advertising, conferencing, debating, planning, predicting, thinking

Running away to the Circus: Dispatches from The Festival of Commercial Creativity – Day One, Session One

yesterday saw the first day of Sydney's first Circus – a festival of commercial creativity for the advertising, media and communications industries. and a rather cracking event it was too. a series of speakers took us through what creativity was to them, how it was under threat, how it is thriving and how a changing world places ever incresing demands on those to work to use creativity to commercial ends.

despite starting rather dubiously – we were invited not to tweet, and to only ask questions if we thought that they'd be relevant for everyone (not the most encouraging of starts for a festival aiming to – in part – explore an evolving communications landscape) – it turned out to be a rather inspirational day…

this was how the first session of day one went down…

first up was Jeffrey Cole who eleven years ago founded the Centre for Digital Future at USC. his talk was on surveying the digital future – and in particular the impact of the Internet on our behaviours.

he introduced himself as a TV guy, and observed that we 'blew' TV – in that we knew it was going to be a mass medium, but didn't track audiences to see how it was changing their lives. important questions like where did the time to watch TV come from? what did it displace? …went unanswered.

emerging media are way more powerful than TV. in 1988 for the first time kids were watching less TV in the US, the result of the rise of computers and the web. where Cole believes that we lost the opportunity on TV, we can make up for it with online, and eleven years ago set up a research programme to track a panel over time as the internet changes their life…

key findings from the research are around teenage behaviour and in internet, but crucially, Cole seeks to make a key distinction between those behaviours and attitudes that teens do and have because they are young and have time, and those behaviours and attitudes which are permanent. what will drop off as life gets in the way? versus what do they do that is 'transformational' with regard to the society that they will grow up to form.

he observed that college students setting up home for first the time are particularly instructive. no landline and no newspapers for them. but also no cable (90% penetration in US so this is a significant trend). Cole believes that whilst we're not looking at the end of cable, we are looking at the end of the cable pricing structure as it stands.

things that teenagers abandon…

teenagers say they're not affcted by advertising. which isn't true. like all of us they are they just don't like to admit it
they believe that unknown peers are 'just like me' and can be trusted – similarly this comes to change over time as they learn the world isn't always what it seems
teenagers don't use email and claim to only need IM, texts and facebook (they go further and say that voice calling is 'an intrusion' – similarly this is an attitude that fades into adulthood
they want to know all the details of their peers' lifes in what they describe as 'ambient awareness' (a phrase strikingly similar to the continuous partial presence that Faris described in May 2007); Cole observed that Twitter works because of this … ambient awareness is a general understanding of someone's situation, and a reflection that teens want not fifteen minutes but fifteen megabytes of fame
we're not initially good at distinguishing truth from fiction. Cole argues that this is because we didn't have to question the mass media we grew up with (the Chinese for example are better at critical media assesment) …we are better at understanding amateur vs proffesional, which Cole suggested was due to beter understanding the limitations and boundaries of ugc
he talked about Murdoch and MySpace, and reflected that at the time of the NewsCorp purchase he commented that "it's a great investment but he'll never hang onto the teenage users" … an angry NewsCorp rebutted by saying "look how much money we're making" but Cole by that time already had the hindsight to see Friendster and Geocities go. to teenagers, he said, "social networks are like nightclubs", despite this, Facebook is going nowhere (yet), a fact underlined by his observation that at their last Zeitgeist, Google seemed nervous (they have no place nor role in Facebook's world)
finally, teenagers have no sense of the nature of and need for privacy. for good reason the law says you can't sign contract till 18. whilst this attitude means that kids upload potentially very compromising things to the internet, this is not a lifelong attitude, and with maturity comes a sense of what is public and what is private

which brings us to the things teenagers keep, and with them significant implications for society, brands and advertising…

teenagers have, and keep into adulthood a total control over their media. Cole cited the 17yo who first unlocked his iPhone; he didn't want to unlock it for anything in particular, he unlocked it so that he knew that he could
a huge implication for the media industry is that permanent changes in attitude mean we're seeing the beginning of the end of platforms … Newspapers, in Cole's opinion, are history. environmental reasons is one reason for teens, but furtermore the concept of owning media is in it's last days as we move to the cloud. on newspapers, teenagers not using print is a permanent shift. they are very much into news, but the internet delivers this. Cole's prediction is a stark one – because every time a print reader dies they are not being replaced, print has about 5 years in the states, and around 8-9 years in Australia (perhaps)
teenagers don't grow out of not wearing watches (the mobile is their watch and alarm clock and much else besides) – this is not a problem for Rolex, but will have consequences for more mainstream inexpensive watches
TV is not on a set top box and is not scheduled. YouTube is TV, and TV is any content you watch on your schedule
Game playing is serious business that ecourages task-oriented behaviour and is similarly a behaviour and attitude that is here to stay
"Mobile isn't everything – it's becoming every thing" – it's rapidly becoming the primary and predominant place where teenagers get media
on the iPad, Cole observes that it is NOT the fourth screen, rather it replaces the second screen (the pc), and that we're witnessing the beginning of the end of the PC as standard home device for many people
finally and most significantly, there is an emerging and permanent shift in the perception of real versus perceived empowerment. we are passive readers no more, we contribute and correct. we self-diagnose our illnesses. we negotiate on deals based on pre-research and start our negotiations based on wholesale prices … the "internet is best at shining light into dark places", giving everyone power over governments, over repression … this most important trend will emerge and very much in Cole's opinion stay with us.

Q&A

will Facebook eventually be displaced? yes, but it will continue to grow for around four more years. it will be supplanted by another more fragmented social media landscape. Facebook won't be abandoned completely, but will become more passive – an ongoing reminder of the biggest social networking site there ever was or ever will be.

2% of people drop off the internet each year… they leave because they change jobs or their PCs break. with few exceptions their back within 14 months.

advertising will remain the model for content. Cole wants to see content survive, and so wants to see digital advertising survive.

I asked about permanent vs transitory media. there was suggestion that whilst the legacy media (BBC, NBC, NYT) were permanent, emerging media (notably social networks) aren't – they are transitory platforms that people adopt for a while before moving on. will Hulu – for example – be permanent or transitory? Cole's opinion is that all platforms will need to learn and adapt. Google will adapt. as will Hulu. legacy media brands – and indeed all media brands – will be defined by their ability to evolve.

next up Agnello Dias – creative director at Taproot, who talked to the festival about the remarkable story of advertising and comms work for The Times Of India, a story that began with a brief…

a brief to celebrate India's 60th year of independence. an argument broke out in the agency about whether India was on the verge or greatness or the cusp of the abyss. the client talked about the country being at a crossroads. was India to go forward or back? Dias scribbled a paragraph describing 'India vs India' as a creative brief, but as time ran out the client ran the brief as an ad. the brief. a dat later Dias was informed that the brief wouldn't be an ad after all … it was to be the front page editorial.

the front page became audiovisual content which became a YouTube viral.

which became a debate. a debate so emphatic that The Times Of India decided to call the debaters bluff…

the response to the video was a national platform that created a parralel decision making group, bypassing party politics and supported by politicians. facilitating democracy in a nation a billion people strong.

what has any of this to do with brand and selling newspapers? nothing. to the client it's not about that. it's about building credibility – something that has huge benefit for a paper… after all who is the prime minister going to call?

the latest phase was editorial that ran on the anniversary of Mumbai terrorist attacks. The Times Of India ran a headline saying love Pakistan – a controversial position that stimulated a great deal of opposition, even people in Dias' office didn't want to work on the campaign. but the objective was to start a debate that would lead to peace, rather than perpetuate an argument for war…

the jury, according to Dias, is out on whether or not they should have done it. they will see what results. whatever happens, it's a phenomenal story … a story of a media brand acting not as reporters or observers but as instigators of change. as provocateurs of debate. as writers of the future.

next up the enigmatic Jess Greenwood of Contagious fame who talked about projects not campaigns – and a shift away from the creation of advertising to the creation of projects with no specific timespan. less say and more do, behaviour rather than talk.

Greenwood also talked about how everything is advertsing and – in a phrase of which I was particularly fond – that we need to be "less 360 in our thinking and more 365" … nice. as an example she cited how after tweeting to complain about the music in the Air New Zealand lounge in LAX, her tweet was picked up by the airline in New Zealand who called the lounge front desk in LA who invited Greenwood to choose her own music. this all took less than 60 seconds. remarkable stuff.

so how do we change, well one we put insights before advertising. no more the Mad Men model of ideas leading executions, of working out how to execute ideas generated on gut feel. two, its about engagement over reach (allelulia) – citing one advertiser who said they would rather have 100 engaged people than 1,000,000 passive ones.

the Contagious mantra is that branded communications in the early 21st Century should be Useful and or Relevant and or Entertaining. a mantra she expounded across three main themes…

ONE – Inside Out Marketing

we need to stop mindlessly pushing marketing and product into the world and instead be the change we want to see. as example is Operation Nice, which seeks to encourage people to embrace an emering sense of independence by saying that 'if you want something doing…'

her next example was Dulux who want to own colour. rather than telling people that they want to own colour they behaved like they owned colour via an urban regeneration project. they asked people which areas deseved colour, then launched Let's Colour. they went to areas around the world and added colour, areas like Tower Hamlets. the brand managers and local communities did the painting, and produced some rather remarkable content…

their sucker punch is that Dulux 'own' colour, but communicate such in a very real and credible – or inside-out – way. Greenwood talked about a smart approach by Dulux to how this thinking is deployed on a global via local level; the global mandate was to find out what colour means to your country, and make it happen through actions and behaviours at a local level.

Greenwood talked about mass media as an "iterative process", citing the example of how VW and a tiny Darth Vader 'jacked' the superbowl. the ad was deliberately released prior to the broadcast to build buzz prior to seeing it on the Superbowl screen. it is TV (advertising) but TV not just designed for TV – it's wholeheartedly designed for theiInternet.

another example from Levi's and their Go Forth organising idea (note not campign). Levi's are using this idea to generate behaviour and action as opposed to making and broadcasting hyperbole. Levi's – amongst other things – built a community centre and funded the library in Braddock. they are building infrastructure. they've opened workshops to give substance to their claim that 'Levi's makes things by hand and makes things the right way'. this makes levi's meaningful.

Greenwood talked about four pillars of convergence in media and communications:

AV experience on screen (whatever and wherever that screen may be)
Interctivity of internet (facilitation two-way engagement, converstion, debate and cooperation and cocreation)
Location-based functionality and customisation of mobile phone
Real world experience

when developing insights and ideas we need to ask ourselves if said insight or idea can work in and across these four areas. if it can, then it could work… for example T-Mobile create advertising as programming. if you're doing mass media it has to be this engaging…

"it's designed not just for broadcasting but for sharing. they are creating mass media for the Internet, for niche media".

TWO – be Prolific not Precious

'Social media makes stories' – this, in Greenwood's opinion, is the evolution of user generated content … smart brands monitor and track the stories as they emerge around them – cue Gatorade Mission controlness.

another example is reformed drug addict Ted Williams, the story of whom was picked up by a journalist who learned he had a great voice for radio. he made a film about ted's life. which went from zero to 13m views in two days. this in turn ws picked up by Kraft who used the Ted in their ad. all of which is phenomenal enough, until you consider the timescale…

Monday – upload the video
Tuesday – watch the views pile up
Wednesday – Ted appears on TV with ad agency
Friday – Ted's voiced ad is on air

using social media to tell stories garnered 450m media impressions for Kraft. and there are a plethora of examples where that came from… Qantas flew the girl with the twitter handle @theashes to Australia for the Ashes. all because said girl / handle got messages from people wanting the cricket score … a bit of support via #gettheashestotheashes and Qantas and Virgin were fighting it out to make it happen.

Hippo snacks example of using tweets as distribution management system and saw a 76% increase in sales.

and finally on proliferation, the South African low cost airline project (not campaign) around the World Cup in aid of being the 'unofficial national carrier' of the World Cup… the best thing about this campaign was something they hadn't planned for. the airline offered free flights to anyone called Sepp Blatter, so when a dog came forward to say that that was his name the airline flew the dog around the world.

THREE - Play and Gaming

the rise of play dynamics in marketing. Gamification. adding game dynamics into marketing but also product design. Greenwood used the example of Ford who have a virtual plant on the dashboard that grows if you drive in an environmentally friendly manner.

NBC do market research not via a focus group or survey but via fanit, an initiative that I discussed in a post in May of last year.

Skittles pitched David Phoenix versus Skittles fans.

Mini gaming in Stockholm example. Steal the car.

one interesting point from Greenwood, if you're going to develop or have a game or app, make sure that you have an end to it, a climax or endpoint to which people can aim.

and finally in gameification a wonderful project called iButterfly, which uses an app that captures virtual butterflies to get vouchers to people. smart, contemporary, embedded with utility and above all fun. as Contagious as it gets.

three final suggestions from Greenwood…

ensure that your communications are Useful and/or Relevant and/or Entertaining
make sure your idea is created, developed and deployed for real people not marketing people
Be brave and make mistakes

and that was session one, post is way big enough so I'll write up the other sessions in following posts…

measuring, printing, publishing, reporting, sampling

Starting the Big Sell: How The Readership Works started the debate with agencies over the future of readership measurement in Australia

the start of the debate: representatives of The Readership Works present to media agencies last night at The Mint

so last evening saw the start of what is likely to be a long conversation between the media agency and The Readership Works, the body tasked with creating a new readership survey for Australia's media industry.

we began with a well-trodden story – the world has changed. only, it turns out, measurement metrics haven't. the evening was on oportunity for The Readership Works (TRW) to present how they intend to put that right. we began with the challenges:

people don't fill in surveys any more (in fact it turns out that three quarters of people flat refuse to do so these days)
advertisers need more and better data (yup)
other media are delivering (no doubt last year's MOVE is front and centre of TRW's mind – especially given the gestation period that this project has had)
print media are no longer print media (well quite … in fact I'd question whether or not it's in their interest to still be called print media but that's a debate for another day)

so what do we want and when do we want it? well we want – it turns out – more higher quality data, delivered in a 'more timely' manner, transparency in how it's delivered and reported. plus we'd also like it to be future-proofed and developed in collaboration with agencies (and therefore advertisers).

all of which sounds like a lot, but saying "we need to stop doing face-to-face interviews and filling in paper questionnaires" is a bit like saying "let's stop using horse drawn trams to get people around". similarly the idea that we need to measure readership beyond the printed page is a great deal less surprising than the fact that we don't seem to be currently doing it.

so all headed in the right direction… a survey that:

collects information via a screen-based interview
generates new insights on how magazines build readership over time
provides better data on regional and community titles via smarter sampling
measures readership across all platforms (so print and online for now, but – in response to my question – once critical mass is reached on tablets and phones too)
delivers insights beyond readership, be it on sections, engagement, and new lifestyle statements (although I'd recommend that you brace yourself for still being able to tell clients that their readers are leaders not followers)
offers richer and deeper information on the purchase and consumption habits of readers via IPSOS' BRANDpuls

all of which, in the warm light of the next day, feels very solid and in the right direction. it would be easy to be cynical about the whole event, but the reality is that the industry needs a better measurement system than the one we currently have. one that its reflective of the evolution of publisher brands (ie not print brands) beyond paper, but that also plugs this information into data about what those readers think and buy.

for perhaps not obvious reasons TRW were reluctant to share details of the methodology. there is after all an elephant in the room. that elephant is Roy Morgan Research, who have in effect now become the competition to TRW's survey…

this put the audience in the rather curious position of being pitched a product that will inevitably create potential painful change in the market, by a body on which those same agencies have representation. when you take into account the fact that the introduction of the new survey will require not only the philosophical backing but the financing (in part) by those agencies, you begin to see why last night's event was so important. the big sell has only just begun…

advertising, content creating, flashmobbing, television

Never critique a movie you haven’t seen: How T-Mobile at T5 is a triumph of execution over strategy

so you've seen the above already … T-Mobile's latest real-people-crowd-mob-activation-engagement thing, which took place at Heathrow's Terminal 5 not too long ago. big thanks to Laura for sending it in my direction.

I've had two totally separate conversations about this activity. the first was on Saturday, where in a discussion about T-Mobile's latest effort my general line of observation was along the lines of 'yeah but they've pretty much done that now … where can they possibly go? … they're in danger of becoming a one-trick pony – I fear I may have even gone as far as to use the phrase 'jumped the shark'.

my thinking was that it all sounded rather a bit much. a tactical idea that started – brilliantly – at Liverpool Street a couple of years ago is now being stretched just a little too thin. been there, seen T-Mobile doing that. singing to people as they arrive at Heathrow. really T-Mobile? really?!

the second conversation I had about the effort was this afternoon. a full six hours after I actually took three minutes out of my life to watch the above video of the effort. it would seem that Mark Kermode – who says never critique a movie you haven't seen – is totally right…

strategically this is a tactical activation re-imagined in a new time and place. strategically this is an inside-out TV ad and not a lot more. strategically this is a PR platform that engages relatively few people in the actual experience. strategically we should all be really very over this already.

only I'm not over it. I happen to adore this tactical replay of a PR-led inside out TV ad.

I adore it because of the dedication and effort to make it executionally so polished. because of the realness and authenticity of people's reactions. and because it's a piece of communication that reflects a genuinely positive aspect of the human condition.

strategically this shouldn't work. but in execution, it delivers in spades. a strategic one-trick pony it may be, but as ponies that do a trick go, you've got to admit its a pretty good one…

broadcasting, content creating, remixing, television, viewing

No more than Skins deep: how a direct Remake misses the opportunities presented by a Remix

Zaac pointed me in the direction of the above this morning. it's the trailer for MTV America's remake of the UK's beloved Skins. as someone who watched and loved the show it makes for strange viewing. on one hand the new cast and setting looks strikingly different. but after a while the similarities between the above and the original UK version become not just clear but blindingly obvious.

the car going into the water. the quick edit phone conversation. taking to one's own genitals. even the back garden (yard now) trampoline. all conspire to indicate that this is a clean remake of the show. something which, if true, presents not only a missed opportunity but a huge failing of producing.

a missed opportunity, in that the best adaptations of shows for US audiences haven't been remakes but remixes. same show, different culture. think about how The Office transferred from Slough to Scranton, or how the boys from Manchester evolved into a very different Queer as Folk Baltimore. great remakes, or should I say remixes, protect and nurture the truth of a show whilst mixing in a new culture and society's perspectives and nuances.

from Slough to Scranton – same Office, very different culture

from Manchester to Baltimore – same, err, well totally different actually…

that "the remix is the very nature of digital", is of course now so widely held to be true that it's almost too obvious to quote it. but Gibson's elegant maxim is too often ignored. by TV makers and brands alike. just as in the case of TV shows that fail to capitalise on the opportunities that a remix affords, how many global ads do we see land on the screens of shores a far cry from their (often European or American) origins? or worse, dubbed out of their native tongue, so that we are sold to by smiling fresh-faced lip-synced avatars…

the pressure to create ads that can be deployed across a multitude of regions leads to centrally developed, but often locally less-relevant communications. distinctiveness in communications is key – it mitigates misattribution and builds brand cues that extend the return of a media investment out of the short term and into the longer term. simply deploying a global property locally is no guarantee of success.

this presents a problem for TV producers and brands alike … a problem that, for the latter, will only be exacerbated by a shift away from broadcast interruption as the de-facto method for audience reach, towards a two-way content and community-led platform that seeks to engage an audience.

MTV's gamble with Skins – to create what looks like a remake rather than a genuine remix – should give pause for thought for marketers. to what extent are we acting in a brand's best interests by picking up and redeploying content into a country – and culture – for which it wasn't designed? how many opportunities are missed, and investment wasted, by failing to reflect the nuances of a culture with whom you seeking to engage?

brand extending, social media-ising, social networking

Lustable, Paypal, and the polyfaceted brand: why brands need to evolve a diversity of identities for a diversity of platforms

yesterday saw the birth of Lustable – a site designed to be the ultimate companion for online shoppers. partnering with five of Australia’s most highly regarded fashion and design bloggers, the site aims to be a living breathing online shopping resource profiling the web’s best kept fashion secrets and is designed to be the ultimate companion for online shoppers.

describing the site, Adrian Christie of PayPal Australia commented that “Lustable celebrates the world of online fashion, covering everything from up-and-coming young designers, to fashion sites that offer great value – like free shipping and seasonal sales”.

I should say at this point that I'm breaking my first and most important rule of blogging in writing this post. I am for the first time writing a post about a client of an agency at which I currently work. I'm breaking the rule because Lustable makes a very valuable and necessary point about the future of brands, and specifically the diversification of the identity of brands…

there are examples aplenty of the diversificaton of brands, the goal being to grow and engage with new audiences – some of these are very tight (think UK telco O2's creation of the The O2; an engagement space with an identical name to that of it's parent brand) … but increasingly, brand extensions are differentiating from their parent companies. so diverse that they become wholly new offspring of their parent brands, with their own identities and behaviours and affiliations.

all of which begs the question… why does Lustable exist? why has PayPal – which is an established and trusted brand in its own right – invested the time and effort to create a whole new and differentiated brand? what would be so wrong with paypalfashion.com.au? it seems rather counter-intuitive to create and invest in a brand that's not your own. a worst case scenario exists in which that investment delivers no payback to the parent's brand ie the strategy is actively mitigating ROMI.

the reason Lustable exists, as I see it (I wasn't involved in planning it's inception) is for the simple reason that it needs to exist. the opportunity to aggregate and stimulate a community of online shoppers is, for obvious reasons, high up on the agenda for a brand like PayPal; but PayPal isn't necessarily in a position to aggregate and stimulate an audience around fashion.

it would, for a host of reasons, be a leap too far. much better to reach out to existing experts in the field of online fashion shopping. much better to amplify their voices. much better to invest in conversations that they will have with existing and new followers of their sites and online spaces.

Lustable can aggregate an online fashion community in a way that PayPal couldn't. it can have credible and transparent conversations, and stimulate that community, in a way that PayPal couldn't. in this regard Lustable is a brand intermediary – a site designed to reach out to and engage with an audience more efficiently and effectively that PayPal ever could.

is it a risk? yes. but the greater risk is choosing to either not engage with an audience or engaging with an audience in a sub-optimal and ultimately inefficient way.

what Lustable is evidence of is a direction of travel for brands into polyfaceted creatures. as platforms for engagement (a word I choose very deliberately over reach) proliferate, the ability of brands to spread themselves ever thinner becomes more difficult and tenuous. think about the number of successful branded TV channels? OK … think about any successful branded TV channel? the reason it's hard is that brands don't necessarily stretch that far – multiple facets are required and called for.

all of which of course requires new and emerging specialisms. Lustable was created and deployed by social media agency We Are Social* – who's expertise in this space was necessary to ensure that the project was developed and implemented as effectively as possible. as brands become polyfaceted so too do the specialists and skills that marketing folk need to surround themselves with…

all of which begs another question – who is the brand guardian? fortunately that's easy … people are, of course. people who use PayPal, and now people who engage with Lustable. Lustable creates new associations and connections between people, and a brand that was brave and sensible enough to give birth to a wholly different creature. a brand brave and sensible enough to understand that PayPal and Lustable are greater than the sum of their respective parts.

disclaimer: PayPal is a client at PHD Australia, where I work. I was not involved in any of the discussions or planning that led to the execution of Lustable. * PHD Australia shares offices and the more than occasional glass of wine with We Are Social, who have developed the Lustable strategy and concept for PayPal.

Uncategorized

A tale of two logos: what GAP and MySpace can tell us about the power of identity

what's in a logo? quite a lot according to the thousands of people who rushed to condemn GAP's logo redesign. the size and ferocity of the sentiment seems – surprisingly – to have caught GAP off guard, to the extent that their U-turn is now fully complete and the new logo has been abandoned.

which is just as well, because it really IMHO isn't very good. retrospective, ordinary, old, etc etc etc … what's more important than my personal feelings about the logo is the observation that GAP seemingly (1) thought that the logo was any good and that (2) they showed it to the world without a great deal more thought and planning.

that said, skeptical me instantly wants to put this in the category of New Coke, that organisation's ill-fated attempt to reformulate a formula that was far from broken and which I and a great many other people are convinced was a stunt to get people to collectively and publicly acknowledge their support and love for Coke.

I'm tempted to think that the above effort by the GAP aimed to achieve the same. deep down, people really rather like the GAP but they're just not very forthcoming in saying it these days. launching a crappy new logo is a perfect way to galvanise sentiment in the brand's favour. and if the current corporate guys need to take a (perceived) hit to do remind people how much they love GAP then it's a small price to pay.

in other breaking news, MySpace have just redesigned their logo too. check this out…

now a lot of people don't like this.

I love it.

I really really really do.

a post on the eBrand site describes how "the new logos are not live yet, but the site has demonstrated it at the Warm Gun Design conference … [MySpace] elaborated on the idea saying that it plans to use the blank space in the logo to display artwork by remaining MySpace users. The artwork will only appear when individuals place their mouse cursor over the blank space though."

it goes on to quote MySpace VP of User Experience Mike Macadaan: "MySpace is a platform for people to be whatever they want, so we have decided to give them the space to do it."

what I love is that the new logo is not the logo of a social network. it's mine. it's whatever I want to do with it. that's a very powerful statement for a logo to make. moreover, its a statement that is derived from the truth of what the MySpace site is. it certainly has more credibility than the announcement earlier this year that MySpace was the site for discovery…

"MySpace will be the best tool for Discovery" was the assertion of the social network's International Co-President Mike Jones, who in his keynote speech at an event in April highlighted projects from the network that are "allowing people to get Discovered".

but my favourite thing about this logo is that it can only exist in the 21st Century. this logo can only exist when the predominant means of accessing MySpace is digital (which of course it is), but it can't fully exist in a static image, and it certainly can't exit in the written word. it has to live digitally, it has to be interacted with… a participative logo for the participation age.

both these tales – of Gap and my_____ (see what I mean?) – are potent reminders of the importance of identity. too quickly and too often a brand or business attempts to reinvent itself with a new identity / logo. but that's a bit like a friend who used to be cool and interesting but who now doesn't really go out much or have anything interesting to say, putting on a new t-shirt and expecting you to think they're cool and interesting again. they're not. they're just wearing a new t-shirt.

identities – and specifically logos – are not sticking plasters that you can change at will. rather they are a key and important part of a brand's identity which, at their best, say a great deal more about that brand that simply what brand it is. if this new MySpace identity holds – and I really hope that it does – it will say more about that social network than any positioning statement will. logos with actions, it turns out, speak louder than logos with words.

conversing, planning, researching

Word (of Mouth) Up: what Soup’s TalkTrack Study has to tell us about the simple and compelling truth about conversations and brands

the power of word of mouth, cartoon from xkcd

the lovely Sharyn and Michele from word of mouth marketing agency Soup came in to Kent Street Towers yesterday to share the results from their TalkTrack research into word of mouth in Australia. the study, which was conducted in partnership with Mindshare, ING, Foxtel and LG, consisted of a diary and quant with almost 3,000 Australians aged 16-69, who between them over the month-long course of the study had 30,000 branded conversations. the report makes for fascinating reading…

turns out that the average Australian has 67.8 branded conversations per week, which equates to 1.2 billion conversations (or impacts if you like) across the Australia population every week. this however is on average, 'influencers' – those people who are more passionate, knowledgeable and who tend to have more networks of connections – have 140 brand-centric conversations per week.

Telstra is the most talked about brand, but not necessarily positively – that title goes to Apple, which enjoys 1.7% of all positive brand-centric conversations. in fact Australians are generally overwhelmingly positive about brands… 61% of all branded conversations are positive, whilst only 9% are negative.

but it's when you look at where conversations are had and what instigates them that it gets really interesting. of all the conversations in the study, the vast majority were conducted face to face… 82% of the conversations we have about brands we have with real people in the real world. this compared to only 7% online, which had fewer conversations than even over the phone (at 10%).

Brand conversations overwhelmingly happen face to face; Source: Soup's TalkTrack study – for more information contact Sharyn Smith via here

there's a big flashing 'proceed with caution' here – because whilst we're all of us going about measuring with gusto branded conversations, turns out that in most cases (as most trackers are online-based) we're doing it with a sample of 7% of all conversations. skews and distortions are therefore almost inevitable.

the other big news is that the research provides hard evidence as to what actually sparks conversations. overwhelmingly it is customer or personal experiences with a brand or it's products and services that get's us talking. compare this to media or marketing efforts – which people attribute to 49% of the brand-centric conversations they have.

Experiences with brands, products and services cause more conversations than media or advertising; Source: Soup's TalkTrack study – for more information contact Sharyn Smith via here

it's here that online plays an interesting role… it just outperforms TV in terms of it's ability to spark conversations. Nielsen report that FY up to June '10, 28% of media money was invested in TV, versus 15% online – so online more than punching above it's weight in it's ability to get us talking.

proof, if it were ever needed, that – unless a brand has a very good reason otherwise – the best role for advertising is to amplify innovative products and services from a brand. the best ad in the world, all things being equal, won't start as many conversations than an investment in relevant and engaging products and services.

I've talked about planning for transactions on these pages before. I firmly believe that advertisers should invest in marketing to their existing customers via the creation of collateral – products and services – that add value to their lives. the role of bought media is then best aligned to what it does best: amplify what a brand is doing with and for it's existing customers to a broader audience…

and now, thanks to the research described above, we have another crucial bit of evidence to prove how this model of approaching comms planning works: it sparks conversations which create intention to buy or try (33%) or consider (25%) a product.

kudos to Soup for commissioning this research. research that proves that it's not he who shouts loudest that builds the biggest and best brands and businesses, but rather he who gives the most people the most compelling reason to talk about that brand or business. and in the evolution of media and communications, this simple but compelling truth should be a game-changer for any brand and business brave enough to do it. whether we do, is entirely down to us.

connecting, developing, integrating, internet, social networking

Ping vs. Fabulis: what Steve Jobs can learn from Jason Goldberg about Social Networks

Steve Jobs launching Ping earlier this week

last week Apple continued their ascendancy with the unveiling of a revamped iPod range, but also with Ping; a social network, housed within iTunes, based – not surprisingly – in and around music. so a small step for iTunes but a giant leap for Apple into the social networking space.

they're not the first. back in July 2008 I wrote a post in response to news that MTV was launching a social networking initiative called House. I expressed concern then, that brands sailing into social waters did so at significant risk… there's simply only so many networks people can and will be part of…

at the time I ranked a very un-statistically robust sample of social network membership and (unsurprisingly) a long tail emerged… whilst a small minority of sites (Facebook, MySpace) account for the vast majority of social networkers, there is the potential for a network to aggregate a strong and viable community around a niche topic or area. but therein lies the rub… if you're stuck in the tail then running a social network could be an expensive way to aggregate and entertain a niche audience.

but back to Ping, and as niche's go, it got to be said that if you're going to go after a vertical then music seems to be a fair vertical to choose; especially when you have one of the biggest and most significant music ecommerce platforms in existence, and MySpace – you're most significant rival with specific music credibility – is struggling to demonstrate a place for itself in the world.

but Ping is a somewhat limited experience. on first use it feels like a twitter engine (you follow and are followed) with a Facebook framework. but that's where the similarity ends and the problems start; the only way to connect with people is to invite them by email, and once you are connected there's no inter-network connectivity. what goes on Ping, stays on Ping.

contrast this with Fabulis, the social network set up for gay men and the friends of gay men set up by Jason Goldberg (below) earlier this year. fabulis.com aims to help gay men and their friends discover where to go, what to do, and who to meet.

fabulis founder Jason Goldberg

two things struck me about fabulis. one is how the site has an explicit 'currency' in the form of bits – points that you earn or win by interacting and engaging with the site and other social networkers. for the record my meager 815 points currently rank me at 4,181st, so I've a bit of engaging to do (but then that's very much the point of points isn't it).

fabulis tackling the onerous task of helping gay men and their friends stay in touch – it's a tough job but some networks got to do it

but the second and most interesting aspect of fabulis is how I never actually joined the social network. I never registered a username or created a password. nor did I upload a profile picture or suggest friends. Facebook Connect did all of that, and moreover, fabulis was more than happy for Facebook to do it. my sign-in, profile, and network were all ported happily and seamlessly across from Facebook. Compare and contrast this with Ping's approach.

the fundamental difference between the networks is that Ping is insular and closed (and that's very much Apple's prerogative and indeed modus operandi) whereas fabulis is not only open in it's approach, but dependent on another network – namely Facebook – for a key element of its infrastructure. if Facebook went down one day (run with this!) then fabulis would go down with it; it's a network built on a network, and its very much the better for it.

all of which makes Jobs' position on why Ping isn't connected into Facebook's (or another social network's) content very revealing… in a post on cnet news, Kara Swisher describes how when she asked Jobs about the lack of connectivity on Ping, "he said Apple had indeed held talks with Facebook about a variety of unspecified partnerships related to Ping, but the discussions had gone nowhere … the reason, according to Jobs: Facebook wanted "onerous terms that we could not agree to""

Ping was a pretty unique opportunity for Apple to open it's doors and integrate part of its product into the wider web in a way that would ultimately have made Ping better for its users. the fact that Jobs didn't says more about Apple than it does about Facebook's apparent 'onerous' terms. it seems that Facebook's terms weren't too onerous for Goldberg, and fabulis is, well, pretty fabulis as a result.

broadcasting, television, X_Factor-tipping

The Joy of X Down Under: X-Factor has hit Australia, but why are only the Brits excited?

last night the X-Factor hit Australia. but despite a huge marketing push by Seven, the launch episode achieved only a disappointing 1.186m, making it the fifth most watched programme of the night behind four news and current affairs efforts. the winner, Nine's A Current Affair, won the ratings battle with – ironically enough – an interview with the family of Matthew Newton, the X-Factor host recently dumped by Seven.

as a big fan of the show in the UK – where it's fair to say it's a bit of a national institution – I've spend much of today (amongst other things) pondering why it is that Australia just doesn't seem to 'get' X …

on paper it should all add up. Australia likes Reality formats (as evidenced by the huge success of Masterchef); there's a gap in the schedule (the aforementioned Chef has just finished); there's a natural audience underserved by reality music shows (Australian Idol is a distant memory); and awareness of the show's imminent arrival was more than apparent.

but even during the day yesterday there were worrying signs. I asked a few people if they were looking forward to X that evening to which the most upbeat response I got was "oh, maybe". in fact the only person with any enthusiasm for rushing home for a night in with the format was another Brit, who assured me that his fellow Brits were similarly excited. but it seems, as judged by the shows performance, it was a decidedly British sentiment. a hangover from the glory of the show in the Motherland.

having watched the show there's clearly some issue with the content. the production quality lacks the shine of the UK version, but this may very much be a result of the hastily re-edited version that Freemantle had to get out of the door following Newton's departure. but the issues don't stop there – the judges lack conviction; Ronan's quiet as a mouse, Guy is far too puppyish and whilst he had valid comments they just weren't packaged; the Imbruglia seemed to be focusing on how attractive the talent was and poor Kyle just seemed to hold an expression of mild boredom before rolling off a pre-prepared put down. the judges, ironically, lacked a confidence that's fundamental to their role.

but the content on the other side of the table didn't fair much better. there was some good but certainly not spectacular singers; if X is hoping for an international recording artist to emerge it better have had more up it's sleeve for the second round of auditions.

but none of this explains the poor performance of last night's show – as none of this would have been apparent until the show went to air, by which time not enough people were watching (and by my straw poll of six they were mainly Brits).

we can only hope and expect that the show gathers pace. the talent needs to come through and the judges need to find their feet, and the production quality of the live finals will surely increase. but in the meantime serious questions must be being asked at Seven… about just why Australia doesn't seem to want the X-Factor; because whilst it's going to be a yes from me, how Australia votes is another matter entirely.

innovating, planning, reaching

The inverse relationship between innovation and scale: and the tragedy of smart stuff that simply passes us by

this is good. really good. OK so no one is going to disagree with the fact that it's a cracking bit of insight-translated-into-execution. but here's the thing… does it reach enough people, and is that important? and am I a bad planner for even asking that question?

I've written recently about the tyranny of reach and the grip that it holds on Australian marketers. I observed that reach is, as Admiral Ackbar would say, a trap… as long as it remains our default method of measurement, our modus enumeri if you like, we will eternally be lamenting our collective inability to stretch fewer resources over more places in more ways.

so I don't for a second give credence to 'reach-based' advertising, but I do suspect that in the main there's probably two kinds of media campaign in the world. mainstream media campaigns that have scale, and innovative media campaigns that remain niche. there are of course exceptions to this – those examples of innovative media thinking that break through and deliver scale, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule; by in large – from a media perspective – my bet is that there's an inverse relationship between scale and innovation… a bit like this…

avoiding the innovation vs. scale envelope into which most media campaigns fall

the challenge for any media effort is to get into the top right quarter, you want to innovate so that you cut-thru / are engaged with / generate earned media / bring down the overall cost-per-impact of your effort. given these conditions, there are generally therefore only two ways to get top right… either you attach scale to your innovative efforts or you inject innovation into existing scale.

a comment was made to me earlier in the week that one of the great benefits of using Facebook is the scale it can bring to an idea. in this context you can rationalise how one of the main reasons Facebook's ad revenues are set to undergo such significant growth is because advertisers increasingly see it as a 'safe' way to bring scale to a schedule. Facebook is a very good 'scaler'.

the alternative is to take an idea that already has scale and inject
innovation into it – I guess you could argue that efforts to, for
example, bring interactivity to TV sponsorship fit this model.

methods to get you right and top – scalers and innovators

in a perfect world of course you shouldn't have to either attach scale or inject innovation into a plan; both should be inherent – we should be in the business of creating innovative communications ideas that travel. but these are rare beasts… and I suspect that whilst no doubt too many conventional solutions fail to innovate, the greater tragedy are the countless innovative media efforts that go to market without sufficient thought into how scale can be generated. their failure to reach us is ultimately our loss.

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MEDIATION

negotiating the future of media and communications