Wu hoo…activism.

    Google Reason.

    Marketing

    Social Media and Warts.

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    “Authentic” is the latest marko-babble term being tossed around by today’s social mediaists – people who practice social media as if a religion. Since it’s on the tip of every digital marketing tongue today, I’ve been trying to learn what it means — and I’ve asked some pretty smart people. The answer I often get is another marko-babble term “transparent.”  It seems authentic and transparent connote the honest and forthright response to the consumer baring of a product’s warts. When online consumers suggested “Comcast service sucks” an authentic response from the corporation was to fix the problem and socialize that fix online. Well that’s just good business.

     

    Here’s my problem with authenticity and transparency: It’s not always managed properly.  When consumers are driving the conversation, the weighting of messages may not be most conducive to sales. Let’s say iPhones sales are optimized when the media mix is 75% apps and 25% price — something that can be managed by Apple. But what happens when consumers are allowed to move the dial in favor of apps and that changes the optimized mix?

     

    Don’t get me wrong, I love social media and I love consumers who are passionate enough about a product to post, but I also believe ceding control of the conversation can have a downside…and it needs to be managed. Peace!  

     

    Honk if you see an empty SUV.

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    Throughout history revolutions have been started between the haves and have nots due to conspicuous consumption. One glaring example of conspicuous consumption today is the SUV. Now I know it’s America and everyone is free to do what they like but when I see one of these huge death stars rolling down Rodeo (sorry Zach de la Rocha) with only a driver I go a bit batty. 
     
    We need to make it so that SUV owners feel dirty when driving around town with no passengers. Hell, they shouldn’t be driving them with 3 passengers. Get a car! And don’t talk to me about safety. When all the SUVs are gone, we’ll all be safer.
     
    Here’s a bumper stick for you: “Honk if you see an empty SUV.” Take that soccer mom! Have some derision with your morning coffee. Start having to park in the back corner of the parking lot for a change. See how that feels.  We can turn this thing around people. Start honking.
     
     

    The library is in jeopardy.

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    Months ago, I would have told you there is no way books will become paperless. The GUI of a book lets you read it at the beach in bright sun, on the subway squished between passengers, even in a tent by candlelight. And the Kindle? No way I could see myself reading The Old Curiosity Shop by the fireplace on a digital reader.  But today, I’m pretty sure I was wrong. Newspapers, magazines and, yes, even paper books will be greatly reduced in our lifetimes. Asmore and more people get used to reading on mobile phones, and other portable digital devices it’s only a matter of time before me evolve from nonrenewable paper-based media.

     

    So what does that hold for libraries? Libraries are for research and free books. Today, by the time you drive or ride to the library, you have in one Wikipedia page access to hundreds of linked sources.  Across the country taxpayers are voting down library budgets every day, especially so in today’s economy. Libraries need to get ahead of this trend and reinvent themselves. Any thoughts?

     

    Google and Carbon Footprints.

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    On its homepage today Google promotes it is Carbon Neutral since 2007.  I believe Google. But I also Googled “Google’s carbon footprint.” The result?

    “Google unleashed 12,529,953 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2019. That’s roughly equivalent to more than 2.73 million passenger vehicles’ pollution in a year.

    That’s a lot of nasty gas. The fact the company has been carbon neutral since 2007 doesn’t mean they aren’t releasing CO2, it just means they are buying carbon offsets to minimize their CO2 pollution until they can meet their 2030 goal, stated as “We’re decarbonizing our energy consumption so that by 2030, we’ll operate on carbon-free energy, everywhere, 24/7.”

    Being carbon neutral or, better yet, zero carbon is the goal of planetary health. Google gets that. But their server farms are causing greenhouse gases like few others. The good news is they want to fix it. Buying carbon offsets until such a time as they can actually power their farms with renewable energy is laudable. But for the next 8ish years, it’s still a spew-fest. And the globe is warming.  I would not be surprised to see parent company Alphabet get into the energy business. If they are listening, a topic for another day, I suggest they use the next 8 years researching and developing renewables. It’s a better near-term mission than colonizing Mars.

    Peace.

     

     

    Offshore versioning Part. 2

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    In my last post I mentioned how digital agencies are offshoring video production work to make it affordable to version TV and Internet ads for multiple target audiences — a strategy that mirrors direct marketers one-to-one mantra.  Versioning may be lucky enough to have some successes but on balance it is a flawed strategy.

     

    Good brand planning attempts to find a single voice and idea for its selling stories.  Coke is refreshment.  MySpace is friends. Corona is about kicking back.  In order to develop this type of overarching idea, planners need to evaluate what appeals to the most people in the brand target.  To find what the target shares in common. As Peter Kim of McCann-Erickson and JWT used to say, the target needs to be broken down into its pieces, understood, then “remassified” into a single entity.  When we find a shared care-about that our brands can fulfill, then we can develop smart communications.

     

    The fact that a TV commercial costs over $350,000 to make today, makes it an imperative that marketers and ad agencies agree on a single selling idea.  L’Oreal hair care used to take close to a full year to prepare a TV ad with Heather Locklear. The dress had to be perfect, the staircase just right, etc.  Ads, in many cases, were works of art. But with 20+ versions of an ad running, the quality of the idea must suffer.

     

    Developing versioned ads, the production of which is handled offshore, with multiple scripts written by God knows whom and casting handled by committee, spells disaster.

     

    Things we remember.

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    We remember beauty. 

    We remember new. 

    We remember rich. 

    We remember melody. 

    We remember funny. 

    We remember nature. 

    We remember poetry. 

    We remember pain. 

    We remember educators. 

    We remember warmth. 

    We remember charity. 

    We remember happy. 

    We remember love. 

    We remember triumph. 

    These are the things we remember. 

    These are the things consumers remember.

     

    (I post this planning piece once a year, lest I forget.) 

    Passion or commitment?

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    Here’s a quote from today’s New York Times by Sony Electronics new SVP of advertising “Sony’s consumer research showed that consumers had great passion for Sony but that the brand was not making an emotional connection.”
     
    Could we please, please stop confusing passion for a brand with commitment? People love Sony because of amazing design and quality. Sony ads need to convey that design and quality and do so without getting in the way.  But to listen to BBDO’s David Lubars it’s all about the ads.  Said Lubars, “They make products that delight people, that are fun and entertaining, and their communications should reflect that humanness.” (I’m sure Mr. Lubars said a lot more this, but that’s all that was reported.) The Times reporter embellished, “The humorous quality of the ads was meant to make the brand feel accessible.” 
     
    Passion and “feel good” are byproducts of advertising — related to tone. Commitment to purchase is what agencies need to work on. Commitment to purchase and repurchase are the rational things people conger up when being passionate. Demonstrations of product superiority and difference are the way to that grail.

    Ads. TV vs. Online.

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    Quick, think of the best online ad you ever saw. What is it?  Thought so, you can’t. Okay maybe the BMW webisode or Whopper Challenge…but that’s about it. Know why? Because, for the most part, web ads aren’t that artful. Low cost, lacking in original music and idea, most leaderboards and rectangles are stilted, choppy and pretty ham-handed (whatever that means). The audio is usually sub-par and often stock.

     

    McCann-Erickson was once the best shop in the world at creating original music for its clients. Today it’s a lost art; now agencies crow about buying music from the next Emo or House band. On the cheap. Music adds a richness and a tone to advertising;it becomes part of the story. Most people on the web don’t want audio in their ads.

     

    The reason TV commercials still work better than any other advertising medium is the story telling. The casting. The stylists. Sounds design. Editing. TV commercials create emotional responses. Writing for a :30 must be perfect because the story is so short. Every word counts.

     

    Digital advertising is a wonderful new medium in that gets consumer one-click away from purchase or inquiry, but today that ROI metric is overshadowing the potential artfulness of the medium. When ideas have to be bounced off the Flash editor, you know you are in trouble. Peace!

     

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    Penske. If not today…

    I was very sad to read Roger Penske has dropped his plan to buy the Saturn Corporation from General Motors. My bet was that Mr. Penske, who has a record of automotive turnarounds, was going to have great success with Saturn. That bet was placed upon the idea that a lot of NASCAR enthusiasts and “car heads” know Mr. Penske and admire him. Admiring someone who actually knows a thing or two about a carburetor, driving at high speeds, and what a garage looks like at 2 A.M. under a hanging light bulb is way different than trying to feel affinity with a company run by “phone guy” walking around a gleaming showroom in a Hermes suit.

    One of the reasons I got into brand planning was to answer the question “Why will a rural head of household with a annual earned income of $25,000, spend hard earned cash on premium motor oil for the family truck and then go in and eat chicken gizzards for dinner?” (Fried gizzards are actually quite good, if you must know.) It’s about brands (claims, supports and demonstrations).

    There are lots of American’s who trust Mr. Penske. They would buy a car from him sight unseen. He is real. He is an expert. He’s not a paid pitchman. He commands market share.

    Mr. Penske will be back. My guess is he will have an electric car offering and it will rock our world. Peace!

    Marketing Buildables and Strategy.

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    I’m guessing the percentage of global marketing budgets spent on strategy is 1%. Maybe sub. I’ll also go on record as saying that 90% is invested into buildables – the ads, websites, POS, and content we built to help sell. That leaves 9 percent for what? Measurement, analytics, quantitative research.

    This is a shame. It’s also why only half of advertising works. It’s why Google is killing it and in many cases becoming strategy for marketers.

    What is strategy? It’s a plan to accomplishing a goals. An organizing principle for tactics. Talk to many marketing and you’ll find many who confuse objectives and strategies. And tactics and strategy.

    The absolute most important part of a market plan is the strategy page. It’s the page that requires the most thought, the most time, the most discussion and the most complete buy-in from senior management. When the marketing plan is reviewed by senior management, in what typically is a 2 hour meeting once a year, it’s the budget page that gets the most attention. Who will get the most buildables? Who will create them? Where will they go? What will they achieve?

    It’s backwards. For every percentage point taken from buildables and put into strategy, the payout is truly significant. As my Norwegian aunt used to say “Tink about it.”

    Peace.