Category Archives: campaigning

advertising, campaigning, integrating, voting

Calling to Action: What Australian Political Parties can learn from Marmite

so in this week’s PHDcast we’re talking Aussie election, which kicked off (officially) this week with a deluge of media and collateral, including these two efforts from the two leading parties, Labor offer us a New Way:

whilst the Liberals are offering us a New Hope:

there will no doubt be other places and spaces where the ads themselves get debated and dissected, and aside from the observation that naming an election slogan after Star Wars Episode IV is just plain awesome, we’ll leave all that to one side for the moment.

there is one difference between the two ads though that I think is important. it’s a really subtle but I think significant difference in the dying moments of each. quite simply one has an embedded call to action and one doesn’t.

help_kevin

Labor’s video has not just a specific call to action in the copy, but an embedded ‘click to volunteer’ button in the video.

in the podcast, Stew (who anchored magnificently) asked me for the advice I would give the comms teams in the election, I commented that at the moment there isn’t one communications strategy, there are several (broadcast, social etc).

the big opportunity it seems to me is to join the dots … and identify very specific roles for comms, with all roads leading to getting people to act … if people act early, cognitive dissonance will kick in and people will act to maintain consistency with their perceived beliefs when they get into the booth.

that the Labor ad gets that its not just an ad may seem to be a simple and indeed obvious distinction, but its a simple and obvious distinction that its Liberal counterpart – nor a great many commercial brands for that matter – grasp. which brings us of course to Marmite, who this week unleashed this awesome little gem:

the predictable and ridiculous backlash has fortunately been met with a truckload of praise for the ad … but the sheer entertainment value that the ad provides aside, the communication is a gold-standard example of two really important aspects.

one, it doesn’t take too much pondering to work out that there is a very specific business issue being tackled here. the team have clearly done their homework and gone beyond ‘consideration’ or ‘like-ability’ to identify a specific issue that they’ve gone on to tackle head on.

two – and this is where I’m making the tenuous link to Australian politics (because its my blog so I can) – there’s a clear and integrated call to action strategy. the video ends with a clear call to action that is an integrated and consistent extension of the creative construct of the ad:

marmite_cta

this then takes you through to an owned-media platform from where you can interact to your heart’s content:

marmite_cta_2

there’s one last aspect for both of these that I think bears repeating, and that’s the importance of cognitive dissonance – the first fundamental assumption of which is that “we all recognize, at some level, when we are acting in a way that is inconsistent with our beliefs / attitudes / opinions. In effect, there is a built in alarm that goes off when we notice such an inconsistency, whether we like it or not. For example, if you have a belief that it is wrong to cheat, yet you find yourself cheating on a test, you will notice and be affected by this inconsistency.” (source)

the really smart opportunity is that by getting people to act within a communications content (for a brand or a political party), you potentially establish and crystallise such a belief / attitude / opinion. when people subsequently come to a supermarket shelf or a polling booth they will – according to the theory – be more inclined to behave in a way that is consistent with said belief.

in short … a integrated, powerful and engaging call to action, far from being the tick-box exercise at the end of the ad, can be the linchpin of the whole communications operation. given the choice, you’ve got to love that.

featured image via Herald Sun

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campaigning, content creating, creating, engaging, experiencing, marketing

Joy: How Brands are Spreading a Little Love and Happiness, and What This Surprise and Delight Tells Us about the State We’re In

the always amazing media update from James, Sisse and the gang brought with it this week a couple of treats which kinda got me thinking … the first is an effort, above, from Virgin Atlantic who transformed a Manhattan park bench into a Virgin flying experience, complete with champagne, food and real life movies.

the other was an effort, below, from Molson, who built fridges full of beer that could only be unlocked by someone with a Canadian passport, much to the delight and joy of the crowds that had gathered for the unlocking.

these both share a fair bit of DNA. they both are great experiential efforts designed not really to be experiential – but rather content; content designed to be enjoyed, shared and of course land a comms message in the process. and they both rely on the participation of innocent strangers – collateral vantage if you will – to bring realness and credibility to the situation. they’re pretty much givens, but there’s something else they both have in common … something deeper and I think more significant.

but this week our own Mimi, not one to miss a sweet treat, dropped us a note that the Magnum Pleasure store will be opening in Sydney. hurrah. this is off the back of Cadbury’s Joyville effort locally …

so what’s going on? well I think we’re seeing a definite increase in the amount of random acts of kindness from brands. we’re witnessing nothing short of a surge in desire and investment into spreading a little love and happiness. the evidence of the brand-inspired Joy is all around. like love, and so the feeling grows. sorry.

now you could argue that this isn’t really anything new; that the last few years (if not decades) are riven with examples of marketing sharing a little love and happiness … be it Coke’s vending machines (or even back to teach the world to sing) or the playful inventiveness of Skittles or T-Mobile from Liverpool Street to Heathrow or insert-your-example-here … you could argue that brands have always been in the business of creating Joy. however I think this is distinct for two reasons:

one, these acts aren’t surprising and delighting the passive massive through broadcast, but rather the more tangible and meaningful individuals on the street. these acts are very deliberately public – that strikes me as significant; the acts are witnessed, at that witness makes them realer, more credible, more meaningful and more potent. and I think this is important.

the other reason is that I think it says something about the state we’re in … I read ages ago (and I honestly can’t remember where) that popular culture generates content opposite to the prevailing mood of the times. Sorkin created Bartlett when America needed him, then post-Obama positivism was countered by darker, less sure-footed heroes like Nicholas Brody. I’m wondering if the same can be said for marketing?

from the collapse of states to environmental insecurity, via PRISM, to economic uncertainty and the realignment from west to eastern dominance … we’re in pretty shaky times – you could say that winter is coming.

perhaps our collective unleashing of marketing Joy is the brand equivalent of the contemporary prevalence of the superhero: shear joy, positive unabashed certainty at a time when our world no longer gives us these for granted.

I’ll leave you with one last little bit of joy … a video from Google celebrating how we have and continue to build the web together. it’s a genuine joy … so, well, … enjoy.

featured image via adweek

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advertising, campaigning, commenting, creating, debating, planning

Create and Debate: Lessons for brands, courtesy of Dikkenberg and Rusbridger, on communicating credibly, conspicuously and contagiously

I had a rather delightful serendipitous few minutes yesterday when I watched consecutively two videos on YouTube. it occurred to me that between them they rather elegantly describe the formula for communicating your position or point of view in the world right now.

the first was the above video of a speech given by Who&Why Media‘s founder Simon Dikkenberg at the 20th anniversary of Mission Australia’s CYI. Simon (who is awesome) captured more elegantly than I would the point and power of unleasing a creative instinct:

“By becoming conscious of our stories and our ability to shape then, we learn that we can edit and redefine the great changes that impact our lives … what’s exciting is that we now live in era in which the tools to record and share our stories are cheap and easily accessible (most of us carry them on the phones in our pockets) … we all have our own battles and wars but it is the stories we tell ourselves about them that determine the positive or negative impact they have on our lives …”

Simon Dikkenberg (from the above video)

I next watched this video from The Guardian of Editor Alan Rusbridger describing the newspaper’s ‘Open Journalism’ philosophy.

it’s simple, straightforward, and elegant … yet it describes profound changes to how a newspaper goes about doing what it does. changes that by Rusbridger’s own admission are a “big barrier for journalists to get over”.

“Open journalism is about allowing a response … saying to readers ‘we want to hear from you’ … if you can have more than one view you get a better account … once you accept that then you’re into just the questions of the mechanics … we should be able to respond to them too … its being responsive to what comes into the building …
Its no good shoving a newspaper on the web, you have to be part of the web … as a result I think our journalism is much more approachable, much more diverse, much more comprehensive, much more challenge-able (which is a good thing), and just generally better.”

Alan Rusbridger (from the above video)

that second paragraph is of particular relevance and significance to comms planning – swap ‘journalism’ for brand and you get the following advice: ‘its no good shoving a brand on the web, you have to be part of the web … as a result I think [your] brand is much more approachable, much more diverse, much more comprehensive, much more challenge-able … and just generally better’.

I can think of little better advice I’ve ever heard being suggested for brands as they plan in an online, on-demand, fragmented and attention-light world.

perhaps what strikes me most is how the Dikkenberg Rusbridger formula of Create + Debate is so very rarely applied. brands of course create, but very rarely for the specific purpose of instigating debate. and of course brands debate, but often as a response to events or about their products as opposed to the communicates they create around a point of view.

yet when brands do embrace this simple formula, the results are often hugely successful – at the very least from a communications point of view. here are just a few of my favourites:

all these examples are awesome campaigns because they are credible, conspicuous and inherently contagious. and they are all those things, I think, because they followed the Dikkenberg Rusbridger formula: create the stories of your battles and debate with the plurality of views they engender.

the possibilities are staggering, as is the potential positive affect those stories could have on us all.

featured image via here and here

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advertising, campaigning, funding

Get Up’s ‘It’s Time’ Ad gets on TV: How grass-roots movements are reversing the broadcast < conversation model

(Featured image Source)

breaking news courtesy of @mrbenjaminlaw of twitter fame (thanks Benjamin and Mimi), suggests that the above rather excellent and marvellous ad for Australian marriage equality has secured enough funds to be broadcast on national TV this weekend.

the GetUp! campaign website notes that “this weekend, delegates at the ALP National Conference will be voting on whether to make it their policy to end marriage discrimination. This video has already reached nearly 1,000,000 people — but a national TV campaign this week would reach double that again, and really put the pressure on!”

mission, it would seem, accomplished.  the ad will air over coming days in Sydney (Channels 9/10), Melbourne (7/9/10), Adelaide (9/10/SBS), Perth (9/SBS) and Brisbane (SBS).

what’s interesting from Mediation’s point of view (personal agenda aside) is the total reverse of the media model.  from “fund an ad on broadcast TV > start conversation and debate > affect change” to “distribute content online > galvanise support and fundraise for broadcast > affect change” … the goal remains the same, but (1) the conversation comes first and (2) broadcast becomes an end-point not a starting point.

interestingly broadcast becomes that end-point funded by the grass-roots community – TV not as passive distributor of message but rather an active signal to decision-makers that enough people care enough about this cause to fund its deployment in a broadcast public forum.

it’s important that this ad is on TV.  it’s important because of the signal it sends to said decision-makers, but also because it will ensure the important message that it contains reaches people who – because of the echo-chamber effect of some online networks – wouldn’t otherwise see it.

online networks have brought powerful, timely and positive changes to how we communicate – but broadcast retains it’s potent ability to reach all of us.  and, thanks to the efforts of GetUp! and its supporters, it is all of us who will be reminded that It’s Time for mariage equality this weekend.

this weekend a grass-roots community is, for one minute and fifty six seconds, taking TV back … and our TV is the better for it.

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brand extending, branding, campaigning, co-creating, community-building, connecting, earning, gaming, owning, praising, social media-ising, user-generating

Big Planning and Big Thinking: How Bendigo and Adelaide Bank use owned & earned media to deploy a little utility into the world

Got a big idea that you want to bring to life? Create a plan, share it and make it happen with help from the PlanBig community

so the lovely and awesome Zaac posted a link to my wall of the above effort from Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.  it's called PlanBig and, in it's own words, its…

"… a way for people to get together to make things happen and make a difference.  We [Bendigo and Adelaide Bank] believed that there was some real value in giving people the chance to come together in one place to talk about ideas, share inspiration, offer advice or help make things happen for themselves or someone else.  PlanBig brings together the experiences, knowledge and expertise of people with different skills from all walks of life and all ages to help each other get ideas kick started."

it's a delightful and instinctively attractive platform, which elegantly ticks a range of boxes including – amongst others – socialisation, co-creation, crowdsourcing and gamification.  it also has a elegant and seamless execution that connects with the Book and other social platforms…  the badges-as-reward effort has been borrowed from FourSquare, as has the Book's Like concept (in fact the functionality is a bit like a social network functionality greatest hits, which isn't a bad thing – better to use functionality with which we're familiar … makes it more, well, functional).

as the site observes, "Bendigo and Adelaide Bank feel so strongly about helping people realise their dreams, they’ve been doing it in local communities for over 150 years" … so this platform is just a natural extension of a brand proposition that's been in market for over a century.

it's also another example of the owned and earned media combo (note the absence of bought media) to create (1) utility (2) meaningful connections with a community of people and (3) content ripe for the amplification – if even a few of these ideas get big it will be marketing gold-dust.  all of which makes a great deal more sense to me than buying a shedload of ads telling people what competitive lending rates you have.

this genuinely feels like a brand / product extension with sociable and marketable assets built in from the ground up.  it's a communication for people, by people, and its infinitely better for it.  good on 'em.

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campaigning, targeting

Consumer. I hate the word: why Mediation is adding it’s voice to the call for a banning of the word Consumer

Ban_consumer_shop_therefore_am so on Friday as I was posting about Clay Shirky's logarithmic rules for participation, the always brilliant Neil at Only Dead Fish was busy banning the word consumer.  Willsh at Feeding The Puppy agreed (and got to grips with some nifty HTML widgeting) and now I've officially added my voice to the chorus via a Twitter post #tagged to #StopUsingConsumer.

consumer?  consumer.  I hate the word.  as I do all words or language that undermine what we do and prevent us as an industry from moving on from basic and retrograde thinking.  the boys have already said much in the posts linked above and I won't repeat.  I'll simply say that too often using the word consumer holds us back in three ways:

1. it leads to thinking that all people do is consume stuff.  this isn't only limiting thought but massively missing the opportunity to engage with PEOPLE on terms beyond them buying stuff.  PEOPLE are talking about, creating for, arguing against, fighting for and remixing brands and branded communications all the time.  don't limit the scope of what we do to PEOPLE consuming what we're selling.

2. it leads to thinking that all PEOPLE are the same.  my post from Friday covered this but essentially my argument was that we are still, by and large, expected to think of and present 'one' target audience…  an 'averaged' person or group based on some attribute of attributes that are most relevant to the brief.  but 'average' not only fails to capture the few individuals who would be super-involved in what we have to say or ask them to do, but massively over-estimates the extent to which most people will commit attention to our branded projects.

3.it looks backwards to world where we bought therefore we were.  rather than forward to a world where brands and brand projects and communications add social as well as just economic value to our lives and communities.  for many brands the idea of giving back won't be an add-on, but rather an intrinsic and expected part of what they do.  giving back will become – as it should be – a cost of being in business.

sold?  join in.  if you believe we should stop using 'consumer', then post a tweet that contains #StopUsingConsumer, and the reason.  For instance: #StopUsingConsumer – cos there's no average user, no average consumer, no average contributor, co-creator, or co-collaborator. live with it.

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