The Death of Consumers Caring About Smart TV

      In the last several years, smart TV market share in the UK can be argued to be disproportionately small relative to the amount of communications promoting such products. While smart TV usage has increased by 2% annually to 7% of all TV owning households in the UK during 2013 (Ofcom), the amount of challenges to its success are growing quickly.

     The growing problem facing smart TVs can be illustrated by how owners mainly use them, viewing content online, from catch up TV apps (57%) to streaming on apps like Netflix (38%). Consumers using smart TV technology to expand the existing core functionality of TV is expected, but it doesn't provide smart TVs a USP against connected TV
devices like game consoles (an estimated 4m Xbox & 3m Playstation users in the UK), set top boxes and growing plugins such as Google's Chromecast.

The Closing Innovation Gap or "Why Apple won't be innovative in 5 years time"

This is more innovative...

Innovation has always meant different things depending on who’s doing the innovating. Apple’s iPhone, Facebook and a myriad of electronics companies creating ever clearer screens are all considered ‘innovative’ in their own context. However, landing on the moon, the ISS, mapping the human genome and finding evidence of the Higgs Boson are as well, but NASA, CERN and others aren’t going to be front of mind when you ask a consumer to name the most innovative groups they can think of. This is because the scale at which we judge ‘innovation’ has historically always

Than this....right?

depended on who was delivering it. The bigger the organization, the bigger the innovation they can deliver and the bigger the requirement for it to be considered ‘innovative’ by the wider public.

In addition, the bigger the scale of an innovation, the bigger the possibility a normal person on the street won’t see it as relevant to their daily lives. Mapping the human genome may have required going through 3.3 million base pairs (and classifies as a mega project), but the iPhone in a consumer’s hand has changed the way they behaved in the last 5 years.

I’d wager which comes to mind first if asked to describe innovation. The discrepancy between the innovation in the private sector and the wider public sector delivers isn’t necessarily a bad thing for anyone involved (unless you’re NASA asking for more funding) as it has shaped the way both brands behave and consumers choose for quite some time, especially within sectors such as consumer electronics. In short, the gap has caused consumer focused companies to solve ‘smaller’ problems with innovation and the public sector to solve ‘big’ ones through larger resource expenditure.

This relationship can be described as a scale: on one side, you have companies such as Apple, Samsung, IBM, Google and Microsoft, which deliver varying levels of small to midsized innovation relevant to consumers on a regular basis. These companies iterate technological development sometimes and leap ahead others, disrupting both the market and their competition for a time when they do so. On the other side of this scale, you have governments, large research organizations and others delivering large scale innovation at a pace that is slower and less relative to consumers than ‘innovative’ companies. In between these two groups is a gap, which, at least so far in the age of computing, has separated these segments as a nearly impassable barrier.

This ‘innovation gap’ kept companies from going too far away from the consumer; as resource, business risk and time frames meant that feasibility tied a private company’s ‘innovation’ to the consumer and what the market would 'bear’. If a company goes just far enough from the market at the right time to disrupt with innovation, you have Apple making the iPhone; go too far and you have the Newton (apologies to the folk(s) still using these) or the 3DO (feel free to swap with the Atari Jaguar). Companies aim to place products as close to the 'gap' as possible, using communications to maneuver slightly and outpace the market in both product and perception. Alternatively, the public sector, to varying degrees, operates on a mission to only solve the ‘big problems’ on the other side of the gap, mostly because no one else is  seen to be able to innovate on that scale.

In recent years however, technology, government funding and changes in the culture of organizations

Let's see how many people doubt the moon landing
when you can go to low earth orbit on a consumer flight...

have seen this ‘innovation gap’ being closed. One only needs to look to SpaceX as an example of a tech company going out to solve problems that 10-15 years ago would have been clearly across the gap. While this may be a confluence of government bringing these organizations across and technology making new possibilities more accessible, such as in the case of Virgin Galactic, companies squarely associated with the consumer market are raising the bar on innovation across the gap.

The example of consumer opportunities around space travel begs the question, “How innovative is being a smart phone maker, when Virgin can shoot you into orbit and SpaceX is edging towards the Moon and Mars?” Space travel by Virgin is much more relevant to the consumer than it was when NASA did it and illustrates the risk and opportunity facing many tech brands today. Brands are doing bigger and bigger things, closing the innovation gap each time stories of their successes get out. Spacetravel, wearable computing and others are being driven by the private sector and will continue to up the ante on ‘innovation’ that is not only relevant to the consumer, but delivering the future they’ve long expected.

So why is a bridging perception of ‘innovation’ dangerous to consumer brands? The halo of being an ‘innovative’ company can be the lifeblood of a competitive advantage outside of the product itself, especially for tech companies. Competing on features alone is costly and dangerous, meaning brand is a vital tool to build. No one wants to buy old technology and buying from an ‘innovative’ brand speaks to the consumer’s perception that they will get a reasonable amount of time before obsolescence from the product and thus value for a premium.

Never bring an iPhone to a "balloon powered internet" fight...

The earlier space travel example may not illustrate a direct threat to Apple or Samsung’s dominance of the mobile phone market for example, but it does speak to the ethos of similar organizations that could be. Google [x], producers of the self-driving car, glass and more recently, project Loon are part of a direct competitor to Apple and while Google’s phones themselves don’t bear much resemblance to the tech featured in many moon shot projects, they do help to build the company as a brand that is innovative in a way that is bigger than competitors. This combination model of reality focused tech provider and future facing tech leader speaks to the way brands can build a perception of ‘innovation’ in years to come. Keeping one eye on ‘reality’ (as well as iterating current products at the pace of the market) can work in concert with doing ‘bigger things’ as a brand to speak to an organization’s thirst for innovation. Together this set-up uses a big vision, substantiated by long term projects featuring  less consumer relevance, as a sort of ‘halo’ product, speaking to the quality of more tangible, but less innovative, iterative products currently available.

Its advances like this that support the claim that a company like Apple won’t be seen as  ‘innovative’, at least in its current format, in 5 years time. Apple represents one of the best examples of how tech companies currently do business and why this will have to change as the innovation gap closes. Apple’s model is largely built on iteration after the initial launch of a product, as seen with the iPhone. While the phone itself initially laid out a clear consumer shift towards smart phones, the following models have had relatively incremental upgrades. Features such as Siri, Retina Display and the App Store were, for their respective launches, ‘innovative’ by today’s market’s standards. However, when we hold them against what companies with larger ambitions are doing, these features begin to seem much less ‘innovative’. The growth of competitor market share in Android and to a lesser extent Windows Phone also highlights how iteration alone begins to erode an ‘innovative’ perception over time. As shown similarly with the iPad, an initial dominance of a segment, in this case tablets, has been eroded by competitors entering and replicating iterative feature releases. One can wonder how minor improvements on a product yearly will stack up against a competitor that makes a similar phone and has taught a car to drive.

It is this competitive pressure, coupled with the increasing bar for ‘innovation’ that will force companies such as Apple to change if they wish to maintain an ‘innovative’ perception or shift to  succeed completely on other merits. While these brands can handle the more ‘realistic’ side of the business well, using various levels of iteration, they must work on using the organization and communications to tell a bigger story about where the brand is going. These two factors together, smaller tangible innovation and long term ‘big’ brand innovation will begin to bridge closer, but can combine to provide a competitive perception in both the short and long term.

To do this however, especially in consumer electronics, companies must change the way they tell stories to consumers about their R&D and products. Long term roadmaps shouldn’t be hidden as competitive advantage, but instead celebrated as ‘moon shots’ in where the company states their role in moving technology forward over the next 10 years. Brands that have the capability to start to develop the ‘big innovations’ that position them as ‘thought leaders’ for the future should, safe in the knowledge that the risk of revealing these ideas and experimenting openly will be the cost of business going forward.  In our Apple example, one can only wonder what the brand’s story could be about the future if it took a similar approach to more publicly developing it and going forward, this may be the required case. To reiterate from earlier, its not that Apple won't be making great things in 5 years, but given the changes in consumer perception, the company's culture of secrecy around a roadmap will have to change to maintain their brand image. The developer's conferences of old which served as reveals to the world of new found products and brand direction must give way to becoming continuous points in a journey of innovation, not discrete surprises.

Finally, while every brand isn't Apple, this theory works for any that get by on the perception of 'innovation'. Not every brand has to promise to put someone on the moon in 20 years time, but they  should strive to make the same equivalent claim for their product sector if they want to keep up with the rising tide of ‘innovation’. Most every brand can tell a big story about doing big things if they want to, the challenge is doing it in a way where people will listen.

Media is the Future of Advertising...

Back in December, I was lucky enough to be able to speak at an event called "War of the Words" sponsored by Campaign Magazine. The event asked various speakers under 30 from four disciplines (media, planning, creative and brands) to address how their area was the best positioned to fix declining trust in advertising and generally be the future of the industry. While I didn't win, I did get to spend the day listening to some incredibly brilliant people and had a great time. Afterwards, I found this long-form version of my presentation and thought that it might be a good blog post to discuss with a wider audience. With that in mind, below is my rationale why Media (not in isolation but moreso than the other disciplines) is the future of advertising. 

Introduction

Predicting the future of advertising is pretty complex thing for multiple reasons. Uncertainty around consumer and business trends, technological innovation, economic fluctuations and new products are all things that add to the variability in assuming where we will be as an industry in 1,2 or 5 years.

Before I started to form my prediction though, I did some research. Now assuming this is a media-centric presentation, you may assume that the next few pages are going to be filled with TGI statements such as “I heavily consume period dramas on VOD” or “Drinking 6 pints in one sitting makes you a man – Strongly Agree” (*one of these isn’t an actual word for word statement), but instead I went out amongst the internet for answers. I asked a simple question (“In a few words, what is the future of advertising?”) at a sample of the places one might go for opinions on the internet: Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! Answers, Quora and 4Chan. 

The quality of the answers varied predictably by the source, but several similar themes emerged. Answers such as: “NFC”, “Social Search” & “Micropayments” showed the optimism that technology will move advertising forward.  “Personalization”, “Benefitting Customers”, “Crowdsourcing” & “More relevant content” indicated that an increased, or re-established, focus on consumer value would be the key to the future of advertising. “Press Inserts”, “Second-Screen viewing”, “Traditional Media Resurgence”, “VOD” & “Mobile” all showed that certain people believe the future is here in some way already. “Brands as Content Curators”, “Media Agencies as Media Owners”, “Creative Technology” & “Dynamic Creative” all indicated that the future lies within content or creative for some. Finally answers like “Ninjas”, “Medical Marijuana” and various others showed that you probably shouldn’t ask the internet anything serious.

However, out of all the answers given to me on the future of advertising, one really stood out. It came from 4Chan’s “/ad v – Advice board” and simply said, “What the ******** kind of question is that?” Given that there was some other marketing related commentary under it, I think it was serious and this got me thinking, “What kind of question is it?” The future of advertising can mean many things and even though I’ve been charged with saying media will restore trust in advertising and drive the industry into the future, isn’t the question larger than that?

Advertising models: Then & Now

To clarify how big of a concept this is, it’s worth thinking about how advertising works now, but also how it did 100 years ago.  Back then, Dr. Walter Dill-Scott wrote a succinctly titled opus simply named, “The Psychology of Advertising: A Simple Exposition of the Principles of Psychology in Their Relation to Successful Advertising”. Now if you dig through the interesting syntax, some questionable publishing production values and a small bit of casual racism in some of the ad examples, you find that the way Dr. Scott envisioned principles to successful advertising isn’t too different than today. While parts of our industry have rapidly upgraded in technical values, the overall objective and framework remains the same.

Avoiding the advertising models (such as AIDA and others) I could use to describe advertising, I think it actually boils down to just three key things: “Spectacle”, a “Story” and an “Action”. Advertising at its heart is about the story, the interesting and creative vehicle which delivers a tale wrapped around a product or information. We use creativity and entertainment to make an otherwise hard to deliver story palatable, or even enjoyable, to the consumer. 

If this story is delivered well, we drive the consumer towards “action”. This action could be a variety of things: purchase, engagement or advocacy amongst others. All of it boils down to the power of the story to persuade the consumer to exchange something, be it time, social capital or resource.

Creating the “Spectacle”

However, the entire process cannot begin without the consumer’s attention, which is where the “spectacle” comes in. The “spectacle” is the cut-through, the attention grabbing mechanism and the story’s context. It is the reason we as people and consumers would stop, transfer our precious attention to something and consume the story. Without spectacle, as marketers, we are simply unnoticed raconteurs, standing on the street corner holding a placard with an interesting, but unengaged story on it.

This metaphor brings me to another story about spectacle and moves us forward to the 1960’s. In 1969, Dr. Stanley Milgram, of the famous electric shock obedience experiments (which would struggle to get through a uni’s research board without some persuasion today), conducted an experiment that proved generating a spectacle is less about a raconteur and more about 5 people. Now, this isn’t any 5 people specifically, but just 5 normal people and they provide a clear example of how media and advertising must operate.

Dr. Milgram placed 5 people on a random US city street corner, looking up silently at an unremarkable sky scraper. Without any extra interaction from the 5, he measured how many people would stop and join the group, in essence giving their attention to an otherwise unremarkable spectacle in their lives. He replicated the experiment with less and more people, finding that 5 generated a more significant response than smaller or larger groups up to 15 people; thus proving that if you want to market products OOH with random university students, 5 is your optimum number to bribe for the duration of the campaign with beer.

However, the experiment also stands as a great metaphor for the modern landscape of advertising and as an indicator of how consumers allocate their interest. As we all know, the lone consumer wandering through his daily existence isn’t just confronted with one group of 5 people creating a possible spectacle, but millions, which he engages with in a sometimes seemingly random manner. Dr. Milgram would be hard pressed to replicate the significant results he received from his experiment in the same landscape we exist in as advertisers.

So how do we cut through this diaspora of distraction? The answer still lies in our original and basic model. If we put spectacle against the four categories on debate: “creative”, “brands”, “planning” and “media”, we see that each has clear and important roles in success. Creative must tell the story in a way that builds on the generated spectacle and motivate the consumer to action. Brands must foster a clear image; deliver products that protect consumer trust and behave in a manner comparable to the story and spectacle that is created. Planning must deliver clear and actionable insight into the marketing story, coordinating the moving parts and marrying the interesting story with the context around it. Finally media must create and deliver the story through spectacle, generating a context that primes the consumer to act and engage with a similar story next time. If done correctly, these parts come together to create unified messaging to the consumer, coming across as one whole piece of communication.

The difficulty of creating this communication in our modern landscape isn’t without opportunity though. The metaphorical man on the street has provided us with more data about him or her than we have ever had in the history of marketing. Through digital and social media, we are sitting on a veritable glut of information, with Facebook alone serving as one of the most robust sociological databases and experiments in the history of man. With this information, we should be able to drill down to the mythical 1 to 1 marketing level; however, on the whole, we haven’t gotten close.

This is because the data itself isn’t straight forward or easily sortable. We have hundreds of data sources telling us different things about the same person. This shouldn’t entirely be a surprise though. If we look at the way consumers behave online, we know that even they don’t portray themselves in a uniform way. While consumers are providing us with the data itself to understand them, they aren’t making it easy.

A consumer’s behaviour is best described like an online dating profile, possibly the modern day pinnacle of personal marketing and information. A consumer’s real self juxtaposes his perceived self in situations like this. Going to the gym 5 times a week and enjoying museums may be what an individual states that he enjoys online, but this is only because bi-weekly jogging and Rambo 2 on DVD doesn’t mesh with his personal view of himself. Now given enough time, this perceived view will come crashing back to his real self, not from marketing in this situation, but from a conversation with interested women (who apparently can’t appreciate the sophistication of Stallone at his best).

This example shows the need to sort and vet the data provided by consumers to gain true value from it. To continue the metaphor, in 2006 on April Fool’s Day, Google claimed to launch “Google Romance” a solution to the “search problem that is dating”. This is pretty funny, until we consider that Google has probably had the best success at sorting out what we say and what we actually do online. You may say that you enjoy regular gym sessions, but I imagine by now the search engine has indexed your gym records at least a few times.

Why is consumer trust in advertising declining?

So how does this bring us into the situation facing the advertising industry today? Declining trust in advertising is a symptom of the consumer data exchange. Consumers have given us an opportunity in the form of their data and we have yet to do all we can with it. Consumer data exchange isn’t just an issue of privacy; it’s an issue of value as well.

Advertising hasn’t lived up to the data given to us, in the way we either create spectacle or tell the story to generate consumer value. Advances in consumer technology have driven the “action” part of our model (social media, mobile) but we have yet to marry these up to the rest of what tells a unified story. The unified communication model has not stayed ahead of the technological curve. We are beholden to external innovators (hardware and software manufacturers) focused on completely different objectives, instead of using our role as the consumer storyteller to drive technical adoption forward and refine the efficiency of how we advertise.

In order to close this gap, we must utilize consumer data in ways we have yet to consider fully, overcoming problems in sorting and analysis. We must tie together the advances in the “action” part of our model to create a more refined “spectacle” and a better, more relevant “story”. We must drive innovation forward where necessary and bring the consumer along with us, filling holes in innovation and delivering the unified communication experience of the future.

Media is the best placed area to move the advertising industry forward and fix the gap between what we are currently delivering and what consumers expect. Media can provide the personalized context that consumers want for the value exchange with their data. Media can drive the greatest relevance a brand’s story and help to create personalized stories. Media is increasingly able to generate additional sources of data about the consumer simply by being utilized. Media holds the largest role in generating engagement and action.

Consider this; the personalized OOH promised by so much in pop culture (such as in the much bandied example of Minority Report) is imminently achievable today. Combining Facebook photos, an OOH media owner with camera enabled digital screens and an API to encode photos with identity is all you need to roll out a wide spreading solution to personalized OOH. Technologically, we can leverage the personalization of online channels in traditional mediums today, all that holds us back is consumer acceptance to do so. While consumers want the future of advertising, we must gain the trust to deliver it and take them on a journey towards it. Media is the only one of the four sections considered that can generate a context that does this. Media is the main point of exposure for advertising and therefore the most powerful to take consumers on a journey towards a richer experience.  Creative, Brands and Planning all benefit from greater consumer data personalization to drive better performance, but they cannot manage or generate the data in the way that media can.

How do we do this?

So how does Media take the lead on this? In short, we must behave more like a “tech startup”, harnessing an entrepreneurial spirit, technical expertise and true data specialisms to create the insights and abilities consumers already expect us to have. This doesn’t mean utilizing innovative technology for advertising that only speaks to the early adopters, but instead taking innovation and integrating it in advertising in a way that makes it accessible, relevant and personalized.

Media agencies and agencies must move more into areas of innovation thought previously off limits. Agencies must begin to question the way we create “spectacle”, driving thinking forward through employee or even company acquisition in the technical sector. We must take those that innovate further up the stream and bring them down to focus on the messaging possibilities for consumers, as well as the use. Media owners must continue to innovate their formats, but they must do this at a faster rate. They must also ensure that the experience provided by new media technologies is a complete and simple one.

QR codes serve as a technology that proves where we are lagging behind as an industry. While we currently find these embedded in all manner of creative and media, the experience of engaging with them doesn’t offer a level of personalization or even ease of interaction that drives the value we deliver forward. QR reader’s possibilities are vast and not integrated into most consumer technology in a standard way. The key point for unlocking the basic interaction QR codes offer is lost if the reader penetration doesn’t deliver on its end.  The experience itself is contingent on fast mobile internet, something that only recently has media owners begun to ensure through wi-fi and other connectivity around enabled formats.  QR has grown to a quasi-viable format in recent years, but in the time it’s taken to do this, new technology stands poised to make it obsolete. NFC’s emergence will make the QR code nothing more than a missed opportunity to deliver greater messaging to consumers years earlier. QR codes would have benefitted from media owners and agencies working with hardware and technical firms to standardize the way consumers engage with it. Once we ensured the greatest level of adoption possible for the technology, we could have moved forward to test what possibilities existed for leveraging online consumer data through traditional formats enabled with the technology. Instead, we are faced with a stretch of possibility, as some consumers look to engage with QR, while others ignore it and early adopters may soon be better contacted through NFC enabled media. An aggressive stance towards tech innovation from the media industry can consolidate these groups of consumers, creating a standardized but innovative media and advertising experience.

To achieve a scale that avoids this problem, we must drive a technical innovation mentality through all parts of the media industry, from big agencies to small. No longer should we think that cutting edge digital innovation is purview of specialist agencies. We must bring that focus across the agency and marry it with a consumer focus and insight. We can no longer afford to be “digital” or “traditional” agencies, we must be committed to doing both in an aggressive way in both media and across advertising. We must pursue getting the best coding and technological talent into agencies that wouldn’t have recruited this role before. We must move towards driving an MIT media lab mentality in each of our commercial enterprises. The Future of Advertising and Media will only be realized when marketing & technology lives in agencies all over London, just as much as the Silicon Roundabout (or other aptly named areas).

When is an outdoor ad actually a homeless person?

Happy New Year everyone. I'm back from a restful holiday and aside from a snow related cold, 2010 is starting off well. As I'm currently in bed recovering from the effects of a cold and scouring the Sunday morning interwebs, I noticed this story on a few sites and Fark.com which seemed to ask an interesting point.

Source: Link

      The story behind all of these articles is based on promotions for the new Michael Cera movie "Youth in Revolt". David Permut, a television and movie producer associated with the film, has paid Ronald, a homeless man he passes on the way to work, $100 dollars to hold the movie's poster for the day under his normal sign.


     The reaction to this new media channel's creation hasn't yet been widespread or uniquely loud as a Google news search turned up 0 references of this and a Technorati search pointed to two blog entries (the original Nikki Finke story and Gawker). However, when comparing the opinions in both the articles and posted comments of the few sources that have covered this, there seems to be a rather defined split between those that view using a homeless individual in this way is exploitation and those that view $100 as a useful benefit to someone who normally makes $.50 to $1 a donation.

      Looking at it, my first reaction is to say that because Ronald isn't in a position to say "no" to $100, there is a small bit of exploitation. That being said, the more I think about it, the more I think that it truly is job creation for the man and it doesn't seem to being doing him any harm. People on the whole (especially in large cities like LA, NY & London), tend to ignore the transient, so anything that gets some response or moment of attention without degradation is useful. It could be argued that this may dehumanize the individual in a way, but I think society has done that to a much greater degree way before this was conceived.

     The risk in this situation is truly on the film, the producer and the associated brands. If this were to be done on a larger scale, or if this one occurrence were to be widely publicized, then the quick first reaction of the consuming public may be closer to what I initially thought, over what I came to with rationalization.

         Overall, is this different than paying someone to wear a sandwich board and stand on the street? No, and it's probably more lucrative as someone would have to work longer than a day to make $100 at minimum wage after taxes. Is this a signal of things to come? Probably not, as I highly doubt (using London as an example) that I'll see some homeless individual holding a sign next to Tesco reminding me to pickup a certain brand of pasta.

            What does everyone else think? Is this exploitation or a useful way to help the less fortunate?

Social Networks, Geolocation, Recommendations and Double Jeopardy....

      Warren Buffet was attributed to once saying "Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business”, but is this necessarily true? While logic would dictate that those brands which charge more must deliver a greater value in return, theories such as Ehrenberg's "Double Jeopardy" highlight the power larger brands have in the market place."Double Jeopardy" as described by William Mcphee and more famously, Andrew Ehrenberg, describes the concept that lower market share brands face a double challenge in competing with larger brands as they lack market share and brand loyalty from consumers. In such situations, the advantage large brands have from such jeopardy may encourage consumers to repeat purchasing behavior on factors beyond the value delivered by a specific purchase.

     To combat the advantage large market share brands have in the market place, smaller brands much differentiate. However, as large brands hold the advantage of possessing the promise of a standardized consumer experience, smaller brands must assure the consumer of quality, while still differentiating in tangible ways from larger competitors. Certain sectors allow for this more so than others, with clothing and food retailers serving as an example where double jeopardy and large brand advantage is chipped away by factors such as convenience, location, product differentiation and varied cost. In an example of such, Pizza Hut may provide a standardized dining experience over the Italian bistro down the corner, but consumer taste may eschew what is seen as pedestrian fare for a more personalized experience.

      Using the food retailing example further, it becomes clear how smaller market share (i.e. non-chain) restaurants face the dual challenge of differentiating in image while still assuring the consumer of quality vs. larger chain restaurants. Segments of consumers may always ignore larger brands out of principle (I for one irrationally loathe Arby's), but attracting the majority of consumers hinges on convincing them of not only an interesting and different product, but also of a level of performance and quality. The development of social media use within the last decade provides a unique opportunity for such retailers. Large brands have the challenge of convincing users to trust them in a way small brands don't. The "corporate stigma" of such means that smaller brands have the opportunity to gain consumer trust quicker. While these brands still have to convince consumers of their standard of quality, they have the ability to confer an earnestness to their image that goes well with the communication model found in social media.

The ability of recommendation sites to get the word out about smaller retailers works both ways....

        Sites such as Qype and Yelp operate as a network of consumer reviews and recommendations with an established and growing database of users and locations. Having been established since 2004-2005, these sites have become a hub of user generated information for consumers, providing third party recommendations on the standards of quality provided by smaller/medium brands. Where smaller restaurants lacked the ability to widely spread their message of differentiation and quality, these recommendation sites have taken on the job for them. These recommendations chip away at an already weakened double jeopardy concept (due to the sector's composition and nature), allowing small food retailers to speak with a verifiable quality larger than their size.
    
        With the benefits of sites like Qype, the next issues for smaller brands and reputation in social media becomes the level to which user recommendations are trusted by others. A recommendation from a trusted source or with demonstrable elements can hold more impact than a glut of others. With the advent of microblogging sites, reviews have become much more instant, allowing users to confer a level of immediacy to their thoughts on smaller brands and retailers. While sites like Twitter may trim the amount of detail that can be given about a business or consumer experience, it does allow for opinions to be disseminated while still in the retail experience. Furthering this, geolocated services such as Gowalla, Foursquare, Rummble, Loopt, Dopplr, etc. add perhaps the highest level of authenticity to consumer reviews, confirmation that the reviewer is currently there or was in the past. By demonstrating consumer action, these services extend the depth of consumer reviews, as well as opening new avenues for promotion through their network.

Just a few of the many networks that are driving the ability of small brands to establish big loyalty

      The opportunities afforded by social media channels may challenge the traditional idea of brand loyalty and scale, but they can be co opted in both offensive (small to medium brands) and defensive (large brands) ways. For small to medium companies attempting to use social media advocacy to build their brand, its important to remember a few concepts:
          1.) Make sure the product delivers on its claims....no amount of advocacy will help (or actually be present) if the consumer experience is negative
          2.) Be honest about how your product fits into the consumer's mind.....performance and reputation building will function differently for different products. People are more apt to recommend certain product types overothers.
          3.) If the product fit is right, take advantage of the enthusiasm of networks and network users to grow their community....Just monitoring what people are saying is fine, but to actually chip away at large market share brand dominance, offensive measures promoting consumer involvement are useful. Programs such as Foursquare's "Foursquare for Businesses" initiative are useful to go beyond user recommendations to user interaction.

Larger companies face a more defensive structure when dealing with social networks and their brand loyalty. Without the organizational agility of smaller to medium sized brands, loyalty has to be protected through more thoughtful measures:
           1.)  Make sure the product and the surrounding associated products....no amount of advocacy will help (or actually be present) if the consumer experience is negative or if brand perception is firmly entrenched. Larger brands with multiple locations are at more of a disadvantage when it comes to standardizing the consumer experience.
           2.) Use the scale of the brand to respond robustly to consumer comments. Unlike smaller brands, large brands aren't as likely to be able to build up earnest consumer recommendations as quickly without overcoming perceptions about corporations and size. The increased resources of big brands means that one can go beyond reacting to consumer reviews and opinions and actually respond, rectify and encourage advocacy.
            3.) Don't simply match what smaller brands are doing to increase advocacy, surpass it. If the resources are present to dwarf smaller brands interaction with the consumer, do it. Consider social network partnerships (as long as it fits the brand identity) or cross network promotions. The more users that can be gathered through the brand's scale effectively, the better.

        While the points made about double jeopardy and social media don't easily extend to all market categories, the original concept stays the same. Consumers may be more apt to review bars, pubs, restaurants and other retailers more than cereal brands, but that doesn't mean that something like smaller FMCG breakfast products can't leverage some consumer sentiment to affect distribution and retailer adoption. Within the above example, double jeopardy and brand loyalty is affected by inherent factors within the restaurant market, however the idea is clear that the way brands maintain and generate loyalty and adoption is changing rapidly due to the ongoing advancements in social media.

When does edgy become creepy: The Shiny Suds Ad....

     Advertising, some would say, is all about pushing the barriers to cut through today's fog of marketing noise. Be it through content, platform or delivery innovations, the need for advertisements to generate awareness and staying power in an increasingly habituated consumer's mind is a driving force behind a lot of the creativity we see today. The drive to innovate within content can lead to a multitude of impressive advertisements showing off visual innovations, musical collaborations or a host of other ideas to garner attention. In the drive to advance content, one generally easy way is to challenge the viewer's sensibilities with edgy or 'cusp of the social norm envelope' writing and creative. Viewers are more likely to remember something that shocks them, so a reasonable expectation is that creating something which can do so, easily solves the problem of viewer habituation.

London's Cabwise "Know what you're getting into"campaign against the use of unlicensed mini-cabs is very jarring, but uses such to bring about social change

      However, through pushing edgy content, one has to be mindful of the border between shocking and revolting. Viewers that are shocked, but still in their comfort zone, can be drawn in by a captivating, possibly humorous and novel advertising message. However, those pulled outside of what they are ready to culturally ingest may remember your message in a less than positive way. Perhaps most of all, edgy advertising has to consider not only what overall society finds offensive and acceptable, but also what the target market's sub group will allow. In some ways, an advertisement that causes some general outrage and discussion can be a useful tool to raise awareness, as long as the target market isn't too alienated to interact with the brand.

     With that in mind, the current controversy around Method's 'Shiny Suds' ad seems to typify striking a balance between memorable and slightly creepy. Method, the household cleaner maker, has decided to pull an ad which drew the ire of various rights groups due to what was claimed to be a depiction of rape type elements. The ad, which I don't believe goes as far as some of the claims thrown against it, does personally give off a slightly creepy feel, something I don't believe is the intended outcome.

"Shiny Suds" - Not really NSFW, but you might get some odd looks...

     As shown above, the advertisement centers around Method's focus on left behind chemicals, something their organic line can use as a decided advantage against other products, visualized as a group of anthropomorphic bubbles. While at first capturing less than full attention simulating an actual 'Shiny Suds' cleaner ad, the real messaging begins once the pseudo ad is over. As the housewife from the faux advert enters her bathroom the next morning, the bubbles are still present, firmly refusing to leave and finally watching her shower, cheering on the presence of a Luffa.

     The brief description of the second part of the advertisement doesn't seem horribly offensive to most on paper (definitely not warranting comments about rape elements), however, in its actual execution, one does feel a slight sense of revulsion. The slightly lurid, all male voicing of the bubbles does seem to convey some ominous foreshadowing, in a lugubrious tone that might be better fit for a dingy bar than the bathtub. Do I think Method set out to create such an advertising experience? Probably not. But I do think the initial goal of making chemical residue revolting, combined with the voice-over elements and the extension of certain scenes combined to make what could have been a possibly funny & cheeky execution into something rather awkward in parts.

     Am I offended by the overall advertisement? Not really. But importantly, I'm not the target market. I'm a 27 year old guy who purchases cleaners sporadically at best. I've never considered what chemicals are in my shower, nor would I care if they stuck around (as long as they keep cleaning and didn't start talking). For what I assume is a majority female target market, I don't see why someone didn't consider how the creative would be taken.I believe at some level, Method was attempting to make a memorable viral, something that would drive conversation about the brand while being passed around for the frat boyish humor of the bubbles. However, as we talked about earlier, the goal of pushing the envelope is to challenge the intended viewer's sensibilities, not alienate them. Even if a majority of the target market found the ad funny, the awkwardness of some of its presentation limits any viral potential or long term messaging it has. People pass on messages to others because they want to be attributionally part of the idea, something this may have a hard time starting due to worries about other's reactions to it.

     While what seems to be the intended message for the ad, "Buy Organic Cleaner or Be the Pleasure Object of Compound Chemicals" is a tough execution from the beginning, they really did seem to miss the mark. I don't condemn Method for making the ad and I certainly don't accuse them of intentionally making anything horribly misogynistic, but I do think they've clearly illustrated the need to understand the line between palatable edgy and otherwise.

5 Reasons why programming can help your understanding of Advertising/Media...

Everything has been pretty hectic around most aspects of my existence lately, so projects like the Social Media Thunderdome have ground to a halt, but will start again soon. 

     Currently, I've spent the last few days programming (something I've been known to do sporadically for work) and it got me thinking about how useful it is in the overall scope of Advertising and Media. I know every position in marketing/media varies in the way computer science and programming can be applied or proven useful, however, I think that a variety of reasons exist why understanding such can help how you think about Marketing Communications. Most people in Advertising or Media outside of specific programming related jobs, myself included, don't have specific Computer Science qualifications. In spite of this, I don't think it should discourage anyone from understanding general concepts or even go on to teach themselves a language or software package.

Understanding programming doesn't mean that you'll be hearing "Mr Szalinski, your 2pm client meeting is here.... "

     In thinking about this, I've managed to come up with 5 reasons why I think everyone in Marketing should understand atleast basic concepts related to programming. This doesn't mean you have to go out and learn Visual Basic, C++, C#, Java, Fortran (god forbid) or Actionscript tomorrow, but as with everything in marketing, a variety of skills and knowledge can prove useful.

5 Reasons Why Programming Can Help You Understand Advertising & Media:

1.) Programming helps you to understand, shape and visualize data.
     Data, be it consumer opinion, awareness figures, ROI calculations, channel prices, sales figures or anything else, is an integral part of creating and implementing effective Marketing Communications. Programming and software development can help to show you what formats data can be stored in, how it can be manipulated from those and what outputs are available. As more and more creative data visualization techniques are becoming popular, the ability to shape data into something more interesting than a simple Power Point chart is increasingly valuable. Working with even something as basic as data shaping macros in Power Point or Excel can cut research or development time by more than half, as well as reduce repetition in your daily work.

2.) An understanding of Programming helps you to understand the limitations and capabilities of digital creative content and social media.

     There is no better way to understand what something can do than by seeing how its made. No one expects everyone working in fields related to digital Marketing Communications to be able to create it, but a few articles on flash development, web design or social network APIs can mean the difference between the ability to clearly explain what you're visualizing or waiting for someone else to find it for you. As more and more social media campaigns gain notoriety, the ability to track, understand and change communications messages and objectives hinges on the degree to which someone understands what the capacity of the medium is technically.

3.)  Learning even the basics about how software is made can allow you to gain insight into how technology is developing
      Technology is a broad and varied field which constantly expands and reinvents itself. Therefore no one is expected to be an expert on every established and emerging field. Finding something you're interested in though, be it mobile, desktop or other platform development, can allow you to see the shape of the field as it stands and where its going. The interplay between software and hardware development also allows those with an understanding of the field to view new platforms and technologies in a more application oriented light.

      You don't need to know how to actually write an iPhone application to read about the technical developments coming out of the platform. Understanding the things that are being developed and the challenges they face on a more technical level can allow you utilize newer capabilities and concepts for communication efforts.

4.) For those that currently, previously or will work on technology based accounts (business or consumer tech), an understanding of software development will go along way towards shaping relevant campaigns and content

"Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product." -David Ogilvy

     I tried to find another Ogilvy quote about the need to become a master in the fields of your clients, but I believe the available one communicates the same concept. For those working on technology based accounts, a basic understanding of the field is a given. The insight given from learning about software design, as talked about above, can allow you to deepen this understand quickly and along a relatively clear path. For example, individuals working on accounts for a word processing software company would do well to read about advancements toward cloud computing based platforms.

    Software exists as an interaction between what the user wants, what the developer does based on what he/she thinks they want and what is actually delivered. Understanding the development process allows you to see all sides of this relationship, something that can prove helpful in any part of a technology based issue.

5.) Learning more about how software works will help your overall computer skills by demystifying technology

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C. Clarke

    I know from personal experience, that growing up learning how to use a computer in concert with learning how to program helped me to not fear breaking a system. Of course, a few computers took a while to rebuild during this long and still ongoing development process, but knowing how something works helps you to see its strengths and weaknesses. Knowing how software is written allows you to see that errors can (almost always) be fixed and crashes (most of the time) aren't the end of the world. Through a greater understanding of different levels of a technology, what at first seemed imposing, can later become second nature.

    I've written this list from the perspective of someone who isn't formally trained in Computer Science. I've worked as a programmer before, but my education is firmly in the fields of Marketing & Psychology. I don't claim to be highly technical as I'm proficient in VB (and sadly VBA) as well as some C++ and web design, but even I'm currently intimidated looking at Actionscript (the current learning project). I'd love to know what people more and less technically inclined think of the list, so leave some comments below.

Microsoft's Windows 7 Advertisement - A solution to Vista and an answer to Apple found in quirky simplicity

      I've always loved Microsoft advertising, its probably a personality quirk,though I can't say this translates to all of its software and hardware products. While Apple gets to be the cool kids of the "major players in the technology sector", Microsoft simultaneously fills the roles of the geeky iconoclast, too wrapped up in his work to care, and of the earnest traditionalist, too big/hard working/naive to compete efficiently on coolness. Its because of these deeply held brand images, that I was pleasantly surprised by the new Windows 7 ad from Microsoft & C+P+B (and not just for the ending musical selection). Check out the ad for yourself below and then my thoughts on why it stood out to me.

Background

 

     Nowhere was this divide more typified than in the popular "I'm a Mac" campaign by TBWA/Media Arts Lab, which spawned over 65 ads in the US, UK & Japan on TV and the Web. The US version shown below, painted Microsoft Windows/PC (John Hodgeman) as a person embodying the traits of Microsoft as described above, while portraying Mac (Justin Long) as expectantly hipster-ish  and trendy.

My favorite advertisement of the campaign - Doesn't everyone want to learn C++ around the holidays (or VB)?

    
     As the ad above from the campaign shows (along with other brilliant tie ins and cameos), Apple really hits its mark on representing its brand image (something that has already been justifiably celebrated ad-nauseum) with all of this expansive campaign. At the same time however, it seemed to open the door for the PC and simultaneously, Microsoft to define its own defensible position. Just as everyone wants to identify with the Mac as the slightly scruffy/intrinsically self-defined type (off to do interesting things in trendy parts of the city with a camcorder and his record collection), we all also have a part of us (no matter how repressed or hidden in some) that identifies fully with the PC. If anything from the ads really worked in Microsoft's favor, it was Apple's reticence to make the caricature of the PC too hateful, lest alienating their audience. This allowed a subtle and relatable duality to form. 

    

     The PC represents not only obligation and responsibility, but earnestness, hard work and a naivete that in a sense transcends cool. While this duality might not come across well in the Apple produced commercials above, it strikes a cord with some and defines the differences between not only traditional Apple vs. Windows users (stereotypically a battle of functional style over functional substance) but also of analytical responsibility vs. carefree expression found in human personality (or atleast in my own).

Prelude to the current Microsoft Advertising Response

     Microsoft tried various responses to the success of the "I'm a Mac campaign" with varying degrees of success and surrealness. It's first attempt, a pairing of Jerry Seinfield and Bill Gates traveling the country, was one of the odder things I've seen. The presence of Bill Gates maintained the nerdy/earnest aspect of PC, while the interaction with Seinfield gave the advertisements a noticeably interesting appeal, but it lacked any strong distinction to Apple's product offering.

   
     Microsoft's next attempt, "I'm a PC", took the lack of distinction drawn from Apple in the previous advertisements and improved upon it. Showing various cuts of PC users claiming their identity as such, the advertisements attempted to distil the quirky/nerdy image used by Apple's PC portrayal into an everyman response. They attempt to claim that if Apple users are a niche subset of trendy computer users, PCs are instead the tool of everyone else doing a variety of activities. The current Windows 7 advertisement is an extension of this campaign, as the girl featured has been in a previous advertisement. 

Concurrently to these campaigns, Microsoft also tried two other notable pieces of communication: "The Mojave Experiement" and "Laptop Hunters".

      The Mojave Experiment attempted to tackle user rejection of the Vista operating system through the production of an ad featuring "hidden camera" interviews. Interviewees were shown an operating system, "Mojave", which was actually Vista and then told to give their impressions of it. Predictably, after trying Mojave, users found it much more useful than their view of what Vista was like. While the attempted message was to directly rebut stereotypes of Vista, it instead seemed to take the view that user perceptions are wrong and baseless, waiting to be refuted by a much more experienced and intelligent body (the producer). This view seems to counteract the good will built up by the earnest/nerdy figure of Microsoft shown earlier and the everyman put forth by "I'm a PC".

      "Laptop Hunters" was another directed campaign, put forth to attack Apple on a vulnerable point, price. Macs by default have had a hard time competing with other laptop makers on price and the campaign attempted to highlight this through giving everyday people various amounts of money to purchase a PC. Splicing this through multiple monetary amounts, the ads highlighted the hardware capabilities that could be purchased from a PC vs. possibly a Mac of the same price. In this subtle attack, Microsoft seemed to merge together their ideas of "I'm a PC" populism with value, once again eschewing the nerdy/quirky image for a directed message and effect.

Why I Love the Current Ad and How it Relates to These

    One of the reasons I love the Windows 7 ad mentioned in the beginning is that Microsoft and C+P+B blend together strands of all of the aforementioned campaigns. Through the opening of the advertisement, the distinction between Windows Vista and the upcoming Windows 7 is drawn clearly and quickly. It shows that while consumers hated/feared Vista (I'm still using XP at home & work), Windows 7 will be different. The use of 3rd party recommendations lends an element of truth to this and continues through the commercial; just as with the Mojave experiment, they attempt to say, "Don't take our word for it, listen to others."

    While the initial point is to sell Windows 7, the advertisement does it in such a way that it also promotes PCs and Microsoft as a whole. The use of the little girl draws out the "I'm a PC" campaign elements in such a way that people can find it endearing or engaging, while her demeanor makes it non-threatening and a soft sell.

     Perhaps my favorite point of the ad however, is the slideshow finale. Aside from what is, I believe, a step towards fixing the underuse of Europe's final countdown in all creative media, it borrows on the quirky/nerdy flavor of the original PC embodiment to entertain. The presentation clipart is just weird enough to not be childish, but instead promotes a sense of interest and bemusement. Its almost as if the ad borrows from various internet memes just enough to subtly say, "Here's a rabbit with a pancake on its head, buy a PC!" It creates a spectacle in the same way that a person driving a van with a spraypainted mural of Led Zepplin coverart on the side might, but trading the societal disdain for more third party reviews. Finally, it seems to dig at a previous "I'm a Mac" ad by showing that a young child can use a PC to make a slide show, something that was previously touted to be easier on a Mac.

Overall, the advertisement creates an entertaining and effective presentation of Microsoft's direct points:

• That PCs work well and exhibit as small of a learning curve as Macs,
• that the people using them are just as interesting or hip as Apple users in their own way
• and that Windows 7 won't be rubbish (or atleast as rubbish as Vista).

True, it might err on the side of technically simplified (which is fine as most technical users are already sold on Windows 7 or using the RTM) and sacchrine (the kid's lisp is a tad disney movie-ish), but it proves to be an interesting synthesis of earnest/weird/engaging and funny.

What are your thoughts on it?