what can you do with your user-content?

These days, there are so many inventive and interesting examples of user-provided content - and the campaigns that are set up to manage this to brand advantage - that I hesitate to mention yet another one. However, the new Yellow Pages work, which invites people to send in films of unusual uses of the product, truly stands out. Details are on their dedicated facebook site, and the opening film - which I'm assuming is for real, but who cares if it was set up - is a belter. A guy throws his copy through his tiny front door letterbox from about 15 yards away standing in the road. (You will now, no doubt, see this being repeated at home en masse across the country by bored teenagers for the remainder of the summer hols.)

The thing I like about the idea is its self-effacement. Many a company would have worried over this signal lack of respect being afforded their product. But not here. With a £5000 prize at stake for the best effort, expect thousands of entries, sublime and ridiculous.

(picture credit YouTube)

craven choice of superbrands

When it comes to Superbrands, it's very easy to only think of the usual suspects - Apple, Nike, Marks & Spencers, Google, Sony, Virgin, McDonald's, Vodafone.... Everyone will have their own favourites, but there can be an awful predictability about what many of these will be.

There is, however, a hidden world of the brands that we don't hear too much about, but which go about their successful business, day-in, day-out, sometimes in most people's lives but rarely in people's "favourite brand" lists.

How about WD40, for example? This oil has been with us since the 50s, and (thank you, Wikipedia) was first used by Convair in the Atlas missile programme. It is a miracle product, of course, which you will understand if you have ever had a squeaky hinge or a rusted bike nut. The company originates in California, but now markets in most countries of the world with sales of over $200 million per annum. But more's the point, most of you will have a can in your garage.

If the squeaking hinge gives you a headache, you may well reach for an analgesic, and Anadin is a best seller, at least here in the UK, sold by the pharmaceutical giant Wyeth/Pfizer. There are many analgesics around these days, readily available, and no longer just in chemists, but in supermarkets, CTNs, garages, stations, and the like. But I can remember the days when these drugs came, with a kind of reverential aura, from only "specialist" places - your local chemist, no less. Anadin was there when I was a child (on the shelf next to Germolene - another brand that is still with us, but which never makes it alongside Virgin or Nike in the big list) and, although it no longer "owns" the generic in the way it once might have done, it still has an unassumingly mighty presence that belies the low charisma rating afforded by membership of the headache pill category.

One of my all time favourite brands is Craven A cigarettes. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life, but used to pick up fag packets from the gutter as a kid and put them in a scrapbook. (I have no idea why, but we were short on toys, so give me a break on this one.) Capstan, Woodbine, Embassy, Gold Flake, John Player were easy to find, but if you ever found the iconic red Craven A box, it was the gold nugget win of fag packet beachcombing. This brand of cigarettes is still on sale today in some markets, and is a brand leader in Jamaica. But what an outrageously fabulous title, apparently named after the Earl of Craven in 1860. (Imagine getting that one past the marketing directors, corporate lawyers, and focus-groups today - "Don't you think it sounds a bit cowardly...?".) The brand has a vivid history, first introduced into London Royal circles by the Spanish nobleman, Don Jose Carreras Ferrer, black cat logo and all, and (again according to Wikipedia) Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the original Governor-General of modern-day Pakistan, allegedly did fifty Craven A a day, until he got TB (as you do), whilst the Jamaican dancehall performer Vybz Kartel mentions it in some of his songs. What a brand!

So the next time we have to sit through one of those cheesy brainstorming tasks, where they tell us to pick our favourite brands, let's try not to mention any of the old chestnuts, but instead, think of a few of the unassuming stalwarts that beaver away in the brand-space, without the momentum of a Steve Jobs media event or the uplift of a Richard Branson endorsement.

For what it's worth, here is a dozen "interesting brands" for starters, chosen mainly at random, or subjectively, because I like how they look, or what they do, or just because they are not what gets mentioned all the time:

Tupperware (household)
Farrow & Ball (paint)
Betfair (internet gaming)
The North Face (sports clothing)
Simple (toiletries)
TCP (pharmaceuticals)
Craven A (tobacco)
Dunlop (tyres)
Bell & Ross (watches)
Patak's (food)
tripadvisor (travel guides)
Gunn & Moore (cricket/sport)

Much as we love Apple and Nike, it's time to give them some time off from the flip-chart - especially when there's so much else out there to interest us.

emotions affected by rain

A new PS3 game hits the shops this week. Called Heavy Rain, it's interesting not because of the graphics - which have been praised for their realism and criticised for their lack of it, in about equal measure. Rather, it's because of its content and how it presents it. Unlike the more well known approach of continuous action titles like Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, et al, which interrupt ongoing action sequences with brief plot cut-aways, this new game is essentially one single long narrative - they're calling it "interactive drama" - designed in such a way that the player uses the controller to input life-changing decisions to the chosen protagonist making their way, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, through the story. It is a radical departure from the orthodoxies that we've come to expect, and whilst the interface is not reality-perfect by any means yet, we're probably seeing the start of something very very important in gaming, and in consumer entertainment.

The implication for advertisers is significant. As far as I can see, this is the nearest we've come yet to an immersion in the feelings and motivations of the protagonists, and if the reviews are anything to go by, the emotional experience can be qualitatively different from anything else that we've seen to date, at least in mainstream gaming. For that reason alone, it may well be the kind of thing that advertisers should be looking at, now that we're well and truly questioning the value of conventional above-the-line. Suddenly, we're talking about games that have the power to generate real empathetic responses and emotional values, and that is an entirely new thing for brand teams to think about. Foolishly, I've ordered a copy.

(picture credit quantic dream)

a future failing for alliteration

It’s been a frenzied weekend for the Labour Party. On Saturday, a new slogan was unveiled – “A future fair for all” - but within 24 hours, what with the Andrew Rawnsley book, and then the bullying allegations, any sense of a pre-election launch had been well and truly overtaken by events. But maybe that was not such a bad thing: because as slogans go, this new one is something of an aberration.

I’m sure there’s a story behind its genesis. Indeed, it’s already been noted that Gordon Brown used the phrase (with exactly the same peculiar construction) during his speech to Conference back in 2003, so there is probably some sentiment attaching to its redeployment. And that is the problem, because it looks very much like Party sentiment overcame what any sensible copywriting person should have been able to spot a mile off, which is that the line does almost everything badly.

First. It is difficult to say. Alliteration is a tried and tested way of achieving impact and memorability, but only if the letters and words are the right ones. In this case, the repetition of “f" is a tongue-twister, and the words are too similar, in shape, size, and sound. If you can’t say it, you sure as hell won’t be able to remember it. Or if you do remember it, , you’ll be in danger of getting the word order wrong. Even now, after writing all this, I have to think carefully to bring it to mind correctly.

Second, it is a very clumsy construction. Using an adjective after a noun is a reasonably common trick in formal speeches and literature. But if one must resort to this device, better not to add in the alliteration technique as well, because once you do that, there is just too much going on.

And third. It triggers associations – “fare”, “fayre” – which distract from the intended message; some of which are negative associations, at that. The expression “fair for all” is reminiscent of a “free for all”, which you don’t want to suggest, given what had been going on with the leadership recently. And dare I say also that the “f” letter, alongside the word “all” is begging for parody, via the use of a far less wholesome expression starting with “f” and ending in “all”.

I’m inclined to think that copywriters will look at this and think it’s just a very amateurish attempt at something of huge public importance, and which ought to be have been a great rallying cry to both Party faithful and floating voters alike. Given which, I would not be surprised if, before long, the Labour Party will regret sentiment being given the nod over elementary marketing know-how. It'll all end in tears.

(picture credits Zazzle, YouTube)

labour's loves lost

Here in England, today’s newspapers are top-and-tailed by two stories that are ultimately connected. Let’s start at the back pages first - as does, we are led to believe, the majority of the male population - where we see that, this coming Saturday night, the national football team’s World Cup Qualifying game in the Ukraine will be screened exclusively only on the Web. It is a landmark – or a watershed, depending on your choice of surface – in the history of sports broadcasting, because, for the first time ever, a game will have, as its prime medium, the internet. Inevitably, the move has aroused deep controversy, despite the game being somewhat meaningless from the English point of view, as the team have already qualified for the 2010 South African Finals.

Meanwhile, for those who prefer meaninglessness of a different kind, the front pages of the papers report on the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester. Meaninglessness, that is, as far as is concerned the vast majority of the population who could care not one jot for the minutiae of party politics, or who believe that the next Government is a foregone conclusion (Conservative party delegates having been warned not to give the slightest hint of such thought, and have even been banned from drinking Champagne for this very reason), or who can’t look at politicians without wishing them a plague o’ all their houses. Disenfranchisement with politicians and politics has been well publicised, especially after the British House of Commons expenses crisis. But there is another malaise going on here; another reason why so many people find it hard to engage with the political classes and with what they have to say.

It is about how things are said. It is about presentation.

Current Government is fond of saying "We need to find better ways of getting our message across." This, of course, is code for, "What we're doing is really good, but we are a bit too clever for you lot to understand." And not for one minute do I believe that many of our politicians spend their nights awake worrying about their public speaking skills. But they should.

Two weeks ago, whilst watching Nick Clegg’s speech to the Liberal Democrats, it struck me just how poor political conference speaking has now become. Relative to what, you may ask? and I’ll get to that shortly. Watching the subsequent (and more gruesome) Labour Party Conference only confirmed the view. The speeches we’ve seen on television (which, remember, are the pick of the crop), with few if any exceptions, allow but for one conclusion. That when it comes to public speaking - an art of which senior politicians were once regarded as master practitioners - both standard and technique have been surpassed by what has been happening in business and media. Having watched two-and-a half weeks of conferences, now, we’ve witnessed the boring, the lazy, the tired, the condescending, the weird, the muddled, the predictable, the skin-crawlingly bad jokes badly told, the faux emotions, the doting wife's spot ("My hero") and one or two ludicrously ham-fisted stunts (like Tony Woodley tearing in half his pre-torn copy of The Sun newspaper). Back in 1981, Ted Heath once told his Blackpool Conference audience, "Please don't applaud. It may irritate your neighbour." Maybe they should be saying the same thing now, as the faux Monty-Python-ladies clapping breaks out in response to one staged cliche after another.

Now I understand that politician party conferences have as their primary target the party members (but not in the run-up to an election). And I understand why the conference speakers are risk-averse and why they have to stay on message and - literally - on convention. I know the emotional compulsion to stay with the expected and the comfortable. But in an era where all politicians have been put on notice – when it is time for politicians to change their game entirely - surely they can do better. Surely, as public speaking professionals, they can be as compelling and as captivating as the best of what we see day-in-day-out in our businessworlds and mediaworlds. Not stay with the dire, grim, living-death style of the last three weeks’ worth of conferences. No wonder the public turn to the back pages first.

One of my favourite sites is TED, a treasure-chest of ideas and creativity, but which - to this point - as part of the bargain offers the very best of creative speaking. Watching the speakers on TED – in all their gaits and guises and with all their different things to say – you cannot help but feel that their enthusiasm, delivery, and general ability to engage and inspire, puts to shame the grotesque charade we have seen at Bournemouth, Brighton, and Manchester. The contrast is awful, hideous, and frightening. Which of these two groups has the fate of the country – perhaps the world – in their in-trays?

And here I come full circle to the Internet, and the role for which it is best suited. Namely, giving us an eclectic but comprehensive view on what the best of the world can offer. Speaking personally, I can view TED like I once viewed television – watching speakers on the widest, most random collection of topics (any topic, for it matters not) for literally hours at a time, learning, being entertained, and gaining invaluable insights. Three things that you will be unlikely to experience at any political party conference this year.

(Picture credits The Sun and treehugger)

where is my slogan?

It’s impossible, as of this moment, to predict the outcome of the history-making events in Iran, with the sheer pace of developments, and the way in which they have "tipped" so remarkable - just as was the case nearly 20 years ago in Berlin. Now, though, we have the extra fuel of social networking media, with the use of Twitter by the popular movement in Iran standing out. Social networking generally, but Twitter in particular, has given us the phenomenon that is instantaneous mass-thought: something that ruling elites don’t quite understand and are afraid of (the two usually go together). Although the incumbent government authorities in Iran managed to close down many channels, Twitter in particular has maintained a key role in what is happening, with people finding new open proxies as fast as their original servers were taken out. In fact, Twitter decided to delay a planned maintenance update because of what was happening (denying that the US State Department asked them to do this). Twitter is the most fluid of digital phenomena - like water when it comes to penetrating attempts to stop it. But above all, it is an instantaneous mechanism, like popular movements - and unlike political elites and establishments.

But it has not all been about new media. Other, far more traditional, communication mechanisms have also been deployed by the protesters. Like people calling their rallying cries all night long from the Tehran rooftops. Remember Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in Network, and that great mad mediaworld invocation of the democratic will - "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore.". ("Are they yelling in Atlanta, Ted?"). "Word-of-mouth" communication was not discovered by post-modern, media-neutral marketing executives.

And then there is good old fashioned written slogan. Since Friday, everywhere in Tehran, we have seen pro-Mousavi voters holding up signs saying, “Where is my vote?” As soon as President Ahmadinejad had been announced as the winner of the election, people started appearing on the street (and as a corollary of this, on the web) holding up this four-word, four-syllable line, English phrase. In its own way, it was as memorable an element of this uprising as was the use of the new media. But it was the way in which the phrase was circulated – that is, through new media – that was significant: a traditional device being facilitated by a new channel.

Ahmadinejad had his own catchy slogan, during the election campaign, the Farsi phrase “Ma Mitavanim” (“We can”), which bizarrely reworks Barack Obama’s "Yes we can". The thing about Obama’s line was that it very quickly became appropriated by the people – easy to do, given its personal plural pronoun, but no less impressive because of that. Plus, here was a traditional device that then gained strong traction through acting in concert with the new media. The line was part of a YouTube film famously downloaded by millions of people, early in the campaign. Ultimately, it became the mantra of a war-weary (Bush-weary) country, eager for a new beginning - but its deeper significance was in the way it perfectly expressed the can-do optimism that defines Americans. The line actually looked like it might have appeared in the Constitution or might have been written by Thomas Paine, but also seemed ready-made for instantaneous thought-transmission across the web.

Sometimes, I think we tend to underestimate the importance and power of straplines and catchphrases. There are, after all, so many of them about, and it will be interesting to see what our own UK political parties come up with as we enter the election marketing frenzy in the next few months, hoping for stand out and memorability. But the acid test of a line won’t be how well it is engineered by the copywriters or how well it passes through the focus-groups. It will be whether people take it upon themselves to send it electronically, print it on their on inkjets, and then take to the streets with it held high. Given the Brown administration’s record on synching with the public tenor, and on harnessing the internet without looking ludicrous, I don't expect us to be shouting one of Gordon's slogans from the rooftops anytime soon.

(Picture credits BBC, MGM/UA Entertainment, Wikipaedia, Spectator Coffee House blog)

battleground 2009 - the mysteries of the organizm

I remember being told, months before the Financial Crisis struck, by someone in the City who seemed to know about these things, how they had lost control of the “Organizm”: his word, my spelling. The “ghost” in the machine had taken over operations; it had taken on an independent, self-determining character, far beyond the sum of its human, mechanical, and organizational parts. A prophetic comment, given that it has now run completely riot with our savings, pensions, and businesses.

There are dozens of instances in literature and popular culture where the "Organizm", whatever its nebulous, invisible, abstract, and ultimately malign form, becomes so big and/or so clever that it begins to subvert its original purpose. Governments, administrations, corporacies, computer systems, robot populations.... Kafta’s Josef K finds himself arrested “one morning without having done anything wrong”; Dickens’s William Dorrit is imprisoned by the Office of Circumlocution; in the 1983 movie War Games, the US supercomputer WOPR decides to take unilateral control of military strategy; the SKYnet computer in Terminator 2 does similar stuff. But the principle behind the fiction – of a giant machine or bureaucracy taking over - has always found its source material in reality.

2008 was certainly the year when the Organizm really made itself felt. And it was the year when we realized that there are very many manifestations of it. Where no one human either understands them or, de facto, can control them. Fiscal machinery, computer networks, world bureaucracies…. With macro or micro-level consequences. Try telephoning a bank or an internet provider with a modestly awkward query, or even a complaint. Try telling British Gas to stop sending you sinister threats when you've already paid them (as happened to me recently, and seems, I'm led to believe, to happen to other people as well.) Either way, you’ll come up against the Organizm at its most opaquely Orwellian. In today’s (British) Independent, there’s a story about artist Reuben Powell being arrested for photographing an old HMSO print works, plus details of other largely inexplicable behaviours of the State Organizm. And we are still trying to work out who exactly made the decision to arrest Damien Green: certainly not Jacqui Smith, or Sir Paul Stephenson, or Bob Quick, or Jill Pay. No, it was the Organizm of course. And the scenario is always the same: there is no single human being who knows how or why to stop it.

And in marketing, the Organizm is thriving.

The thought struck me some months ago when, in a briefing meeting, we were told that a raft of strategy issues were non-negotiable: they could not be challenged. Well, if there's a good reason for that, then so be it. But the disturbing thing here was that no one seemed to have a grasp as to the origin of those non-negotiables, or even which human decision-maker was in charge who could actually re-negotiate them. It was as if it had been the Organizm that had independently decided on strategy and could no longer be re-appraised. There we were, including some very senior people, unable to turn off the Organizm’s strategic planning decision apparatus.

As market research has become its own industry, it has developed its fair share of Organizms. We sometimes think that market research lacks the top-table power it deserves, but the opposite can also apply. One or two major global studies, a 300-slide PowerPoint presentation, and before you know it, the Market Research Organizm has decided on strategy and no one knows who said so or what to do if it turns out to be misplaced. "Research (aka 'The Organizm') said we have to do this, so we have to do this." (And, by the way, I believe that there is something about these huge PowerPoint documents that makes them mini-Organizms in themselves. No single human being can digest the whole lot, so they are, by implication, unchallengeable.)

However, I have a feeling that 2009 will be the year that the human race fights back. It started with Barack Obama, and a campaign that was so successful not least because it was run with a staggering sense of self-controlled, well-managed, agile, visionary, common-sensical, and above all human, leadership. The Democratic Organizm was never allowed to develop its own counter-productive, bureaucratic independence and take over (and that is quite an achievement for the Democrats). (The Republican Organizm, of course, started to run hot as soon as McCain asked to have Joe Lieberman as his VP.) I also see that Obama is fighting to keep his Blackberry (which is seen as a security risk) as a way of circumventing the Organizm. He says he wants "ways that aren't scripted, ways that aren't controlled,... ways of staying grounded".

The world financial crisis has shown that the Organizm will crush us all if we let it. It will take us into wars we don’t want (just like the SKYnet), it will give us hockey moms to lead us, it will try and sell 140% mortgages to street urchins, it will ban us smoking, drinking, and speeding, and it will arrest random citizens to log their DNA.

But in 2009, we will start to ask questions, and demand quick, human, intuitive answers. In our own marketing world, I am confidently expecting that decision-making, strategy design, and creative thinking will become more intuitive, more common-sensical, and less bureaucratic. I’m expecting management to take more risks, not less. Because, the more you’ve lost, the less the risks left to take. And because relying on the Organizm to keep us safe has been shown only to be a banker on ruin.

So next time you’re in a meeting and a decision is referred back to the Organizm, take a vote on pulling its plug out of the wall-socket.

(Picture credits Visit 4 Info and 1983 MGM/UA Entertainment)

cricket, yoichi, and hot coffee

It's been a week when certain events have demonstrated just how far removed we now are from the old marketing world order.

I can't help but think that the launch of the IPL cricket series in India is a triumph for a sport that has never fully got to grips with marketing itself with relevance and credibility here in England. And if, in due course, it takes a few Texan millions to rejuvenate the sport here, then, I'm all for it; unless we end up with another Liverpool debacle. Clearly, the thing that you notice about the whole IPL thing is the speed of implementation, and the willingness to let go of the past. To do both of which, you need confidence, energy, and commitment. If you have those last three, then you can afford to act quickly, and let go of a few MCC-style anachronisms here and there. But how often are we, in the UK, stymied by a longing for the old order to remain; for things to be like they always have been? And for all our sophistication, you see it all the time in marketing, where we talk the good 2.0 talk, yet so often still try and walk the old 1.0 walk.

Back to those events of the last week, and Yoichi 20 single malt. There are few industries more conservative than whisky, and yet, this month, Whisky Magazine, the industry’s leading publication gave both its top awards to Japanese, rather than Scotch, whiskies: Yoichi 20 was voted best single malt and then Suntory Hibiki was voted the world's best blend. The decisions are based on blind taste-testing, so there's no likelihood of positive or negative bias, and both these whiskies got the vote fair and square, from a 200 member-strong panel. In recent years, the whisky industry in Scotland has found itself in a right old state wanting to foster a newer younger audience whilst keeping things as they always have been, there being an unpalatable mutual exclusivity over these two. And all the while, those ingenious Japanese have been distilling away. It's just not cricket: well, at least not English cricket; but for confidence, energy, and commitment, it is actually another IPL.

Meanwhile today, we see another marketing milestone. In case you've missed it (in which case you must have been on Pluto), a huge media launch event is taking place for a computer game, Grand Theft Auto IV, with anticipated sales in the first week of over 6 million. This notorious series, now apparently with watershed graphics and more intricate and better plotlines than anything ever seen before, has earned itself a worldwide launch that would befit a major motion picture.

What we are seeing, in all these events, is how the speed at which niche products, driven with confidence and energy by their stakeholders, can almost overnight enter the mass-market consciousness. We are in an era where heritage (and billions of dollars in past advertising and brand building) counts for something, but not everything, and possibly not the majority anymore. We are in an era where a brand can gain fame, fortune, and mass appeal with barely any conventional marketing at all (one of the most famous and successful brands of all time, according to Millward Brown, is the un-marketed Google - advertising budget zero). And we are in an era where mass-market brands and niche brands are interchangeable, depending on whim, happenstance, or what the Internet decides. In such an era, conservatism isn't just a force for missed opportunity; it can even be a way of killing your brand.

Once upon a time, it was mainly the heavyweight mass-market players who could afford to build famous brands. Now, no budget is sufficient to guarantee brand fame; people can listen and watch what they like, and this is not limited to what the brands want to tell of themselves (and may include what the brands don't want us to know); plus, it is noticeable the number of companies now asking how much value there actually is in communicating a brand message.
 
One other thing happened last month that has a kind of relevance here as well. Fallon launched their eagerly awaited follow-up (Trucks) to the Cadbury's gorilla ad. Now the advertising community has been chattering frantically about this commercial, and largely suggesting it's all a bit of a let down. And for what it's worth, I do feel that the new effort - a kind of airport Cars pastiche (why?, we may ask) - is all very underwhelming. Of course, it is fiendishly difficult to follow something as iconic as the gorilla with another major success (although it makes you realize just how well W+K did with Cog and Grrrr). And it would be churlish not to admire the graphic beauty of the new commercial. Trouble is, we grown over-familiar with this kind of animation - and after numerous Toy Stories, Shreks, Ice Ages, and the rest of it, we are not going to be bowled over just because the genre has been referenced in an ad. Now I may be wrong, but I think they hoped we would be. Amidst all the analysis I've read about the latest commercial, I think at the heart of the problem is a lack of good faith and a vague reliance on hope. The gorilla may have had an underlying brand message or it may have been just great disruptive content - but, critically, they knew the idea therein was about much more than a gorilla. The new ad, by contrast, may look energetic enough, but deep down, it's one trick - and we've seen it before. It was hoping too hard to be another gorilla, but never for one moment could match the grace and depth of its predecessor. The worst kind of conservatism is when you rely too much in hope for things to stay as good as they have been. It's a mistake Niko soon learns not to make.

(Picture credits Rockstar Games, Suntory Limited, IPL)

you will stop this interestingness immediately!

We got a letter from the school Headteacher the other week warning of the perils of the Internet, and, in particular, the way the Web “contains too many interesting things”. You can see the point (and, in context, it was a valid comment about homework distractions), but nonetheless, the times are indeed strange when we can be considering that you can have too much of this good thing Interest.

It is, of course, a phenomenon that marketing people face, day-in, day-out. There’s just too much interesting stuff out there for your brand or your ads to do much to break through, unless you stumble across a gorilla that can play like Phil Collins or have enough in your budget to sponsor the Olympics. As we all know, attention spans now have to be counted in nanoseconds, so what’s to be done, when the media contains too many interesting things?

And it’s not just about disruption. Because of low attention spans, it’s now more difficult than ever to devote time to appreciation. My kids’ teachers are still trying to get their pupils motivated enough to get to the end of Jane Eyre, the eponymous heroine of which novel can’t really hold a candle to Lara Croft or those fine ladies in Resident Evil over the 10 second sprint.

Something similar occurs when you’re asked what you think of an ad. And indeed, there’s that awkward moment when - as someone who should know something about ads - you’re shown something for the first time and are expected to make an instant appraisal. Which is impossible. Many’s the time when you first see an ad and don’t think much of it, only to have it grow on you over repeat screenings.
There is many a piece of work that needs time to do its business. And yet the situation is such that the viewer needs to be captured immediately. (Indeed, it is truly astonishing that we still screen ads to research respondents, under the glare of the viewing studio lights, and then expect then to react on the spot or make intelligent comments, and take this response as gospel. We may as well be asking them to do a quick read of a page out of Jane Eyre and see whether it counts as a classic.)

Interest, however, is not the end of the story. We focus heavily on it because it is easy to justify this with a brand strategy. People are interested in the creative, therefore they’ll be interested in the message: a quaint, old-fashioned, and utterly discredited view of advertising, of course, but one that prevails still. The thing we undervalue is the “art” of the material: the beauty, the sound, the feel....

Marketing strategists tend to dismiss how an ad looks as though it is a secondary creative benefit, after all the other “important” strategy stuff is sorted first. Ditto on music. I am astounded how often the music track on a piece of advertising is seen as being of secondary importance; or indeed, is not even considered at all. (And I include a few creative teams – who seem to see music as a too-easy option - in this.) The TimeTheft Vodafone commercial, which is nicely shot, and comprises a nice pastiche of Groundhog Day, would be nothing without it being choreographed to Nancy Sinatra’s The End. The cleverness of the Cadbury’s gorilla, which everyone is now sick to death of talking about, is in the choice of In the Air Tonight (and not just because of the drum sequence either).

But the main reason why music is important (as is visual beauty) is that it gives you time. It acts instantly, holding the viewer there, for a few more seconds or a few more viewings, whilst the other interesting things (and whatever message the marketers hope will be communicated) can be allowed to percolate at greater leisure.

The problem isn’t that there’s too much interesting stuff out there; it’s that we’ve insufficient time to get through it all. To counter this, you can grab attention by metaphorically slapping people in the face with a custard pie, or by putting a bomb under their seat; but you can also give them a thing of great beauty, and allow them to watch and listen as time goes inconsequentially by. I think this is why the M&S "Famous Five" Lighthouse commercial has such appeal amongst its catchment, and yet I’ve heard marketers criticising it for “trying to be too pretty”. That's just the point: it's great eye-candy, especially for its target audience. I also like those beautiful new CHI Tiger print ads, which look like they were actually hand drawn by Katsushika Hokusai were he were still alive.

It’s like we’ve got too clever for ourselves. Maybe we’ve been looking at too many interesting things on YouTube, and have, in the excitement, forgotten how compelling some “art” can actually be. Let’s bring back the art in our advertising. Let’s treasure the beautiful ad.

(Picture credits Circle Theater, Tiger Beer, The Moving Picture Company)

hell of a change

There is something unusually unsettling about the the first few pre-credit minutes of the movie Dawn of the Dead (the 2004 version, not the 1978 original). It's the sheer speed at which we move from normal life as we know it to the End-of-Everything. We start with Ana (Sarah Polley), a very normal hospital worker, finishing her normal shift on a fairly normal day, going to her suburban home to her boyfriend, taking a shower, going to sleep…. And then waking up to find that during the night Milwaukee (and the rest of the world) has turned into zombie-Armageddon – spectacular views of which we see intercut with the opening credits (and a fabulously apocalyptic Johnny Cash song about Death). For the nurse, Milwaukee, and humanity, that’s it, forever. All gone in 5 minutes.

The idea of things ending unexpectedly quickly is transferred to a marketing story just published by author Joshua Ferris called (what else?) Then We Came to the End (already much hyped in the USA) - a tale of life in a successful, account-rich ad agency. As with nurse Ana - if a little less biblical - one morning, the execs all wake up to find that their world has been transformed (that is, now suddenly there’s no work to do).

Of course, we marketing types all know that something huge has happened in our world too, and that - for example - the primacy of push-down advertising is no more. But looking back, it’s interesting just how quickly this has all happened. We woke up one day and things were just completely different. Seth Godin has written and presented a fabulous piece on this “day it all stopped” phenomenon: how once you could “buy attention” (as in television ads being able to get the viewer “pay attention”) but how, almost overnight, the task became hopeless. Here’s a clip from the presentation (which, by the way, is delivered in a lovely, entertaining, easy-to-watch fashion).

So one day, all our rules and systems and ways of marketing “down” to passive “consumers” stopped. “Buy attention” (to coin Seth Godin's phrase), was no longer possible, because media had changed and people had changed. And the fact that it happened in those metaphorical opening 5 minutes (the credits are just starting to roll, and who knows what is going to happen to all us marketers in the rest of this tale) means several things. Not least, the fact that many many people (like the uncomprehending execs in the Ferris book) are trying to make sense or catch up or both.

But it’s not one seismic change that has occurred; it’s two (at least!). Again metaphorically overnight, we suddenly got serious about responsible consumption. Suddenly, everything we do, we try and do with little or no footprint. Suddenly, we've got a conscience. Suddenly, buying fruit from another Continent or owning a really big SUV or filling the wrong trash-can are all no longer the right part of the picture. Again, this happened almost overnight. Again, we are trying to make sense and catch up.

Since I started on the subject of fictionalised accounts of Armageddon, here’s another one. In the 1951 book The Day of the Triffids (by John Wyndham), most of the world’s population are permanently blinded by a stellar anomaly. At the same time, an endemic species of carnivorous plants gets out of hand. It’s the two things together that cause the critical disruption.

In the commercial world, it is not just how we now market (how we replace “buying attention”) that is in question. It is also what we market and the impact this has in terms of social responsibility. (Of all the brands, M&S has been very quick to understand exactly what this means for their marketing and has been very determined in crafting a response.) It is this conjunction of factors that is the critical factor. It's two forces that we are dealing with. And faced with which, it’s the people on the ground (rather than any top-down leaders or voices) that are making so many of the decisions – about what they buy with their attention, and what consequences they are prepared to accept.

Just like the minority survivor protagonists in the two sci-fictional works I’ve mentioned - ominously, neither of which had a remotely happy ending.

(Picture credits Universal Studios, Michael Joseph and Marks & Spencer)

i'm a funny mac ad; and i'm an unfunny mac ad

It is sometimes said that the US don’t do irony (or comedy); instead, we Brits are the masters in this department. It is, of course, a lunatic assertion, given that there are many examples of great and ironic US comedy and of utterly banal and unfunny British material. This struck me recently whilst watching a new UK commercial for Apple.

For some time, Apple have been running a series of commercials in the US (and on-line), with actors John Hodgman and Justin Long playing the parts of PC and Mac. Judging it anecdotally (as in how many times I’d talked about them with people), the ads were novel, funny, and resonated especially strongly with Mac users. The only issue was whether anyone using a PC, and unfamiliar with Macs, would get the joke and see any relevance in what was being said about the various product superiorities of the latter. However, at the very least as a way of engaging with an already evangelical Mac audience, the ads were bang on the money. (The ads also provoked a number of spoofs, that were equally as sharp, but that’s another story.)

Recently, the ads have been showing in the UK, but with two new actors playing the PC and Mac roles – comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb (better known from Channel 4's award-winning Peep Show. The first time I saw the new UK commercials, I was in a packed cinema, and it struck me how flat was the audience reaction: no surprise, no laughter – no joy. This new version just left the audience cold.

According to Media Week, figures from YouGov’s BrandIndex suggested that the UK advertising had been counter-productive with an adverse effect on perceptions of the Apple brand amongst a general audience. And if you look on the brand forums, you can see the disappointment from Mac loyalists too.

The problem is not, as some people including Bill Gates have said, that the British consumer does not like comparative advertising. This view is countered by the success of the US variants amongst the niche UK audience that has already been watching these ads on the web.

Rather, the problem is entirely in the casting. It is just so badly wrong – and so far removed from the American actors and the subtle charm they brought to the roles. The British comedians are fairly well known, but in roles that do not translate well to this subject area. They are a well-known comedy duo, for a start, and this does not help the viewer accept them as polarised brand metaphors. And, try as he might, Robert Webb does not have the restrained, easy, West-Coast cool of his American counterpart; instead, he seems scruffy, detached, slightly rude. David Mitchell, as PC, just seems too average; rather than the more interesting, surreal, slightly insane US character. Result: the UK audience does not see Cool, it sees Smug.

The French just got a dubbed version of the original actors. So why, oh why did Apple drop the American versions for the UK; and how much has it cost them to take this step backwards? The interesting thing in this error is that, whosoever recommended the casting change simply did not understand the creative property they already had, nor the requirements of the British viewer - PC or Mac user alike.

(Picture credit Apple)

orange dreamers

The BAFTA awards made the news last week, prompting a bit of media-land discussion on the sponsor-brand’s involvement and its wider, fascinating brand case-history. Orange has so often been a brand doing something interesting – from the days of Cirque du Soleil right the way through to Orange Wednesdays; and yet it still also manages to be one of the most puzzlingly underachieving brands of all time.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed John Grant on the subject of the gift economy as applied to brand behaviour post Web 2.0. Namely, the idea of brands unconditionally engaging with their public in a way that goes beyond their obvious strategic and commercial imperatives, by “giving” something (an event, some content, a service…. The Charmin “plushest flush” restrooms in Times Square, the O2 hospitality initiatives, BMW early branded content, etc). Whether the manifestation of brand “giving” comes from a CSR initiative or a free rock concert, or anything in between (and whether the collateral gains are more obvious or less) it is clear that there is a major role in today’s brandscape for engagement achieved in this way. And Orange Wednesdays were a very memorable and pioneering example of this.

Going back to the BAFTAs, Casino Royale grabbed nine nominations, one less obvious one being Eva Green as Rising Star. Green made her screen debut in The Dreamers, a 2003 movie which gained a bit of faux-notoriety for trouble with censors, but which is actually a modestly thoughtful piece on living through 1960s French cultural upheaval. Nerd-like, I sometimes run the DVD of a movie with the function activated where the writer and director commentate over the soundtrack, talking about what they meant, what they were trying to achieve, what happened, etc. The thing I remembered about the commentary in this case (by Bernado Bertolucci, Gilbert Adair, and Jeremy Thomas) was the way in which they talked about so much spirit of the movie coming from an actual Paris apartment block that the production team and cast moved into, in totality, and duly became the backdrop of the story. Having just checked on what they did say, there is a gem of a comment about how the building “gave” to the movie its soul in a way that no set or CGI could ever do.

“Giving” to a public may well be unconditional and spontaneous, but it has to feel as though it comes from the very heart and soul of the brand. Like the building in that film, a brand gives out its philanthropy as part of its own vision of what it should be doing for its world.

And perhaps this is the problem for Orange. Despite its “giving” to the people, Orange makes so little sense. No one knows what the brand is trying to do, where it is going, what future-bright it sees. In this sense, it is unusual for our times. A brand that behaves in a thoroughly contemporary, post-Modern, gift-giving fashion – yet, at its heart, remains lacking in a good, old-fashioned, coherent and differentiating proposition.

(Picture credit BBC)

saints not spinners

One of the problems with democracy is that it tends to give you the result the people want, and not always the result you hope the people will want. It’s a lesson that political leaders have been slower to learn than have business leaders, the latter being voted for every time a consumer makes a purchase, rather than once every four or five years at election time. This means that politicians can have a built-in “laziness” that business leaders don’t inherit in the same way. Business people are just far better at understanding the volatility of the consumer, and, de facto, far better at understanding how democracy works and has to be embraced. This means they work quicker, and more efficiently at both short-term and longer-term decision making. Indeed, it is refreshing to see the degree that business has now come to terms with the need to get the product and services right before attending to the communication. The idea of “spin over reality” is far less prevalent in marketing than it is in politics, where true democracy can still be regarded as such a nuisance.

Something similar seems to apply in sport, the lifeblood of which is based on the unexpected and the democratic. It was said last year that the wonderful achievements of the European Ryder Cup team had gone against the script as far as American journalism was concerned, prompting a sudden and dramatic reduction of reporting of that tournament at the time in the US media. You expect this in politics, but when it gets into sport, there’s a massive point being lost. Namely, that competitiveness is better than dominance; and surprise is better than predictability. It is a lesson that the Australians do not have to learn. And although they may do a good line in one-eyed Pom-bashing during an Ashes series, it is noticeable that, at the moment, their glee at a 2-0 lead is balanced by a palpable disappointment at the English non-competitiveness. Which brings me back to the Ryder Cup team, who unexpectedly did not get a single award at the BBC Sport's Personality of the Year event recently. The surprise team of the year were St Helens rugby league club. In case you never witnessed them, St Helens were the coruscating marvels of Super League, winning everything in sight. By any rational yardstick, they were the correct choice for the BBC’s team award, and the public duly got it right. Interestingly, a few golf-loving journalists have grumbled about rugby fans dominating the phone vote; others have ignored the award. What a nuisance that the script didn’t get transmitted to the electorate. (Or to the independent judges of the Coach of the Year, who gave that award to St Helens as well!) But the irony is that the Ryder Cup team have already been victims themselves to journalism taking the bat home, as the US press did, when democracy votes for the “wrong” choice. Do we always have to do what America does?

(Picture credit BBC)

united at the nou camp

There’s been much talk recently about the value of joint brand initiatives – where two or more brands operate together to achieve a strategic net-sum-gain. There's also been almost endless talk about corporate social responsibility, and will probably be here for ever more. So put these two phenomena together and you get a double hit on the zeitgeist. The obvious link-up that comes to mind is the American Express partnership with Red. Of course, there have been one or two grumbles about this particular scheme, all of which seem to my mind a bit churlish, given that poor people win whatever the exact card-charging mechanism. But just from a crude brand perspective alone, the net synergy is impressive. The Amex Red card is a fine thing to behold; it generates a strong consumer interactivity with the brand; you’re doing something that counts, every time you use it; and it even makes a statement about you if that’s your thing.

However, this particular tie-up was eclipsed as a CSR milestone at the start of September by what was happening at the Nou Camp. When Barcelona trotted out in the pouring rain against Levski Sofia and put five past them, for the first time ever, they had a shirt sponsor. To put this into context, FC Barcelona had until this day famously refused near-open cheques from numerous global brands for front-shirt sponsorship rights. But it was the actual name of the sponsor that really made the news. Why?: because the iconic football brand had signed up a deal with UNICEF, and at one fell swoop given away some $20 million worth of shirt real estate to charity. As part of the deal, the club will donate around $1.5 million per annum to humanitarian aid. The statement by the Barca president, Joan Laporta would have been cheesy hyperbole in any other situation, but not here: "We... the people of Barca are very proud to donate our shirt to the children of the world who are our present but also our future." (And what a timely juxtaposition with all the current seedy stuff about bungs and brown envelopes in other parts of the soccer universe.)

As with American Express, however, the remarkable thing is in the synergy, and in the shock of seeing an iconic brand acting with real and sudden philanthropic decisiveness. Now the motives may not all be benevolent (and the marketing gonks will not be far away), but to question the intent is surely non-sequitur. Desperately needy kids will benefit - Period. And lo! one of the most famous (and well worn) jerseys in the world just got a whole lot more newsworthy – if that were possible. Suddenly, it is the kit of the new age, socially-responsible soccer fan. Of course, Real Madrid supporters and the rest are not going to go near the blue-and-red-striped tops, great cause or not. But for the non-partisan soccer generalists, the Barca badge becomes heroic in a completely new way. (Check out the numerous blogs on this issue to see that the deed has been viewed as "awesome" rather than "cynical" by a factor of hundreds to one.) The UNICEF logo is splashed all over Champions' League television, and you can guarantee that the shirt will, before long, be the choice of non-footy altruists everywhere. As the Executive Director of UNICEF, Ann Veneman said, “this donation is priceless”. In many many ways. CSR strategists, take note.

(Picture credit FC Barcelona)

the matter is closed

I can recall the first time I came across Karen Armstrong on the television, what must be well over 15 years ago, talking about her book Through the Narrow Gate. That book and several subsequent works, such as The Spiral Staircase, detail an extraordinary life, as a nun in a strict Jesuit order, as a victim of anorexia, depression and undiagnosed epilepsy, and then leaving the security of the order to return to a very changed late-60s Britain. She is a prolific writer, and a regular commentator on world religious and political affairs in The Guardian. Her comments are often controversial, and always thought-provoking. In one recent column, she was talking about the way in which, as meaning-seeking creatures, human beings crave “closed” narratives.

In two ways. First, we tend to adopt fundamentalist positions: we regard things as either completely true or not; and we extol our views based on the assumption that what we say is true versus what our adversaries say that, ergo, must be false. And second, we construct narratives based on a clear beginning and end. Cause-effect; start-finish; do-receive. Of course, this is particularly true in politics, where world leaders tend to argue in absolutes, and declare simplistic ends (reduce taxation, bring democracy, stop crime, etc). In her article, Karen Armstrong suggests that reality is almost invariably complex not ideal; and argues that religion today is interpreted simplistically to match “closed” political narratives. (The Bible is a multi-author, heavily-edited work, that is riddled with mutually-exclusive narratives.)

Now forgive the clumsy segue from the life-or-death issues of the real world to the relatively less lofty issues of the marketing world. But it strikes me that so many of the problems that confront us in marketing are based on the perceived need (of clients, suppliers, agencies….) for “closed” narratives. The need for an ad that will do everything; the need for a one-task strategy; the need to kill the competition…. We still find it hard to distance ourselves in marketing from the “closed”, start it-finish-it narratives that Karen Armstrong was describing in religion and politics.

This, of course, runs counter to the way in which modern media – and the mentality of those using it - is anything but “closed”. Blogs, YouTube, MySpace…. They all work on the basis of being open-ended. There is no start, no end, no resolution. The content in cyberspace is chaotic and unresolved. Search for anything on the internet these days, and you will not be told that you have reached an end of your search (not least because there will be a billion or so listings that you can’t get through). You just decide for yourself when you have had enough input.

And this is how the relationship between brands and people will become. Gone are the days of a beginning-end message, sent down in linear fashion - transmission-start, transmission-finish - to the consumer. The strong brands will be the non-closed ones, with the open-ended narratives. Brands like O2, Sony, Nike, IKEA, that can hold multiple, multi-subject, "open-ended" conversations with their public at any one time. They will be the ones that accept other alternatives (don’t drink our beer today; drink another one; that’s OK).

This apparent clash between “closed” and “open” cultures is, perhaps inevitably, at its most stark when politics meets marketing. And it will be interesting to see what Karmarama do with David Cameron’s Conservatives now. Political parties in need of marketing help can make for God-awful clients – and I speak from some modest experience – in that they work from the most “closed” of narrative models. (It probably comes from the fact that you are either a winner in power or a loser out of power, and nothing is more important that that cold reality; of from the fact that so many politicians are ex-lawyers from a world that adopts a similar, cold, 2-option only, adversarial view of reality). So trying to deploy the ambiguities and shadings of the best that marketing can offer amidst the corridors of Westminster is water uphill, I’m afraid. Check out a few politicians’ blogs and see how many get it, and how many still want to finish with the last word.

(Picture credit Fundamentalist Traffic Sign by Rowena Chatters)

being content

You can always tell when an idea has reached puberty, because it develops an acronym. And, true to form, as half of media-land is now obsessing about consumer-generated-content, the idea has sprouted “CGC” or "UGC". Note, we say “half” of media-land; because, although one half is obsessing over it, the other half has never heard of it. Indeed, there’s a kind of “ain't it awful” thing going around at the moment where the conversation of the cognoscenti goes something like this: “I had a client, the other day, who hadn’t even heard of YouTube/MySpace/Bebo/insert…. Can you believe it?” Now, I’ve heard this claim so many times recently that I was becoming convinced it was one of those apocryphal urban myths doing the rounds – except that, lo and behold, I had a client say it last week, almost in those exact words. But that’s another story.

CGC can mean a lot of things, from a few words of user debate right the way through to consumers trying to make films about their beloved brand. The troublesome thing about the CGC discussion today seems to me to be the way in which there is so much talk about how good the material might be. Will consumer content put the ad industry out of business overnight? Or is consumer content always going to be a high volume of rubbish with only an irrelevantly rare scattering of pearls and diamonds? This, of course, is completely missing the point about CGC, in whatever form it appears, whether courted by the brand or whether it’s there spontaneously. The real point about CGC is that if consumers are willing to spend their scarce time and rare passion doing something on behalf of a brand, well, we should just be very grateful that it’s our brand and that we are not suffering in a vacuum of anonymity. If it happens to be great, usable, viral, positive content that consumers are posting about us – that’s the icing on the cake; not the end in itself.

(Picture credit Coca Cola in Second Life)

when ads lack judgement

It’s not altogether unusual to hear people say that “advertising doesn’t work”; but it’s a different matter when those people come from within the advertising industry. Yet recently, I seem to be coming across more than a few adland folk saying this. Now, in truth, it’s usually uttered in that slightly ironic, faux self-deprecatory, I’m-very-edgy-and-know-all-about-PVRs, kind of way. Or the kind of way that invites you to admire the industry’s skill at making money from emperor’s new clothes; or challenges you to justify the opposite argument and thereby find yourself supporting the industry more than you might have been inclined to normally. But what's interesting is that the idea is around, in the air - and that may well be a reflection of the prevailing level of industry self-confidence.

Still, I don’t belong to the “ads don’t work” lobby; I believe, hand-on-heart, client out of earshot, that ads do work. Well, at least, some ads work, There’s ample empirical and anecdotal evidence to support the view that some ads do what they set out to do: strategically – be it raise brand awareness, introduce a thought to the public, increase share… or creatively – entertain, disrupt, build rapport…. The problem is, however, that a rather troublesome and growing proportion of advertising does not work. Good and bad alike. Growing because, in a world where the intended captive viewer of that advertising is increasingly short of time and spoilt for choice, just getting said viewer to sit still for 30 seconds and even make a judgement is the issue. No viewing; not working.

There is an audience for advertising, however, that is not subject to this effect. And it is an audience that can be both underestimated and undervalued. Namely, the internal company audience. It is often overlooked that the direct effect of (good) advertising on staff has an indirect effect on the brand. Staff are uplifted, momentum increases, enthusiasm multiplies, and, before you know it, the consumer is sensing the positive mood emanating from the corporate core. (And this is even before we factor-in the positive ego-lift experienced by the CEO, having a brand new shiny ad parked on the conference video.)

Of course, you can’t usually justify a budget on the basis on how good an ad makes the staff feel. And there is always the chance that they might hate the ad. But the probability is that, unlike those absent consumers, PVR-enabled or busy elsewhere, this audience at least will turn up to judge the damn thing.

(Picture credit ipa)

the end of the future

When the Orange brand was first launched in the UK, it was based on the insight that people were anxious over the future when they could, with the brand's help, be optimistic about it. Over time, however, the relevance and implication of Orange's bright future has completely changed. This has happened because the future has ceased to exist.

Put it another way; the idea of waiting around for any future to arrive has become unacceptable. Ten years ago, people were still awaiting the normalisation of the mobile comms network. For example: they knew something big was coming, and but felt that it had yet to arrive. Now, in contrast, people are impatient over, and intolerant of, that which is not yet available (be this anything from new technologies to medical advances). People see progress no longer limited by scientific constraints, but just restricted or hampered by budgets and politics. Basically, we can do just about anything now - fly to Mars, cure most diseases, create artifical life - if we truly decided to. But money, politics, or some other barrier is in the way. The original mnemonic of the Orange brand - “The future’s bright" - has, especially amongst the modern young, become a non-sequitur. What's relevant is how bright is the present. (You can see why "carpe diem" is so important for Vodafone.) Interestingly, this leads to greater social responsibility in the present - hence burgeoning interest in welfare, charity, environment, etc. (Indeed, orthodox Christianity was built on a wait-for-reward principle; yet the modern Christian philosophy is far more present-directed - in that good is seen as self-rewarding in the now). Recently, Orange has returned to the "Future's bright" mnemonic, but I suspect that this is more driven by a need to stabilise an inconsistent view of the brand and return to what people most recall about the brand, rather than develop the thought in a post-Millenial way: an understandable but ultimately backward-looking strategy, one has to feel.

There has, however, been one market sector where the reverse has started to apply, and where the future has been presented with effectiveness. In the automobile sector, companies used to be terrified of the consumer finding out about a new model coming soon. (Indeed, some salespeople still play this game of "not having heard anything about that one, Sir", even though the pages of Autocar and the web are full of the latest spy-shots, etc. Ditto some staff at this year's Motor Show.) Now, however, many manufacturers are embracing transparency and opening micro-sites to whet the appetite prior to a new launch. They flag their future models, and do it transparently. But for most contemporary brands, over-emphasis on what it might be doing soon is never going to be a convincing strategy at the best of times.

The tactic is, of course, the mainstay of most political messages. Our political masters do a great line in telling us what is coming soon (or not quite so soon, where we are in for the "long-haul"), and what the opposition did badly previously. The "future's bright", as used with all its spurious glowing luminosity on full beam, is a familiar political mantra. And they wonder why disenfranchisement is taking place.

the beautiful game

Today, we are rightly preoccupied by "content" – discussed in juxtaposition with "message", as if the two are separated at birth. Indeed, it makes sense to acknowledge that people are no longer the captive audience they once were for product messages and user imperatives latterly dressed up in a light creative covering. The role of brand advertising today is, from start to finish, to provide people with content: something they find interesting, captivating, entertaining, engaging, emotional. Real content: not just a brand message with an outer-creative sugar coat. Hence all the talk about “disruption”: getting people to take note of the advertiser's content over another interesting competitive option in their lives; getting them to emote. Some parts of the strategy can be terrifyingly inconsequential.

Disruption, however, is an incomplete description, in that its dis- prefix suggests something that goes against the flow of comfortable, easy viewing: dis-arming, dis-comforting, dis-turbing even. The word pays a dis-service to some of the most interesting content of recent times that has been marked by the way it goes along with our spiritual flow, not against it. There's lots of great advertising that does not jolt us into watching; it does the opposite. This point struck me listening to the Fallon people talking about their Bouncing Balls ad for Sony, and how they just wanted to produce something that made the viewer really feel… well, just… really relaxed... in flow. (Hence the José González track.) That they succeeded has been well documented. And they succeeded because they created a thing of unadulterated, harmonious, beauty. Doing which is sometimes underplayed or even missed when it comes to valuing advertising. As though making a beautiful film or picture was just a bonus, after the other cleverer stuff was worked through.

The value of ads that work on the basis of just being lovely, beautiful, gorgeous things to watch is something that is perhaps overlooked in our eagerness to achieve disruption. (That's even before we start asking how the brand message has been worked in.) Yet there have been some truly beautiful pieces of work out there this last year. It was not to everyone’s taste, but the Orange (Dance) ad seemed to me to be a case in point. Ads that delight in their beauty - and their "flow" - have been with us since the turn of the Century, of course. (Think about all those Alfonso Mucha ads as one tiny example.) But there are still marketers out there who will always interpret this beauty as only the final touch cosmetic outer-coating of their brand truth. (And we've all got thousands of stories about the client wanting to ruin the "flow" of the print-ad with the pack-shot.) This is a shame, because the higher and stronger emotions triggered by the beauty of a work are second-to-none in getting the viewer feeling positive about the brand. If only they understood that truth and beauty – as Keats told us two centuries ago – are actually the same thing.

the ministry of small

It is interesting to see Toyota, now the biggest car producer on the planet, making such a thing about small being big (apropos of the Yaris). The idea is not new (the old Volkswagen Beetle campaign coming to mind), but it's very much part of the spirit of the times. Nor is it a cheap claim. The product itself is a striking one: not least because it's a vehicle that looks a happy one without being too dinky with it; they've left a bit of edge there in the design, which is more than can be said for some small hatches. In this case, then, I think the "big thinking" tag is well justified. Meanwhile, Nokia, amongst others are also on the same case, with their "Small is the next big thing", although this is not nearly as clever as the Toyota expression: why is it the "next big thing" rather than "current"? Sounds like their kit isn't yet available.

In a similar vein, I keep coming across small, virtual companies that are: (1) doing well; (2) happy. The two things are symbiotically linked, of course. As a small, virtual company myself, it feels good to be part of the general movement that is small-and-virtual – something that has been almost wholly a function of the phenomenon that is the internet. As Seth Godin has written, Small is the new big. It is so because of the added value you can bring to clients and customers because of the very fact that you are a small operation, and that big operations often don’t provide – or have lost in their general, bureaucratic big-ness. Namely: you have more time to devote to clients; more concentration to give to them; more value; more inspiration; more happiness; more enthusiasm; more understanding…. More of you. It all just feels so much cleaner, more agile, less hamstrung. And both client and supplier are the beneficiaries. To quote Seth Godin again, “A small church has a minister with time to visit you in hospital when you’re sick.” And you can bet the minister will be happy when he comes.