Over the past week or so we’ve seen a lot of change at Ruder Finn. We moved office across Covent Garden from New Oxford Street; to the corner of Bedford Street and the Strand. To match our new real-world presence we worked with our colleagues at RFI Studios in New York to revamp our online presence.
One of the key criteria that you should have when joining an agency is looking around at your potential colleagues and working out whether you can learn from them and grow as a PR professional.
At Ruder Finn, I work with a number of people across our offices who are pretty smart across a number of different issues from transmedia campaigns to global health campaigns. Some of this knowledge is captures in an annual publication called Move. You can find an online archive of previous issues here.
I have the latest copy in a large coffee table print format and have a number of copies that I can give away, if you would like a copy drop me a line with your full contact details.
I managed to attend Econsultancy’s first Jump conference which put 1,600 agency and in-house marketers in Old Billingsgate for a day of presentations and open forum discussions on marketing from a holistic point of view rather than the usual silo-ed approach of digital, PR, TV advertising etc.
The high density of iPhone-holding executives seemed to have crushed O2’s network like an empty can. But the electronic peace allowed me to focus more on the content and my trusty Moleskine notepad.
Below are the notes I made from the six sessions that I attended:
Belinda Beeftink of the IPA on their TouchPoint research
David Nugent, managing director Cider of Sweden Limited and Simon Labbett, creative partner Saint@RKCR/Y&R
Heineken
Phil Rumbol, former marketing director Cadbury PLC
Chris Journeay, Omniture product marketing manager EMEA Adobe Systems Social media panel discussion with representatives from SapientNitro, innocent drinks, Virgin Atlantic Airways and Nokia.
You may not have heard it, or it may not have clicked yet, but the “Wavin’ Flag (The Celebration Mix)” by K’nann is a huge plug for Coke and because it is charting, everyday the BBC is giving free air time to Coke’s jingle. Coke are one of the official World Cup sponsors, so their branding is already everywhere and this song is just part of their massive product promotion. In doing so, Coke gets the product placement award for the day and the BBC gets the sucker award.
The song was originally put out by the artist on his album Troubadour, before being added to a charity album for the Haiti Earthquake, but because of the overtones of national pride, it fitted pretty perfectly as an anthem for the World Cup this year. The original mix didn’t have the jingle at the beginning and the lyrics were apparently somewhat darker. However, with some slight amends and constant airplay on TV through Coke commercials, it has become the theme to this years World Cup and a singles hit (as I write this it is currently number 3 in the UK singles chart)
What confuses me is, why is the BBC playing the Coke version? Surely there can be edits that leave out the Coca-Cola jingle? I personally don’t have a problem with Coke using a clever marketing ploy, I’m more concerned that the BBC has either been duped, lazy or has an ironically disturbing lack of popular culture knowledge.
The hot topic from the final day of this year’s American College of Cardiology (ACC) has got to be the big debate which took place between two influential and outspoken cardiologists during one of the penultimate sessions of the congress.
Dr Steve Nissen, head of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and a past president of the American College of Cardiology and Dr Robert Harrington, MD, director of the Duke Cardiovascular Research Institute, debated the issue of pharmaceutical company support of medical research or continuing medical education (CME).
Growing concerns on industry influence and funding of education programs for doctors has brought to light numerous high-profile scandals that some believe have been exaggerated to demonize companies that take big financial risks to develop drugs. Pharmaceutical and medical device companies currently fund $1 billion of CME.
Nissen’s argument didn’t start well; he mistakenly said that the American Heart Association (AHA) had a financial relationship with Coca-Cola which influenced statements that a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages needed more study, and that the findings of an observational study linking soda consumption to obesity were not conclusive.
However, Dr Harrington, challenged his statement, ensuring him that the logo (above) used in this campaign belonged to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) who collaborated with Diet Coke in the red dress campaign to raise awareness of heart disease among women. This was confirmed by AHA president Clyde Yancy, MD.
Nissen dismissed protests from the AHA saying the AHA and NHLBI have an ongoing partnership to promote public education about heart disease in women and that partnership linked the AHA to the red dress displayed on the Diet Coke can.
The NHLBI, responded in detail: “National Wear Red Day is designed by The Heart Truth and its campaign partners, including the American Heart Association, as the first Friday in February when Americans nationwide are encouraged to wear red to show their support for women’s heart disease awareness. The AHA participates in National Wear Red Day, which they sometimes refer to as Go Red for Women Day. (National Wear Red Day is a trademark of the Department of Health and Human Services and the American Heart Association.)”
Nissen and Harrington then went on to discuss CME education which Nissen found to be “marketing, not education.” Harrington was listed as a defender of the CME system, but he spent most of his presentation attacking industry-funded CME. “We need to take a stand about what’s right and what’s appropriate,” he said. However, Harrington maintained that new checks and balances could make things better, including having companies pool their money and prohibiting companies from choosing lecture topics. “If we’re willing to be manipulated there are a lot of people who want to manipulate us,” he said.
PR Week ran an article this week Google backtracks over concerns on Google Buzz privacy settings. I commented as part of the article on how Google at the moment has the permission to innovate, but with too many failures that permission may be rescinded.
I wanted to expand on a couple of concepts around the article as I realise that it maybe read by many people particularly in the PR industry who don’t understand how technology works and how the sector works.
Firstly, Google’s Buzz problems and ‘real-world’ product recalls that other industries from toys to cars face are very different. Since Google provides a service and the ‘product’ never leaves the Google data-centre it is really easy to make iterative improvements fast.
When I worked at Yahoo! we could roll out normal, (not high-priority) changes every fortnight; usually during the middle-of-the-week. It will be a similar situation at Google. When you have something as high-priority as the privacy issue, you can bet that heaven and earth will be moved, so that once-a-fortnight schedule can be shrunk a bit and it has been with the first fixes rolling out within a few days.
Contrast this with Kryptonite who took months to rectify their lock problem when it became worldwide news six years ago, or the months of fixing braking systems that Toyota is going to go through.
One of the things that Mark Pack was concerned with was that Buzz was obviously an early ‘beta’ release, but not labeled as such. Beta release is a software term that traditionally means that your mileage may vary on a product. Features may vary, appearances change and the service may be flaky.
But with the advent of web services beta has become more than a label or a stage in software development: into a state-of-mind. Google has helped train at least some of the public into the into the beta mindset. Most of the time that consumers bet on Google has been rewarded with a product that provides superior utility; for example Google Search, Blogger and GMail. This earned Google their licence to innovate.
So what would it take to have Google’s licence to innovate revoked? Will Buzz have it revoked? No. Not by a long shot. Google has made some products that disappointed (Q&A, Wave, Jaiku, Orkut - big in Brazil is a fact, not an excuse) of which Buzz may be one of them, but the licence being revoked will be a cumulative ’straw-on-the-camel’s back’ kind of thing.
As a good rule of thumb, check out the way the world slowly turned against Microsoft. It wasn’t Microsoft Bob and Windows’95 was a ‘greater-than-Vista’ technical cock-up that turned into a classic case study into how you can make lemonade out of lemons. It was a number of things: the anti-trust case, the devastation of the start-up industry as no one wanted to start a business in an area Microsoft may want, the BSOD (blue-screen-of-death) that told you it was time for a coffee break, the ‘I love you’ virus and countless other Windows perils that ran the goodwill meter down.
So I guess what I am trying to say is that Google is not slipping into darkness, despite Buzz not being the company’s brightest hour. This was originally posted over at my personal blog renaissance chambara.
The vast majority of these ads are from the USA and generally from Republicans. Like them or loathe them, they do campaigning very well, especially during the Karl Rove era.
First up however is one of Obama’s ads. He never created “great” ads, but a good deal of his involved just him, speaking directly into camera to the audience. This has the benefit of giving a personal message and engaging directly with the viewer. In this ad, he also personalises the story of his mother’s death and the extra pain of her death due to the insurance system in the US. He then brings that story back to the personal lives of everyday Americans which is vital for a successful visual engagement strategy.
If only he was still showing this ad in the last 6 months.
This Carly Fiorina ad is bizarre. Nick named the Demon Sheep ad, it has become the object of ridicule but also fascination. It is weird and out there and I guess that is its charm. I don’t think it will work, it’s too long, appeals to a fairly small part of the population (the Tea Party) and most importantly, it doesn’t actually target the candidate that is leading the race. This is an attack ad for a spot of the Republican California Senator ticket. Fiorina attacks Tom Campbell, who is a leading member of Governor Arnie’s Cabinet. They are both losing ground to Republican Chuck De Vore, a State Assemblyman who is know for his ultra conservative stance. No wonder she was rated as one of the US’s top 20 worst ever CEOs.
George Bush Senior’s attack ad on Michael Dukakis is one of the most infamous ever. Drew Westen describes it as “one of the low points in American electoral history.” Willie Horton was a felon of the worst order and whatever happened for him to be released was clearly a mistake. The ad however has become part of history. Using emotive, almost subliminal written messaging such as Rape, Kidnap, Stab, stuck in the heads of the public. Fear is everywhere in this ad, the frightening statements, the scary mugshot, the fact that you could be the person stabbed, kidnapped and raped under a Dukakis Government. It is enough to frighten anyone. In fact, this ad wasn’t even an “official” Bush Campaign ad. It was made by the Americans for Bush arm of the National Security Political Action Committee (NSPAC).
Hilary Clinton’s 3am ad made a big difference during the 2008 primaries and was one of the reasons why she stayed in the race so long. Questioning Obama’s ability and experience, she came up with a pretty powerful and effective ad. It preyed on the fears of parents and grandparents alike. It gave her a good boost in the polls, but let’s face it, the rest is history
Gough Whitlam was the Australian Labor Prime Minster from 72-75 after 23 years of Liberal-Country Government, mostly under Sir Robert Menzies. This ad may seem a tad naff now, but at the time, the ad and the slogan “It’s Time” was hugely influential. Delightfully simple, the slogan simply pointed at the last quarter of a century under a Conservative Government, similar to the Change slogan used by the Obama campaign. No one over in the UK would realise, but the singers are all Australian celebrities and politicians. Australian’s might notice a young Jack Thompson, Jackie Weaver, Graham KennedyandBert Newton singing away. Whitlam however only lasted 3 years before he was controversially sacked by the Governor General Sir William Kerr. Whitlam, on the stairs of Parliament House then made the statement “God Save the Queen, because nothing will save the Governor General.” Thus started the first big push for an Australian Republic.
Ronald Reagan put this ad out for his re-election campaign in 1984 and it is brilliantly simple. Patriotic, conservative and a vision back to the halcyon days of America. He doesn’t even appear or speak in it, but at the same time he seems both Presidential and grandfatherly.
Just like his father, Bush Junior wasn’t officially behind this ad, but it was paid for by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. There were plenty of memorable negative ads that hit Kerry hard, but this was particularly effective. Kerry made a big deal out of his Vietnam veteran status saying in a time of war, it was important to have a Commander and Chief who had proper militaryexperience. Kerry won two Purple Hearts and one Silver Star for his heroism, but there were controversial circumstances surrounding this award and this came to the fore in the 2004 Presidential campaign. Kerry also immediately came back to the US post the war and began protesting against it. His initial campaign strategy was to portray him as a war hero, but not long after, these swift boat vets came out and hit Kerry hard. Again, the rest is history
In response to the Robin Hood Tax ad, which is one of the best campaigning ads I have seen for a while, I thought I would post some historically very effective political and advocacy ads. I’m also currently reading The Political Brain, by Drew Westen that looks at the role of emotions in political campaigning. It has been an eye-opening read, so this also gave me some inspiration for this post.
This list is by no means definitive and if anyone wants to send links to some campaigning ads, that would be great, I’d love to watch them.
This post will focus on a few advocacy ads, starting with the Robin Hood Tax ad that has been the focus of the media of late. It is a very simple ad, two voices, one face but plenty of emotion. Bill Nighy plays a leading banker who ends up squirming in response to the questioning about why a Tobin Tax shouldn’t be created. Squirming bankers is something that reverberates with a good portion of the public at the moment. This campaign plays to the slightly divergent emotions of good will and revenge brilliantly.
This next ad scares the heck out of me, although I’m not sure how effective it is. Shock ads, as I have written before, have the tendency to decline in effectiveness over time simply because of people being desensitized. I’m not sure anyone would be able to put themselves in this guys shoes, unless they have been in the same situation.
This shock ad from PlaneStupid, the organisation that focuses on climate change issues caused by the global aviation industry, is different from the previous one however. Shocking - yes. Disturbing - definitely. Effective - most certainly. Polar bears dropping from the sky crushing cars and smashing into buildings may seem like an odd choice, but it is actually very clever. The stance is that every person on a trans-Atlantic flight creates 400kg of carbon. Most people can’t conceptualize what that means however. A polar bear, which is also an icon of climate change devastation, is imaginable. Therefore this appeals to our sense of wanting to save these animals, horror at their gruesome deaths but it also puts our carbon footprint into a physical and understandable context. It was filmed in Canada, but it could be any city, again personalising the imagery.
The final ad is one that has screened on UK screens recently and was the subject of a number of complaints, but is far more subtle that the polar bear ad. Act on CO2 is a non-departmental government body that is the public face of the Government’s climate change policy. This ad simply shows a father telling a bed-time story to his child, but it is a story of the effects of climate change and includes drowning pets and other disturbing results of unabated climate change. But this ad is clever in the fact that it appeals on a personal level to adults and children. This ad scares children, hence the complaints, but it also contextualizes climate change for them ensuring they understand the potential of doing nothing. It also will frighten adults on a parental level - how can I let my child live in a world like this, what can I do to prevent it?
As I said, this isn’t a complete list, but it just a tester. I’d love your thoughts and if you want to send me other campaigns, feel free. I’ll post the political ad blog in the next couple of days.
Its a new decade, new paradigms and ways of reaching consumers nothing will be the same again. Now that I have your attention, I’d like to bring things down to earth. One of the smartest things Bill Gates ever said had to do with technology and future adoption. It was something to the effect of: we over-estimate the speed of innovation and technology in the short-term and underestimate it in the long-term.
According to Forrester, digital marketing spend has increased almost five-fold over the past decade to account for 12 per cent of marketing spend. Most of this is email marketing, search and display advertising. However, thedeclineofclickthroughrates (or effectiveness in terms of acting on the call-to-action) of these marketing vehicles has been well-documented as far back as 2007.
In addition, Google search advertising has largely become optimally priced from an economic point-of-view, so smart online marketers are becoming more open to experimentation.
I expect this to continue and expand in 2010. A second reason why expect this to expand is that with the recession-led decline in spend on above-the-line (ATL) marketing through reducing spent on advertising inventory in print and broadcast media marketers are starting to think differently about their relationship with current and prospective customers. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Google sees a corresponding decline in spend on keywords as well.
A classic example of this ATL change came out of an interview that Tyler Brule did with Gildo Zegna(pronounced Zen-yah), CEO of luxury brand titan TheErmenegildo Zegna Group for the Monocle magazine podcast series. Zegna is interesting because he sits at the head of a dynamic family-owned business not hamstrung by institutional investors trying to second guess him.
Tyler Brule: Share with us three or four business lessons that you learned over the past year?
Gildo Zegna: From a personal standpoint, I think that what I learned was stick to the DNA of the brand. Be real, be genuine, try to keep a very close contact with the customer, listen to him and if he or she says something that you don’t like just be sure to execute rapidly.
It could be something about the service, it could be something about the price, it could be something about the creativity, it could be something about being more aggressive on how you enter markets so I think that in one word: stick to the DNA of the brand.
Tyler Brule: What are your key focuses on 2010/11?
Gildo Zegna: I just had my management meeting last week in Milano, I said listen guys back to new normality and back to growth. Cost control, shorter lead time, work with low inventory and keep investing. I think that I can believe that if you cannot afford new investment today, because unless you are a brand that has the capacity whether it is your money or money you borrowed from the financial system: now you will not make it.
I think that speed and the way you make a well thought decision is important, but surely don’t stop investing either in your store, new markets, new people and of course marketing. I think one of the biggest cut I had to do this year is in media, but you know above-the-line, below-the-line I did not save anything, events - I have never done so many events in-store. Why? Go and meet the customer, talk to them, even if he doesn’t buy anything he will come back next season. Because next season he will be poor not to buy, or not to enjoy. These are some of the activities, you know, working with you guys (Monocle) on new ideas: co-branding or new products or new services. So I think just be energetic and be creative, but at the end you have to have the resources to do it. You just can’t do it by mouth and if you do it well and if you do it in the right way then I think that business comes back.
New areas of experimentation are likely to include the use of location-based services. For instance, restaurants are already offering discounts through Foursquare and Plantronics sponsored the development of the Work Snug iPhone application (which is awesome) targeted at road warriors and digital nomads. In common with all the applications utilising GPS it eats batteries like nothing else, so use, but use sparingly. There is a lot of life left yet in cell triangulation yet.
In common with me-too social media campaigns and applications, users will soon tire of overused mobile ideas in the same way that Vampires, poke variants and re-skinned Flash platform games bored them in the past.
I hope that the biggest change will come from businesses not thinking of social marketing in terms of Facebook or Twitter; but in a more holistic way which takes it into the analogue world just like Mr Zegna’s small store events because this is all about people, everything else is just facilitating stuff. And if business becomes a more human thing, it is harder to replicate and easier to turn into a lifelong customer relationship. This was published over at my personal blog.
Imagine if you set up your own company and you named after yourself because you signed all your work. Over time your signature became the most valuable design asset of the company. Over time you decide that you want to take some of your hard earned cash, take time out and do the stuff that you actually enjoy. You leave your business, having been bought out.
However, you then have the problem of seeing your name plastered over absolute tat.
Welcome to Shawn Stussy’s world. I am a big Stussy fan and it is a rare season where I don’t buy something from their collection, but some of the stuff is pretty ropey and I sympathise with Shawn Stussy’s predicament; which is why I look forward to seeing what his new venture S-Double Studios will come out of the trap with. This was posted from my personal blog.
