Leo Burnett - Cultural Fuel

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!

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Not really news to most of us, but don’t y’all love to say “I told you so”: On his recent Ad Age Post Garrick Schmitt goes into the theory that User Experience Professional (and some other smartypants) have been preaching for the last 15 years or so: experiences, not messages are what brands should focus on.

For example, 65% of U.S. consumers report a digital experience changing their perception about a brand (either positively or negatively) and 97% of that group report that the same experience ultimately influenced whether or not they went on to purchase a product from that brand. In a nutshell, experience matters. A lot.

Schmitt mentions Red Bull, Virgin America, Uniqlo and Guinness as great examples of brands that spend their money in creating a qualitative difference in people’s lives that ultimately make a bigger impact than expensive advertising messages.

I can’t help feel like having to say “Duh,” but then again, anyone who so convincingly preaches to marketers is a brother-in-arms to me.

Ultimately, it comes down to creating acts (not ads) that are based on people and their behavior, defining a human purpose for the brand, allows people to participate, and in so doing, makes the brand popular (at Leo, we love alliterations). Being able to plan and create for experiences (functional and emotional ones alike) is the key business to be in.

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…doooooooooooh:-) not new but kinda cool!
some smart guys say smart stuff about it here

have fun.

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When I first saw this guest writer article on TechCrunch by yesterday by Eric Clemons, I thought “That content is like, so web1.0, no need to comment on it.” Then, when I looked again today, the article had gotten 200 more comments, and I thought “What the dickens? This type of statement still gets people going? Why?”

Basically Eric Clemons gives a few well-deduced, even if obvious reasons why the Advertising is failing.

1. Consumers do not trust advertising
2. Consumers do not want view advertising
3. Consumers do not need advertising

None of this is really news, is it? Seriously, in the 15 or so years I’ve been in this field I never thought the opposite of the above points. It’s always been about brands providing people with meaningful value exchanges and experiences, not mere messaging blather. Brand messaging, if anything, can just be an add-on to an experience that enables a human behavior. So, as a result, what professionals in this space must do is to use creativity to  do things for or with people (brand experience), not just come up with ways to say things (advertising).

But looking at the comments on this here techcrunch article, it seemed like I had to check my ideology at the door, once again, and be reminded, once again, that even industry professionals still believe that making advertising alone is valid. In fact, some people commented in ways that basically told Mr. Clemons to shove off with his whiny little liberal nerd voice and one even threatened to bash his head in!

This was surprising to me, as TechCrunch isn’t exactly a mainstream advertising gazette with “Ad Men” fossils milling about, talking about “Big Campaigns”, “That blonde in Cannes who really liked my winning 30s spot” or whatever people apocrypally usually do who work for the failing business model called “Mass media advertising agency” and do nothing to change it (btw, I yet have to meet one of those people, they MUST be sowhere).

Why I believe the whole thing got heated unnecessarily, is that Mr. Clemons predicted the death of advertising (like many did before) in a way that was a bit polarizing, in order to make a point.  If the point is that you can’t just message at people and treat them as passive recipients, but instead need to deliver experiences that make a qualitative difference in their lives, I think most people would say: “Yeah, got it, thanks!” But even if you heed this advice and you help brands understand and enable human behavior and create acts instead of just ads: it still doesn’t mean you won’t see any messaging anymore. When you do something for or with people, it is worth talking about, too. The only difference should be: instead of giving your brand a reason to buy, you focus on giving it a reason to exist, i.e. a purpose in the context of people’s lives.

I think if you tried to get the commentators of the article to subscribe to that notion, it wouldn’t become so much about advertising and whether or not messaging will die, but rather what one commentator described as “the natural evolution of advertising”. But then again, it wouldn’t have made for a controversial article with the potential to get Mr. Clemons that much publicity (which btw, in spanish and french is the same word as “advertising”).

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Found this on PaulinePauline’s flickr stream. It’s an advertisement in bath rooms for a dating site. Walking into a bathroom and seeing a full-sized perspectivally correct, naked lady should be pretty arresting. Or something like that…

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As part of a US$300 Million+ ad campaign, Microsoft engaged Jerry Seinfeld to do a commercial with Bill Gates. The commerical takes place in a shoe shop. It’s quirky, geeky, and well, actually, somehow honest about Microsoft.

Just a few weeks ago I had a discussion with Tom Acland, on why the hell tech brands (such as Dell, for example) try to be as cool and suave as Apple, when, in reality, they can’t pull it off. They come out with advertising and products that reek of copycat advertising and product strategy, which is not credible, and, even worse, kills the good stuff those brands do have. I guess their inability to develop their own strong brand purpose that is rooted in what people need and like about their brand creates a sense of reactive copying of another brand’s recipe. Problem is, you can’t copy Apple’s product and marketing innovation, you gotta come up with your own!

So how do you respond to Apple’s PC vs. MAC commericals when you are Microsoft?

I think they did a good job with Jerry (who somehow is a geek, too) and Bill does a good job of personifying Microsoft’s geeky brand character. After all, Microsoft is modeled after him, no point in pretending it’s something else. It has personality and of course, it has Jerry’s odd humor to transport it. Plus, it features little clues to Bill Gates trivia, such as a real (grinning) Mugshot of him in 1977 when he was arrested in New Mexico for a traffic violation, on the customer loyality card. Or, naming the shoe “The Conquistador” (repeated in Spanish by a Latin American family), as an obvious innuendo to Mircosoft’s corporate take-over plans. Nice.

I do think this might help Microsoft’s brand reputation in that it actually is truly a Microsoft thing to do. It’s honest, yet funny, and for once, doesn’t bombard you with boring product USPs. Microsoft personified, will still be the geek at the party, but at least true to himself and competent in his own right.

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With traditional forms of advertising being under pressure more and more, it seems banners have been sold as the “digital” way to keep doing mass communication. Fact though is,  since banners also communicate single-minded propositions, just like a TV ad, they really are no different, except you can maybe target them better (which is actually not always done) and measured better (also not always done). However, the modus operandi these days still for agencies seems to be that as long as you slap the label “digital” on something, it’s easier to sell. But, let’s face it, it’s still just advertising.

Looking at banners closely from a people’s point if view, banner advertising is one of the most annoying forms of advertising, maybe even more annoying than TV-Spots because they interrupt people’s task flows. So it is only natural that their effectiveness has been questioned for quite some time now. If you look at digital marketing budgets and the percentage of how much of it is spent on media versus creating rich experiences where the media buys should lead, unforunately, usually only a fraction is spent on creating the experiences. The mindset of “reach” is still more prevalent than that of “relevance” and offering people value in exchange for their attention and time. Banners are just messaging, and rarely have included meaningful experiences.

According to Adweek, AvenueA/Razorfish is trying to change all that with a new format they call AdLife and have been testing with a roster of their clients. AdLife banners have built in social-media features such as customer testimonials.

Singh [global social media lead for Avenue A/Razorfish] said efforts like AdLife are part of an industry-wide effort to solve a critical challenge: How to attract consumers’ attention at a time when display ads are ignored and customers rely more on what others say than advertisers.

“What’s driving this is the recognition that social influence has a big influence on purchases and brand affinity,” he said. “Customers listen to other customers more than anything else. It makes sense for the ad unit to carry customer voices.”

This seems to make sense at first sight, and will probably improve CTRs and bring value to AARFs ad clients.

However, there are two things I feel weary about:

1. If the focus is still on the effort on how to attract consumers attention from the brand point of view, you are not addressing the issue that they want a value exchange for that attention. It’s advertising think. Focus what people want first, then on how the brand can make a meaningful contribution. Not the other way around.

2. It is true that people listen to other people more than to messages. However, if you carry a consumers voice in an ad, it is still an ad. Testimonial advertising isn’t exactly new, and therefore is just, well, advertising. Also, social media work best, not only when people create the content, but also have the feeling it happens in the context of a social community the call their own. Can a banner ever provide that context?

So, apart from AARF’s honorable quest to keep deliver innovative solutions for their client’s problems, how much of an innovation is this in terms of focusing on creating human brand acts as opposed to delivering new forms of ads? Not much. It’s a more like hitting the pause button on the undeniable fact that pure messaging media will have to become de-emphasized in the favor of building holistic brand experiences.

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