HEAD BLOG

All too often marketing tries to push out a message without asking what it is the customer wants to hear.

It’s understandable. Of course it is. I want everybody in the world to know that Head First can produce really exciting and effective creative. I can shout about it. I can stop product managers I’ve been stalking for months and tell them that. It won’t necessarily convince them though. Or even interest them.

They might, for example, be a little more interested in whether we can be cost effective, or manage projects efficiently, or meet deadlines. No, no and no.

Only joking, of course we can.

The point, of course, is I can’t just force my message on them. It’s why some companies mistake this message with “brand” but that’s a topic for another rant time.

Discovering what it is the customer wants to hear means gaining insight. It means admitting that not every customer will be interested in what you have to offer because insight often tells us we have nothing in common.

But when we do have something in common, when understanding what it is they need leads to a better understanding of how our product can meet that need well that, that is exciting. That is the start of a bond, a shared value which, after all, is what brand is really about.

It was the last place you might expect to experience marketing in action but really, it should have been amongst the first.

When I think of the word “marketing” I think of companies such as Nike or Coca Cola. Companies with millions to spend on advertising. I think of acronyms like ABTL and AIDA. I think of (and this is probably where I’m completely alone) ads directed by John Woo and the high production values of London agencies.

I also think of Head First of course.

Every time I think in that way I know I’m making the same mistake many agencies make. The same mistake many marketing people make.

I’m thinking marketing is somehow a profession.

So back to the first place I ought to have expected to experience marketing in action.

Back to my local butchers.

At the weekend I had gone to buy a cow-full of meat for a barbecue. I needed just enough burgers to pay my way into the party and gain me access to whatever booze other people had brought along.

The butcher, however, had other ideas.

It began with a simple request: “let me just show you our special offer in the cake section”. After that I was hit with a fast patter of friendly sales talk, low key enough to not be pushy and yet slick enough to make me salivate with everything those cakes could offer me. He was friendly, he was chatty, he was inquisitive. He was more than counter staff, he was a marketeer.

Two minutes later I was walking out (after paying) with far more than I’d intended to.

And I felt great about it.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. These kind of shops, rare though they might me, are the heart and soul of what marketing is. True to the origins of the concept they remain rooted in the traditions of the ordinary market place. They are fuelled by the spirit of patter and bargains, of quick deals and friendly banter. They are expert in knowing the customer and adjusting their pitch to remain appropriate. In an age where marketing companies claim to herald a new age of social marketing, they practise it on a personal level the likes of which social websites spend millions of tech dollars trying to emulate.

If you ever want to write an ad or plan a marketing campaign, my advice is to butcher it.

The more advertising I’m exposed to and the more I’m involved with writing it, the more I wonder who this is all for. The headlines, the imagery – so much of it seems to be aimed at the client not the consumer because it falls into the sort of glib tone which only a person of a certain, educated background could fall for.

It’s like those novels that roll along in a particular fashion that is easy to read, contains all the right references to history (usually as studied to A level) contain a shocking twist and which turn out, nine times in ten, to be written by someone with an MA in creative writing. They’re not bad,  quite the opposite in fact; they are just all targeted towards a very specific audience.

Advertising can also fall into this groove. Many of us want to write a VW ad or a Honda ad and, as a result, a tone can be detected when it really oughtn’t to be.

I have written headlines I don’t like. They don’t appeal to me in the slightest. And every time I write such a line, I feel as though I’ve done something well. Something appropriate. Because I’m not every type of consumer and some products aren’t aimed at me. And even when they are, they aren’t just aimed at me.

Creatives need to look beyond “like”. That often means understanding the kind of person we wouldn’t, under normal circumstances, be seen dead associating with.

Recently I overheard two young women talking on a train. They were well educated, studying to work in Law from the sounds of it, and clearly financially quite privileged.

They were talking about women who had a tattoo on their back, the sort just above their backsides and which can often be seen peeking out from under a short cut T shirt.

You might know what I’m going to call these tattoos, I hadn’t heard of them referred to in this way before but you might.

They called them “tramp stamps”.

It was a magnificent, condescending put-down. Not just of the women who had themselves tattooed in that way but of a whole class of people. By drawing attention to them so quickly, I was given a clear picture of the clothes, the music, the backgrounds of these women.

I don’t mix with anybody who could be snubbed in that way but I do know I’d be able to write ads for them. And enjoy doing so. Because I know they have their likes and dislikes, their cultural reference points and motivating triggers the same as the two women whose words so comprehensively dismissed them.

There is more to writing ads than coming up with a clever line to appeal to broadsheet readers and University students. When we write ads for well educated clients and ignore the wonderfully diverse audience out there, creatives can be just as dismissive.

There's a snake in mah boots

I’ve never been a huge fan of westerns.

I don’t know why. I guess the setting never really appealed to me. Maybe the landscape of the old west wasn’t as much of a draw to the younger version of me as the notion of barrelling down the Death Star trench. I had no understanding of the freedom it represented – the lawlessness and the excitement. I grew up in a bungalow in Wigan, a million miles away from Cowboyland.

All that’s changed now. Well, since I’ve been playing Red Dead Redemption anyway.

I’m not saying that I now know just what life in the old west was like, due to me simply playing a game, but I’m starting to see why kids are expected to like “cowboy stuff”.

The multiplayer version of Red Dead Redemption is great fun. It contains all the iconic elements of life as an outlaw, without any of the boring stuff, like eating or resting or having to face the law if you shoot someone. I realise this semi-review arrives a good few weeks after everyone else’s, but it’s finally starting to hit home just how appealing the cowboy life can be.

The game world affords a similar sensibility to the old west, in that there are no real consequences for your actions. You can choose to help, befriend or shoot anyone or anything you happen across. And in an online multiplayer world where strangers inhabit the same space as you and your friends, this presents so many opportunities for fun, it’s unreal.

Last night I rode out across the plains of New Austin with three friends in my posse. We chose a simple mission and headed across land to our destination, only to find a group of other players had already arrived before us, intent on taking the loot we wanted so badly. What followed was an astonishingly enjoyable massacre that saw us ousting the bad guys, taking the swag and riding off into the sunset.

I never left my comfortable seat, but I had a storming time with a bunch of friends, playing a classic role in a guilt-free environment. Finally, I understand why the old west is such an enticing prospect.

I walked out the room last night with a little bit more of a swagger in my step.

Two days of consecutive sunshine has us all in weather mode. Whether it is to long for cooler days or to talk about how marvellous the heat wave is (followed by a glum prediction of it ending soon), the weather leaps into conversations at every opportunity.

Marketing is similarly hasty in its willingness to take advantage of each change in weather, be it an oncoming storm of football fever or the potential break in the clouds offered by a long awaited election.

Here is something which unites us all, it seems to say, something we can all talk about. And look how switched on to the national mood we are. You might think all we do is sell crisps but really we are your friend and as such we can take liberties with your time by striking up a conversation.

Much akin to a stranger sat on the bench next to you who decides to try his luck with a line about how long term weather predictions have us suffering through a rainy summer before offering us advice of a handy umbrella shop (owned, incidentally, by his brother), the eager Marketeer will stop at nothing to catch your interest.

So it is we have had every form of product sold to us on the strength of a weak “vote now” campaign and so it will be that the World Cup will be drained of any effectiveness as products rely upon our dumb willingness to buy anything from anyone provided they have a fine line in football related conversation pieces. This lawn mower is a like a game of two halves you say? Adorned with a flag even? By the cup, I’ll buy one and visit your store again.

It may be that certain topics hold a common interest for many people. But it also true that they make for short term conversations and fair weather friends.

Collaboration, not crowd sourcing, is the future of advertising.

Crowd sourcing is directed from a brand manager or agency creative.

And that’s an important word: directed. The Doritos campaign was directed and the ‘public’ did as they were told, expressing themselves beautifully, wittily but doing so in a controlled, managed, directed way.

When a client approaches a number of agencies to request ideas in the form of a pitch it is, in essence, crowd sourcing ideas from a limited pool of creativity. The advantage an agency can have over others (and the public) is experience.

Each agency can draw upon its experience to respond by building a compelling argument as to why their ideas are better, regardless of whether their ideas are, in fact, actually better. It becomes a game of personalities in which ideas are judged on what is likely to win with the client rather than succeed with the consumer.

Collaboration, on the other hand, is freer, more open and more targetted at the end result. The process is fluid enough to change according to that end result. What might be perceived as key selling points are open to change under the process of collaboration.

Personalities are focussed on producing something that works for the consumer rather than satisfying a predefined brief.

Collaborators, removed from the competitive process, are focussed upon pooling resources and figuring out how to get the best results (and even agree how those results ought to be measured).

It’s all part of forging a great relationship with the client and, whilst I accept that crowd sourcing has a certain energetic pleasure, it’s in the relationships that effective work will be produced. The energy offered by crowd sourcing is akin to the enjoyment of a pub wit. It’s fun at the time but makes very little impact in the long term and social marketing has to be about the long term. It has to be about the relationships over the casual acquaintence otherwise there is no depth, no substance and no loyalty.

Society functions effectively in true, deep rooted communities.

Not crowds.

Recently I had a meeting to discuss ideas for innovating an online service. Amidst the hopes and dreams such a meeting can draw out nestled a frank discussion about how consumers could be reached. Although it was a brief diversion from the main topic it was a diversion we will be revisiting at a later date.

And one comment struck me above all others.

Publishers tend to forget that not everyone accesses their campaigns online.

It’s an easy thing to forget.

Publishers, developers, creatives, writers, we all share one thing in common: our working days revolve around easy Internet access.

And whilst we are all video conferencing, instant messaging, twittering and browsing our customers and our audiences might be hard at work in classrooms and factories, call centres and ticket offices, earning their pay and looking forward to relaxing with friends during their leisure tine.

Internet usage, despite its rich experiences, may be crammed into brief periods before bed or at the weekend. Decisions on new purchases, be they books or games, cars or holidays, may be made in the cracks of their lives as they share their hopes and dreams with colleagues or flick through a lunchtime magazine or casually browse a bookstore on the way to buy a sandwich.

Just as I am sometimes surprised how few of my clients keep a Twitter client open behind the multitude of email windows and spreadsheets, so too am I surprised how easily I forget the real lives of others.

These lives are not impoverished by their lack of eighteen hour exposure to the bells and whistles, news and opinions of a life lived online. No. These lives are simply filled with different priorities and different processes and as we seek to make our information available to them we would do well to walk where they walk and pause where they pause.

I keep on banging the choice drum. Boom, I say that the more we are exposed to choice the less choice we end up with. Boom, I say the more open markets are the fewer the shops end up operating them and now Boom, the more personalised our choices become the less we deviate away from them.

Watching Virtual Revolution on Saturday this concept was summed up (brilliantly and effectively) by Douglas Rushkoff as he explained how decision engines worked (the technology behind Amazon’s recommendation features amongst others). He ran through a programmatically logical structure of how the more we were presented with “people like you also bought” the more we became “people like us”.

It’s along the same principle of seeking out like-minded people to work with and be friends with.

I get the bus each morning. At 6:20 there aren’t many people in my village who do. In fact, generally speaking, there are five. Three of these people get on at my stop. Including myself. So, sociable being that I am I took two years to say hello to the other two. One is a postman, the other a cellar man. I didn’t realise pubs had people starting work at that time of a morning but apparantly they do.

Over the years we’ve enjoyed our ten minute chats. Much like Twitter, these shared moments build up into something far more than just a nod and a comment about the weather. Insights are gained, personal details shared and views occasionally (and tentatively) expressed.

The views aren’t always something I’m comfortable. Sometimes they are at the opposite end of the political fence where I sit, quite comfortably, knowing I am right in all things.

At one time it would have been enough to force me onto a later bus.

They hooked me, however, with their bonhomie. Many silent moments, a furtive nod of hello and a lifetime of isolation were banished simply by the two of them being nice. By showing an interest in my life and in sharing theirs.

I’d never have found them if I’d done a search for bus companions and been recommended like-minded people to share my journey with.

Now my bus buddies and I ignore what we have in common and celebrate our differences. If there were a search engine that told me what was different, even what I might hate – well I’d try that.

Volkswagen have created a wonderful piece of what they call “social marketing” but which anybody familiar with gaming for the past thirty years would just call “gaming”.

At Head First we pursue work where we can make a difference; where we know that our ideas would be appropriate. Sometimes this takes us outside the games industry and the usual response is “where’s your relevance?”. I never struggle to find an answer.

I say something like games brings everybody together. To which I am told that the client isn’t a gamer.

I don’t believe them.

Everybody is a gamer.

They might not consider buying Modern Warfare 2 or Bioshock 2; they might not even own a “games machine”; but they are gamers.

The rise in what is commonly called social media has gaming built in as standard. Look at your friend’s Facebook updates and a game won’t be far away, clearly VW understand this.

Games unite people. Games teach people and games blaze the trail in terms of user experiences and technical accomplishments.

And if everybody is a gamer then it follows that there are certain elements they have in common; certain elements that can be used to reach them.

VW’s boast centres around the fact that their promotion had been downloaded over four million times. The “revelation” of their claim is supposed to be that all this was achieved without spending a penny on media. However, when you understand the power of gaming the revelation, however brilliant, isn’t surprising.

It’s that time of year again: Superbowl time. Traditionally I enjoy skipping the actual event and turning instead to the ads. Companies spend such a huge amount of time, creativity and money on them that it seems rude not to politely sit through to the end, bitter or otherwise.

This year they are getting talked about more than usual. Normally I read about which movie trailers played but this year Google ran an ad which made it into the mainstream press; dragging everything else behind it.

Google’s ad was pretty nice; whimsical and confident and with a simple message – namely search is a fact of life. As brands become increasingly switched on to the social side of commerce this positioning resonates.

What stood out for me, however, was the number of ads that were content to essentially waste time and money. Go Daddy drew lots of ire but, subjective views aside, at least it threw in the facts of the product.

Other brands weren’t so ambitious, relying instead on the media spend to impress the viewers. Why spend money on creative if all you are doing (from a semiotics perspective) is showing the company logo? Indeed, if no message and no values are conveyed then thirty seconds of a logo would not only be cheaper, it would arguably be more memorable also.

Advertising, of course, is the opportunity to be more than memorable. It offers the chance to inform as well.
And in these times, when buzzwords such as “social” and “conversation” are in such free-flow, what better form of dialogue is there than a contructive one?