This Week in Strategy: A storm blew away 25% of my roof last night. oof
Hi Strat Pack,
We're back to our regularly scheduled programming! I'd like to start off with what I think is an interesting article from Complex: The Best Memes of 2019 (So Far). So what's the takeaway. There have been a lot of memes. As Complex puts it, Memes are everything. Sometimes they're the only thing. At least one on this list has successfully been turned into an ad. What's your favorite?
I talk a lot about influencers. I'm sure you do too. The press loves them. Emma Chamberlain had two exposés written about her recently. One in The Atlantic and the other in the New York Times (she's the world's most relatable YouTube star, if you were unaware). Vanity Fair wrote about the Instagram utopia of Courtney Adamo and the surfing mamas of Byron Bay, Sydney. Can it be real? (Spoiler alert: no)
But I want to talk to you about a different influencer project. “Influencer Free Zone” Stickers in NYC Subway Part of Mock Ad Campaign One of the main components of the campaign is the “Influencer Free Zone,” designed to look like a real subway warning sticker. If you directly message the @culturecures Instagram account, you can receive these stickers for free to spread. I love it.
Alright, stop messing around taking selfies next to the Influencer Free Zone stickers and trying to turn it into the next meme, let's jump right in.
The one thing to read this week:
1) Mark Ritson: Ethnography beats focus groups hands-down, but they still serve a purpose [MarketingWeek]
This article came out of a, frankly, very heated twitter debate between Ritson, Byron Sharp, and Doug Garnett. I'm glad Ritson turned this into an article because they were really sniping each other. Also as planners, I often worry we don't focus on the mechanics & effectiveness of research tools. So here we are.
Sharp's argument: In a group you get a few minutes’ talk per person cf. hours in-home. It’s an artificial environment. And weird sample… Ignoring these biases reminds me of how people like astrology, i.e. cos it feels good/right/insightful.”
Ritson's rebuttal: Focus groups can be gold. They are much abused in modern marketing settings but they are a method that has several significant advantages.
First, they are fast and cheap. It can takes less than 48 hours to arrange for six or seven target customers to troop in behind a one-way glass and dispense their point of view, and the value of these sessions can be stupendous. Ritson prefers focus groups mid-way through the marketing process, not at the start. He uses other qual methods for initial discovery and then feed those insights into proper quant. But once segmentation has been done, positioning completed and some draft tactical ideas are on the whiteboard, it is time to call the focus group facility.
Ethnography can be a precious profession. Anthropologists espouse a lot of complex bollocks about emic and etic perspectives and the Lebenswelt. In truth, and in accordance with Sharp’s comment, it mostly just means get your ass out the office and hang out with consumers.
It takes a bit of time; you need a ‘back-stage pass’ and people are often freaked out at first. But the insightful ends justify the labour-intensive means and it almost never fails to change your approach.
And for B2B customers who can’t or won’t come into the office and hang out with other customers (try doing a focus group with rival surgeons) it’s the best approach of all. You make an appointment, you visit them, ask dumb questions, beg them to explain how things really work and – three hours later – you realise almost everything they think back at head office is not just incorrect, it’s completely nonsense.
Ethnography, the use of observation and in-situ long interviews are an amazing approach for all marketers. But I also think focus groups have their place and aren’t as astrologically bad as Sharp suggests.
2) Consumers Exaggerate Their Ethical Behavior: Research [ValueWalk]
It's always nice when we get data to back up hunches we know to be true. We humans (or at least Americans) love to overstate our altruism. A very similar thing happened when Nielsen ratings switched from people writing down what they watched to digital recording. PBS ratings dropped tremendously. The Nielsen families wanted to appear smarter and more well read than they actually were. Alas I digress...
Research has found that consumers exaggerate their ethical behavior, particularly when it comes to topical and time-consuming actions, suggesting that ethical consumerism may be overhyped. People are most guilty of exaggerating their recycling behavior, with nine in ten (87%) people claiming to have recycled in the last week, while only just over half (52%) of people actually do recycle.
While the research suggests that ethical consumerism may be overhyped, further analysis conducted by Dectech also finds that there is £82 billion in value available to brands across all sectors that successfully incorporate select ethical levers. On average, consumers in the Health and Beauty industry are willing to pay the greatest premium for ethical products (11.5%).
The highest ethical premium that shoppers are willing to pay is 17% for products that haven't been animal tested in the Health and Beauty industry. Elsewhere, consumers will pay 10.8% more for recyclable packaging from food delivery platforms, and 8.7% more to supermarkets that sell products without plastic packaging.
The research finds that consumers are not more likely to purchase a brand's ethical product just because consumers perceive the brand to be ethical. Instead, a brand's likeability and affordability are much stronger purchase drivers.
The findings in this report wouldn’t have been possible had we relied on self-reporting. We know that consumers generally cannot explain why they make certain purchase decisions, so it's really important that brands conduct robust experiments that involve a behavioral approach, like the randomized control trials used in this study, to get better insights into how consumers actually behave
3) A big brand playbook for outmuscling ‘insurgents’ – how can Goliath beat David? [Shane O'Leary - LinkedIn]
People love rooting for the little guy. It’s fun to watch David taking on Goliath and winning. Unless you’re Goliath.
But marketing’s own ‘Davids’ have been causing headaches and, in 2019, one of the most prevalent fears among our clients is the rise of ‘insurgent’ brands in their category.
However, according to research from Byron Sharp’s Ehrenberg Bass Institute, the death of big brands is overplayed; their analysis found no universal pattern of decline. Nielsen has reported that the value share held by the largest manufacturers in developed markets over the past 12 months was essentially the same as in the previous two years. Sharp et al also found minimal differences in the brands young consumers (under 25) purchase compared to older people. In more than 40% of cases, leading brands have a higher market share among younger consumers than older consumers.
The threat varies by category, too. According to research conducted by David Taylor of ‘Brand Gym’, the highest threat level is in food and drink categories where purchases are relatively low price/low risk. The threat is lower in more complex categories such as medicine and financial services. Higher-priced, higher-status categories such as sports gear and cosmetics fall in the middle.
Some of the myths around insurgent brands are slightly overplayed – but big brands can’t afford to rest on their laurels; they need a robust plan to ward off an attack.
1) Big brands need to see size as a benefit.
Big brands need to take a judo approach – using small brands’ size against them. Scale also offers pre-existing physical and mental availability, and bigger budgets to build fame and better distribution.
So double down on using your distinctive assets, build emotive campaigns in broad media, and then learn how to fight the insurgents where they’re currently winning – using Instagram for brand building, in search results and in e-commerce (including Amazon).
2) Big brands should engage in ‘strategic dramatism’.
People are addicted to the drip of exciting stories they're bombarded with in social feeds. To compete with this, brands need to marry ‘nuts and bolts media’ with ideas that stretch their brand platform. Be resolutely clear on the big idea that your brand hangs on, but use new, creative opportunities in digital, social, PR and activation to relentlessly bring it to life in exciting ways. Taco Bell, Adidas and Domino’s excel at this.
3) Big brands need to re-energise their core and sharpen their positioning.
Real innovation is great – Pepsi’s ‘Drinkfinity’ is an example of a big brand embracing trends and launching into a new category. But the worst thing a big brand can do is to act like ‘dad at the disco’ and indulge in innovation for innovation’s sake – that’s the siren call of a business out of ideas.
Instead, remind people why they’ve always chosen your product. Look back at the functional and emotional benefits that made you famous – and sharpen them. Then, look forward by renovating your brand to play into emerging needs.
In summary, large Goliaths only get disrupted by the minuscule number of Davids that can marry speed and scale to become big brands themselves. But if you can learn faster than the competition, and leverage your inbuilt scale advantages, there’s little to fear.
4) Why Purpose Marketing And Planners Need To Be Stopped [Rob Campbell - The Musings of an Opinionated Sod]
Purpose. Planning. Both have had a lot of debate about them in the past few years and both have their cheerleaders and detractors.
The reality is they both have incredible value but – and it’s a big but – only when used responsibly. Of course, what ‘responsibly’ is, is often in the eye of the brand owner and that’s where the problems starts … because too often, the focus is appealing to the ego of the company directors rather than the pulse of culture.
Purpose has a really important role for brands … but you don’t just ‘make it up’. I am utterly in shock how many companies sell ‘purpose’ to brands and yet never investigate the soul of the brand.
And while we are definitely seeing more and more people choosing to associate with brands that live by a set of values [ED NOTE: Maybe not!] and beliefs, the thing the brands who ‘invent a purpose’ fail to understand is that this audience seeks truth, not bullshit and so what they’re doing with their make-believe is actually achieve the absolute opposite of what they were trying to do.
Purpose matters. Planning matters.
But the moment you let ego drive your ambitions rather than your authenticity, you end up being a brand that is flying extremely high on the Planning Purpose Twatosphere.
Remember brands, by being yourself you will be different. Stop inventing bullshit and start acting your truth in interesting ways.
5) Quick Hits: A few articles that are concise, important, interesting, impactful, and I'm not going to write long descriptions for them.
How to be a creative director [LinkedIn] 15 Pieces of creative advice on how to lead a team in a creative field, whether you're a creative director, a strategy director, or account director.
Brief Encounters [Lee Grunnell - Medium] Devising a strategy & brief to solve a client problem isn’t about being right or wrong. It’s about provoking a reaction. Creating a feeling of nervous excitement (or should that be excited nervousness?). Pushing people just a little bit further than they thought they could go. This article dissects the "briefs' for four great films/albums and is 100% worth a read
‘The Idea and Taste Machine’: Inside the Mind of Stanley Kubrick [Jim Carroll's Blog] Kubrick gave us a compelling definition of the role of a director in any creative enterprise: ‘A director is a kind of idea and taste machine; a movie is a series of creative and technical decisions; and it’s the director’s job to make the right decisions as frequently as possible.' Click through and read Kubrick's 8 lessons for working in the creative industry
Brand Twitter Grows Up How corporate social media (mostly) moved past its awkward phase and connected with audiences. [NYMag - Vulture] Fascinating read. In the beginning, Brand Twitter lagged behind internet culture. It was known most for its “fails” and ethical gray areas. But as marketers started hiring people who were Extremely Online, it caught up. Tweets became more self-aware and ironic, which led to increased visibility as well as criticism. Nothing drives positive engagement quite like humor, so the more successful brands co-opted comedic styles from various subcultures over the years. Which, in turn, led to more fails and ethical gray areas. Here, we bring you the definitive history and evolution of Brand Twitter.
WPP: 'Sacrificing' pay rises for staff in favour of profits was a mistake [Campaign India] Another contender for the No Shit Award. It was "not sensible" to keep such a "tight" lid on incentives in final years of Sorrell era. WPP has admitted that giving its 130,000 staff relatively modest salary increases and bonuses and focusing on profit margin, rather than revenue growth, may have contributed to its financial woes in recent years.
Copywriting is waiting – it can rarely be done both very thoughtfully and very quickly [The Drum] Copywriting, much like bank robbery, is the combination of imagination with momentum. Regardless of how tight the timings, how stretched the studio or how shouty the client, copywriting can rarely be done both very thoughtfully and very quickly. Waiting is fundamental to the copywriting process.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall — WeWork and Uber’s fight against reality [TheNextWeb] Really interesting piece by Tom Goodwin at Zenith about how disruption is a false flag of innovation. And yet I'm sure your clients are asking for it too.
6) Department of Great Work
Here's why they won Cannes Lions: the jurors' reflections [CampaignLive] Interviews with 11 of the smartest people in the biz with why they voted for certain awards. And why they won. Fascinating read worth checking out in its entirety.
Ads We Like: Supercuts revamps its messaging with bald spokesman [The Drum] Michael Kelly (the bad..and bald guy from House of Cards) reminds us how important our own head of hair is. From TWBA\Chiat\Day
Ad of the Week: Twizzlers gets hilariously 'deep' in new campaign [CampaignLive] Each of the new Twizzler ads from Droga5 intrigued me right from the first few seconds, and then made me laugh. The flip from serious to silly is effective and fun.
Nike Put a Basketball Hoop on Mt. Olympus to Honour Giannis Antetokounmpo [Little Black Book] From Weiden+Kennedy Amsterdam. Putting the hoop at the highest point in the NBA MVP's home country represents the incredible journey he's gone on from one of Athens's poorest suburbs to the top of the NBA, fueled by hard work, desire and a crazy dream. Nike wanted kids all around to world to be inspired by the knowledge that no matter where you start, you can reach anywhere you can dream of. That's why the line on the backboard reads: "Fate can start you at the bottom. Dreams can take you to the top."
24 magazine ads so clever they stopped readers from turning the page [Business Insider] A solid whip around of great global print ads from this millennium
Ikea releases free ‘Soffa Sans’ font made of couches [The Verge] Ikea worked with digital agency Proximity London to create the Soffa Sans font. Calling itself the “the world’s comfiest font,” Soffa Sans creates a typeface out of the Vallentuna couch in both isometric and bird’s-eye view versions. The font features 1,434 products, and would cost £106,320 (about $134,500) if recreated in real life.
eBay’s snarky new ad featuring a real-life teenage ‘Alexa’ takes aim at Amazon Prime Day [AdAge] Good example of David attacking Goliath. Not award-winning work but effective work from Edelman. EBay throws so much shade at Amazon in its new spot that the screen might go black. A spokeswoman from Amazon did not immediately return a request for comment.
Idris Elba urges people to ‘summer like you’re on vacation’ with Stella Artois [The Drum] It should be pretty obvious by now that I love seeing Idris Elba in ads. He's just so damn happy all the time. I love it! Elba, who creative directed the ‘Summer Like You’re On Vacation’ ad, stars in it as well. He shows how to make the most of summer days, noting that all it takes is a fresh perspective. “Vacation isn’t about where you are, it’s about how you see things,”
Rich Silverstein is no longer #2, thanks to this new Chrome extension [AdAge] To celebrate co-founder of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners recent birthday on June 13, his team gave him a special present that sets out to right that wrong. They created a new Chrome extension that will automatically shift Silverstein's name to the prime spot, ahead of the moniker of his partner Jeff Goodby, in all online media.To promote the extension, the agency created a funny video capturing historical highlights of Silverstein snubbery. It's cute. click through and watch.
Department of Bad Work
Kind Bar & Clif Bar get into it on Twitter [Twitter] As Taylor Lorenz said, "2019 is the year all brands war with each other till capitalism implodes" and I believe her. Take a page from their social playbooks and don't do this.
7) Platform Updates
Instagram influencer engagement hovers near all-time lows, study says [Mobile Marketer] Influencers have seen their engagement rates hover near all-time lows as the Facebook-owned app becomes over-crowded with sponsored posts, per a study that analytics firm InfluencerDB shared with Mobile Marketer. The engagement rate for sponsored posts fell to 2.4% in Q1 2019 from 4% three years earlier, while the rate for non-sponsored posts slid to 1.9% from 4.5% for the comparable periods.
Introducing Twitter ArtHouse, helping brands create and optimize content [Twitter] Following Facebook & YouTube, Twitter appears to be opening an in-house creative shop. Twitter ArtHouse connects brands with the creative capital and talent of Influencers, Artists and Editors who can add a new dimension of relevance to their content. The global team brings together content strategists, digital producers and influencer marketing specialists to help brands launch new products and connect to what’s happening in culture. Our mission is simple: to help brands design Twitter first content that moves people.
New Pinterest features encourage brands and creators to upload more videos [TechCrunch] The company is hopeful new tools intended to support brands and businesses will increase engagement and ad revenue on the platform
Here’s why you can’t escape Instagram swimsuit ads [Vox - The Goods] Combined with the fact that swimsuits are lightweight and small and therefore extremely cheap to ship, they’re the perfect product for an era of mass online shopping and constant picture-posting. Why wouldn’t Instagram, then, be the prime place to advertise those very products?
Platforms scramble to win creators away from YouTube – the 'clear front runner' in video [The Drum] Facebook, Twitter, Snap and Pinterest are doubling down on their missions to lure influential creators away from Google, with each platform making product announcements at Vidcon, the conference once heralded as "YouTube Mecca".
Twitter Releases Major Events Calendar for July to Assist with Strategic Planning [SocialMediaToday] Key dates to be aware of
TikTok’s Videos Are Goofy. Its Strategy to Dominate Social Media Is Serious [Wall Street Journal] China’s first big hit in the U.S. uses an advanced algorithm to personalize its video-sharing app, and parent Bytedance’s enormous ad spending on Snap, Facebook and Instagram aims to hook their users
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