Getting consumers to create ads was BIG in 2007, peaking with a slew of such ads shown in the almighty Super Bowl of that year. But, it is still alive and kicking in 2008. In fact one of the Bowl advertisers that ran consumer generated fare last year, Doritos, now has claim to what might be the cheapest ad ever made.
The ad for Doritos in the UK was made for just over $12 by Matt Bowron and John Addis and isn’t half bad.
I feel guilty about not blogging for a few weeks - Richard has his mind on other things (his new book, 2011, is on the shelves of bookstores everywhere) and I’ve just been, well, busy, and a little lazy, but mostly busy. I gave a keynote speech at the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association’s annual conference in Sonoma a couple of weeks ago. I was hot! No, really, I was very hot. It was because of the freakishly warm weather with temperatures creeping above 100 degrees. It was a great session though. Lots of very thoughtful and switched-on senior marketers from the retailing industry, struggling from the demands of their jobs in a tough economic environment. We talked through the Punk Marketing Manifesto and everyone there seemed to get it and buy into it. But, what really got them excited were some simple tips I’d put together on the things they could do the very next day that they got back into their offices to raise the bar of their marketing. They’re just simple ideas really, that are the first baby steps on the way to big change. Things they could do under the radar without having to change the whole of their marketing…just yet.
Here they are:
1. DON’T OUTSOURCE ALL OF THE CREATIVITY TO YOUR AGENCIES. IT NEEDS TO BE PART OF EVERY DECISION WE MAKE ON A DAILY BASIS. IT’S NOT TRUE YOU ARE EITHER BORN CREATIVE OR NOT. IT’S LIKE A MUSCLE – THE MORE YOU USE IT, THE STRONGER IT’LL GET, AND BOY IT’LL FEEL GOOD!
2. SIT DOWN WITH A SOME OF YOUR TEAM AND LIST OUT THE CONVENTIONS OF YOUR SECTOR, THEN THINK OF WAYS TO TURN THEM ON THEIR HEADS (NOT YOUR TEAM, THE CONVENTIONS)!
3. GET TOGETHER A SMALL GROUP OF YOUR SMARTEST PEOPLE FROM INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE ORGANIZATION. GO SOMEWHERE FUN, LIKE A BEACH CLUB. ASK THEM TO HELP YOU THINK THROUGH ONE THING YOUR STORES CAN BE THE BEST IN THE CATEGORY AT – MAKE IT VERY SPECIFIC AND ACTIONABLE (NOT BEST AT CUSTOMER SERVICE – IT’S TOO VAGUE!). THE NEXT DAY START PUTTING THAT INTO PLACE. MAYBE IT’S THE BEST WAY OF SAYING GOODBYE TO YOUR GUESTS – A NICE PIECE OF CANDY ETC.
4. PICK ONE STORE AND SET UP A CONTEST THERE FOR 10 OF YOUR STAFF AND OUTSIDE PARTNERS (INCLUDE PEOPLE FROM THAT STORE). MAKE IT LIKE “THE APPRENTICE” – SPLIT THE GROUP INTO TWO TEAMS AND SET THEM A SALES TARGET FOR THE DAY, THE WINNERS TO GET A GREAT DINNER SOMEWHERE. THE NEXT MONTH DO IT IN ANOTHER STORE.
5. PICK ANOTHER STORE AND GET THE STAFF TO DO SOMETHING AMAZING AND WONDERFUL IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. WHEN IT’S DONE REWARD THE STAFF THEN ASK OTHER STORES TO DO THEIR OWN INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITY PROGRAM. DON’T DO ANY PR UNTIL YOU’VE DONE 10 OF THEM.
6. DEFINE YOUR ENEMY – NOT THE OBVIOUS SUCH AS YOUR IMMEDIATE COMPETITOR, BUT AN ATTITUDE. HINT: APPLE’S ENEMY ISN’T REALLY THE PC, IT’S “SAMENESS” OR “DULLNESS.” NOW DRAW UP A BATTLE PLAN TO COMBAT IT.
7. ASK YOURSELF: “AM I A GOOD CLIENT TO MY AGENCY? DO I SET THEM CLEAR GOALS AND GIVE THEM THE FREEDOM TO COME BACK WITH INTERESTING SOLUTIONS?” IF NOT, TALK TO ME ABOUT WAYS TO IMPROVE. IF SO, AND THE WORK YOU’RE SEEING STILL ISN’T GREAT, THEN TALK TO ME ABOUT FINDING A NEW AGENCY.
8. INVEST THEM IN THE BUSINESS. FIRST ASK THE AGENCY TEAM TO EACH WORK IN YOUR STORES FOR ONE WEEK AND COME BACK WITH SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO IMPROVE THE BUSINESS AND SOME CONSUMER INSIGHTS GOT FIRST HAND.
9. GIVE THE AGENCY A SMALL EXPERIMENTAL BUDGET (SAY $50K) TO USE TO COME UP WITH INNOVATIVE MARKETING IDEAS THAT YOU PROMISE NOT TO INTERFERE MUCH WITH. IT’LL MAKE THEM FEEL EXCITED AND MOTIVATED.
10. MAKE YOUR AGENCY PART OF THE WHOLE PROCESS. SET THEM BIGGER PROBLEMS AND THEY’LL COME BACK WITH BIGGER SOLUTIONS.
Here’s the idea. When you go to hulu.com, the website set up by NBC Universal and Newscorp to compete with YouTube, to watch a video clip you can choose what ad you want to watch with it. “You want a sports coupe ad with that clip from the Office, sir? Or perhaps you’re more in the market for a SUV? Let me get that for you straight away.” Hmm.
“It’s choose-your-own-adventure advertising,” enthuses Jean-Paul Colaco, Hulu’s ad guy quoted in today’s Financial Times. Yeah, JP, it’s a veritable adventure. One bad car ad over another, that’s real consumer control. He recognizes that online vid viewers (OVVs) get bugged by having to watch the same old “pre-roll” ad at the for the first 15 seconds of the video and hence the solution - a nod towards relevant content (rather than simply, you must be a young adult if you’re watching this stuff so we’ll plop an ad for a product targetd to you lot before the real entertainment begins).
But it is just a nod. And is a very blunt way of targeting. The viewers won’t, for instance, be able to forgo watching the an ad altogether; they can just choose from a very limited selection which one to play.
If they want to see the damned clip, they have to just grin and bear watching the godawful ad too! Got it?
YouTube’s approach, announced a couple of months ago, is a little different. There will be overlay ads on the bottom quarter of the video screen which viewers can expand to fill the whole screen or, thankfully, block out altogether.
This is better than forcing people to watch the ads, but is still a far from perfect solution; one that uses the medium as the interactive experience it should be. I always loved “Pop-Up Video” on VH1 - you know, the music video show in which trivial facts about the videos popped up as they played - and now dream that online video could do the same thing. For online video the pop-ups wouldn’t come up automatically - as, on a screen that small they would obscure the whole picture and only doesn’t irritate on much repeated content, such as music videos you’ve seen a hundred times before - but would pop up if you, the viewer, decided you wanted to know more: more about the character, the production or maybe even the stuff (aka “the products”) shown. Rolling the mouse over the cool car in the clip could give you a price and some specs, perhaps mention a promotion or invite you to click for a test drive.
Thing is, that technology is available now (see the demos on videoclix.com), it’s just that using it would take too much effort for advertisers to individualize the pop-ups to each different video. They like a one-size-fits all approach, treating the audience as one homogenous demographic, rather than recognizing that in this new Punk world marketers need to customize their messages.
Oh well, I’ll keep dreaming, and probably avoid altogether watching the online videos with pre-roll ads.
The Financial Times reported yesterday that Apple is considering launching an “all you can eat” iTunes service that would allow customers to get unlimited access to the iTunes library in exchange for their paying a premium for iPods and iPhones. This mirrors Nokia’s “comes with music” offer the Finnish company announced last December in which folks will be able to get all of Universal Music library of music by paying a premium on top of the price of a Nokia phone. The FT reported that Apple might also be examining a subscription service in which iPhone customers pay a monthly charge as part of their phone bill to get unlimited access to iTunes tunes.
What’s interesting about this is that Apple is proving itself once again to be adept at shifting and innovating as the market moves. Rather than simply sticking to the business model that has made them the most successful seller of music downloads (by far), the black turtle-necked one has recognized that being the biggest in ANYTHING is no guarantee of future success. Consumers don’t like being taken for granted and if something new and shiny comes along, such as unlimited music, they might easily be tempted to dump their iPods or iPhones in favor of a cool new Nokia phone that gives it to them. And data shows that consumers would be willing to pay a $100 premium for as device to get unlimited music over its lifetime, or $7-8 a month in extra subscription charges.
To be a Punk Marketer you have to put yourself in the shoes of the consumer (however smelly they might be) and imagine what they want and need. As a starting point, assume there is no brand loyalty, even for a brand as “cool” and iconic as Apple, and that consumers are fickle and will change allegiance as fast as it takes to say, “but this ones cheaper!” Research is useful for that, but so is intuition and common sense, and Jobs is a master at understanding what will appeal to consumers emotionally without having to see proof of it. And the other thing that Apple consistently does is to set its own standards, not be governed by those of the industry. Each product they come out with doesn’t just improve on the competition, it redefines the market. Sure, the iPhone has its problems (most of of them because AT&T’s network isn’t good enough), but it has set the standard for all future mobile devices leaving all but rival Nokia, with its new N-95 phone, scrambling in the dust.
It was announced today that Crispin Porter + Bogusky won the advertising account for Microsoft’s consumer products, a piece of business with billings in excess of $300million. That is some feat and I want to be the first (alright, the 589th) to congratluate my old colleagues at the agency. They’ve come a long way since I first met them in 1997 when they were less then 100 people occupying two floors in an office tower in Coconut Grove, Florida. Not many people, even in the insular ad industry, knew of them depite the fact they’d been doing great work for a few years and even when they launched the brand Truth - still one of the best campaigns for anything anywhere - the next year they were regarded by most as a bunch of oddballs who had no place working on big mainstream brands.
Well today oddball came of age. You don’t get much more mainstream than good old Microsoft, the company that people love to hate for its size, dull-looking products and geeky persona. The big MS must have realized that to transform its image, its only hope was to completely rethink its brand and, seeing what CP+B did for companies like Burger King, they became pretty much the only choice. The runner-up for the account was Fallon, a great agency, but one that has hardly done much to add that priceless ‘cool factor’ to its clients’ brands in the last few years. What they did for BMW by creating Hollywood-quality films for the web was amazing for its bravery but, hey, that was 8 years ago now.
There are few agencies that compete with CP+B. It has almost single-handedly transformed the way advertising is defined, from a format driven discipline to something much broader and organic. The way Alex Bogusky and his creative lieutenants think about markting problems is just so markedly different from the way it works in other agencies, it just doesn’t bear comparison. Smaller agencies run by big thinking renegades have a chance to learn from CP+B and create truly media neutral, holistic campaigns, but I just don’t know how the big agencies, so used to working in the old way where media determines creative (and TV is always king), have a chance. Luckily for them there are still clients who put a premium on service above creative, and global network above big thinking, but with accounts like Microsoft handing the keys over to agencies like CP+B, I wonder for how long.
