In an episode of Looney Tunes called One Froggy Evening, the frog’s owner/agent attempts to put on a show designed to bring the world to see the marvellous singing and dancing of his pet. It never happens. The frog never performs. Capable of amazing things in front of the hapless owner, the presence of a second witness renders it completely and utterly amphibian. The whole episode is a lesson in frustration to rival Beckett but this one particular sequence has other lessons.

Despite detailing the contents of the show (it’s a singing, dancing frog – isn’t that enough?) not a single person shows an interest. You’d think they would. It’s a testament to the creativity often found in classic Looney Tunes cartoons that even this expectation is trumped in order to prolong the anticipation. Faced with an empty auditorium but still determined to show the world he’s not a liar (and by this point even we are wondering whether this is some kind of dream) the owner places a placard outside the theatre doors with the legend “Free Entry”. He steps back to avoid the crowds.

But of course, none come.

The theatre remains empty and the frog continues is performance in solitude.

Undeterred, the owner replaces the placard with a new one saying “Free Beer”.

That does the trick. Crowds pour through the doors and, inevitably, the frog reverts to froggy status.

He is, of course, let down by his product but his methods are perfect. Knowing that he only had to get people through the door in order to make his fortune, the owner was a lesson in promotion. By knowing his customer, by adapting to his customer, he was able to put the bums on seats. He didn’t repeat what many would see to be the sales message. He didn’t stand and shout “but it’s a singing, dancing frog”. He adapted.

His only real mistake was in not ditching the frog and getting this in sooner.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

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.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

Let’s look at Apple, a company that constantly stresses its commitment to the best design in the world, but which has built a massive business on the back of non-CD quality audio files. MP3 and AAC files are nowhere near CD quality and plenty of audiophiles argue that vinyl is better. So if Apple are selling what can be describe as a ‘substandard’ product, how come they’ve done so well? Well enough to sell 10 billion songs. The reason behind this is that sometimes people don’t want or need the best they just want it to be ‘good enough’. With MP3s, the consumer has traded quality for convenience and, for the most part, is very happy. They’ve decided they can cope with ‘almost-perfect’ sound quality if it means they can carry their entire music library around with them, or have the convenience of downloading any track when and where they want. The same goes for streaming services like Spotify which has a maximum quality of 320kbps, the same as the best MP3s, and also features advertising between every few tracks. We don’t mind a few ads if we get the benefit of an unlimited choice of music that’s available whenever we want it

The Nintendo Wii is a great example of ‘Good Enough’ technology. It isn’t ‘next-generation’, it isn’t HD, it has no Blu-Ray player or extensive online matchmaking system but it has sold 67 million units. Nintendo very cleverly and very simply looked at what the mass-market wanted and gave it to them. This gaming mass-market, perhaps first discovered by Sony with things like EyeToy, SingStar and Buzz! loves to play but doesn’t have time to learn complicated gaming mechanics or new control systems. Very importantly they also don’t want to spend very much money. They’re not hardcore gaming connoisseurs who know how many processors or polygons their machines has and they don’t care. The Wii plays fun games cheaply and that’s Good Enough.

Simplicity and value for money are also driving Apple’s app store with throwaway games that cost 59p making as much money as established franchises. I often think “59p, well it’s the same price as a Mars Bar, might as well have a go” which has led me to such delights as Younicorn and Bauble. One of my most played games is the free BlocksClassic. As ever, you get what you pay for, but the point is we’re not expecting epics for that price. Our friends at Four Door Lemon released QuizQuizQuiz in October 09 and it’s done very well, more than making its money back. What is it? It’s a quiz game. What did you expect? Press buttons to answer questions against the clock. 59p. Sorted. Sometimes people just want to press buttons and answer questions without distractions. Now it would be easy to take a game like this, add in an expensive 3D TV studio set, celebrity voice-overs and more, but is that really necessary? Pound for pound the game wouldn’t necessarily make any more profit.

For the consumer everything is a trade off and if they understand the benefit of what they’re getting then they can decide if its a trade they want to make. So sometimes you don’t have to go too far with a product and its important that you make something that will at least make its money back and hopefully make a profit – or there’s not much point in doing it. ‘Good enough’ is not always a bad thing, there’s still scope for excellence, and perhaps we need to concentrate on making the customer happy rather than worrying about things they don’t even care about.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

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?

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

The offending phrase came about during a conversation about, well, conversations. It must have been one of those days because only hours earlier I’d read several blogs all orbiting around the same topic. Maybe it’s like suddenly being attuned to adverts for baby products just hours after “an accident”.

Who knows.

All talk of “conversations” in marketing makes me look to my wallet. Like being doorstepped, it is a term thrown about far too easily and attempts to convert us all to the cause of “social marketing”.

The “conversation” people have a cause. A social cause.

They believe that marketing MUST change. That it MUST turn away from the old pagan ways and embrace the conversation.

Some issues certainly require such conversations; political parties would be well advised to start a few with voters – and actually be interested in the other side of said conversation. Toilet paper manufacturers however, well, I’d rather you didn’t talk. Just pass it through the door please. All I need to know is are you selling tracing paper or will your product do what I need it to.

The proposition is simple: I have a product that I think you’d like. Please buy it.

Answers on the back of the cheque.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

Remember the UK government’s “Big Conversation”? I didn’t either until sitting down to write this. It struck the cynical masses (me incuded) as one-sided. Political disengagment, or the perception of it, has resulted in the feeling that we just aren’t being listened to. Well the big no-suprise prize goes to the realisation that this extends to products development and marketing. I’ve been involved in a fair amount of research over the years and the one consistent element is that people love being listened to.

We all have our ideas about how a game, a company, a government might work better and the shock is – some of these ideas are really good. They are worth listening to.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.