This Week in Strategy: Accordion to research, 9 out of 10 people don’t notice it when you replace random words with musical instruments.
Hi Strat Pack,
Today, I'm going to the Strategy Super Size Mega Class and I'm super excited about it. If you have the opportunity to go, you absolutely should sign up. More details next week.
In knot-related news, I'm currently obsessed with Animated Knots, "the web’s premiere site for learning how to tie knots of any kind." I never learned the boy scouts tying knots thing. On a day-to-day basis I don't tie anything besides by shoelaces. I have no desire to learn how to tie boating, surgical, farm, or scouting knots. And yet here I am watching tens, if not hundreds of knots literally tying themselves. I'm enthralled. You simply must click through.
Guys, Taylor Lorenz has her finger on the pulse of internet culture. I don't know how she gets her information but it's always gold. This week's exposé is on AirDrop. And specifically teens' propensity to deluge each other with memes, selfies, and notes that arrives so quickly it can often freeze your phone. “Another day another group of french teens trying to AirDrop me memes on the subway,” one woman tweeted. The future is AirDrop.
Alright, stop messing around trying to find literally any reason that you'd need to use a Trucker's Hitch. Let's jump right in.
The one thing to read this week
1) How to explain an idea: a mega post [Mark Pollard]
People can enter advertising careers without ever knowing what an idea is. Or how to define what the word “idea” means. Or how to have ideas. Or how to explain an idea once they have one in hand. Some people can sustain long careers through their personalities alone. And by playing a game of, “Well, if we all don’t know then who’s to know?”
If you do creative work or have a creative soul, then ideas are your oxygen. This article wants you to breathe. It covers:
The differences between ideas and thoughts
The types of ideas we encounter in advertising
How strategy and ideas work together and how they’re different
Simple techniques to help you explain an idea
The piece is extraordinary well written. It takes about 10 minutes to read. Read it. Your job may depend on it
2) How to piss off a creative [BBH Labs]
A must read for anyone that writes briefs. And a friendly reminder that sometimes we all need to pull our head out of our ass.
Here are a selection of phrases that get creatives hopping with rage:
“I’ve deliberately tried to keep this as broad as possible. It could be anything.”
Every now and again, it is good to be broad and to keep things open. No one knows what the right answer is…etc etc, but when you have literally spent two weeks of time that could be creative development or production time and have come to the conclusion that someone else will work it out…it can be a tad annoying. So how do we avoid that? Find an angle, make sure it makes sense and make that a starting point. Most creatives would rather you did something as opposed to nothing. Being wrong is better than nothing at all.
“So here’s the brief…” cut to a 30 slide deck.
The clue is in the name – brief. I know sometimes it is hard, but try to keep it brief. Extrapolating is the enemy. The strategic process should be reductive. Reduce the brand sludge into a fine, sharp jus…
When planners try and write an end line instead of a proposition
It’s becoming more and more common, so this is desperate plea to make it stop. The creatives were talking about propositions that sound like…“Together we’re stronger.” Or “Keep your optimism bubbling” Or “Strive for better” Or “The moment is yours, seize it.
They may sound good, grand or important in your head. But, what you’re actually doing is making whatever you’re trying to say a lot less clear and making it sound more generic. It doesn’t need to be a pretty sentence or even an important-sounding one. It just needs to be a bog-standard sentence that makes sense. Put in simple terms, we’d rather you wrote a proposition like a plasterer than a poet laureate.
Other important watch outs
Charts. I get that this is a practice that can be very effective with clients – and by all means do that. If it works with them, do it. But with creatives and most other human beings, I would minimize the charts.
N.T.T.T.A… or Next thing to talk about…ACRONYMS…these are another little creeper. They just seem to sneak in and send shivers down most spines.
There is too much lofty, wafty, pretentious, guff around planning.
Being lofty is genuinely my kryptonite. I know you’re bright, I know you probably went to a very good university and got a very good degree, I know you can read, but the reality is we don’t have much time, we need this client to stay in the building, and I’m not sure how relevant any longwinded quote is to selling wifi.
I hope the venom-free sections were U.I.S.W.S.O.F useful in some way shape or form.
3) The mediocrity of middle distance insight [Adliterate]
Every artist has a focal length that they work at, finding greatest comfort and productivity seeing the world either from a great distance or close up. This isn’t really a matter of choice but of creative DNA, “rare is the painter who is equally adept at miniatures and epic series, or the writer who is at home in both historical saga and finely observed short stories”.
I love the idea of focal length. In both the deep and the shallow, we see truth and reality, each equally powerful and each equally profound. And it is at these opposite ends of the spectrum that marketing, advertising and creativity feels most alive, vibrant and vital.
For at a deep focal length we are able to understand and identify the broadest themes of humanity, the eternal drivers of behavior and the cultural tensions of the moment. Here we see the thinking and work that moves culture, and that resonates because of its universality.
But my sense is that the vast majority of our output as an industry resides not at these extremes, but in the middle. Neither able to comprehend the full force of broader human truth nor get to grips with the intimacy and messiness of real human lives.
The middle distance is where most, ‘insight’ lives, dulled and lifeless representations of real people’s lives. It’s where pen portraits are created and segmentation studies abound. It’s a place of corporate wishful thinking and cliché, about categories and the people they serve. A place of statistics and not data, of averages not outliers. A place where we can shelter ourselves from cultural earthquakes that surround our brands and the behavior and beliefs of the real people upon which they depend. This is marketing’s comfort blanket, a kind of make-believe land of middle distance mediocrity.
And we need to get the hell out of this place.
We need to move far further away from our subjects so we can see and appreciate the vast sweep of humanity and able to mark the turning of culture. And at the same-time we need to get far closer to them, so we can press our noses against the glass of life, serving people as people, individual and idiosyncratic.
4) Meaningful Marketing Metrics [Byron Sharp - Oxford Press Australia]
(ED Note: I would have loved if Prof Sharp included ways to improve rather than just shitting on things that are
dumb, but unfortunately that's just not the world we live in.)
Increasing amounts of money and management attention are being spent on marketing metrics. Marketers are demanding more metrics and research agencies, media companies and consultants are pumping therm out. Yet many of these are misleading or unhelpful.
Most market research is done technically very well, but it often fails to produce useful meaningful marketing metrics. The wrong things can be measured, in the wrong ways, and things may be misinterpreted.
There is no point in tracking and regularly reporting metrics that do not change, or do so very slowly. Many marketing metrics such as customer satisfaction and brand image are measured and reported far too regularly. Random sampling variation makes the figures wobble around a bit from survey to survey, providing the illusion of change. Much management time is then wasted coming up with erroneous explanations for movements that are simply random sampling variation. It keeps a lot of market researchers in business.
Similarly, there is little point in tracking and regularly reporting metrics that are already perfectly predictable from other metrics. Many marketing metrics are predictable from market share or from how many customers the brand has (otherwise known as market penetration). The scores on these metrics are always higher for larger market share brands. Much market research, in effect, consists of asking respondents in numerous different ways how often they buy the brand
Finally, there is little point in tracking and reporting metrics when you do not know what they mean, how they relate to other metrics and marketing actions, or what level they should be. Many special proprietary metrics sold by market research agencies fall into this category. Just because a measure is called ‘brand equity’ or ‘brand health’, doesn’t mean it necessarily connotes brand equity (the financial value of a brand’s market-based assets)
Marketing professionals too need scientific knowledge in order to make their marketing metrics meaningful and to improve the quality of their management. Marketing research managers need such knowledge to avoid wasting money on pointless market research
BONUS ARTICLE: The 5 Benchmarks You Need to Shake Up Your Media Mix [AdWeek] Major caveat: This is sponsored content. So take it with a grain of salt But many major companies still look at vanity metrics like clicks, likes, etc. and these are solid alternate recommendations
5) Quick Hits: A few articles that are concise, important, interesting, impactful, and I'm not going to write long descriptions for them.
Watch: Ritson on the effectiveness of Tide’s 2018 Super Bowl ad [Marketing Week] A 10 minute video well worth your time. The key insight was to use the ad to switch brand association from dirt to cleanliness and in doing so successfully disassociating it from the functional category. Tide used the ad to defend its significant price premium and market share advantage in a commoditized category beset by sales promotion and promiscuous customers.
Mary Meeker’s most important trends on the internet [Re/code] This article is great if you don't want to read through all 334 slides of the deck. (Though whole deck is linked in the article.) I haven't had a chance to fully tuck into it but here's what I found interesting: 87% of global web traffic was encrypted in the first quarter of this year, (slide 168), up from 53% three years earlier. Americans again increased their time with digital media, to 6.3 hours a day in 2018, up 7% (slide 41). But the mix of that media is changing to include fast-rising formats like podcasts (slide 50) and playing video games as a form of social media (slide 89)
Warby Parker Had a Mission. Its Customers Didn't Care. Here's How the Company Changed Its Message [Inc] Do you (or your client) have a ton of RTBs and they're not prioritized / there's no research indicating what consumers actually care about? This article's for you. In its early days, the co-founders thought Warby Parker would also become known for its ambitious social initiative: to give a pair of glasses to someone in need for every pair sold. It turned out, though, that customers weren't as motivated by the mission as the startup was.
Media Research Companies Are Adjusting To The Disruption ... Or Are They? [Forbes] While media and marketing firms boast about their data scientists, as do media and marketing research firms, few, if any, ask the ‘$64,000 Question’: Is the data being analyzed fit for use in the first place?”
Unilever Invests in Influencer Management Company CreatorIQ [Wall Street Journal] "Unilever criticizes because it cares." Blah blah blah. The most interesting thing in this article to me was: This year Calvin Klein is also monitoring social media to find fans who might help amplify its messages without being paid. It plans to enlist some 3,000 advocates this year and have 7,500 up and running by next year, she said.
Study: Hershey's leads the pack for most effective TV advertising among CPGs [Marketing Dive] Hershey's knows how to tug on consumers' heartstrings, and is the most effective consumer packaged goods advertiser on television, according to a new study from System 1 (f/k/a Brainjuicer). The research revealed that the top featured themes of community or sharing, versus personal consumption. Overall, 42.8% of all reviewed CPG ads show no potential to drive growth.
Mailchimp Created an In-House Entertainment Studio That’s Working With WME, Vice and Others [Variety] What's that? A company investing in long term brand building? The Mailchimp Presents content will be free to watch or listen to, available exclusively at mailchimp.com/presents, and won’t carry any ads. What’s the return on investment? DiCristina said one of the aims is to build awareness: “We see this content being a great vehicle for attracting people to Mailchimp who have never heard of us and maybe don’t need us yet.”
The Massively Popular Construction Guy Influencer Account Was Actually Created By An Ad Agency To Sell Coffee [Buzzfeed News] Despite a viral tweet claiming a dad created @justaconstructionguy to prove a point to his daughter, it is in fact a marketing stunt by a small coffee shop. "The whole genesis started with the construction around us, which led to to construction workers being in our coffee shop," the owner said. "Let’s create the influencers — I shouldn’t say create...let’s find the influencer — that we couldn’t find. We pay them to make posts for us. That was the goal." "Sometimes traditional influencers just don't feel genuine," he added.
6) Department of Great Work
Current Mood: Dolly Parton - 9 to 5
WestJet's New 'Flight Light' Projects Your Flight Path on Your Child's Ceiling [Muse by Clio] Honestly beautiful work by Rethink Toronto
Fyre Fest guy Is Helping Ryan Reynolds Sell His Gin [Mashable] Andy King, better known as the blowjob guy from the Fyre Festival documentary, teamed up with Reynolds for an ad so ridiculous we simply had to share.
For E3, Miller Lite Made 200 Beer Cans That Double as Video Game Controllers [AdWeek] To earn a 'cantroller', you must beat Eric Andre at Street Fighter V. He also narrated the DDB-created trailer.
This Vancouver market is handing out embarrassing plastic bags to customers [Vancouver is Awesome] Advertising? Maybe not. Insight driven and designed to change behavior? Absolutely.
WWF Reveals Our Plastic Ingestion Could Be Equating to a Credit Card a Week [Little Black Book] The latest campaign from Grey Malaysia enlightens consumers to the perils of plastic. Yum.
Sesame Street: Tiny Desk Concert [NPR] By this point, you have to know that I love Sesame Street. And if you think this 10 minute concert isn't advertising, you're dead wrong.
How Grey Brazil Pressured Cheeky Politicians to Give Back their Air Miles [Little Black Book] Great advocacy work (and great case video) on behalf of Reclame Aqui (English: Complain Here) that resulted in a new anti-graft law.
Burger King’s New ‘Stranger Things’ Special Is Literally an Upside-Down Whopper [Eater] You can picture the delighted BK marketing execs landing on this after a brainstorm session that included all kinds of more elaborate and expensive tie-ins. Score one for simplicity at Burger King, and/or mailing it in.
Department of Bad Work
Kraft's Newest Condiment Is Salad 'Frosting' [Thrillist]
"Let’s be honest, parents lie to their kids. It is their secret weapon in parenting, especially when it comes to food," the company said per a press release. "... Kraft is introducing Kraft Salad 'Frosting,' its Kraft Classic Ranch Dressing disguised in a frosting tube, giving parents a hand in upping their lie game."
In other words, the new "frosting" is just plain old Kraft ranch dressing repackaged in a pouch and labeled like cake frosting in an effort to trick children into eating more salad and vegetables.
7) Platform Updates
I've been trying for 3 weeks to make a Harry Potter "Platform 9 3/4" crack and I've finally just given up"
What Would It Take for Marketers to Leave YouTube? Nothing Short of a Mass Exodus [AdWeek] (ED Note: It's Pride month. This is pathetic.) The latest YouTube brouhaha, in which Vox Media video journalist Carlos Maza publicized the sustained harassment he faced from conservative YouTube personality Steven Crowder and his fans, wasn’t enough to get media buyers to even consider spending fewer of their clients’ ad dollars on the gargantuan platformOne media buyer who spoke with Adweek said a user backlash would have to reach a fever pitch for brands to feel like they should do something more substantial.
Ahead of ‘shop’ button for publishers, Snapchat launches in-app stores for Snap influencers [Digiday] This new tool allows select accounts to have a store within Snapchat. Snapchat users can access the shops, which will be powered by Shopify, by going to an account’s page. The native checkout feature will be available in the U.S. only to start.
Instagram and Facebook Add New Features for #PrideMonth [Social Media Today] New features include rainbow colored hashtags and story circles as well as additional gender listing options.
The top trends for June 2019 [Pinterest] people are searching for skin-baring fashions, potluck and picnic foods, and how to inflate their next event with a fun and festive balloon arch. Not even joking on that last one.
Amazon using AI to help you shop for clothes with StyleSnap [TechCrunch] “When a customer uploads an image, we use deep learning for object detection to identify the various apparel items in the image and categorize them into classes like dresses or shirts. We then find the most similar items that are available on Amazon.”
Dentsu Aegis Cuts Ad Spending Forecast [Media Post] The U.S. ad market remains the leading contributor to global ad spend at $223.8 billion, with 3.1% growth predicted for 2019 -- a slight uptick from the 3% growth the tea leaves revealed for the market in January.
TV Ratings: Tony Awards Hit Five-Year Low [Variety] The Tonys fell below 6 million total viewers for the first time with just under 5.5 million total viewers tuning in, a 13% total viewership decline. They were down 20% vs 2018 in the prized 18-49 demographic. The awards show also narrowly lost out to ABC's “Celebrity Family Feud” airing at the same time.
Introducing “A Brief History of Advertising on LinkedIn” [LinkedIn] Everything you could possibly want to know about the history of the last non-toxic social network.
Google Says It Isn't Killing Ad Blockers. Ad Blockers Disagree [Wired] Critics have also noted that Google's revenue is largely ad-based, giving it an inherent incentive to allow ads to run
Phew! That was a marathon, not a sprint. As always, the full archive is available here. Was this email forwarded to you? Want to start getting this on a weekly basis? All I need is your email, everything else is optional.
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