Altacircle

One of the topics we are constantly discussing is making advertising more authentic. A real POV, a big ideal, a non-manufactured reason for a brand or a company to talk sincerely to its customers.

The same challenge is there for managers. If the digital culture has developed a universal bullshit detector for advertising, we apply it everywhere. And the top place is management memos. When you create these communications working with comms folks, lawyers and 15 managers with 15 opinions, it is easy to understand why the human tone is lost, but the reality is the lack of damage by being bland and mundane is actually more damaging.

Look at the new CEO of Yahoo’s first global communication below. It is identikit corp speak and shows once again how far yahoo has come from an owner managed, entrepreneurial venture like Virgin or Facebook.

Yahoos:

Thank you for all of the feedback, support, and comments since our all-hands meetings in Sunnyvale on Monday and NYC on Wednesday. I’m fired up and I hope you are too. I believe in the power of what we’re doing. We have an incredibly talented team, unparalleled strengths in key areas and most importantly, I see the purple pride building everywhere. Let’s move forward quickly with conviction and confidence.

We have a lot to do. The most pressing thing I heard from you is the desire to clearly define our vision and strategy. I promise you we will be transparent and plan to articulate this in the coming weeks. Right now, we’re identifying the most critical priorities and initiatives, clarifying the scope and charter of teams, ensuring we’re positioned to build on successes quickly and effectively, and focusing on Q2.

This is a great debate that Brian Morrissey has picked up for the last story on the DigiDay Brands email or perhaps I shouid say “anchor position.”

I remember trying to launch Priceline in the UK in 1999 — we bought every banner you could, make great ads and no one knew what Priceline was when we were done.  Now that was 1999, but the same problem happens today.  Jerry Neuman makes an interesting case — direct mail has also chased brand building budgets and even though you can produce a stunning card, it hasn’t succeeded.

Of course to me the question really is moot — as TVs become more connected and video search extends to the living room TV will be more like the web with all of the ad auctions, targeting and remessaging that we see online.

The question is what wil the ads look like then?

As I like to say, when we realized we could do direct mail, we didn’t put a poster in the post.  And when direct mail shifted to email, the formats all changed again. 

So what will become of the 30 second spot when the TVs are all connected?

What If Online Doesn’t Work For Branding?

April 16, 2012 – 8:00 am  

Jerry Neumann is a partner in Neu Venture Capital, a New York City-based seed-stage investor group with investments in 33Across, Metamarkets, PerformLine, The Trade Desk, Optim.al, Media Armor, and Yieldbot among others.

Jokes all start with one of a few stock set-ups. “A man walked into a bar.” But the punchlines are all different. VC pitches are the opposite: the set-ups are all different, but the punchlines are all the same.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. “We enable the half of advertising that is not yet online: brand advertising!” Been hearing that one for more than ten years now. It permeates the hopes and dreams of every adtech entrepreneur and investor. And still no one has cracked the code.

My friend Tim Hanlon got together with Tim Chang a few weeks ago on AdExchanger to offer some reasons why this might be. Worth your time, but here’s the tl;dr:

• No standards or consistent measures of “success” other than outdated or inadequate metrics like CPM and CTR;
• Limited real-time intelligence;
• Unsuitable display ad formats; and
• Lack of creativity in formats.

The prize is huge. As Tim and Tim point out, two-thirds of advertising spending is brand advertising, but online only one quarter is. In fact, if brand advertising dollars moved online in the same proportion that sales advertising has, it would almost exactly close the famous gap between time spent online and ad dollars spent online. The $50 billion gap that Mary Meeker mentions is exactly equal to the missing brand spend.

I understand the urgent desire to figure out online brand advertising. If we did, we’d more than double the online advertising market. Online pubs would rejoice, online marketing pros would have more excuses to go out drinking with prospective clients, my portfolio value would quintuple overnight. Good things all. And I appreciate the optimism that Tim and Tim have, their willingness to keep suggesting solutions. But I think it’s the triumph of hope over experience. Each of the proposed solutions has been tried, and tried and tried. And still we believe that this time it’s different, that this year an online branding play will work. Online video maybe, or Facebook, or Pinterest. Every new company is touted as the one that will make branding work online.

But what if we try all these things, like we’ve tried everything before, and they don’t work? What if we eliminate all the possibilities and what remains is… nothing? I’m going to be branded a heretic for saying this, but what if online just doesn’t work for branding?

A year ago I published a post internally at JWT, and here on Altacircle, talking about why agencies need to learn software development.  The argument was that all good digital marketing is software at the end of the day, and that as long as most agency personnel respond with the expression “but I’m not technical,” it will be hard for us to do good digital marketing.   Today Joe Lozito, SVP Technology at Digitas, published a piece on Digiday titled "Why Marketers Need to Think Like Developers" on the same theme.

A big part of my argument from a year ago was that as our advertising / marketing industry changes, this is a big an opportunity.  IT spending is over 3 times advertising spending and as advertising become more technical, it is likely marketing will call on IT to divert funds from internal infrastructure projects to technical projects that are consumer facing.

Just this past December, Gartner has published its predictions for 2012 and has stated that by 2015 they expect 35% of IT expenditure to be managed outside of the IT department.  This can be seen as a threat if those budgets are handed to traditional IT partners like Accenture or the new breed like Sapient, but it is also an opportunity if the overall IT expenditure remains the same and the funds are shifted to teams that understand consumer needs and how to make a compelling user experience.

Of course these moves don’t happen overnight.  Technical projects include technical people and they have every right to question the capability of their partner doing the work.  So once again, agencies really do need to learn software development.

Marketing Code: Why Agencies Need to Learn Software Development

The world’s fixation with technology isn’t new.

CES is has grown so big people need Segways to get to their keynotes, Intel has posted the highest revenue in it’s 42 year history and  according to Gartner worldwide IT spending will be $2.5 trillion in  2011.  This is a number which is more than 3 times worldwide advertising spending.

What is new is that after years of curiously watching their IT  colleagues wrestle with ERP supply chain systems, marketers are being  dragged in.

Amends on a set of rich media ads aren’t covered in e-mail, they are  managed through an extranet bug tracker.  The campaign planning to  redesign a brand site starts with a workshop to agree use cases.  Under  half way into a six-month project to launch a set of in-store displays  we learn a three day delay on approving the concept will shift the  launch date three days.

This is the world of systems integration and you only need to  consider a few of the activities that make up marketing today to see why we marketers really need to learn software development.

http://altacircle.com/blog/2010/12/31/marketing-code…re-development/

If you think of all of the types of civil dissent — marches, protests, sit-ins, occupies — this one is a new one for the mix.   Given the mess of a piece of legislation going through Congress, it is great to see the tech and internet industry mobilize a bit.

Self induced denial of service?

It is clearly effective since every major media outlet has picked up the story and generally put in on page 1, err, the homepage, err, the top of their feed.  Given how easy it is to contact your members of congress online, it isn’t surprising a change to Tumbler resulted in 80,000 calls to representatives.  Be interesting to see wikipedia’s response rates.

Of course as a reader of Cory Doctorow and supporter of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, it has to be said the issue is a complicated on.  Forcing DNS edits, allowing persecution of host sites and removing of links definitely seems like classic bad work in Congress.

And just at a time when the industry is making buying videos and magazines easy enough to provide real revenue and the ad industry is getting organized to turn the digital pennies everyone is complaining about into digital dollars that can support publishers as well as independent artists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/technology/web-wide-protest-over-two-antipiracy-bills.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=global-home

For all of the talk of technology reducing the need for business travel, planes seem pretty full these days.

It is a true cliche to say that business is more global than ever and we’re seeing it on our dotJWT team with people working on the development that are spread from Buenos Aires to London to Dubai and Singapore.  The question I’d like to see research on is how often do you need to be physically across from each other and how much video, voice, IM and skype can work.

There is no question Kick-offs are critical.  People often don’t know each other and there is so much more communicated face to face in getting to know people.  In fact, sort of like the inane 18 hour university road trips that create life friendships, I’d say it has to be about more then dinner.  Teams that will work together have to be forced to sit in windowless office conference rooms for at least 6 hours before they can go to a fantastic trendy bar and celebrate together … for another 4 hours.

This punches through any posturing, gives time for differing agendas to make it out and allows peples real characters to come through.  And those are the characters that make or break a project.

That’s the easy part, but then comes the big question:  teams will drift apart pretty quickly if they aren’t pulled together and reminded of the common reason we’re all spending time on whatever it is we’re doing.  The Roman Army had a great way to keep people working to a common goal:  if a group broke ranks or lacked discipline, they drew lots and one tenth were then bludgened to death by their peers.  This could work for excessive use of powerpoint slides today but I don’t think it fits with modern motivation theory.

So instead we use Check Points to get teams in front of senior executives and remind everyone of progress.  Team Incentives can include business travel to nice places dolled up as “train the trainer” programs.  But at the end of the day, it is the routine communication that has to keep the team together.

So the question is:  Can technology do it?  Do extranets like Base Camp make a bid difference?  They definitely keep people informed.  Do video conferencing like our JWT Talking Heads tool do better then phone conferences?  You can’t put Skype on mute when you’re peering into the camera like LonelyGirl15 waiting for the conversation to come round.  As much as you may say “but I know what they look like” there is more bandwidth in a video call then voice alone.

And last is video conferencing rooms.  The great technology that was supposed to save us from the aluminium baloons that haul us — too slowly — across the planet.

I suppose the answer is all of the above.  Looking forward to reading more of the science and checking it against the ever so particular environment that is JWT, and then publishing what really works.

So here another brand gets into trouble trying to generate content from bloggers.  In this case a set of food and mommy bloggers were asked to attend an underground restaurant run by George Duran, the celebrity chef but for the last course, a Marie Callender’s frozen food was served, and the bloggers reactions filmed by hidden cameras.

Not a new technique, but a classic mistake given the bloggers cardinal rule against shilling.

So the question is it subtle?  Not really.  “Brands need to start behaving like human beings” is the phrase we are hearing more and more.  And that is simple enough.

But just as brands should put the customer first and every company knows it has to take care of its people as its most important asset, doing is much harder then saying.

And there is no question that social media is unforgiving, as the NY Times so well point out in their article.

Lots of people call out great videos on YouTube.  The Keyboard Cat and Double Rainbow probably have as much unaided awareness as Coke Zero and this shouldn’t be surprising, video works.  TV advertising and millions of dollars of research has proven that over 50 years.

My question is as video moves online, how will it become more interactive?  YouTube has their Creative Gallery which talks about adding a set of different techniques:

• Overlay Information
• Outbound Links
• Branching Storylines
• Interactive Scenes

and there are a number of other companies offering tools like Video Tagging.  But none of these seem to be catching on a real advertising unit or interactive tool.
We can’t say it all hasn’t been hyped.  In 2006 Business Week ran an article “Video Tagging Gets Cool.”  In 2007 MGM Grand’s “Maximum Vegas Tour” had clickable areas for overlay information and navigation and won a Bronze Cannes Lion.  Today, Maximum Vegas is still on MGM Grand’s site, but it is a linear video.  Video tagging isn’t talked about and few videos include hotspots, branching storylines or even adjacent content tied to the video timeline. 
When you look at a case like Samsung’s “Follow Your Instinct” you see a branching video story that has high production values and sexy actors, but only 300k views.  Perhaps the product message is too strong to go viral like Double Rainbow (28 million views) or keyboard cat (15 million) or even Old Spice’s man on a horse (where the making of had 1.7m views).
It is well understood that video assets made for TV end up on YouTube and that they will be linear.  But all of us are also filming for digital channels and catching outtakes and looking to push the envelope to make our work more engaging. 
Why not more interactivity?

The big question is this a creative director’s worst nightmare?

Direct Marketing creatives have long been forced to consider results alongside aesthetics and concept in creating ads.  Either people respond or they don’t and it is usually anywhere between 3 days (for email) and 3 weeks (for direct mail) before you find out.

Now this level of measurement is coming to advertising.  Whether it is social media reaction, % of watches versus fast forwards on DVRs, or clicks on tablets, our industry will be measured.  And it will change the creative we produce because we have been hired as professional marketing consultants to get results, not as professional designers to deliver creative.  The more we add science to our craft to match the magic of a great idea, the better we’ll all be.

Does the collective subconscious of 90 people make a better judge than 1 Gerry Moira?

♻ Retweet

Gerry Moira Chairman & Director of Creativity, Euro RSCG says that this is a great ad:

Award Winning Freelander Ad.

He awarded it best ad of the month in The Anna’s saying “Against a long term car park of ads with shiny metal boxes, this ad employs a confident and differentiated use of illustration…”
But does it sell? We wanted to find out if it was effective in communicating key messages of ‘0% APR Typical*’ and ‘Why get a car when you can get a Land Rover?’
We tested it with 30 appropriate people recruited via in street intercepts to avoid any bias from a self-selecting sample who had opted in to be part of a market research panel. We tracked where their eyes looked and recorded their subconscious emotional reactions using facial coding whilst they looked at an appropriate publication that included the Freelander ad.

The heatmap shows what 30 readers looked at:

Eye Tracking Results From 30 Viewers.

 

Always a bit funny to see yourself speaking, but also a great way to be better!

This is from my Social Media Week presentation in Toronto.  The presentation is about 40 minutes but the Q&A went on for a full additional hour if you really, really have nothing else to do.

JWT presents Business behind the Buzz with John Baker from JWT Toronto on Vimeo.

I’ve been listening to Cory Doctorow’s podcast on the train and it is amazing how many ideas pop into your head when you hear a futurist and technologist — or at least a good one — speak.

Creative Process / Design Competitions

In a podcast today Cory talked about a game designer at IDEO that feels their is a failure in design competitions where a cash prize is held out for the “best idea.”  The reality is by definition the best idea is generated because the best people are competing and holding back their ideas from one another. 
By structuring the competition in another way this can be avoided.  For example if there is an open community board that works to solve the problem and the prize is awarded based on participation and quality of the ideas and commentary which is all recorded, then people will be open to collaborating.

Use of Twitter for Idea Generation

The growth of Twitter has surprised plenty of people but it shouldn’t.  It is simply the technology can be used so many ways that makes it so powerful.  From sharing banalities with friends, to being an easier way to blog, to idea generation.  Here is an obvious but solid Doctorow use:  Need a column idea for the Guardian?  Ask your twitter community and then re-tweet back the ideas that are the most interesting for a second level of comment.  The result, in 20 minutes really solid ideas are generated and vetted.

Application in Advertising and Digital Agencies

Idea generation in traditional agencies focuses on small sets of people iterating ideas in dark rooms.  In digital agencies the ideas tend to be more multidiscipline and include more brainstorms before documentation, but are still managed mostly without technology.  The big question is how can some of these ideas be applied without the “committee effect” that takes a nascent great idea for the horse, and turns it into a camel. 

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