As with all articles containing the words “x success criteria…” use this with caution. However, the report, while not earth shattering should help you with your next argumentation.
Via DavaiDavai
Within the pursuit of being students of human behavior, Leo Burnett researcher Carol Foley is developing a typology of human behavior, called Behavioral Archetypes (SM).
The Tool allows the classification of human behavior and the brands response behavior.
Our starting point for all explorations of behavior must be to identify and understand what people are doing right now with regard to our brand or product.
The psychological literature is full of references to specific types of behavior.
Yet no one has sorted out all of these various types of behavior, nor created a schema of their relationships to one another.
Were we to be able to do this, we could begin with the behavior itself, rather than with a psychological perspective, and then allow the relevant perspectives to inform that behavior further.
Through over 10,000 interviews in multiple studies, we’ve been able to quantitatively map all of the major types of behavior into a paradigm.
What is important about Behavioral Archetypes(SM), and what substantially validates it, is the degree to which it mirrors models of human motives and values. The model allows for spotting adjacent behaviors (e.g. the freedom behavior’s neighbours are self-interest and change) as well as opposite behaviors (e.g. the the change behavior’s opposite is preservation) as well as 40-50 sub-behaviors per behavior category. See below.
Further investigation into human behavior with this model also leads to insights (behavior tensions) regarding
The tool lends itself to a more structured approach to behavior investigation, spotting behavioral tensions within the people that are most important to a brand and to formulate a brand behavior response.
If you are interested in more information, please feel free to contact us.
A colleague just forwarded me a great online tool from Dr. BJ Fogg from Stanford about the different ways that behavior can change - expressing the subtle but important ways that change is approached - whether it is new behavior, the duration of a familiar behavior or the cessation of a behavior.
Interesting stuff, and useful for building strategies that can affect behavior through the understanding of exactly what you’re trying to accomplish. We typically include lots of information about the behaviors we are trying to impact, but this grid assists in clarifying the comparison of the change in context of other behaviors.
In their article, Facebook Fans Valued at $3.60 Each, Mashable’s Christina Warren reports on the latest study by Vitrue (also covered in this Adweek article - hmmm this topic seems to have a lot of people interested in it…) showing that the value of a fan can be expressed in “earned media” - or impressions for updates that post to your user’s news feeds.
It’s good to know that there might be some marketers who feel they can relax a little bit now - after all, impressions at least are relatively understood. But the really exciting thing is how much of an iceberg tip it really is - since the actions by users like Commenting, Likes, and Shares are also big influences, and probably still unknown - the blog post just hints at doubling or tripling the impact!
Vitrue is pretty forthcoming about the best practices that we have seen emerge, however, regarding deeper connections and better penetration - no surprise that relevant content, rich media and engaging Acts are the traits of more successful Pages.
It’s a cool time to be working in marketing - and a cool time to be working with clients to determine what the value of participation in the social space means for Brands and their consumers.
Interesting post on Influencers over at Techipedia - the author looks at influencers and the things that they say drive them to act.
There are some common threads, but the interesting thing to me is how diverse some views are. Proving that there is no magic formula. Sorry folks - to do it right takes Customization, Personalization and good old fashioned Relationship Building!
How many times has this topic been discussed? Possibly more than any other. But reading the Seven Principles for Marketing to Women on the Retail Customer Experience.com site, I was struck by how important it is to heed ‘the basics’ in our work with this half of the population.
I think the article is worth a read - and not just for retail insight. Even in the realms of interaction design and channel strategy, we have to take the time to make sure we are viewing the decisions that women make through a lens of their priorities and values.
Or - do you think this model is outdated? Are we seeing behaviors that are not always really there, and looking to evolutionary evidence to confirm our preconceptions? (The author is a cognitive anthropologist but that doesn’t make him infallible!)
via: RetailCustomerExperience.com
Plus - it looks like there is a page takeover ad running today on the site (and probably for the next few days) of Microsoft’s Embedded Retail Device technology that is super-cool. Check that out as well!
This is an old BBC documentary from 1967 about New York ad man Steve Frankfurt. I had the pleasure to work in his agency Frankfurt Balkind, when he had just left for new endeavours and only met him once. Anyway, this documentary is an amazing piece of advertising history, or nostalgia (depending of where you’re coming from). Apart from being a trip back in time, it lends itself greatly for some awesome quotes you might wanna use in your next client presentation. 
Thanks Andreas Combüchen for sharing!
Check out these photographic records of the heroines of the burgeoning women’s movement on indicommons.
Do you know bestiario.org? If you don’t you should check it out now. Bestario features the latest in visualization techniques, displaying boring data in mind-boggling arrangements
Last weekend some strategy and long-term digital agency career friends (Dirk Reinhardt, Shailia Stephens-Würsig, Björn Sternsdorf, Gerald Hensel and Angela Becker) and I held a seminar at our Leo Burnett offices on digital planning for traditional planners.
To be honest, we were a bit sneaky. To most of us, there ain’t no such thing as “digital” strategy. Or can you tell me what “analog” strategy is?
Fact is, there is so much confusion and mystery regarding the term “digital”, even to supposedly “channel-agnostic/media-neutral” strategists, that it seemed like a great strategy (haha) to offer a course in “digital planning”. In doing so, we had the pleasure to work with the top 20 of Germany’s planners who don’t just hide behind the hackneyed term “channel-agnostic” for lack of their own change-ability, but rather exercised their confusion tolerance and went into the whole thing full-on. The most engaged folks I had the pleasure to work with in a while!
Hence, our aim wasn’t sneaky at all: debunk the myths around digital planning, its complexity and hopefully provide some pointers that alleviate some angst concerning new terrains in research, discovery, strategy development and shaping the creative outcome. And above all: make the segregated planning community come together.
Therefore, the day started with the statement:
“Digital” strategy doesn’t replace traditional strategy. Strategy is strategy and always was. It simply rams home the point that we need to extend strategic planning overall so it can remain relevant as a discipline that can lead brands to success by making a qualitative difference in people’s lives again.”
Techniques and tools (such as information architecture, touchpoint analysis, contact planning, purchase funnels, etc) have existed for a long time before the term “digital strategy” became the mot du jour. They may have given us an irritatingly confusing mess of terminologies, but also a gift: we can make brands relevant again, without unsuccessfully and repeatedly pressing the “mass media onslaught” button because we’re out of ideas.
Therefore, we see digital strategy as a way to go back to the roots and deliver what strategy was always about: know what to do, not just what to say. This is the most relevant job a strategist can do in a time when people wonder if they should listen to your brand.
Therefore, we try to make digital the stuff that adds a PLUS to your strategic effectiveness versus being a completely new discipline:
Each section of the workshop then explored each PLUS with practical exercises and theory moving along the planning process from research to strategy to creative briefing and team constellations.
Result of the workshop:
At the end of the workshop, we had a discussion on whether we succeeded in offering an intergrated approach to planning, and if indeed digital (and other) planning methodologies in fact can be seen as a plus or if it isn’t really something different out there.
Here are excerpts of the discussion:
On brands:
“I think one of the biggest issues is still that brands and their clients feel that they have to be perfect. But people don’t expect you to be perfect. They want a conversation about your products. I mean, would you trust a person who disappointed you and walks away when you want to talk to them?”
“I think if brands didn’t understand the importance behind people’s digital behaviors before, flailing a dead business and brand model, the recession could end up helping in finally understanding it. There didn’t seem to be enough pressure to have to change. Maybe now marketers will understand that it’s not them that change everything, but rather the people themselves. Strategic planning needs to accompany that.”
On Technology:
“Traditional planning has been moving this way anyway, but there seem to be so many barriers still for brand planners because they think they can’t do something that in the end requires a technological solution.”
“I am so relieved the new planning isn’t about technology. On the contrary, I am happy that it is even much more about people than before. Looking at human behavior and having all this detailed insight instead of just asking people is what we should do anyway!”
“For brand planners, it is second nature to look at trends in categories. It might help to think of technology as a thing that keeps generating trends that change people’s behaviors. It is much better than getting scared about technological details. And we need to know what people do anyway. How else can we plan for anything?”
On the planning process:
“What really helped was to understood that my team just got so much bigger and what the different roles are. It helps me because I now that my brand strategy is not seperate from digital stuff and I feel there are people to talk to about my strategy and get it working everywhere else.”
“Digital always seems so overwhelming when you don’t know you don’t have to know everything. Knowing there are experts really helps.”
On taking clients into the digital space:
“I am still worried about being able to give a client security about delivering, so he moves forward into the digital space, but to be honest was I ever able to give him this security before? My client spends loads of money on TV and I can’t really say if it works anymore either.”
“In a way, tradititional planners have an advantage: they speak the brand and marketing client’s language better than some digital agency people. Using that advantage, also in terms of tradititional techiques to make them feel comfortable to try out new stuff is a big opportunity.”
“It makes sense to think in little steps and strategies instead of trying to solve for everything at once and selling the client a holistic castle in the sky. Taking the client on a journey with achievable milestones and giving them a sense of success in the space and growing from there works better.”
Conclusion:
While not all myths can be debunked in one weekend, not all issues solved, we feel we started a discourse in the right direction and everyone involved feel that this kind of collaboration can open doors to better strategy with less siloes. As workshop participant, Stephen Rothman, Head of Strategy Saatchi Frankfurt said:
I believe that as the world of marketing and communications moves forward, the work will demand that we come to the place where classic vs. digital planner will become an anachronism. Because “consumers” aren’t digital or classic. This seminar got us all started in that direction.
