...any more proof of the fact that to mich pestering people is bad Accenture has just released a report ahowing that what annoys consumers most when shopping is to much attention and/or cross-selling (not to mention being rude). So it's not hard to imagine that bombarding people with "messages", cross-selling them with tags, emails or DM and texting them with offers would not be far behind.
I'm taking some time with the family in France - good for the tan and good to have some time to think (but bad for doing a lot of posts).
All feedback - positive or negative - is good. And the feedback we've been getting last week has been both. In general, the reaction has been that what we said was interesting, but a little "up in the clouds". People seem to be hungering for some more practical examples and steps, some "what do I do with this stuff?" ( Jason's thoughts are a good summary).
To me the best example of someone practicing what we suggest is Google and they do not even use advertising, they use product. They are constantly trying new tools: measuring, learning and adjusting on he way. Their brand is complex - multi-layered with unusual combinations of experiences - without feeling like the old kind of portal that was very static. It's brand has larger social belief structure as well: don;t be evil (although I would argue that they have not exploited this belief on a social dimension).
Those who saw Penny Price from Google at the AAAA Planning conference last week will hopefully have seen that a lot of what he said fits with what Gareth and I were saying.
My last (I promise) I thought on all this is that I being to theoretical was slightly the point of all this. Part of what we were saying is that not enough people are doing the harder stuff, thinking about models that govern what we think. We want to provoke a discussion about it that leads to practical steps because we certainly don't think we have all the answers.
Over the last two days, Gareth and I have been throwing out the ideas in this slide show at the AAAA planning conference. A big thanks to everyone who came and especially to those who asked questions. Our whole motive was to provoke discussion so please keep pushing and arguing with us on this stuff. We threw out a lot of ideas (and a fair bit of theory) but hopefully engaged folks enough to try some of it out.
What we were talking about was the need for a very different model in marketing and some suggestions about what that could be- something that embraces uncertainty and randomness, is humble, that is less focused on messaging and more on a social mission. But we certainly were not the only ones thinking in this way.
Mark , Domenico Vitale, Adrian Ho and Rob White and others were all (in different ways) talking about changing the way we work. Collectively we seem to be landing in a place where marketing:
- is built on belief and passion
- does something useful as opposed to saying stuff
- is focused on building brand energy and is therefore more complex
- embraces the small not just the big
- recognizes that the way people interact is more important than how they are as individuals
- uses the notion of the behavior meme
In a really useful chat with Mark and and Jason after the session, we got round to the idea that maybe marketing needs to be treated like R&D (vs. say sales) in order to do this.
I got a chance to see some of Mark's brilliant session and view on all the above today. He really brought home the point to me about getting out there - ideally in the most fun way possible - rather than tying to create some road to Damascus conversion. We are after all, according to mark, in the circus business, not health care.
I also got to see Adam Morgan speak about new ways to see opportunity. It serves a great reminder that we all have myopia because we don't question enough assumptions. One lovely point/example was the idea that a micro target can be an opportunity to shape the future of the industry. Specifically, an epee (fencing sword) designed for disabled people was so much better it became the standard sword used by all fencers.
This has been one of the better planning conferences not necessarily because of the main stage speakers, but because of the discussions hat came from the break outs. Now the challenge is to go and live this and keep learning.
With sheer volume of stuff going on, people to see and drinks to consume, I forgot to blog about the presentation Gareth and I gave. On the whole it seemed to go OK - lots of people being nice about it afterwards at least. We'll post it on slideshare after today and I'll be able to reflect a little better on it then.
I popped in to Adrian and Rob's presentation about the future of planning, which unsurprisingly and rightly, looks like what they are building.
What they are arguing (and demonstrating) is that marketing can truly add value to people as well as to companies. This means looking at what we do from an entirely different angle - not a messaging based activity but one of belief and action. It's a shame, however, that to do real consulting stuff (even web 2.0 based consulting) they had to leave the ad industry. Adrian may have said one of the most Radical things at the conference when he admitted that the biggest barrier to doing what they thought was right in an agency was the creative department.
Another person taking this approach to marketing is Eric Ryan (from Methods ), who gave us some great stuff this morning. He has built the company a planner would/should if they put their words into action. It's a belief based company that is founded on a way of re-framing an old category: making cleaning about a lifestyle (or as he put it, the fusion of style and substance).
With a small budget, the focus on making the products be the marketing, continually innovating and producing at a fantastic rate. As Eric put it, it only costs Method $200 k to launch a new product which seems like a very wise marketing investment. To do this well, the company knows they need to pay a huge amount of attention to their internal culture - getting that right to get the products right.
The Planning conference got a real treat today when Sir Kenneth Robinson gave one of the best (and most entertaining) speeches I have heard in years.
He emphasized the point that everyone can be creative, if we apply ourselves. It's a practical process that you have to work at to find, but one that is achievable. Most importantly, he pointed out that people really get creative when they are able to find a medium they love and that resonated with who they are. For some that is painting, others it is wine (or even marketing). This re-emphasized the importance of passion as a hiring criteria in our or any other business.
He also brought home the point that creativity comes from interaction with the right people in the right habitat, something that ad agencies need to work on. His analogy was the if organizations start being less "industrial" in their way of thinking and become more "agricultural" (i.e. focusing on nurturing vs. on processing), this will tend to happen naturally.
(In case you haven't seen it, here's the link to the speech he made at Ted)
The AAAA planning conference is kicking off tomorrow, but in order to set the tone a bunch of us (Gareth , Mark Earls , Domenico Vitae, Mike Doody, Liron Reznik, Mackay (from KB), Steve Kulp and Tom Daly (from W5)), have been off to watch the Padres vs. the SF Giants. Of course, with Mr. Bonds hitting his chemically induced 755th home run yesterday it was a bit of missed opportunity to see history in the making - but still, the sun and beer help provide an antidote to planning conference hectic-ness.
Cheers to Gareth for organizing it.
PS If you're there don't forget to see Gareth and I speak at 1.30 Monday or go to Jason's drinks Sunday evening.
I've been thinking across complexity a lot for our APG thingy , and in searching for deck pictures, i came across this little art stream.
AOL has just recently released a new study on Americans use and abuse of portable email. Folks, this has gotten bad: 43% of us are saying they sleeping with our Blackberry/Treo/iPhone by our bed so that we can check for incoming email.
What I found more interesting was that 59% of people check the device every time a new message comes in. I know I do this (though I also know that I am a hopeless addict), but it is another way to show our almost biological addiction to the truly new, though I guess this means some people have better self control than others :)
Finally, the map of the cities with the highest email incidence was revealing. Atlanta's appearance not only shows the changing stature of that city but probably some new audiences for portable email. And where is Chicago????
