HEAD BLOG

Social engagement is down 22% according to Syncapse. Maybe the veneer of social media is wearing thin, maybe we’ve had enough of flaming popular brands or maybe the content is no longer worth talking about.

Whatever the reasons, what is interesting is the fact that we have come to associate ‘engagement’ with conversations.

A cacophony of voices urge brands to use social media to start conversations with their customers.

It’s a case of ‘do it because you can’.

Few people challenge this instruction and in doing so, start their brand down a course of engaging in the most ridiculous “conversations”.

Brands check their bibles for any pretext upon which to strike up conversations.

We produce hair products, they observe, so let’s ask women how they feel about their hair.

We make glasses. So let’s try and get people to talk about poor eyesight.

Sometimes these conversations have the potential to unlock interesting, human stories (though rarely because to do so properly generally means allowing people more space than Facebook tends to encourage).

Mostly, however, they feel stretched, over-polite at best as customers contribute just to get at a deal.

Are these the conversations a customer really wants to have?

Or are they beginning to wonder whether they want their Facebook feed littered with references to 2 for 1 offers?

If you’ve ever wandered down a high street and avoided the clipboards then you will understand the issue currently facing social media now that it’s all becoming a bit ‘normal’.

Because thirty years ago, when clipboards were new, shoppers flocked to them in a rush to be questioned on calorie intakes, sexual preference and whether or not they thought fluoride toothpaste was a good idea.

Ok, maybe not.

But compare that to a crowd around a busker and you’ll see that being social isn’t about demanding something from a customer – even in return for marvellous coupons or the opportunity to look like a celebrity next to Cat Deeley.

Any time now the world is going to start up a demand for typewriters and all you fools with computers and keyboards had better watch out.

I’m certain of it.

I’m ready, of course. I’ll be selling ink ribbons on eBay at a premium price so as to cash in quickly before the shuttered factories are dusted off and machinery cranks once more into action. And after that, as old businesses are called to perform once more, then I will act as an advisor. A guru. Wise in the processes of touch typing and carriage returns.

Of course things aren’t going to be like they used to be. That would be silly.

No, these new typewriters will be modern. They will be optimised for Twitter; accepting tiny sheets of paper designed to be efficiently scanned in and distributed within the day.

Sure, it will be slower. But people will think more. Rash statements and bandwagons will be a thing of the past and only the most crafted thoughts will be considered.

Not everybody will adopt the new technology. Some people will continue to use a computer to bash out a hundred messages a day but this will be quickly corralled and those opinions will be placed in a digital kindergarten.

It will still be social. There’s no getting away from that. In fact it will be more social. More people will be involved in getting your message onto the Internet.

Oh, and we’ll have typing pools again. Those sounded nice.

So maybe I’m off on one or two of the details. But the technology we use will change, the way we define ‘social’ on the Internet will change. At the moment it is too preoccupied with the channels rather than the message so brands interested in the long haul will spend time learning the principles behind what doesn’t change. The principles of people. The way we like to listen, to talk and to while away the time in a bid to drown out the clatter of keyboards and work in our lives.

The village where I live have joined the marketing game. Investments in signage and newsletters are all around, logo design cannot be far behind.

The pressure to join this game is immense but all too often the execution is lacking the guidance which could be gained through an analysis of the aims. It’s clearly a case of ‘what’ shall we do rather than ‘why’ should we do it.

And so the residents are told of a postcard competition. Amateur photographers have been invited to submit their views of the village and a postcard is to be printed a distributed to newsagents in the local area where it will fade alongside the hopes of the out-of-date football calendar.

It’s the postcard which gives us our clearest insight into the committee process as, after showing a witty cartoon sketch card from the 1950s, the modern counterpart is unveiled alongside careful explanations. This image of the stone hewn village marker has been elevated to tourist attraction, that view away from the village is a point of difference. And look, we have included a view along the main lane because it was felt the boarded-up shops were not otherwise represented. Nobody seems to ever asked what these scenes really offer us by way of promotion. Just lots of people squeezing in aspects thought to represent a ‘side’ worth, well, representing.

Nowhere in the process has anybody asked what is being sold and that’s where the opportunity has been missed. All the perceived gears of marketing are being swung into action but we are missing the actual product.

Views of the village aren’t, in all honesty, up to much. These scenes won’t be chosen for chocolate boxes to represent a golden era. Flower displays, lovely and welcome as they may be, aren’t the reason a young family will put down roots.

The real sadness is that it wouldn’t take much to uncover potential products upon which a genuine sales initiative could take place. The village is surrounded by farmland that could be tapped to provide goods which could be uniquely ours. Local businesses and landlords could be shown the benefits of working together to make more of eyesore spaces that would lift the shopping areas. Such businesses would do much to foster community in which generations could mix. If you know your neighbours and your community, you are more likely to want to support it. Activities could then be based on people rather than new signs.

In all, efforts to find a real and sustainable product for the village would pay dividends for everyone and when the committee meets to flex its wannabe marketing muscles it can do so in the knowledge that they won’t be selling their own, hopeful impressions of a village that doesn’t really exist.

In the car, early one morning, my friend told me his boss had been trying to persuade him not to retire next year. The boss explained that he had never had any complaints about that one plant (my friend loads aggregates, it’s typically a one person per plant job and you need to be everything from labourer to customer care manager).

So, no complaints. Not a single customer had to call in ten years to ask where their concrete was.

The boss said he wished he had more people like my friend and asked why he was so different to every other plant manager in the group.

My friend explained that he lived by a simple tagline (he didn’t use that term) which was ‘deliver the promise’. If a customer had been promised a load and my friend was running late then the customer still received it as promised, even if it meant working late (and loads are never, unlike taxis, promised as being just around the corner).

My friend is one of those people, rare in my experience, who pose a real problem to management. They are indispensable in their current roles but would be invaluable ‘higher up’ in a training or management role.

Such a simple philosophy can underpin any other brand. I’m writing this whilst stood across the platform from a billboard proclaiming NatWest’s charter commitments as they make promises (I wish they were different promises really but that’s a separate matter) which presumably they will deliver.

Advertising can sometimes be an attempt to make something from nothing, an attempt to hoodwink the consumer into buying something they do not need (or at least desire). ‘Deliver the promise’ is the antidote to this. It cuts through to the core of what any brand should be offering and enables campaigns to be bold and uncynical knowing that what they are selling will deliver the promise of reliability, genuine interest, comfort – whatever it is the product has set out to do.

A kitchen gadget, the sort we all buy, might therefore, through a deliver the promise strategy, be designed to genuinely change the way we peel or slice rather than being discarded after a few tries.

My friend has promised to retire next year. I’d hope his company wishes that this one time, it’s a promise he doesn’t deliver.

He is the go to guy for many things these from fronting a startup to commenting on every issue under the sun (and probably on it too). With the effective departure of Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple maybe it’s time he took on a more serious role in the business world.

If legends are to believed, Jobs is the single visionary behind every successful Apple product launch. His carefully manicured brand image, as reliable as Bono’s sunglasses, have taken credit for the iPod, iPhone, and iPad in a series of moves that have led to the financial ascendancy of the one-time underdog. What’s more, this image has undoubtedly helped balance the rise with the anchoring of a more humble image in the eyes of the public.

To believe such legends, however, is to dismiss at a stroke all the thinking of thousands of employees. Engineers, artists and strategists may well have been encouraged by the reappearance of Jobs back in 1998 but it’s unlikely he hands them a ‘To Do’ list each Monday morning.

It’s startling, therefore, that the departure of a figurehead can make such a huge impact upon the Market. The notion that without him in the Director’s chair, the Apple show will revert back to less favourable fortunes takes neither the context of Apple’s mid-season break nor our current social attitude towards technology into account.

It does, however, reveal the importance of branding.

Company CEOs, much like politicians, are learning that education and ability are not sufficient qualities for leading a company. Wozniak may have been a genius on the circuit board but that beard would definitely cause trouble today. Our leaders, business and political, must represent the full package.

So back to Fry.

And a question.

Why not?

Could he generate the sort of interest, the sort of enthusiasm for product that Jobs does? Maybe not the same, but certainly of a level which would keep the world talking about Apple.

And certainly in a way that continues the levels of showmanship which have become almost mandatory in any product launch (although whether he could pull of a Samsung is something to be seen).

It is, ultimately, a question of branding. As the line between b2c and b2b blurs, as financial results are given the same media attention as football transfers (though the former aren’t usually as lucrative) then we mustn’t be afraid to interrogate our brands more fully. We are all businessmen, we are all showmen and if a brand is to be effective then it cannot shy away from influencing every area.

A comedian in a boardroom? Why not? We’ve had clowns in Downing Street for years.

When it comes to spreading the word about your brand, the received wisdom is that Facebook and Twitter are the slickest way to go. Often, however, they are viewed as one and the same as marketing managers boil their influence down to “spreading the word”. The two social media giants, however, are two very different beasts and require a very different approach.

Let’s try to separate the two and achieve a little clarity.

On the surface, the differences seem clear. Facebook has so many mechanisms which users can draw upon to interact with one another. Sending photos, emails, IM, status updates, videos, games, Facebook looks like it could be the one stop shop for social media. Drop a stone here, you might think, and count the ripples.

Even the status updates have changed to mimic the 140 character messages of Twitter.

That alone should dictate social media strategy: post games and movies on Facebook, keep Twitter for simple comments.

The truth, however, isn’t so straightforward. And to see why you have to look at how, and to whom, your message is being relayed through both networks.

With Facebook, the connections are all physical. At least to start with. Chances are that the first bunch of friends you added to your account were all real world friends or colleagues. Your network then grew to include past friends and then friends of friends but for the most part, the majority of regular users, all interact outside of Facebook too.

That is a huge difference to the way in which Twitter connections form.

When you signed up to Twitter, who did you add first? Perhaps it was the person who introduced you to it. Perhaps not.

Perhaps you tapped in Justin Bieber’s name. Or Simon Pegg. Or The Batman.

Your connections list, in other words, doesn’t place the emphasis on real life friends. You don’t burn with the need to hear what your school friend from thirty years ago is Tweeting about. That happens, of course it does. But it’s not the kicker. It doesn’t drive the connection process.

With Facebook it does.

One isn’t better than the other. They are just different. Because the way in which our connections form will dictate the way in which we relay information. And understanding the way in which this information is relayed via Facebook and Twitter is key to developing a social media strategy.

With Twitter the connections will be formed with very different motivators than for Facebook. People on Twitter might connect because of an interest or an ambition. Which means the sort of data they are willing to spread will be shaped by that.

The process is also shaped by the hullabaloo over privacy.

On Facebook, viral status is beginning to be throttled by the privacy settings demanded by users. When you post something, you don’t necessarily want that to go viral so you shape your permission settings to protect you. That covers you for all the photos of the night out but it can also serve to kettle messages that marketing managers might wish would pass through your “oh, this is cool” filter with a little more ease.

With Twitter, this doesn’t happen as sharply. Messages are just passed along with little concern for privacy. Add to that the fact that you can get, or attempt to get, the attention of any other Twitter user and the process of conveying messages becomes different again. Attracting the attention of Twitter’s super users, in the hope that they will take up your crusade, has become an aim for many users.

This isn’t to underplay the role of Facebook. Of course it isn’t. Facebook campaigns can be stickier, deeper and more rewarding than those conducted via Twitter.

And then there is why people use each service. Whilst there are no fixed rules, one clue is in the terms each site uses for your connections. Facebook has friends whereas Twitter has followers. Is this reflected in what sort of information people are likely to share? Not always but, given that many folk often use Facebook to share family photos then the atmosphere tends to be more personal. Contrast that to Twitter where the more public nature of the Tweets might make a user ask how any Tweet reflects back on them and you can see a way to position posts to both sites.

Understanding the differences between the two networks, however, is vital when it comes to having that discussion with your boss which begins “let’s push our brand into social media”.

It’s an easy enough assumption: brand and logo are interchangeable. After all the concept of brand is associated with a mark made from a hot iron, marking out property.

An older usage, however, lights the way to a more modern interpretation as the brand becomes a piece of burning wood, lighting the way for villagers to make radical changes in social hierarchy. Sometimes change hurts.

These days, however, when a company looks to define a brand it starts with the logo. Believing that it can make people see it as friendly/forward thinking/trustworth merely by the curvature and kerning of a well chosen typeface, the company instead paves the way for angry villagers on Twitter to burn the whole thing down and send well meaning logo designers running for the hills.

The best example of brand is found not only in the way a company’s culture can be easily conveyed but also the experience it can offer to customers. This affects every aspect from product design to service. A well designed brand draws customers whereas a well designed logo, well, doesn’t.

Take a shopping centre, for example. Out of town “retail parks” are ten a penny. Each has an advertising campaign urging us to spend our money there and then comes the logo, positioned like a reason to shop or a final point in the argument.

But it isn’t the logo, nice as it may be, that draws the crowd. It’s the offering.

Which is why few campaigns (if any) for retail park shopping stick in the mind. The same shops, the same experience. Nothing distinguishes one from the other apart from a logo. That’s because branding never really comes into the process. If it did then Manchester Fort (“the biggest brands all in one place”) would have been designed, architecturally and experientially, in keeping with the concept of “Manchester Fort”. The brand would have been baked in to differentiate and encourage loyalty.

Otherwise there is no brand.

Otherwise I don’t care whether I make the trip to one side of the city or the other because having the biggest brands all in one place is a feature common to all retail parks.

Manchester’s Trafford Centre has brand experience baked right in. The style of architecture (like it or loathe it) is such a part of this that it has become part of the attraction. Their logo reflects this, reminding us that this is a destination in its own right, quite separate from the shops it contains.

Thinking about brand in terms of experience is applicable across the board, whatever that brand might be.

Imagine if Nike only had a logo. If their brand was “something you put on your feet” then my reasons to invest would be based on design and price rather than on the wider, less tangible but more aspirational brand value which has endured over the years.

Frankly, brand is pretty much the one thing keeping us buying things like McVitie’s biscuits rather than Tesco’s own.

The benefits of thinking, really thinking, about brand are clear. The pitfalls of confusing it with logo are revealed everytime a service updates its image.

Recently I’ve been writing a few short stories for a website run by Tom Mason. The conceit is that each story must be sparked off by an image and be no more than 330 words long.

It’s a great format for me because with it I can say something quickly without running into the issues of structure I’d face with something longer.

I do, however, periodically consider whether what I’m writing can be classed as “story” at all.

In fact, the definition of “story” is something we all wrestle with at Head First because it is integral to creating strong and effective advertising.

The difficulty I have with my 330 word stories lies in the difference between a story and a concept. Is it possible to relate a story in so few words? Or does the reduction render it to a concept?

It’s easier to see when you reduce the word count even further. To, say, 140 characters. One guy tweets very short stories which come across more as outlines (or perhaps poems) than stories.

You could argue, of course, that anything can be a story. If I write something like:

“She lived. She cried. She died.”

You get a sense of narrative. You get a classic beginning, middle and end. Even the choice of words plays a part. “Lived” is more emotive than “was alive” because it suggests more than the simple act of existing, of breathing. And by starting it that way, I set the scene for the tragedy that follows. The reader might arrive at their own conclusions but it is clear that the woman’s situation is a result of her having “lived”.

So that could be described as a story.

Except it isn’t. Not in the more traditional way.

For that, you need more flesh on the bones for story to occur.

My personal jury is out on the 330 word stories. Perhaps they are something different. Certainly they are something exciting (to write at least).

What is clear, however, is the lesson they contain for advertising. Because by challenging my understanding of story, they make me challenge the story of advertising.

Whether I’m writing a two word ad or advertising through social media the lesson remains. I must ask myself what story am I trying to tell.

For the two word ad I must work to ensure the experience, through the combined efforts of text and imagery, is sufficiently satisfying as to provide a story.

Because stories are how experiences are related and relationships formed.

And that’s a way to ensure advertising is effective at the deepest level.

Feel-good ads are a way to identify with the needs of your audience but they carry a risk in doing so.

John Lewis ads have, in recent years, become something of an art form. Layered with emotive imagery of wholesome living they are an art director’s dream and a way to explore techniques that will prepare them for that Julia Roberts film they’ve been planning.

Yet walking the tightrope of social and political viewpoints to pinpoint a common vision of Dickensian Christmasses and a gentle humour isn’t all that easy as they have discovered. Their most recent ad, featuring various unusual objects being wrapped, received complaints because one of those objects was a dog. Hardly acerbic satire and certainly not portrayed in a sinister League of Gentlemen manner – although wouldn’t that make for an eye-catching and headline grabbing advertisement? In a nation of dog-lovers, however, it was clearly the wrong subject for a company that never wishes to offend.

It speaks volumes about many things: about consumer power, precarious corporations and recession and even what it means to be British.

But most of all it speaks volumes about advertising messages, specifically about the fact that when your message is feel good rather than pay less or see more, you’d better please some of the people all of the time.

The game layer can be dropped over anything we do in order to help customers engage with products, processes or people.

When Head First set up shop, it was on the strength of believing the approaches of each market specialty, from videogames to DIY, could and should engage in whole lot more mixing.

From the perspective of videogames it seemed advertising often took a back seat to illustration, as though the two disciplines were interchangeable, as though merely by saying that a picture was worth a thousand words actually made it so.

The sophisticated techniques, the considered messages, these were often missing from marketing strategies for the fast growing sector of videogames and Head First wanted to change that.

At the same time, however, we knew that videogames had a lot to give. Energy and engagement were just two things that the world of videogames had to offer every other brand. Sure, the big boys knew how to form a message but videogames… well, they could deliver it in ways that just clicked with audiences of all ages.

Videogames, we said (and still say) aren’t something you grow out of.

We understand the power of the industry and believe in it so strongly that we thought it was time to show just how engaging it can be.

Enter Super Twario and a whole new look at how Twitter can be accessed.

For a while now there have been claims to have created the first ever Twitter game but these claims are built around spamming rather than engaging and users often Tweet in anger as they feel cheated into allowing the service to broadcast messages on their behalf.

With Super Twario we didn’t want to engage with Twitter at all, we wanted our users to. By providing the platform (literally) for them to roam through their Feed in an exciting and, dare the word be uttered, an innovative way. Add to this a score system and you have engagement in a very real sense.

What Super Twario does is show how different products (such as Twitter) can be approached in very different ways.

Most of all though, we wanted people to see that Head First has some pretty great ideas.