This Week in Strategy: The rotation of the earth really makes my day
Hi Strat Pack,
I've written before about Influencer Witches of Instagram, a real article, really reported by Cosmo. And I know what you're thinking, "Jordan that felt like just the tip of the iceberg, I need to know more!" Well good news! Because I found another photojournalism article documenting the rituals of Romania’s social media savvy witches. It's so fascinating. I'm not into witches. But I am super into learning about the vagaries of this weird and very personal subculture.
New York Event Alert! I know at least some of you live in New York. And there's a cool event called Creativity for Good happening at the Wix event space (which I guess is a thing?) on May 16th at 6:30pm. It bills itself as an inspirational evening of new ideas and lively conversation about creativity for good. And it's free which always helps. I'm going! And if you think it's interesting, you should too!
You write briefs, I write briefs. We write briefs together. Saw this cartoon from Marketoonist and it jut spoke to me. Maybe it's too real. Maybe not.
Alright gang, stop messing around trying to figure out how many free drinks you can score at events and let's jump right in.
The one thing to read this week
1) And you thought consumers were irrational: The behavioral economics of how organizations make decisions [Behavioral Economics of Marketing]
We all know how irrational people can be in how they make decisions. But it's nothing compared to how nuts organizations are. We need to start thinking about how organizations decide as much as how consumers decide. This means rethinking the role of strategy in big organizations.
Flaw #1: Too Future Focused
Nobody thinks about it at the wedding but the truth is 50% of marriages end in divorce. Businesses approach new projects the same way, full of enthusiasm and potential. Instead, ask, what do we know about this couple that will increase or decrease their chances of success? Harsh? Totally. But a better way of making decisions is to establish a base rate of success.
Flaw #2: Too Self Confident
Your time tested process, your proprietary data set, your well paid consultant guru. All promise the same thing, confidence that you’re going to get to the right answer.
Research has shown that we’re more likely to listen to the most confident person in the room, while at the same time, overconfidence is probably the biggest flaw in most organizations decision making.
Flaw #3: Too Fearful
Too many organizations play the marketing game as if it was a game of chess. Look at the board long enough and you’ll understand where all the chess pieces are and what the best move is. But chess is the wrong analogy. Marketing is closer to poker than chess. You know what’s in your hand, but can only make educated guesses as to what other players are holding.
Too many strategists think their role is to just develop a killer methodology, to do more research, have one more brainstorm. We are as much part of the irrationality as the consumers we study. Ultimately our success and our clients’ success is driven not by all the research we do, or meetings we hold, but by the two or three times a year we help organizations make a big smart bet. If we want our clients to succeed we need to study organizations as much as we study consumers.
BONUS ARTICLE: Bike-shedding [Only Dead Fish] Bike-shedding” comes from a tale of a committee that has to approve the plans for a nuclear power station. Since they know very little about nuclear power stations they talk about it briefly and then just approve the recommendation put in front of them.
Next they have to approve the plans for a bike shed. They all know about bike sheds. They’ve all seen one and used one. So they talk about the bike shed for hours, arguing about construction methods and paint choice and everything. This is why bike-shedding is also known as The Law of Triviality: “ members of an organisation give disproportionate weight to trivial issues”
2) Carlsberg’s honest new ad campaign leaves a funny aftertaste [The Guardian]
Great insight on how non-advertising humans view our industry.
Carlsberg is extremely proud of itself. “Carlsberg UK has launched its most ambitious and honest consumer facing campaign ever in a bid to drive reappraisal of its flagship beer brand,” it boasts on its website. “The value of brand honesty to consumers is more powerful than ever,” James Joice of Fold7 (one of Carlsberg’s “agency partners”) is quoted as saying. “But it is still rare to see brands hold their hands up when they don’t live up to their promise. Carlsberg has not only been brave enough to do this, but have done something about it.” He’s so impressed he’s pluralised the company mid-sentence.
“Probably the best lager in the world” didn’t feel like a serious claim – it just made you fond of the brand because it was humorous. Amid the hyperbole of other adverts, the use of the word “probably” seemed modest and charming.
These types of campaigns raised both a chuckle and brand awareness. They assert the lager’s status as one of the beers you should expect to find in lots of pubs: “This is one of the main ones – you can respectably order this” was the core message. So people did, and the beer was fine. Stuff to do with hops or brewing or taste wasn’t much mentioned.
3) Laddering [No Mercy / No Malice]
(Please click through this one I did a terrible job summarizing and Scott Galloway is a great writer)
One of the powerful tools of brand management is laddering. Note: the previous sentence is a lie; I invented the term, or am using it in a different sense than its original definition, and am hoping it becomes taxonomized into the schematic of brand building. (Further note: I'm not entirely sure what “taxonomize” or “schematic” mean.)
Laddering is an attempt to de-position a competitor by highlighting one of your strengths, which just happens to be your competitor’s weakness. You cast yourself in a positive light, while at the same time casting a negative light on them.
Laddering is effective, as it’s a twofer — people are organically reminded how much your adversary sucks, and by contrast how wonderful you are. We have an easier time believing people are bad vs. good — a survival mechanism.
Laddering can also save a management team from themselves by identifying if they're vulnerable in their communications efforts. This week, in a rare misstep, Amazon stuck their chin out: “Today I challenge our top retail competitors (you know who you are!) to match our employee benefits and our $15 minimum wage. Do it! Better yet, go to $16 and throw the gauntlet back at us," Bezos wrote.
Walmart, sensing their opportunity to clap back, responded, "Hey retail competitors (you know who you are!) how about paying your taxes?"
4) The Instagram Aesthetic Is Over [The Atlantic]
Even if you don’t use the app, you’ve undoubtedly encountered an “Instagram wall,” a pop-up experience like the Museum of Ice Cream, or a brightly patterned restaurant bathroom just made to be photographed.
No one has capitalized on this look’s popularity more than influencers. But every trend has a shelf life, and as quickly as Instagram ushered in pink walls and pastel macaroons, it’s now turning on them. "It’s so generic and played out at this point. You can photoshop any girl into that background and it will be the same post,” said one 15-year-old. “It’s not cool anymore to be manufactured.”
Previously influencers used to say, ‘Oh, that’s not on brand. For the younger generation, those rules don’t apply at all. In fact, many teens are going out of their way to make their photos look worse.
“For brands to seem cutting edge, they can’t paint a wall and say that’s what they’re doing,” Nord says. “That aesthetic … is no longer viable.” Ultimately, Eaton says, “people are just looking for things they can relate to.” And the pink wall and avocado toast are just not what people are stopping at anymore.
BONUS ARTICLE: How Comments Became the Best Part of Instagram [The Atlantic] In a world where everyone’s photos look the same, comments are what keep posts interesting.
5) Quick Hits: A few articles that are concise, important, interesting, impactful, and I'm not going to write long descriptions for them.
Data suggests marketers might be overestimating the sway of microinfluencers [Econsultancy] No duh! Of the brands that this study looked at, all but one generated 10% or less of their reach from microinfluencers."Perhaps the greatest strength of micro-influencers is their ability to create fresh and authentic content that can be used by brands to amplify through their own channels (otherwise few people will see them!)"
Procter & Gamble makes the biggest ask yet of digital media - Civility [AdAge] P&G will steer dollars toward players that moderate comments, and link opinions to identities
Some companies backtrack on taking marketing in-house [Digiday] The article seems to focus on media buying, but still an interesting thing to keep an eye on.
How Can You Measure Your Social Brand Equity? [Social Media Today] Exploring a new model of measurement: ADPR Awareness, Desirability, Proximity, Relevance
Inventory, like drinking water, is best when filtered at the source [Warc] When it comes to fixing the the programmatic digital ecosystem we keep putting bandaids on a broken leg. This could be a viable ecosystem
6) Special Feature: Department of Bad Work
So there were a lot of...missteps this week to put it politely. We always talk about good work, but let's explore some of the botched roll outs so we can learn from the mistakes of others. We'll be back with the Department of Great Work next week!
Ancestry removes ad amid backlash [AdAge] The brand was accused of romanticizing slavery and rape. There have been a string of frankly really culturally insensitive things coming out of brands recently. The solution's easy. Stop only hiring talent that looks like you.
We don't know what went wrong with Ancestry ad -- and that's the real problem [Campaign US] Another interesting take on the Ancestry issue. TL;DR: Own your shit to sell your shit.
New Logo and Packaging for Fat Tire by Durham Brand & Co. [UnderConsideration] More Like Flat Tire, amirite? From the Press Release: :this 28 year old cruiser has been repositioned and redesigned to be a purposely driven lifestyle brand" See, e.g. that Carlsberg article and also that instagram aesthetic article. Fat Tire used to be a good beer with a fine package. Now it's a lifestyle brand with a design system that just doesn't make any sense. Brands need to stop being something they're not.
United Airlines’ Plane Redesign With New Palette Isn’t Very Fly To Travelers [DesignTaxi] Poor United. They can't even remove the color yellow without becoming a trending topic on Twitter. TBH I think it looks fine. Not overly inspired, but fine. The takeaway here is when your brand is so deep in the shitter, you need to get your most loyal fans on board before
7) Platform Updates
Blah blah blah platform updates.
As Pinterest IPOs, its coverage is often pretty sexist [Quartzy] So this is genuinely really messed up.
Facebook prototypes a swipeable hybrid carousel of feed posts & Stories [TechCrunch]
Amazon Workers Are Listening to What You Tell Alexa [Bloomberg] Amazon’s Alexa group has a voice review team that “listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners’ homes and offices." And don't forget this gem: "Recordings sent to the Alexa reviewers don’t provide a user’s full name and address but are associated with an account number, as well as the user’s first name and the device’s serial number."
Instagram Tests Hiding Like Counts to Reduce Focus on Vanity Metrics [Social Media Today] Finally!
Indian court lifts ban on TikTok in India [TechCrunch] About 30% of TikTok's users are in India. It was originally banned for encouraging pornography and other illicit content
Brands gain YouTube reach but influencers boast engagement [Warc] This headline is kind of wonky. But the takeaway is: if you want reach, post from your branded channel but expect limited engagement. If you want engagement, work with an influencer but understand they'll have less reach (agnostic of follower count)
Share of U.S. adults using social media, including Facebook, is mostly unchanged since 2018 [Pew Research] Boring but important.
Phew! That was a marathon, not a sprint. As always, the full archive is available here. Now that's a full email. Thanks for sticking around as always. Have a great weekend!