18. A TIME FOR CHANGE
“We’re not in the business of keeping
the media companies alive. We’re in
the business of connecting with
consumers.”
Trevor Edwards
Vice President, Global Brand & Category Management
Nike
October 2007
Source: New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/business/media/14ad.html
22. MODERN MARKETING
“[Digital] is the centerpiece of a broader
campaign. I think that’s become a real
integral part of how we use the web, moving
beyond just promoting web addresses in TV
spots or print ads to really making them a
critical part of the storytelling for the brands.”
Rob Master
Media Director, North America
Unilever
March 2008
Source: Advertising Age - http://adage.com/article?article_id=125663
32. MODERN MARKETING
“Something remarkable is worth talking
about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New.
Interesting. It’s a Purple Cow. Boring stuff is
invisible. It’s a brown cow. … Remarkable
marketing is the art of building things worth
noticing right into your product or service.”
Seth Godin
Author / Speaker / Marketing Expert
Purple Cow
2002
Source: Purple Cow / Seth Godin / Page 3
33. MODERN MARKETING
“We think the future of advertising is
great products that have marketing
embedded in them.”
Jeff Hicks
CEO
Crispin Porter + Bogusky
October 2006
Source: DMNews - http://www.dmnews.com/Embed-marketing-in-products-Crispin-Porter--Bogusky-CEO/article/93204/
34. MODERN MARKETING
“Coming up with product innovations.
That's what we're setting out to do.”
Steven Marrs
Vice Chairman
Global Head of Digital and Branded Content
NITRO
April 2007
Source: MediaPost - http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=58893
35. MODERN MARKETING
“Our belief is that marketing and
product have converged. The consumer
doesn’t separate the marketing
experience from the product
experience.”
Ajaz Ahmed
Founder & Chairman
AQKA
March 2008
Source: Advertising Age - http://adage.com/article?article_id=125664
49. CONTENT IS THE NEW CURRENCY
1 Week = $1.6 Million
Source: Chicago Tribune / Leisure Blogs / Turn It Up - http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2008/03/reznors-one-wee.html
52. CONTENT IS THE NEW CURRENCY
“[The agency’s job is to create] content
so valuable and useful that [consumers]
wouldn't want to live without it.”
Jeff Hicks
CEO
Crispin Porter + Bogusky
October 2006
Source: DMNews - http://www.dmnews.com/Embed-marketing-in-products-Crispin-Porter--Bogusky-CEO/article/93204/
54. ENGAGEMENT
“The days of making funny things that
may or may not have an effect on the
client's business are ending.”
Jeff Benjamin
Interactive Creative Director
Crispin Porter + Bogusky
March 2008
Source: ADWEEK - http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i1de189927bfff758384728f89282cfdd
55. ENGAGEMENT
CP+B FOLK LORE / MYTHOLOGY:
ALEX BOGUSKY DOESN’T WANT TO
SEE SCRIPTS ANYMORE.
“DON’T SHOW ME A SCRIPT. SHOW
ME THE PRESS RELEASE.”
IT’S ALL ABOUT HOW PEOPLE WILL
ENGAGE - WHY THEY WILL FIND IT
INTERESTING & PARTICIPATE.
Source: Life Moves Pretty Fast - http://ameliatorode.typepad.com/life_moves_pretty_fast/2008/01/dont-write-me-a.html
57. ENGAGEMENT
No. 1 seller in Personal Grooming category on Amazon.com
for the first two months after launch.
Source: MediaPost - http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=53172
61. UTILITY
“[Branded Utility] is where the brand creates
a commitment to a relationship. It’s where the
brand creates something useful to you,
something that’s a utility in your life. The
consumer will feel more confident with the
relationship if the brand will continue to be
part of your life.”
Benjamin Palmer
CEO / Owner
The Barbarian Group
October 2006
Source: psfk.com - http://www.psfk.com/2006/11/branded_utility_1.html
62. UTILITY
“When you create a utility, you're creating
something that gives people time back. It
becomes less about information as pollution
and more about information to help people
get through life.”
Nick Law
Chief Creative Officer, North America
R/GA
March 2008
Source: ADWEEK - http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i1de189927bfff758384728f89282cfdd
64. UTILITY
“[Nike+] is not an advertising idea, it's a
technology idea. We are delivering a
product, an application.”
Nick Law
Chief Creative Officer, North America
R/GA
April 2007
Source: MediaPost - http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=58893
69. CREATING BETTER MARKETING
“We don’t ask consumers what they
want. They don’t know. Instead we
apply our brain power to what they
need, and will want, then make sure
we’re there, ready.”
Akio Morita
Co-Founder
Sony Corporation
Source: Truth, Lies & Advertising / Jon Steel / page 189 (found via Meme Huffer- http://memehuffer.typepad.com/meme_huffer/2007/12/great-quotes-fo.html )
70. CREATING BETTER MARKETING
“It's really hard to design products by
focus groups. A lot of times, people
don't know what they want until you
show it to them.”
Steve Jobs
Co-Founder, Chairman & CEO
Apple
May 1998
Source: BusinessWeek - http://www.businessweek.com/1998/21/b3579165.htm
72. OPPORTUNITY COMES FROM INSIGHTS
“Great work comes from insight, and we have
always worked from insight. … We have a
vision of ourselves becoming the lead agency
for the digital age. Insights are going to come
in so many different ways. We’d like to pride
ourselves on the ability to capitalize on them.”
Laura Lang
CEO
Digitas USA
March 2008
Source: Advertising Age - http://adage.com/article?article_id=125670
88. IMAGE CREDITS
IMG_6515
Tony de Marco
Flickr
Anonymous at Scientology in Los Angeles
sklathill
Flickr
Brick Tamland Wallpaper
Anchorman The Movie Web Site
Brick Wallpaper
Bloc Party Crowd @ Ogden Theatre
Paul Isakson
Flickr
Google Screen Grab
Google
Google.com
iPhone
e-Learning content authoring
Google Loves The iPhone
Wii
Networking Audio/Video
X-OOM Software Brings Media Streaming
To The Wii
Starbucks Coffee
Boston.com
Aging Music Heroes' Haven
Tracy Morgan
Saturday Night Live
Black Is The New President, Bitch
Ghosts I - IV
Nine Inch Nails
Ghosts.nin.com
89. IMAGE CREDITS
RCRD LBL_ + Widgets
RCRD LBL
rcrdlbl.com
Whopper Freakout
Burger King
WhopperFreakout.com
Shave Everywhere
Philips / Norelco
ShaveEverywhere.com
The Coke Zero Game
Coca-Cola Company
CokeZeroGame.com
The Coke Zero Game
Coca-Cola Company
CokeZeroGame.com
Nike+
Healthy Living NYC
Every Step You Take...
Domino’s Pizza Builder
Domino’s Pizza
Dominos.com
Domino’s BFD Pizza Builder
Adverblog & Domino’s Pizza
Domino's Pizza Builder & Dominos.com
My Vegas
Logic + Emotion
My Vegas Is Showing: Brand Utility +
Event Based Social Networking
Digital Ethnography + Anthropology
All logos taken from their respective Web
sites.
Just wanted to share a few thoughts today on where things are moving. This isn’t the long-term outlook so much as the direction stuff is shifting today thanks to the growing realization of the power the Web holds to tell stories, engage people, and give them things that are more relevant and useful as far as brands are concerned.
So… the future of advertising…
… Just Kidding… But before I go on, that picture was from São Paulo, Brazil, where they’ve banned outdoor advertising. The entire city looks like that. Ghosts of ads past. And this is a result of what is driving the change in advertising and marketing - people are tired of the information pollution cluttering their surroundings and interrupting their lives…
Now, let’s chat about the future outlook for marketing…
The idea of brands and branding aren’t really going to change. How we go about building them is and will continue to do so…
Just for a quick reminder…
From the voice of the consumer. Much like the Golden Rule - Do unto others… If brands do helpful and good things for people, people will continue to like and use them - giving the brand their hard-earned money.
All about pushing things out at people. A one way process. Shove, shout, sell.
Just pay attention to me… Interruption
It has all become noise. Everybody is yelling and nobody has been listening. People aren’t sure what all the yelling is about anymore… to them it’s not really worth yelling about, so they’ve tuned it out and as a response, brands have just been increasing the volume… this is broken…
Smart brands are looking for ways to change that. If people are tuning out the noise, then it’s time to look for new ways that will help us connect better…
Instead of using marketing to shove things out and yell, it’s about creating things that draw people in. Things that make them want to come learn/see/engage more.
If a brand does this right, they’ll create a following. They’ll create their own passionate crowd…
… the digital space has become the primary hub for these gatherings to take place… it’s an ideal point for people to collect and connect, both with each other and with brands.
How can we create fans for our clients’ brands? How can we make our clients the rock stars that drew the crowd in the image a few slides back?
By helping them deliver more value around their products and services through their marketing.
Save them time. Save them energy. Give them something useful. Help them learn something. Give them a story to tell others… do little things that make their days a little better. A little easier to get through.
… Well, one of the ways agencies can help companies is in the area of product innovation. Applying creative insight to the product development process is an area agencies can add value to their clients…
So…
… Seth Godin was talking about this long ago…
CP+B - an agency who is doing a great job transitioning with the times was talking about this at least as early as a year and a half ago…
… NITRO, an agency picking up more and more buzz is focusing on this…
… and AQKA says it’s all one thing now - there is no separation between the marketing experience and the product experience… I think a few of you are Halo fans, look at what they did with the marketing for Halo 3 and how that was an experience akin to the game…
Think back… How many of you found out about Google from an ad? Now how many found out because someone told you about it?
… the iPhone… even though they do advertise it, look at what the ads do… they show you how you can USE it to make life better…
… the Wii … again they advertise it, but they show people experiencing the product and how fun it is…
… Starbucks. They built a global coffee empire without global, or even national, advertising. Sure, they did local and grass roots to some extent, but largely it was people carrying around the cups and telling their friends… the product marketed itself.
So, what if your product isn’t innately cool?
Enhance the product through content
… if you didn’t see this online or on SNL last week, look it up. Anyway…
Let’s look at the music industry, where “nobody buys music anymore”
Trent Reznor made $1.6 million in one week when people could get 9 songs for free. What’d he do? He made content that people believed was worth paying for.
It’s not just people who will pay for content though.
If you haven’t heard of RCRD LBL, they are a Web site that lets people download new and exclusive songs for free through partnerships they have with their own artists and other labels. Brands pay to be presenting sponsors of widgets/content and so the labels and artists can still get paid while fans get free music…
Here’s another quote from CP+B - they are all about creating content - not ads - content
So, what does content need to be or do? There are a few things, but since we have limited time I’ve picked two broader topics. The first is engagement. Content needs to be engaging if you’re going to create brand fans.
But that content can’t just be engaging for the sake of engagement. It needs to be focused on helping the clients grow their bottom line and build their brands.
Here’s a rumor / urban legend from CP+B that I thought was interesting… Bogusky doesn’t want to see the script for the content - he wants to see how it will be talked about - how and why will people care - what is going to make people want to interact or get involved…
What CP+B has done with engaging content for BK is working. At a time when fast food is under scrutiny and the industry is seeing weakened sales, BK has been seeing consistent, solid growth.
Tribal DDB’s engaging content for the Norelco Bodygroom helped it become the top seller in its category on Amazon
And here’s a new example that’s getting some buzz right now for Coke Zero…
O.K., now moving on from engagement… the second area of content I wanted to cover is one that’s getting a lot of buzz right now. Utility.
Ben Palmer from Barbarian Group was talking about the importance of utility a year and a half ago. They were getting tired of putting in several hours to build micro sites that took the same amount of time to create as software but only lived as long as the ad campaign that they were for did. They want to move away from this and create things that can be used for much longer timeframes and that will help strengthen the relationship a brand has with the people that use it.
Here’s a quote from Nick Law at R/GA… time is the new luxury… any way brands can help people save time in their over-committed days is a good thing… again, it’s about making their lives better…
R/GA helped Nike do this in creating Nike+
It’s not advertising. It’s an application, like Barbarian was talking about…
CP+B has helped Domino’s create an easy way to order a custom pizza…
Not only can you custom create your pizza, but you can name it and then save it so you can order it easily again in the future - even from your mobile phone. It doesn’t just stop with ordering your pizza though. Once you’ve ordered it, you can track how far along it is in getting to your door… if you’re short on time and need to order a pizza, why wouldn’t you go this route over their competition?…
… and here’s one that Critical Mass created for Vegas. It’s a social network that let’s you create your Vegas persona, because we all become someone else in Vegas, right… and then you can connect with your friends to share pics, plan your trips, make reservations, buy tickets to shows… for the Vegas lovers who go there more than a few times a year, this becomes a very useful tool…
Now, how can we help our clients create this kind of marketing?
Sony’s co-founder believed people didn’t know what they wanted because they didn’t know what was possible for the most part…
Steve Jobs holds a similar belief…
So how do you create things for people if they don’t know what they want or need until they see it? By deeply understanding them and getting to the things they aren’t saying, but are revealing. Getting to rich insights.
Here’s a quote on the importance and power of insight from the CEO of Digitas in this week’s Ad Age… This is why agencies are in a great position to help their clients now more than ever. We have smart, strategic, creative thinkers who can not only uncover these insights, but also apply them in meaninful ways…
Watch how people behave. How they shop. How they use things. How they go through a web site. How they play a game. Ask them questions. Listen. Ask more questions. Listen twice as much… Notice and note the areas that could be improved …
Some of the traditional ways we can uncover insights that still have their place and time… … it’s all about using the right tools and methods for what you need to learn… in addition to these, I wanted to highlight a couple things that are getting used and talked about more and more…
People are broadly and publicly sharing more about their lives than ever before. We can learn a lot about what people want and need simply by looking at what they’re sharing…
Another interesting thing brands can do is collaborate more closely with their agencies and customers/consumers - especially in the area of product innovation that we talked about before…
The Web is enabling collaboration to take place easier and quicker… companies can share information with consumers and get their input directly … agencies can pull insights out of that information exchange as well as get quick feedback on ideas as they develop… the agency and company can then take the learnings and insights to create things people need or want, even if they didn’t realize these things when they were talking to them… this goes along with a growing idea in the planner blog world for Brands in Beta … where brands are constantly tweaking and improving by getting real-time, on-going feedback from consumers… But to the earlier quotes from Sony and Apple… the web is enabling people to now know more about what they didn’t know. As this continues, brands can get even better insights and feedback, which is going on right now…
Kluster is a site putting this idea in action. It’s a social network for elevating and developing ideas. When you have some time, go check them out.
Starbucks is putting this into action as well. They’ve been under scrutiny lately and now they’re looking to get ideas from passionate Starbucks drinkers.
… I’ve probably gone just over my 15-minutes… (sorry Ben) … but I’ll close it up and ask that if you only remember one thing from all of this…
Think about this on whatever you’re creating now and next… how can we make this make peoples’ lives better…
For real this time…
Last thing… if you want to talk more about any of this, PLEASE come by my office or grab me when I’m walking by. I’d love to chat. And if you want to stay on top of what I’m thinking around things like this, you can read them on my blog…
Thanks for your time and now I’ll turn it over to Ben…