Just in case anyone's interested I've stuck a batch of my recent Campaign columns here. Beware, there's not much talk of fry-ups or interestingness in there. Looking back at them they mostly seem to consist of me having a go at advertising, in the trade journal of advertising. Surely not a sustainable way for me to carry on. Oh well.
Here's the Campaign thing from last week:
I've spent a lot of the last year bouncing between digital agencies, regular agencies and brand-owners, watching how things are working and trying to help. And the first thing you notice is the different kind of ideas different businesses need to do good work. So if you'll forgive some typically plannerly word-flummery, I want to spend some time teasing out the difference between a Big Idea and a Rich Idea.
Big Ideas are what everyone in advertising and marketing seems to want all the time. The bigger the better. No-one ever really defines what this means, it just has to be big, but I always think of it as something like a High Concept Hollywood movie, something you can express in very few words and everyone will immediately 'get' like; "Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito are Twins". Big Ideas are supposed to be instant, loud and obvious once you hear them. And there's nothing inherently wrong with this, except a lot of Big Ideas end up feeling more like the famous Hollywood sign; big, bright and noticeable, but with nothing behind it. They're a bit thin, a bit insubstantial. This was OK when all a Big Idea had to support was three TV scripts and some print and posters, but its flatness really shows when the poor digital agency has to turn it into an extended, immersive, online experience, not just a silly game of whack-a-mole with the brand mascot.
Which is why, although it's just playing with words, I prefer to think about Rich Ideas. Richard Huntington describes this kind of idea as 'generous' meaning it's something that every agency and partner around the brand management table doesn't just 'get', they can immediately think of a dozen great ways to bring it to life in their particular medium. A Rich Idea might have instant appeal but it also has hidden depths, emotional resonance, inherent drama. If a Big Idea is like a high concept movie then a Rich Idea is like the premise for a soap opera or a series. It implies some development, some unfolding over time, some mystery. Those high concept movies didn't spawn a load of interesting sequels because they were so thin, the cinematic equivalents of one-liners, but a simple premise like the one for Buffy The Vampire Slayer - high-school as horror movie - conjours up an entire imaginary universe, one which its fans are still exploring. Give a good digital agency something like that to play with and they'll do something magical, give them the average advertising idea and they'll do a stupid flash game.
And, then, I realised that I missed one out a few weeks ago, and I've not scanned it. So here's the text, it's greenish:
If a group of alien anthropologists arrived from a distant planet and started to study advertising agencies what do you think they'd conclude about our purpose? I suspect they'd conclude that agencies are in the business of putting bits of polyboard in taxis and driving them around town. Or that maybe they exist as places for big, black cars to wait outside, engines idling. Or that they're machines for getting huge wodges of paper, putting very few words on them and binding them together so they can, again, be put in taxis and driven around town. I don't think they'd conclude that communications agencies are at the cutting edge of sustainable practise. And we're not are we? We're happy to do alarmingly dramatic and award-winning ads about green issues and carbon neutrality, we're less inclined to make sure all the computers are switched off in the evening.
And, frankly, all you hard-nosed business types could be forgiven for not caring less about my funny little morality parable if it wasn't for the fact that, just around the corner, your financial existence may depend upon your ability to get things switched off and your understanding of what kind of inks you're using in your Christmas cards. And it's all because of Marks and Spencer.
Their rather splendid Plan A initiative feels like a tipping point for sustainability practice in the UK. The other big retailers are bound to respond in some way. And then everyone else. Sustainable compliance will become a boardroom priority. Voluntary codes will be established and popularised. Government ones will swing in with the force of Health and Safety. And then this influence will swim up and down the supply chain; reaching to factories in China and posh restaurants in Soho. And then you'll really have to worry about it.
Because it's not going to be long for before most pitches will be accompanied by a Sustainability Compliance document and those nice procurement people will be poking around your photocopying room and visiting you at night to see how many lights you've got left on. That's probably the easy stuff to fix but I bet your production people have been trying to talk to you about your printers recently mentioning things like ISO 14001. Have you been listening? You probably should. You should probably do what they say. It might make your new business mailer a little more expensive but it'll keep you from falling off the list for all those big fabulous pitches. (For a quick, readable primer on printing issues you can go here: http://tinyurl.com/2hhc8c).
Here's last week's Campaign thing. I fell for the last resort of the desperate columnist and wrote about twitter. Sorry about that.
If you've been watching the blogosphere recently you'll have noticed that everyone's all aflutter about something called Twitter. It's a simple little thing that allows a kind of nano-blogging; you can use your phone or your computer to announce (to your friends or to the world) what you're doing right now. And some people do that. Others use it as a platform for jokes or complaints, or to announce the biscuits they're going to eat in a meeting. For some it's a digital postcard. Most people use it as a virtual equivalent of the quick hello in the corridor. It's stupid, pointless, trivial and completely addictive. The best introduction is to go to twittervision.com and watch the twitters roll in from around the world, it's like a haiku-sized soap opera with a cast of digerati grouching and joking through their digitally-mediated lives. I mention it because Twitter points at some interesting things to think about:
1. It wasn't invented by who it should have been invented by.
Twitter has driven massive amounts of increased text usage, from me alone, yet it wasn't invented by any telco, it was invented by some software/web guys in silicon valley, because it was a service they wanted. The costs of developing these things are so low now that ideas like this are popping up everywhere, in a fraction of the time it would take to squeeze them through a corporate hierarchy. And it didn't have to be tech guys. It could have been someone reading this.
2. The stuff we used to dig for is now bubbling to the surface.
If I was launching a global marketing campaign today, especially if it was vaguely techy, I'd project a big twittervision screen on the wall and see if it showed up there. That would be a sign of success. I bet Apple could do that, watching the twitterings about the iPhone announcement was a mark of their brand power. You can see your campaigns unfold on blogs today, but it's slow, it doesn't really live up to the name 'buzz'. When/If Twitter gets big you'll know immediately if you've made an impression.
3. You won't understand it until you try it.
It's become increasingly clear to me that you can't explain new media to people. Just as you can't understand TV by reading about it you can't really get digital media without trying it. It's not how the service works that's important, it's how it feels to do it and share it with your friends. So have a go. And add me at twitter.com/russelldavies
And on a more important note Caroline of Campaign has another Campaign Yahoo! Big Ideas interview coming up and wonders if anyone has any thoughts:
The next Campaign Yahoo! Big Ideas interview is with Alan Bishop who as chief executive of COI has one of the most challenging and varied jobs in communications, handling the most important campaigns around with objectives set by ministers rather than marketing directors. Caroline would like to hear if you have any questions to put to Alan (who is, incidentally, Britain’s largest producer of toy hedgehogs – for its child road safety initiative). Comments on this below please.
Here's last week's Campaign piece. I had more fun writing this than anything I've done before because it's not the usual planning/brands nonsense, it's about the people in agencies who actually get things done. (Who, I should have remembered like to call themselves 'Creative Services' these days.) And, of course, I got more feedback on this than anything I've written. ie I got some feedback rather than none. Because traffic people are lovely and gracious. Thanks everyone.
One day soon, when planners as rare as chimney sweeps, creatives are just avatars and advertising is a cottage industry again, we will still have bequeathed a lasting gift to the world. Our two greatest disciplines, the engines of our economy, will outlive our puny business and flourish in the outside world because they're the people who actually know how to get stuff done. I'm talking of course, of traffic and production.
If you haven't done it recently, spend some time with traffic. They experience the world in a deeper way than you and me. They exist in time and space, but also perceive dimensions of cost and practicality, of real time, pitch time and lunch-time. They negotiate tides of creative entropy, waves of management paranoia and the tsunamis of new business. An expert traffic person can weedle, cajole, threaten and condemn with the flick of an eyebrow. They know where all the bodies are buried and when to dig them up again. They know how long things should take, how long they will actually take and how long they should tell you they'll take. Watching a seasoned traffic person dragging work out of a gnarled old creative team is like watching that infamous imaginary fight between the bear and the shark. Except you know the bear will win, because deadlines must be met. Traffic makes ideas happen.
As a planner I've always regretted that I spent most of my career at the other end of the line to production. TV producers are unutterably glamorous creatures; the foreign correspondents of advertising, reeking of airport lounges, hotel bars and Soho. But if you're stuck in a desert needing a crate of Tizer, four jugglers and a helicopter they'll get on the phone and those things will arrive. And I love print producers because they represent our last connection to craft-skills and the actual physical world. If they say something can't be done it's not a conceptual thing (ie someone won't let you do it) it's a literal thing - you can't actually print that on that, you can't get those to stick on there. It's impossible. And then, of course, they find a way to do it.
It's this commitment to getting things done that means these trades will probably outlive the rest of us. Every company you come across seems to call itself an idea business right now, we think it makes us special. But ideas are the easiest, fastest and cheapest things to have in the world. It's getting them made that's hard, and for that you need traffic and production. Ladies and Gentleman, we salute you.
Here's last week's Campaign thing. More blah blah blah about blogging. I need to find something else to write about really.
Blogs matter. They're easy to deride but they matter. Not because of the the technology or what people write or because millions of people are doing it, but because they show us what a world full of personally created media will be like. The blogosphere is dragging eyeballs and influence away from the mainstream so advertisers are going to have to learn how to deal with 'amateur media'. And it's not the same.
First thing to understand; if you want to get the most from a relationship with the blogosphere you've got to understand it. Obviously. This means reading blogs, and, ideally, writing one. You've grown up with magazines and telly, you know intuitively how they work. But you need a crash-course in blog grammar and writing one is the best way to get it. (If you're not reading lots of blogs, and you want to start, get yourself some kind of RSS reader, it's a lot easier, Google and Wikipedia will tell you what that means.) If you're not reading blogs but you're spending some money there, you might be wiser to invest your money with those nice men who email you about opportunities in Nigeria.
Second thing to recognise; there's not a lot of money in blogging. Very, very few people are getting rich out of it, and those that are tend to be in tiny niches. You might see this as opportunity (pick up lots of blog-readers for not much money) but it doesn't work like that, because most bloggers aren't doing it for money, they're doing it for fun, companionship, attention or any of thousands of reasons that people write or talk. So your regular space-for-cash transaction may not appeal to them. This can lead to a huge disparity between the value that you and your target blogger put on their content. You've probably looked at the audience, done the maths and come up with a reasonable, sensible offer; probably a few hundred quid. They look at the effort, love and time they put in and will most likely see your offer as insultingly small. It's not that either of you is wrong, it's just that you're valuing their media in different ways.
And this is something we're all going to have to get used to, as more and more eyeballs are seduced by amateur media, in whatever form. Maybe you should start a new department - Customer Media Relationship Management - to develop and sustain all these new relationships, for though they might want less cash than the average magazine, they'll demand far more care and attention.
Here's the Campaign thing from last week. (Ignore the email address on there, they seem determined to stop people getting in touch with me.)
I always thought 'account handler' was a rather revealing term. There aren't many other things that get handlers. Circus animals do. And B-list celebrities. But not much else, just 'accounts' in advertising agencies. And it seems to sum up some of the seedy cliches of the business. You sense that someone who's 'handling' an account is not really there to serve the needs of the client organisation, they're there to persuade it to spend more money, or to not change agency, or to indulge some creative whim or other. Maybe that's why there don't seem to be so many people calling themselves account handlers these days, I guess if you were genuinely good at that kind of manipulative handling you'd be smart enough to ditch the label.
I mention 'handling' because it seems like the perfect word to describe one of the pointless terrors of the modern marketing world; the tendency to endlessly debate and delineate the characteristics and minutiae of the brand, while completely failing to connect with any genuine business problem. I've come to think of this as Brand Handling; a kind of academic game which sucks everyone in but which only results in the Brand being Handled; that is pummeled, fondled and massaged through endless meetings and PowerPoint decks but with no substantive change happening in the real world. I bet you know what I mean. If you suspect you might have become involved in this perilous activity here are five telltale indications of early-stage Brand Handling:
1. You spend massive amounts of time debating which shape would be best used to clarify your brand model. More than one vegetable is on the list of potential shapes.
2. It takes longer to explain what your brand stands for than to explain what your product does. And doing so seems more important to you.
3. You've been involved in long meetings and furious email exchanges about whether the fifth of your brand values should be 'fun' or 'funny'. You don't see anything amusing in this.
4. You understand the semiotics of your product label but not the list of ingredients on the back.
5. You've worked on a piece of business for 6 months and the most creative thing you've done is put interesting pictures in PowerPoint.
I don't mean to point fingers here, because we've all done it. But this tendency to indulge in pointless theory is all the more dangerous when we're confronted with a commercial landscape that demands immediate and constant action. Spend too long Handling your Brand and you'll forget about serving your customer.
Here's last week's Campaign piece.
Writing these pieces for Campaign after
years of blogging has forced me to think about the relative
characteristics of all this new-fangled digital stuff and good
old-fashioned, grimy print. And I think the essential difference is
this; digital may be flexible, conversational, speedy and cheap, but
print still has this undeniable, irresistible weight and authority, an
authority that's attractive to readers, advertisers and writers.
A
good blog is conversational because it's porous, not just on the web,
but of the web. The joy of writing one is that you don't have to
explain everything, you can just link to it. If your reader wants to
pursue that link she will, if she doesn't she can continue with you.
The other great advantage is the way the possibility of feedback is
built-in, and the real value often comes from the discussion in the
comments, where your idea is really examined and refined. I suspect
that's why most blog posts look so half-formed compared to print
articles, they're not designed to be finished thoughts, they're offers
of conversation, thought-starters, provocations. (Or at least that's
what I tell myself every time I write a blog post that just dribbles to
an inconclusive ending.) All that combined with the fast pace of the
blogosphere and the minimal cost of entry makes it a buzzy, messy,
democratic place where every good thought leads to a good conversation
and every good conversation is global.
In contrast, print can
often look stodgy, stale and slow, but despite that there's still
something very compelling about it. And it's not just because this can
be read on the loo. Partly it's because you always feel like you have
to try and construct a decent argument here, make a point, explain
something clearly and round it off with a snappy ending. We're not in a
conversation, so I have some obligation to offer a complete idea. But
the bigger difference is that the very limitations of the format help
provide it's authority. There's only so much real estate available,
magazines aren't cheap to make, or free to access, so editorial
decisions have to be made; quality has to be determined, standards have
to be set. Which means you don't get the meritocratic but mediocre
sprawl of so many online publications.
These characteristics are
worth thinking about when planning brand communications; it's not about
costs per thousand it's about deciding whether you want to be
discursive or authoritative, whether you want to start a conversation
or make a case. And it's about realising that you should never promise
a snappy ending if you haven't got one.
Here's last week's Campaign thing:
Like all institutions the advertising industry is obsessed with self-preservation. Anything that hints at a trammeling of our expansion or reach is decried as unnecessary, anti-competitive and not good for consumers. Our trade bodies have knee-jerk press releases ready to go at the slightest hint of legislation controlling where ads are allowed to appear - almost always mentioning the likely Death of Children's Television and the resulting End of Western Civilisation. But maybe we should stop worrying and learn to love the fact that there'll just be less advertising and less commercial media in our futures, but that if we're smart it can be the rubbish that gets binned, not the high-quality stuff.
It's clear from every 'ad avoidance' study that if technology allows us to steer clear of advertising we're going to do so. (Even the terminology betrays our prejudices; 'ad avoidance'? as though avoiding ads is the aberrant behaviour and the normal thing to do is seek them out). And, to me, it's equally clear that society at large is asking for some rebalancing between commercial and private spaces. Bans on junk food ads may be clumsy tools but they demonstrate a societal desire to push back the extent of commercial interruption in our lives. And as traditional channels fragment clever media people are going to find new ways to barge into people's attention, just making the problem worse. How long before the posher villages and towns start to consider outlawing posters? How long before the EU tries to ban DM? It's easy to dismiss these people as nosy bureaucrats meddling for the sake of it, but they're undoubtedly reacting to some significant tides in popular sentiment.
And if there's less advertising then there's going to be less commercial media. It's inevitable, but is it necessarily a disaster? Concern over kid's TV might be fair, but outside that area, if there were only three ITVs and only eight sections in the Sunday Times would that really presage a new cultural dark age? I don't think so. Mostly because it won't be the high-quality content that will disappear, it'll be the rubbish that'll go. We're entering a new age of attentionomics where high-quality content can find it's audience relatively easily and it's the low-quality pap that's left with no business model.
So how should we react? Well perhaps not by always lobbying for the right to bug people, but by preparing ourselves for a world where we'll have to be actively invited into people's lives, which means making content that's more entertaining or compelling than any other reasonably convenient option.
Campaign from last week, and below is for people not equipped with bionic vision:
If I had to start all over again I'd be a Communications Planner. Well actually I'd be a Jedi, but in this universe I'd be a Communications Planner. It seems like they're the people who are at the most exciting coalface right now, dealing with the most turbulent shifts in economic relationships, coping with the most rapid overturning of preconceived ideas and observing the most frequent changes in people's behaviour. People are not dramatically changing the way they buy milk or cars or aftershave (unless I'm missing something) but they are substantially shifting the way they consume 'media'.
This struck me as I read another article pointing out that attention spans are contracting and the future of communications lies in a short burst of video via computer or phone. At first glance that always seems plausible, but even a quick examination of our own media habits makes you realise the real world is way more complicated.
To start with there's media binging; the contemporary practise of completely immersing yourself in a single media property for hours and hours; people buying a box-set of The West Wing or 24 and spending the whole weekend watching it. Or doing it via Sky+ or Tivo. No short attention span there. You get the same thing with video games, most of which demand a substantial investment of time. I once heard a panel of arts supremos blaming the decline of high art on short attention spans until one of their number asserted that the kind of immersive, sustained experience offered by Grand Theft Auto or World Of Warcraft is perfect preparation for Wagner's Ring Cycle.
Or think about plot-surfing, something many of us have probably done - watching a programme on 12x speed just to familiarise ourselves with the broad thrust of the story so we can stay up to date with the series. Or there's the willfully obscure media selections we make, as some sort of trophy media choice. I'm partial to a Deep House internet radio station in Moscow partly because it seems exotic, partly because I think it makes me seem cool. (It doesn't does it?) Or there's the way ex-pats use media to connect with home, or groups of friends pass media files and links around as a way of maintaining contact, or the viewing parties that occasionally pop up around media phenomenon like Sex In The City. This is complicated and fascinating stuff. And most of it's very new. Navigating the changing media tides must be the most challenging job out there right now, I hope it's as rewarding as it should be.
Here's another message from Caroline at Campaign - she'd like your questions again. If you have any please stick them in the comments below.
The next Campaign Yahoo! Big Ideas interview is with Jill McDonald, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer for McDonald’s in Northern Europe. Jill joined McDonald's from British Airways, where she rose over 16 years from Brand Manager to Head of Global Marketing. In that role she launched the P.J.O'Rourke "Johnny Foreigner" advertising and spearheaded the Rugby World Cup Sponsorship. Caroline Marshall at Campaign would like to hear if you have any questions to put to Jill about her new role at McDonald’s.