3. THE PHONE CALL WITH MARK LEWIS
Specifically, what do you want me to talk about?
1. How should we rethink the way we talk about things?
2. Tell us the different kinds of data that go into propagation planning
3. How do we work with creatives to develop spreadable ideas?
4. What type of ideas are spreadable?
3
I got a phone call from Mark Lewis and he asked me to speak at this conference. Besides ‘how to do propagation planning’ what specifically do you want me to talk about? He laid out four
points for me.
5. STRING OF PLANNING THEORIES
Account Planning
Connection Planning
Field Services
Propagation Planning
Transmedia Planning
5
Connection Planning has been around for 10 years and has been practiced at agencies like Fallon and ChiatDay. To be a part of the next shift in industry thinking we needed to know, “what
comes after connection planning?”
6. WTF IS PROPAGATION PLANNING?
The new marketing landscape is paving the way for propagation planning to exist in ad agencies and communication planning shops.
7. A LEGEND
In 1999, The Blair Witch Project changed the way we look at marketing. Digital and
Word of Mouth now had a powerful case study.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/17/facebook-old-spice-farmville-pepsi-forbes-viral-marketing-cmo-network-social-media.html?boxes=Homepagemostemailed
Ivan Pollard from Naked presented the theory of propagation planning at the APG
Battle of Big Thinking in October of 2006.
http://theapg.typepad.com/battleofbigthinking/2006/10/thoughts_from_i.html
Faris Yakob wrote an award winning IPA essay on the subject in 2007 that was
featured in Campaign Magazine.
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/features/769167/IPA-Diploma-Presidents-Prize-Essay-Faris-Yakob/
In 2008, Nikki Stammers, one of the first planners to have the title Propagation
Planner wrote an article titled a Controlled Explosion for the Australian B&T.
http://www.bandt.com.au/blog/blogposts.asp?postid=629
In December of 2008 Griffin Farley created a Blog called Propagation Planning.
http://www.propagationplanning.com
In 2010, Anjali Ramachandran created a Wiki for Propagation Planning and was
the first to truly organize the 5 or 6 planners worldwide who concentrated on this.
http://propagationplanning.pbworks.com/
7
8. A HOPE
“When the phase ‘Word of Mouth’ is bandied around, more often than
not, what is being referred to is an immeasurable yet highly desirable
campaign ‘side effect’.
But things have moved on: the muddy and mystical times that once
defined attempts at harnessing it are changing.
Propagation planning - a technique capable of kick-starting, controlling
and exploiting the WOM affect - is moving the area forward.”
- Nikki Stammers for B&T
8
9. A THEORY
PROPAGATION PLANNING
Plan not for the people you reach, but the people that they reach
9
10. AN INTEREST IN THE BLACK ART
Propagation Planning.com Total Visits
60000
50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
DEC 2008 DEC 2009 SEPT 2010
10
This is a very narrow subject, a type of planning within account planning... yet we have seen interest sky rocket in the last year.
13. THE DIFFERENCES
1 2 3
Rethink Timing Rethink Audience Rethink the Brief
13
14. RETHINK YOUR TIMING 1
Awareness Funnel Propagation Model
(Paid Media) (Earned Media)
14
15. ADOPTION CURVE OVER TIME
BROADCAST
MEDIA
Early Majority > < Late Majority
(Most creative targets the mass majority)
Early Adopters > < Laggards
Innovators >
TIME AND SALES
15
16. EARLY ADOPTER MOTIVATION
BREAK THE STORY
I KNEW THEM BEFORE THEY WERE BIG
16
In high school my girl friend gave me a cassette tape of the Omaha, Nebraska band 311. I played it, recommended the discovery to others and once they got big I stopped listening to them.
Many Bloggers, Power Tweeters, Journalists are like me and want to BREAK THE STORY! Some people are not like me and want to see other people share it first before they feel
comfortable sharing things.
17. ADOPTION CURVE OVER TIME
BROADCAST
MEDIA
Early Majority > < Late Majority
Early Adopters > < Laggards
Innovators >
(This creative targets the influencers) (This creative targets those the laggards)
PROPAGATION TIME AND SALES
STIMULUS
17
18. LAGGARD SPREAD MOTIVATION
RELEVANT CONTENT FOR DIFFERENT AUDIENCES
18
SOURCE: Suan Boyle Analysis, Henry Jenkins Blog
19. THE PROBLEM WITH INFLUENCERS
“if I could just get it in this guys hands... it would go big!”
19
SOURCE: BuzzFeed
In my experience, the social media influencers or Power Tweeters have followers that may not have relevance with the brand or story that I am pushing.
20. THE CIGARETTE METAPHOR
this is a good forest for an arsonist
but that wasn’t an influential cigarette that burned the forest
20
SOURCE: BuzzFeed
The founders of BuzzFeed have a great metaphor that involves an influential cigarette. The new school of thought is to find communities that are hungry for your content to feed the blaze.
Think of yourself as an arsonist that seeks forests that are dry, lots of under brush, waiting for your cigarette.
21. PICK THE RIGHT FOREST
this is a bad forest for an arsonist
the propagation planner picks the right forest,
not necessarily the right influencer
21
SOURCE: BuzzFeed
This would be a bad forest for that arsonist.
22. RETHINK YOUR AUDIENCE 2
the audience reacts best 22
when they can see each other react
SOURCE: Mark Earls
23. TARGET AUDIENCE SHIFT
Target
Advertiser Medium
Audience
Medium
Influencer
or
Community
23
24. THE GREAT SCHLEP: DROGA 5
PRODUCT: REAL TARGET: INFLUENCER TARGET:
Jewish PAC Older Jewish Voters Grandchildren of Older
Jewish Voters
24
Instead of marketing directly to Older Jewish Voters, a media strategy that would have been expensive and likely to included direct mail, newspaper and television they decided to target a
segment that had more influence over the prime audience... the grandchildren. The Great Schlep was born and produced and spread with zero paid media dollars.
25. OASIS STREET PERFORMERS: BBH
PRODUCT: REAL TARGET: INFLUENCER TARGET:
New Album People that should love Oasis music Street Performers
25
Most artists that launch albums run ads in magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin, with some television ads for retailers like Target or Wal Mart. Oasis launched an album by training street
performers in NYC to play their songs prior to the launch of the album. These performers went back to the streets and spread the words of the product and invited Oasis fans to see them play
learn what the new songs might be about. This launch became their second best album launch ever.
26. A BROADER DEFINITION OF MEDIA 3
26
SOURCE: Ed Cotton’s Flickr Page
At the Miami Account Planning Conference in 2008, Group M spoke about three types of Media: Paid, Owned and Earned (thanks to Ed Cotton from BSSP for the photo). This broader
definition of media (particularly the term earned media) has been reinforced by articles in Adweek and Ad Age.
27. TURN THE FUNNEL ON ITS SIDE
27
http://www.slideshare.net/guest7e5b6a/the-new-marketing-landscape-by-dan-pankraz-presentation
A senior planner named Dan Pankraz from Clemenger BBDO Sydney created these slides that explain the shift in the marketing funnel even better.
28. COMMUNICATION PLANNING
CUSTOMER JOURNEY: COMMS TASK: ROLE FOR COMMS:
The journey our A summary of A definition of the job(s)
PRE IDEA
audience takes on the engagement tasks at that comms need to do
path to purchase and each stage of the at each stage of the
beyond customer journey customer journey
Where
Propagation Planning
Happens
CHANNEL PORTFOLIO: ENGAGEMENT IDEA: MESSAGING &
EXECUTION:
The set of channels that The single thought that
POST IDEA
will be used to tackle unifies all channels The way ideas and
each communications messages work within
task the chosen channels
28
SOURCE: Naked Communication 2007
29. COMMUNICATION PLAN
Funnel and 29
Inverted Influencer Timing by Production Paid Media
Budget
Funnel Comms Channel Budget by
Channel
SOURCE: Naked Communication 2007
30. COMMUNICATION PLAN
Communication to Communication to Production planned in advance
Influencers the Masses for Social Media 30
SOURCE: Naked Communication 2007
32. PROPAGATION PLANNING BRIEF
• What is remarkable about the Brand, Product or Service?
• Who is the target audience?
• Is there another group of people that has more persuasion over the target
audience?
• How does the creative foster a social experience?
• Why would someone want to pass something like this to others?
• What are the existing creative assets (if any)?
• How long do we have before the paid media begins?
• What are the benchmarks and metrics will we be following?
32
36. WORD OF MOUTH POTENCY INDEX
36
SOURCE: Action Marketing
37. FOUR PILLARS OF BRAND HEALTH
Brand Strength Brand Stature
100% Relates to margins
and cultural currency
80% Relates to consideration
and trial
60% Relates to perceptions of
quality and loyalty
40% Relates to awareness and
consumer experience
20%
0%
Differentiation Relevance Esteem Knowledge
37
SOURCE: The Brand Bubble by John Gerzema and Ed Lebar
38. WHEN BRAND HURTS YOU
Brand Strength Brand Stature
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Differentiation Relevance Esteem Knowledge
Unless you are We know about your
relevant to me that brand, and don’t
day, I don’t care care to know more 38
SOURCE: The Brand Bubble by John Gerzema and Ed Lebar
41. SMIRNOFF TEA PARTAY
41
SOURCE: BBH Viral Presentation
The brand is liked but not well-known. Consumers are curious to find out more. There is growth potential in this brand.
43. UNIQUE PRODUCTION
PRODUCT:
Evian Bottled Water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQcVllWpwGs
PRODUCT:
Google Chrome Web Browser
43
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VjDuJaxkSQ
In a world where content can be spread and enjoyed outside of paid media space, this is not the time to pull back on production budgets. In fact, good production by itself can be propagation
material. Sometimes production can be expensive and sometimes it can be inexpensive but very unique.
44. STRONG TALENT
PRODUCT:
Johnnie Walker Whiskey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnSIp76CvUI
44
Known talent can give a nice needed push with online videos like Robert Carlyle in this Johnnie Walker Whiskey video. This also had a unique production technique of capturing the footage
in one take.
45. ENGAGING CHARACTERS
PRODUCT:
Dos Equis Beer
http://www.facebook.com/DosEquis
PRODUCT:
Compare the Market Car Insurance
45
http://www.facebook.com/Comparethemeerkat
Both Dos Equis and Compare the Market do a great job on their respective Facebook pages by writing status updates in the tone and voice of the branded characters that they invented.
46. DEMONSTRATE THE SPREAD
PRODUCT:
Vaseline Skin Moisturizer
http://www.prescribethenation.com/
46
BBH won the APG award with the Prescribe the Nation campaign showing how one person in Alaska can spread word of mouth about a product that would actually help people in that
environment.
47. PERSONAL TOUCH
PRODUCT:
Office Max
http://www.elfyourself.com/
PRODUCT:
Discovery Channel The Colony
47
http://JoinTheColony.com
While most people can’t remember the brand that Elf Yourself is attached to, however, what is powerful is the personal touch that EVB first developed with the ‘upload your photo’ option.
This gave people a vested interest in participating with the experience and sending it on to friends. Facebook Connect is the new tool for marketers to tap into personal information that is
embedded in the narrative. Campfire used this technology in their Frenzied Waters web site.
48. COMMUNAL PARTICIPATION
PRODUCT:
Oprah 25th Anniversary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvljD0toJmU
PRODUCT:
2009 Presidential Inauguration
48
http://mashable.com/2009/01/20/cnn-facebook-inauguration-numbers/
In recent years we have seen events that draw people to participate. We have seen the worlds largest single city flash mob with the Black Eyed Peas in Chicago and we have seen millions of
people participate on Facebook and Twitter during the 2009 Presidential Inauguration. Branded events like this promise communal participation and the active engagement is something that f
will remember for years to come. T Mobile and Nike Human Race are brands that are tapping into this cultural shift.
49. CREATE LIVE EXPERIENCES
PRODUCT:
Old Spice The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
http://www.pcworld.com/article/201268/old_spice_guy_top_5_youtube_video_picks.html
PRODUCT:
The Last Exorcism
49
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNSaurw6E_Q
Create “Live” Experiences: The web is a performance medium. When we read a book, we expect it to be the same, but when we go to a website and it hasn’t changed we are
disappointed. Using the Internet as a stage for performance can electrify word of mouth, and the documentation of these events has great long tail value.
Examples:
Old Spice The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
The Super Bowl spot was a great success but when Old Spice’s character came alive online with instant video responses over two days, people went crazy for it and spread the word.
The Last Exorcism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNSaurw6E_Q
The Last Exorcism went online to tease people on Chatroulette with a live girl who appeared to be possessed by a demon.
50. REAL VALUE AND WORTH
PRODUCT:
Ikea Facebook
http://adland.tv/commercials/ikea-facebook-tag-2009-135-sweden
PRODUCT:
Alice Bond Handbags
50
http://desedo.com/blog/the-alice-bond-bag/
Forsman & Bodenfors recently devised a Facebook campaign for a new Ikea store in Malmo, Sweden. People were told to be the first to tag their name on any item and they would win it.
Desedo Films worked with a high end handbag designer who had a following in NYC. They placed bags all over the city and provided clues on Twitter where these bags could be found. Be
the first to find it and you keep it.
51. MAKE IT TANGIBLE
PRODUCT:
Coraline Boxes
http://www.notcot.com/archives/2009/01/coraline-50-box.php
PRODUCT:
Discovery Channel Shark Week
51
http://vimeo.com/8268275
Make It Tangible: Physical objects and experiences are meaningful and memorable to us, particularly as more of our personal lives move online. The exclusivity of them can inspire people
to spread the word.
Examples:
Coraline Boxes: http://www.notcot.com/archives/2009/01/coraline-50-box.php
50 Boxes sent to culture bloggers and influencers got people talking about Coraline as a stop-motion picture to differentiate it from the glut of computer animated children’s films.
Discovery Shark Week: http://vimeo.com/8268275
Discovery Channel's Frenzied Waters Shark Week campaign involved a hunt for capsules containing the physical remnants of a shark attack that lead to a website experience completing
the story.
52. GIVE PEOPLE A STORY TO TELL
PRODUCT:
Best Job in the World for Tourism Queensland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCLDMGWZFFA
PRODUCT:
HBO True Blood
52
http://vimeo.com/8268162
Give People a Story to Tell: We relate to the world around us through stories. Connected people, those with blogs, YouTube channels, active Twitter accounts, and such need stories to tell
their audiences, so give them one that aligns with your brand.
Examples:
Best Job in the World for Tourism Queensland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCLDMGWZFFA
You can try and tell people how amazing the Great Barrier Reef Islands are, or you can offer an amazing job as an Island Caretaker and inspire people to learn about the islands themselves
and tell their friends about this amazing job while generating enormous global PR.
HBO True Blood: http://vimeo.com/8268162
Mysterious websites and mailings of drinkable synthetic blood samples drew people into a experiential story about vampires coming out of the coffin, culminating in a massive campaign
launching Tru Blood as a drinkable blood substitute for Vampires.
53. EMBEDDED GOOD
PRODUCT:
Lands End Big Boston Warm Up
http://creativity-online.com/work/lands-end-the-big-warm-up-personalized-video/17798
53
When spreading the word has embedded good built in, the action has positive value to the person who is sharing the cause. In today’s propagation campaigns, Public Relations is a big
component of making things successful. The Press is likely to pick up things that are helping other people in our society and reward brands for sponsoring such events.
54. KNOWLEDGE WHERE I SOCIALIZE
PRODUCT:
Best Buy Twitter Page
http://twitter.com/twelpforce
PRODUCT:
GAP Facebook Page
54
http://www.facebook.com/gap#/gap?v=app_115708094525
Brands are doing a great job with providing knowledge in social networking platforms. This makes it easy for people to ask questions and it makes it easy for brands to be the solution to
questions.
55. A PROPAGATION PLANNERS ROLE
1. MODERATE BRANDED SOCIAL NETWORKING COMMUNITIES
2. ROLE PLAY AS THE BRAND OR AS BRANDED CHARACTERS ONLINE
3. DEVISE PROPAGATION STRATEGIES FOR NEW CAMPAIGNS
4. IDENTIFY CONTEXTUAL COMMUNITIES AND WHO INFLUENCES THAT COMMUNITY
5. HELP CHOREOGRAPH THE ROLL-OUT OF REAL WORLD AND DIGITAL ASSETS
6. MEASURE AND REGULARLY REPORT ON THE EFFORTS
7. BRIEF CREATIVES ON NEW PLATFORMS AND TRENDS IN PROPAGATION
55
If I was asked to describe the role of a propagation planner in an agency today, I would say these seven things would be a part of that job description.
56. GRIFFIN FARLEY - STRATEGY DIRECTOR
GRIFFIN.FARLEY@BBH-USA.COM
WWW.PROPAGATIONPLANNING.COM
MIKE MONELLO - CO-FOUNDER/ ECD
MMONELLO@CAMPFIRENYC.COM
WWW.CAMPFIRENYC.COM
CONTACT
57. PROPAGATION PLANNING BRIEF
What is remarkable about the Brand, Product or Service?
This area helps us ground the propagation campaign back in the product. Think about the Johnnie Walker, the Man who Walked around the World video when
answering this question.
Who is the target audience?
Is there an audience that the client needs to reach to meet their business objectives? What is the action that this audience needs to act on to reach these
objectives? Think of this audience as your aspirational audience.
Is there another group of people that has more persuasion over the target audience?
This group of people might be more likely to engage with the creative assets or act on the creative to influence the real target audience. Think about Great Schlep,
Coraline or Oasis campaigns when answering this. Think of this audience as your inspirational audience.
How does the creative foster a social experience?
Is the creative designed to entertain, act as a branded utility, to challenge, to spawn user generated content, etc. Think about challenges like Nike Grid,
experiences like Doritos Hotel 626 or the seed paper in the Haagen-Dazs Help the Honey Bees campaigns when answering this question.
Why would someone want to pass something like this to others?
This is an area to talk about social theories (i.e. custom or personalized, gift economy, peer production, random acts of kindness, pay it forward, etc) into why this
creative might be shared and passed along among friends. Think about campaigns like Elf Yourself, Radio Head, NIN or Earth Hour when answering this.
What are the existing creative assets (if any)?
List the creative assets that already exist. This gives the creative a chance to use these assets in new ways? Ask yourself if new things need to be created to help
extend the narrative. Think about the True Blood campaign when the agencies created a pre-story to existing assets when answering this.
How long do we have before the paid media begins?
This is a timing question that reminds us how to use Owned, Earned and Paid media appropriately.
What are the benchmarks and metrics will we be following?
57
This helps the creative team know if there are platforms that the client feels are most important to measure success (Acquisitions, Facebook or Twitter followers,
video views, etc.). If the client doesn’t have specific metrics list the ones that you will follow including impressions, reach, interaction and most importantly
sentiment.