how they'd been trying something new since 1869 (that's 140 years)…

…and M&S rolled their 21st Century campaign-packaging out (thats Twiggy) to celebrate 125 years since their first penny bazaar opened (that's 1884 if you were working it out)

so what to make of it all? of the avalanche of nostalgia that's hit us all of late? is it co-incidence? bad timing? in some instances possibly, but there's no doubt that a recessionary mentality has kicked in. as Stew G has noted writing for Vizeum, the recession is forcing all brands (and especially retail brands) to demonstrate affordability without compromising on product or service: hence the lower price + still good quality = value for money equation playing out all around us.

and this is arguably where the above tranche of ads come in to play. prices may be dropping all around us but any brand that's been around for over 100 years has heritage, and presumably with it, authenticity and quality. as a short cut, it would seem to play.

but there are flaws with the strategy. firstly it's increasingly very undifferentiating. secondly it's very brand rather than consumer focussed… of course its all packaged up in stuff that's been done to benefit consumers (Sainsbury's made good food affordable for all, M&S are changing the way we treat our planet) but it does all eventally come across as a bit of an indulgence – a bit like an internal communications project with a bit too much budget to play with.

as John observed in a puppy-feeding post, it can all start to feel a bit too retrospective: "We want to buy things from companies we feel understand the modern world, not ones that are stuck in the past"

perhaps we can just hope that they've all gotten it out of they're collective system now… and we can get back to developing marketing communications that tell differentiated brand stories about the products and services that exist for existing and potential customers.

then again, if the below is anything to go by, the nostalgia trip is far from over… I'd say enjoy, but…

advertising, social networking, user-generating

Two bits of communication, one voice: How British Airways is demonstrating local knowledge thru Social Networking site Metrotwin

"British Airways flies hundreds of thousands of passengers between New
York and London every year. So it feels right for us to be backing
something genuinely useful for people living in and traveling between
NYC and London" …is the elegantly simple reason that BA give for creating Metrotwin; a social networking site that twins New York with London and treats both cities as a single online community.

at the heart of the site is utility – classic aggregator territory here – with the site aiming to recommend only "the ten best places to drink coffee" and suchlike. Metrotwin’s
recommendations come from locals, bloggers and online communities based
in both cities but can be reviewed and rated by everyone.

speaking at the Social Networking World Forum (social networking must have come of age – they have a world forum, though its not in Cannes so a bit to go yet) in London this week, Chris Davies, digital marketing manager at BA said that this and another social networking site from the airline had "challenged
the perception of the brand" and made the airline seem more "up to date and
exciting".

I'm not sure I'd go that far. but the site is clean, simple, brilliantly designed and – most importantly – really single-minded about what its there to do and why BA is doing it.

I was going to do my usual "it's not joined up – they need to be amplifying their online content with broadcast" line, but I think the (presumably deliberate) separation between Metrotwin and the broadcast campaign that BA has been touting (the 'do what a local does stuff) is totally right.

two very different strands of communication from BA. one generated by users, the other by the good people of Kingly Street. one is digitally-centric whilst the other is broadcast-centric. but what unites these two bits of communication is local knowledge. do they need to be seamlessly integrated? no. they need to come from the same place, with the same brand voice; each living in – and making the most of – its own media world.

that said, I do hope that BA and agencies are using Metrotwin content in the online advertising. it would be a shame to see such great user-generated digitally-centric content siloed in the site – get it out into online spaces, show the web what you're up to – cos its all good.

thanks to Hanson for the heads up on this.

advertising, converging, engaging, integrating, praising

Ka’s missed opportunity to make ‘Find It’ tangible: why brands need to incorporate incentive for time & attention into campaigns

and so to Benjamin Button (great but too long), which Mediation caught last weekend at the Brixton Ritzy; or more specifically the ads that came before it. the new adidas effort with Becks at the coolest house party ever was on show (wonderful – very post-Skins – and cracking seeing it in the cinema), but what caught my attention was the new Ka effort.

opening with the copy '80 Kas?', the ad clearly invites you to look for and find the 80 Ka images hidden in the ad. the fact that you could never catch them all in one view means that you have to follow the trail online. after a bit of online exploring you eventually reach http://www.gofindit.net, only this appears not to exist, as you're immediately directed to Ford's corporate space for Ka.

so far so complicated. the site then has a host of product stuff and ways you can engage with the campaign and the brand, much of which is vaguely interesting but its a bit of a gush of stuff. everything from Banksy street art in Shoreditch to using mobile phones to make a Ka digitally appear in the real world are present. and they all genuinely add up to the campaign 'Find It' idea.

the question I have is why? aside from engaging further in the campaign, what's the reward for taking part? a huge amount of effort has clearly gone into creating a great ad (= broadcast & amplify the campaign idea) and website (= access & digital engagement), but not a lot of effort – it would seem – has gone into incentive.

you could argue that the website being difficult to find is reward in itself, but its a bit of a push. no, it seems Ford, like a lot of campaigns, are assuming that engaging with the campaign is reward enough. it's a busy and cluttered world out there. time is short and attention precious. planners should be asking themselves hard questions about what they are giving consumers back. what's the quid pro quo for their time and attention.

would have been great to have seen some Kas hidden either around the country or in the digital space. how much fun could it have been to make the campaign idea tangible by physically being able to find and take home a Ka? this could also have provided the link between the TV ad and the digital experience… the first person to locate all 80 Kas wins a real one?

the question for planners is clear… what incentive are you planning into your campaigns? what's the reward – above and beyond engaging in your brand's idea – for someone's time and attention; it may not come as cheaply as you may think.

(here's that adidas ad – a joy)

advertising, publishing

“Like a tiny cat piping hot farts through a pot-pourri pouch”: Charlie Brooker’s war on Walkers’ crisp experiments

the always delightful Charlie Brooker today added his voice to the chatter surrounding Walkers' 'do us a flavour' campaign. is his G2 column he observes that "the cheap end of the crisp market has to pull stunts to distract you from the crushing social disgrace involved in actually purchasing a bag"; he has subsequently taste tested the Walkers potential flavours on behalf of Guardian readers.

Crispy Duck and Hoisin – like chicken "killed with a hammer made of compacted sugar"; Cajun Squirrel – "like a tiny cat piping hot farts through a pot-pourri pouch into your mouth; Chilli and Chocolate – "they should have called it "Dirty Protest" instead"…

all feedback that I'm sure Walkers are more than happy to receive. the point of the campaign is to be noticed and give people reasons to talk about crisps. if advertising is – amongst other things – fundamentally about creating Word of Mouth then Brooker's war on the great crisp experiment is a complement indeed.

advertising, blogging, branding, broadcasting, content creating, converging, engaging, listening, planning, regulating, researching, social networking, user-generating

Fighting the Future: reaching a rose-tinted concensus at the IPA 44 Club’s Future of Advertising in a Networked Society

A short history of marketing from jabi on Vimeo.

the rather lovely above video – by jabi – neatly sums up the collective dilemma of how brands, marketers and, specifically, agencies address the challenge of social media. the issue was the topic of discussion last night at the IPA 44 Club's inaugural event of 2009:
The future of advertising in a networked society. quite the session it was… here's the gist:

part one – report findings

social media = the online tools and platforms people use to share information, thoughts, opinions, content etc
problems is that brands are "crashing the party rather than hosting it" (Russell Davies)
many brands are experimenting but not getting traction in the area
we need a model of comms that reflects 'ME' as opposed to 'brand'
a model that's about conversation and participation rather than interruption and engagement
a model that incorporates David Armano's thinking about 'influence ripples'
Johnny X by Dare is a cracking example
which succeeded in concentrating the feeds into and out of it's online space (64% of upstream and 84% of downstream feeds came from 10 sites each)
planning social media should focus on targeting the few, that demonstrate: (1) expansiveness (propensity to chatter), (2) popularity (propensity to filter and target) and (3) reciprocity (likelihood to act)
network size is predictable, as is network flow, as is circulation

part two – agency survey

brands in a socially-networked world are more responsible for creating and disseminating the right information – brands should be more discretionary in what they produce [Mediation found this less than substantiated and at odds with Clay Shirky's comments at the MGEITF this year on filtering in a content-abundant world being after the fact, ie produce then allow the network to filter]
the way to reward brand advocates is not through financial incentive
the industry disagrees on two areas: (1) that advertising principles are the same in a networked society and (2) that social media behaves in a fundamentally new way
it is believed that most revenue is up for grabs in content creation, then data & insight, then market research & insight gathering (amongst others)
these new revenue streams represent £11bn of additional revenue opportunity, with another £5bn potentially
…which would be (exactly!) enough to meet the £16bn shortfall in industry revenues by 2016 predicted by the IPA's Future of Advertising and Agencies report of two years ago (£16bn = the difference between the IPA's 'Central' and 'Consumer' Scenarios)

part three – the discussion

I won't bullet this because it's getting late and you had to be there, but this was the better part of the evening with discussion ranging between philosophy of brands in a social media space to the (inevitable) measurement and accountability of such activity.

for me a kind of rose-tinted consensus was reached; consensus that went along the lines of:

marketing has always been about great social networking, the challenge is the same – getting the right content in the right place, its just that…
(1) people power is more potent (we have 500 networked connections not 50 disparate ones) and (2) we need to react to the context our message are in rather than control the context our messages are in
it's brilliant because we can react to real people in real time in the context of a real conversations
social media isn't a bolt on, it has to be woven into every brand touchpoint
brands need to behave differently, and understand that their relationship with consumers is – to consumers – much less important than consumers' relationships with other consumers

so in a nutshell social media is great because it's as old as the hills, better than the disruption model, measurable …and there's a freak-off big commercial opportunity for the brands and agencies that get it right.

I just don't think that it' that easy. our industry is woefully
unprepared for the future. there's some brilliant thinking and debate
going on, but the commercial models, joined-up industry measurement
systems, and marketing best practice principles – from a 'what works'
as opposed to a 'self-regulatory' point of view – just aren't moving
fast enough.

most importantly, not enough consideration was given
to the integration of broadcast and social media. they're not going to
exist in isolation and broadcast media is going nowhere. iTunes didn't
kill CDs and Amazon didn't kill Waterstones. social media certainly
won't kill mainstream broadcast media; the same mainstream broadcast
media that in the vast majority of instances provides social media
users with the content they comment on, pass on, or reappropriate for
their own ends.

the other interesting question is how the
behaviour of digital natives will evolve… we're familiar with the
media 'hubs' that are the current crop of adolescent's bedrooms;
they're multi-tasking away across ten devices and infinite bits of
content. but what happens when they grow-up? how much of their social
media behaviour will they take with them into adulthood and how much
will they replace with the aggregated broadcast consumption of their
parents?

we live in interesting times; and I guess we wouldn't have it any other way.

one last word, I urge you to read JVW's post
about the event and specifically his debate on how the IPA can use social media
to get their social media report into more people's hands whilst not
impacting on revenues. a pleasure and a joy.

advertising, broadcasting, cinema, praising

Contextualising communications for their media home: why the Orange Gold Spot gets Mediation’s vote in DCM’s ad-off

to celebrate their new on-screen identity, DCM (formerly Carlton Screen Media) are asking the industry to vote on their favourite ever cult cinema ad. an panel of illustrious experts has narrowed the list down to ten finalists which you can view and then vote for here.

it's quite a list – everything from Kylie's 2001 jaunt on a red velvet rodeo bull for Agent Provocateur to Tony Kaye's surreal effort for Dunlop in 1994. the best of the Diet Coke break ads is in there, as is Carling's Dam Busters, some Guinness Surfers and a reworked Bullitt chase with Steve McQueen behind the wheel of a Ford Puma.

but for me there can only be one winner. in a cinema ad-off, the vote has to go to on-screen communications that have become as integral a part of the modern cinema experience as popcorn and Green and Blacks… communications that have embraced not just the cinema screen but the Hollywood dream sprawling behind it. comms that took said Hollywood dream and subverted it to within an inch of it's life – much to our collective amusement.

over the last five years Carrie Fisher, Snoop Dogg, Alan Cumming, Steven Seagal, Sean Aston, Daryl Hannah, Spike Lee, John Cleese, Macaulay Culkin and even Darth Vader have had their projects subjected to the interference of Mr Dresden and co. the result for Orange is credibility in and associations with cinema that go far beyond the mere placement of an ad. they own this particular bit of media real-estate in a way few other brands have achieved anywhere, let alone on cinema…

in combination with a BAFTA association and Orange Wednesdays, the Orange spot is the result of a determined focus from a marketing team and associated agencies that demonstrate the power of creating content that is contextualised for the channel in which it's appearing. the Orange spot could only work in cinema, it's what gives it it's power. and it's why it's getting Mediation's vote.

advertising, broadcasting, television

The ten tonne zeotrope: how Sony continue to master the art of advertising the advertising

so what do you do when you've done balls, paint, plasticine (and Daniel Craig) in your ads? you build the world's biggest zeotrope of course. Sony's next effort was filmed in Italy earlier this month and is set to hit screens in the spring.

but the true success of the Bravia efforts is less the ads, and more the advertising of the ads. the original balls ad was spontaneously snapped when it was shot on the streets of San Francisco. since then the back story has been rigorously planned. for paint – as Faris highlighted in his IPA Excellence Diploma thesis:

"the film was first released online and then screened on television, consciously catering to the differing needs of youth and the Massive Passives. Online, the assets of the film were made available for remixing. The campaign was transmedia, recombinant and collective."

for the zeotrope effort, the above video was shot by Shortlist, loaded by then up on YouTube and written up in editorial on their website and in this morning's edition. Fallon et al are really starting to master the art of advertising buzz… now using smart media partnerships to amplify the story. neat, smart, and of course never forgetting the golden rule – have an engaging enough idea and content to build the model around. looking forward to the ad already.

ad funded programming, advertising, branding, broadcasting, content creating, converging, engaging, gaming, innovating, internet, planning

From theory to practice: the challenge of planning Transmedia

Keith Arem's graphic novel Ascend, for which a game is currently in development

it's now been over two years since Faris bought transmedia planning to our attention in his post of the same name on TIGS. the theory has been well expounded in the period since then; with a post by Jason Oke at Leo Burnett Toronto which explored the TP concept within the context of a single ad quickly kicking things off.

I'm sure that the idea of TP has cropped up in most media, comms and ad agencies by now… it certainly has in Mediation's. but we've yet to see – as far as I can make out – a significant campaign emerge based on TP principles. the same is actually true of the entertainment industry; in an interview with Games TM magazine(edition 75), Henry Jenkins – the Godfather of TP – concedes that truly persuasive examples have yet to arrive.

they're doing better than us though. transmedia planning should be everywhere by now. the theory is familiar and is not only relatively unchallenged, but is offers the very solution to some of the biggest marketing challenges of the moment. of its many advantages, the primary benefit has to be the extent to which it pays back on the time taken to consume it. Jenkins goes on to observe that "regardless of the commercial motives behind it, transmedia entertainment done well also provides rewards for fans".

so why is getting the theory working in practice so difficult? here's some starters for ten…

firstly, the financial investment required. the reason the best examples of TM largely remain in the entertainment arena (the Matrix, Cloverfield, Heroes, Lost etc) because it takes a significant chunk of investment to develop and then create the content often required. the commercial models for Fox or Paramount are set up to do this, the commercial models for marketeers often aren't.

but this is a bit of a cop out. for the cost of making three 30 second ads you can certainly afford to make an episodic drama for online distribution. and no it doesn't matter if it's not going to go on broadcast TV because those people who consume AV content online are exactly those people most likely to 'get' transmedia narratives… this means of course that the media budgeting has to evolve just as much as the production pot.

no, the real issues in making TP happen lie much closer to home than 'we don't have the budget' territory. they are twofold, the first of which is we're bound to the conventions of the media spaces we use. in the Games TM article mentioned above, Keith Arem discusses the TM principles behind his graphic novel Ascend (the image above). he observes that:

"if a project requires a 30-minute budget introduction, games can do that, but the medium could just as easily offer six high-budget five-hour episodes to revolutionise the story. film and television are still limited by rigid series structures and minimum lengths".

advertisers on those channels are bound by those same conventions; conventions we as an industry – planners, buyers and media-owners (and indeed Ofcom) alike need to start challenging. it's the limitations of the spot model that in many cases is preventing transmedia's breakthrough into broadcast channels; and as long as transmedia only exists online, it's unlikely to capture the imagination of marketeers or the budgets of FDs.

but the final barrier to making TM happen in brand comms is the closet to home of all. Jenkins notes that TM experiences can "be a source of … frustration [for consumers] if it's inconsistent, undermines the coherence of the work, or promises insights it never delivers". Arem's solution is simple: "have a good team of like-minded individuals around you … my philosophy for all of our projects is to have a core team to supervise all creative and technical aspects of the production. the main focus of that team is to keep the story and assets consistent, and integrate them with the entire franchise".

I think you know where I'm going with this. agency structures are lucky if they can do this internally let alone with other agencies, resulting in the presention of a joined up and unified transmedia solution to a client. not only might different creative agencies have to work to one vision, but that vision has to be molded by the space planned by its media agency, and of course vice versa.

the reality is that as long as the conversation with a client only gets as far as "how big is the pack shot?", both agencies and clients will be bound to a dynamic that not only acts as a barrier to transmedia planning, but actively works against it emerging into the mainstream where it so surely deserves to belong.

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MEDIATION

negotiating the future of media and communications

Category Archives: advertising