Leo Burnett - Cultural Fuel

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”).

Great interaction, using the blackberry storm as a command to drive the car (first a small car.. then Hamilton driving with the mobile a real car)

Video make in the hills of Wales with sheep, LEDs and a camera, to create a huge amazing LED display.

In an article for TIME, Lev Grossman talks about how Facebook is really best designed for the middle-aged, not the young. He lists 10 reasons Facebook is for ‘old fogies’ such as:  it’s for finding people you’ve lost track of, we don’t get drunk and post bad pictures, people use it for business contact, we don’t want to ‘do’ anything, but just sit back read and judge, we want to share pictures of our children etc.

Check out the new Epson microsite for determining which Epson printer/scanner/copier is right for you.  They use customizable sliders and options along with well-designed animation to allow you to “scientifically” determine which product you require (your “epsonality”).

http://www.epsonality.com/

Nothing magical here, but a fun interface that guides you and encourages exploration.

This idea seems to be a big one - having experience with the make IKEA without communicating it. The swedish company launched 3 days ago a viral plattform showing Nils waiting for the IKEA catalogue - live, in color & with sound. Likely, there’s no better experience to see people NOT having any IKEA furniture at home.

For me it’s the first viral idea which is really interactive and authentic. You can call, mail and send letters to Nils - Entertainment for all voyeuers & Big Brother fanatics.

http://www.warte-bis-september.de/

UK Agency Republic brings the car make smart with a promotional website online. It seems that smart got a handful of insights of non-smart-drivers about the misconceptions and customer prejudices of the small city runabout. So the user passes a journey through themes like comfort, safety, space and fuel consumption and smart’s features in a british humorous way.

The site demands interaction and decisions, shows other users’ behaviour and presents the answers of the putted questions in amusing experiments. Excellent implemented: sales support, possibility of direct contact and lead generation at the end of the experiment process - well done!

So, who would you call if your smart has a meeting with a wrecking ball? The ambulance or a mechanics? Decide by yourself!
http://www.truthaboutsmart.co.uk

We are currently undertaking a retail audit in Germany for our Shopper Marketing Retail Exchange, gauging the store experience people have in supermarkets. While doing so, we saw this:

What we see here is a cooler shelf with convenience products, such as sausages, paddies and the like. Do you see the title for the products?

“Convenience”

Remember, we are in Germany here. While the term is known in the retail industry, i.e. to store owners and purchasing departments, how many people do you think find it “convenient” to try to guess the meaning of an English word while looking at a bunch of sausages? And why on earth is it in English anyway? There are perfectly good names available in German.

You might say, who cares? When people see the products, they know what it is. Well yeah, when and if they see them. But think about it: people navigate stores by browsing or searching. When you search, you are on a wayfinding path where you check of “your” products from a list. Where would you start looking for “Convenience” food when you don’t even know the term? Also, convenience foods are often placed at tactically relevant places for cross-selling purposes. This means it’s already hard to find them when you are expressly looking for them.

For the most part, a lot of retail experiences are still like websites in the mid-90s: confusing navigation, little orientation, cluttered signage, price confusion, little customer service, and long checkout times. So, when we do experience audits, whether for digital channels or physical retail channels, what happens a lot is that I get a Gary Larson moment. While surveying the store, I was reminded of his “Inconvenience Store” Comic.

When it comes to retail experiences, it’s definitely time some stores took more of a human view point. Apart from being better for people, it also helps your sales.