This Week in Strategy: Orion's Belt is a huge waist of space.
I know, I know, not a great joke. 3 stars.
Hi Strat Pack:
I want to talk to you this week about something near and dear to my heart: bagels. Seriously. I started the week off reading How New York’s Bagel Union Fought — and Beat — a Mafia Takeover: The mob saw an opportunity. Local 338 had other ideas. I learned that even into the modern era, the presence of bagels in America was largely confined to Jewish enclaves, predominantly in New York City, the old-world bread still sufficiently exotic that every mention of it in the New York Times (usually brief items concerning labor issues) assumed no previous knowledge on the part of readers. “A bagel,” the newspaper of record explained in 1960, “is an unsweetened doughnut with rigor mortis.” I also learned several interesting things about the horrible conditions one had to endure to make a truly delicious bagel. And how a small union made conditions better, and when the mob couldn't beat them, or join them, they started mass-producing bagels in Connecticut which is why if you don't live in the tri-state area, you probably never have had a good bagel in your life. Don't @ me Montreal bagel fans.
So far so good, right? But then I read about Bill de Blasio's frankly inexcusable, and factually incorrect, bagel order. In a tweet that was first deleted (good call), then inexplicably brought back into the world (why???), Mayor Pizza Fork declared New York’s best bagel to be whole wheat, toasted, with extra cream cheese. To be clear, I disagree with Grubstreet's assessment of how much cream cheese is the right cream cheese (always more), but alas I digress. More importantly, all true New Yorkers know that toasting a fresh bagel is blasphemy. The New York Times article subhead was Toasted bagel? Roasted mayor. Pete Wells called it TOASTERGATE (emphasis his!). Hizzoner's preferred bagel place even had to issue a statement: "No, we don't toast." And let's be honest: whole wheat is never better than whatever the regular version is (I don't know, partial wheat?). But what can you expect from a man who voluntarily roots for the Boston Red Socks.
Alright, stop messing around trying to figure out why this bagel thing was far and away the most thoroughly researched part of this week's newsletter. Let's jump right in.
The one thing to read this week
1) Why Online Ads Haven't Built Brands [The Ad Contrarian]
I'm not going to pull punches. This article is long. It's dense. It's important. So drink some more coffee and get through it.
We’ve had 20 years of phenomenal growth of online advertising and yet I have trouble coming up with one example of a major consumer-facing physical brand that was built by online advertising. I can think of no examples of major brands of beer, soda, cars, toothpaste, paper towels, candy bars, soap, fast food, peanut butter — you get the picture — that were built by online advertising.
There are some who would argue that there are very big web-native brands that have been built by online advertising - e.g., Amazon, Google, and Facebook. I’m not so sure that advertising played a major role in the building of any of those brands, but let’s leave that argument for another day and just focus on brands that are physical and not web-native, which probably constitute somewhere around 95% of the products we buy every day.
What’s the issue with online advertising that has rendered it ineffective at advertising’s most important job — building a major brand?
Let's start by quoting some standard explanations of how advertising works at building brands. To borrow some terminology from subatomic physics we'll call these “standard models.” Here are some examples from standard models:
“An ad succeeds at making us feel something and that emotional response can have a profound effect on how we think and the choices we make”
Or
“By creating positive associations between the advertised products and feelings like love, happiness, safety, sexual confidence... these associations grow and deepen overtime making us feel favorably disposed toward the product and ultimately more likely to buy it“
These explanations, however portrays us as far less rational than we actually are. While we may not conform to a model of perfect economic behavior, neither are we puppets at the mercy of every Tom Dick and Harry with a billboard. We aren’t that easily manipulated.
Here's an alternative to the standard models: "cultural imprinting.” Don’t be turned off by the awkward terminology. The theory underpinning his cultural imprinting idea is that in some way we all want to be part of what is culturally acceptable.
Brand images are part of the cultural landscape we inhabit. They provide cultural information. When we ignore brand messages we’re missing out on valuable cultural information and alienating ourselves from the Zeitgeist. He says this puts us in danger of becoming outdated, unfashionable, or otherwise socially hapless. We become like "the kid who wears his dad’s suit to his first middle school dance." In other words, in some way brand choices send messages to others about who we are. And no one wants to send the wrong messages.
This is not new thinking. When I first started working in the advertising business 1,000 years ago we used to call products that were most responsive to advertising “necktie products” -- products that are used or consumed in public and are plainly visible to others. Why are products like beer and soda and cars so responsive to advertising? Because these products are used in public and are highly visible. Whether we care to admit it or not, those of us who are not sociopaths prefer to be socially acceptable among our group.
So what does all this have to do with the online advertising problem? Here is the connection I’ve been missing: cultural imprinting relies on the principle of common knowledge. For a fact to be common knowledge among the group, it’s not enough for everyone to know it. Everyone must also know that everyone else knows it.
In other words, part of our purchasing calculation is not just our belief that X is an acceptable product, but our expectation that other people believe this brand is acceptable because they know what we know.
Here is an example he uses to describe purchasing behavior using the standard model:
We see a Nike ad that makes an association between Nike and athletic excellence. Over time we internalize this association and feel good about Nike, and when it comes time to buy some sneakers at some later date we are more likely to buy Nikes.
In the cultural imprinting model it starts the same
We see a Nike ad that makes an association between Nike and athletic excellence.
But here’s what’s different. Over time we understand that everyone else has seen Nike ads and they also associate Nike with athletic excellence. So at some later date when we buy a pair of Nikes we don't have to worry that our group will think we're idiots.
Of course, this does not guarantee we will buy Nikes, but it makes the likelihood greater. And as I have written ad nauseum, marketing is about one thing only -- likelihoods and probabilities.
For advertising to be effective in the "cultural imprinting" model, it’s not enough for it to be seen by a single person or even by many people. Someone has to know that everyone else has seen it, too.
This may very well be why online ads have been largely ineffective at brand building. In the online world, everyone lives in his or her own little digi-world. I have no idea what my friends are doing online and what ads they may be seeing. Even if they watch the same YouTube videos as me, I don't know what ads they are being served.
In mass media, I know what my friends are seeing. I know that if they’re watching football they’re seeing the same ads I am. Consequently I have reasonable confidence that my friends believe that Nike makes acceptable running shoes, Ford makes acceptable pick-up trucks, and Coors makes beer I don’t have to feel weird about.
But I have no idea what my friends are seeing online. Even if they go to the same sites I do, I have no idea what ads they are seeing. Consequently, I have no frame of reference for “cultural imprinting.” I don’t know if they will think me an idiot for buying these headphones I saw on Whatever-dot-com.
In a nutshell, this may very well be why thus far mass-market advertising is demonstrably more effective at brand building than precision targeted, highly individualized advertising.
Highly individualized, personalized advertising -- the obsession of online advertisers -- makes advertising a private, rather than public, experience. It keeps us from knowing what advertising our friends are seeing. Which in some way keeps us from knowing what brands may be culturally acceptable. For years I’ve known that online advertising has been mysteriously ineffective at brand building and now I think I finally understand why.
The current obsession of advertisers to make their advertising perfectly individualized and perfectly personalized may just be perfectly wrong.
2) Is the Viral Non-Ad Ad the Future of Advertising? [New York Times]
A remarkable aspect of so many viral ads today is how brazenly they defer, as long and as fully as possible, the realization that you’re watching an ad at all.
The history of advertising is often cast as an arms race between ever-craftier pitchmen on one side and ever-savvier audiences on the other, who invariably get wise to old techniques of manipulation, necessitating the development of new techniques that are savvier still. Spots like the Clio ad — long-form “branded narratives” in which the product on offer is glimpsed only passingly, if it’s shown at all — exemplify a subcategory of commercial that isn’t brand-new, exactly (we’ve seen versions for years during Super Bowls), but that seems particularly well suited to the social-media ecosystems where we spend so much of our time these days.
The posts that travel farthest online, we know, are those that inspire the most outsize reactions. Mirth flourishes. So does indignation. The Renault Clio commercial entered this terrain and, contra the advertising-as-arms-race metaphor, broke through using one of the oldest pieces of emotional weaponry there is: maudlin sentimentality.
Spots like the Renault ad aren’t brand-new, exactly, but they seem particularly well suited to today’s social-media ecosystems. Search Twitter for “commercial” plus “the feels” — a two-word divining rod for deep wells of internet mawkishness — and you’ll find a phalanx of people attesting to how moving they found the Clio ad, the Subway ad and others like them. Were all of them genuinely stirred? Were some feigning enthusiasm? When it comes to viral success, the distinction hardly matters.
What feels uniquely contemporary, in the case of the Clio ad and others like it, is how the prerogatives of clickbait and the trappings of awards-bait jostle against each other within its borders. In deploying the visual language and tone of indie cinema or contemporary “prestige” TV, these branded narratives dress themselves up as something we gladly pay for, until they reveal themselves to be the thing we now routinely, through our streaming subscriptions, pay to avoid. This means that the connection between the narrative and the product (ostensibly) being hawked registers as so abstract that it verges on nonexistent.
Renault’s ad, after all, racked up millions of its views in the United States, a nation where its cars are not even for sale; and even if they were, why would viewers feel compelled to buy a Clio after watching a Clio ad that works so assiduously to avoid selling them a Clio until the last possible moment? What we’re left with is a strange paradox: a commercial that feels both deeply insidious and laughably ineffectual at the same time, a bid for sales that may wind up garnering only clicks.
3) Is this another thread from someone leaving agencies? OH YES IT IS. [Séverine Bavon - Twitter]
Two things: First, Holy fucking shit read this. Internalize it. Second. Yes it ends with "I'm starting an agency". But don't let that diminsh the hard truths about our industry. Be the change you wish to seek.
To managers, future managers and agency leaders, I have three things to ask, and they’re all related to the same thing: your people.
#1 STOP THINKING WORKING IN AGENCIES IS WHAT IT USED TO BE.
A lot of managers of today have started their careers in what now looks like a "golden era" of advertising. Money was flowing, TV was king, advertising made culture, it looked cool to sacrifice everything for your job (especially if you were a man), hoping for the honours and fame you could get in return. Starting off as a junior, you had amazing mentors to look up to. Yes, you had to give your life to the job, but you could end up earning a shit ton of money, travelling to sexy destinations, making work that would become legendary and have fun and crazy parties while doing so.
The golden era of advertising, in case you hadn't noticed, is no more
Today, this entire industry still runs on the promise devoting your life to it is worth it. But it's not. Budgets are shrinking and we have to do more with less. Consumer habits are changing, and changing the game.The joke is, this means agencies still need people, especially young people, to work hard as hell for ridiculous salaries, but they don't have much to give in return now.
It's still "normal" to work nights and weekends, give it your health and your best years, but the chances are you'll still earn less than your friends in other industries, burn out, will be made redundant at some point, or get fired for being pregnant, or “too old”.
So please, stop celebrating a world that doesn’t exist anymore.
The new generation is smart. They’re smart enough to see giving it all to this industry is a bad deal.
They came into the workforce knowing they wouldn’t get stability or a long, safe career, ever. And they adapted.
They want work that allows them to have a life, they want to have projects on the side, they want to stay in touch with their friends and have control over their time. Let's stop saying the new generation is lazy, or not as gifted as previous ones. They are just not ready to give everything they have for a job that will never reward them enough. That’s not lazy, that’s just smart.
#2 FIGHT YOUR BIAS
Every agency will talk about diversity. Some will make a few visible "diverse" hires and call it a day. Or tell you their workforce is gender-balanced so there's nothing to see here. Well yes, this starts with hiring.
When was the last time you hired someone who was different from you? I mean, really different. Someone who didn’t have the same background, the same skin colour, the same education, the same origin, the same way of speaking. Someone who made you uncomfortable because they exactly fit the profile you had in mind. The ability of this industry to be great relies on its ability to think differently, to take risks, to listen to different voices.
This starts with hiring people who do not seem to “fit with the culture”, which is just a corporate excuse for us all to be clones.
But we tend to forget hiring is not even half the battle. What happens to those “diverse” people once they’ve been hired? How many women, people of colour or disabled people have recently been promoted in your agency? Even when there's a rather small pay gap at similar levels, how many of those “diverse” people have reached the top levels of each agency? I’m not talking about PR-able hires there, but equal chances to be promoted.
Managers please, ask yourself that question: who does the work in the background that allows some people, always the same people, to shine? Do you spend quality time with always the same people in your team? Who is not visible to you and still essential to your team?
#3 TAKE CARE OF YOUR TALENT OR THEY WILL GO AWAY
In 2016 (that’s the latest significant study on talent in our industry... 4 years ago), half of the people in any agency were looking to change jobs, 1/3 wanted to leave in the upcoming year.
As an industry, we are rated last or second-to-last vs. comparable industries on things like work-life balance, strong career paths, comp & benefits, valuing employee contributions. So here’s a hard truth about agencies: great talent is not just leaving. It’s not joining, or has already left.
Who would choose doing retargeted campaigns in a struggling industry over being very well paid as a consultant or having a more welcoming, diverse, exciting work environment? I’ve loved working in advertising since the very first second. I arrived at BETC with high hopes and pink hair, and all around me only saw people doing great work that no one at school had told me existed.
I’ve worked with brilliant people, had memorable moments, done amazing work trips, made friends for life, participated in building beautiful brands, learnt a lot, met inspiring CEOs and founders, and received freebies (sometimes). But I’ve also given it too many of my nights, too much of my health, I’ve let it impact relationships and there is nothing that can make up for this.
So today, I’m doing do something I NEVER thought I would do in my entire life. With the bright and amazing @rom_brignr, we’re creating our company. It’s called acracy.
Thanks for reading that far.
Bye bye advertising (but well, not entirely, because I still love you).
And also I totally forgot: follow us @weareacracy.
Never forget the CTA.
4) Quick Hits: A few articles that are concise, important, interesting, impactful, and I'm not going to write long descriptions for them.
“Is Your 2020 Marketing Plan Radical Enough?” – Christopher Lochhead [Marketing Journal] Have you noticed? Most marketers play safe. As a result, most marketing plans are predictable, uncreative and uninspired. The longer I work in the entrepreneurial marketing world, the more I think that, if it’s legendary, it’s radical. Most legendary marketing is radical in some way. And most marketing plans are not. So I encourage you, be different. Get radical with your 2020 marketing,
According to Interbrand, Amazon’s brand value is $125bn. Kantar values it at $335bn. $210bn is quite the discrepancy in methodologies. If there’s value in an individual company undertaking brand valuation, publicising these rankings each year seems increasingly counterintuitive. [Gareth Price - Twitter] Apparently brand valuations are total bullshit. (Except, yay! Verizon made the top 10! It's totally legit again. Oh wait, AT&T is #9, nevermind.)
Top 5 Signs: You're Working in a Toxic Environment [Duaa Elzeney - LinkedIn] Many of us walk around in denial that we are indeed working in a toxic work environment. Because to admit this to ourselves means we have to admit that (a) we made a HUGE mistake by accepting a job there, (b) we have to do something about it asap before the toxic environment further damages our health and mental well-being. Here are 3 (you're going to have to click through for the other two!)
Panic Attacks - When You're Not at Work - It is one thing to have slight resistance about going in to work after a few days away, but panic attacks is your soul telling you - that place is poison for you.
People Walk By Each Other All Day Long - And Don't Say Hello - Certainly, you don't need to say hello to folks a million times a day. But the first time you pass by someone in the morning, it is the civilized and kind thing to say hello. If your team members ignore you or others on the team, this is not normal. It is indicative of truly unhappy individuals - who then act up by treating their team members in this horrible and unacceptable manner.
Gossip is Through the Roof - Many might believe that venting about a problem helps you blow off steam, and thus, helps you feel better. In reality, the opposite is true. Focusing on something only makes it larger. What you focus on persists.
10 Impressive Questions to Ask on a Job Interview in 2020 [The Cut] Related to the above? Hard to tell! To be fair, a lot of people worry about what questions are okay to ask. And other people are unclear on the purpose of the opportunity to ask questions. Rather than using the time to suss out the information they truly want about the job, the manager, and the company, they instead try to use it as a chance to further impress their interviewer and pitch themselves for the job. So here are legitimately 10 great questions to ask on your next interview.
Visualizing Diversity in Advertising [Shutterstock] I'm honestly not sure if this belongs here or in Great Work. Shutterstock asked 2,500 marketers and advertisers around the world how they are using diverse imagery in campaigns. Get a copy of the findings.
5) Department of Great Work
How Tokyo Creatives Used Brainwaves to Light Up Christmas for a Colleague with ALS [Little Black Book] Today, former McCann planning director Hiro Fukjuta finds himself confined to his bed, mostly unable to move or speak because of the disease. However, last Christmas a group of creatives including colleagues from McCann and Studio Ghibli collaborator Yohei Taneda created a powerful installation to help Hiro communicate. Please click through and read the full interview. This is beautiful and absolutely gut wrenching.
Nikes Are Great for Outrunning Your Relatives in Charming Ad for Chinese New Year [Muse by Clio] A few things for context that were super helpful in enjoying this film: I'm sure you're familiar with the hongbao tradition of children receiving money in red envelopes, as a sign of good luck, from older relatives at the new year. A phrase I love in mandarin is 'nali nali' which you say when receiving praise in an effort to avoid appearing pretentious. It has the interesting effect that the originator of the praise is forced to insist, … which results in more praise. So it's only polite that the girl refuse the gift, which means auntie has to insist harder to give the envelope. The twist at the end: It's extremely rude to give envelopes to elders until you have kids of your own. Then the elder, by social contract, nali nali';s your gift back. From Wieden & Kennedy Shanghai, lessons in Chinese culture from my wonderfully smart girlfriend (I'm taken, ladies!). Tim Nudd didn't get this information but you do!
Ben & Jerry's Concocts "NETFLIX & CHILLL'D" Peanut Butter Ice Cream Flavor [Hypebeast] If you don't thnk this is great work then honestly, maybe you should unsubscribe. What’s better than a cozy night in for a “Netflix and chill” session? For Ben & Jerry’s, it’s topping it all off with a personal tub of its new Netflix-branded ice cream (sharing optional).
Apple Chinese New Year - Daughter [YouTube] Here are a few facts: This video is like 8 minutes long. It's a tear-jerker. And even though it's entirely in Mandarin (with subtitles), and YouTube is blocked in China, this video still has nearly 1mm views in 6 days. Shot entirely on an iPhone 11 Pro by Oscar-nominated director Theodore Melfi.
Awkwafina is now the voice of New York City Subway's 7 Train [AdAge] For eight days starting Thursday, actress Awkwafina—rather, her prerecorded voice—is taking over conductor announcements for each of the subway's 22 stops, Awkwafina-style, including: “This is 74 Street/Broadway. Please remember to use headphones when listening to music, even when your playlist is straight fire.” She even reminds commuters to stop manspreading. I love this because I think Awkwafina is fucking great. I hate this because I severely dislike the notion of train announcements being co-opted for advertising. Sarah Meyer, chief customer officer at MTA, says the undertaking will also serve as a pilot for launching other celebrity train announcements. “We are exploring new and different ways to generate much needed revenue, while also surprising and delighting customers.” Is nothing sacred! The stunt is part of a promotional campaign for her upcoming TV series, “Awkwafina is Nora From Queens,” airing on Comedy Central. They worked with Outfront Media, the MTA’s advertising partner, and location-based marketing agency Posterscope for the activation.
'Hotella Nutella' hosts super fans in Napa Valley [Napa Valley Register] The Hotella Nutella Napa Valley, is a “first-of-its-kind, weekend getaway experience dedicated to the beloved hazelnut spread.” The hotella is actually a private mansion located [somewhere in Napa Valley]. Over the period of several days, it was transformed to feature larger-than-life jars of Nutella and breakfast decor, and hazelnut and cocoa spread-inspired hotel items.
6) Platform Updates
Instagram Adds New Boomerang Modes and Capability to Trim Boomerang Loops [SocialMediaToday] Instagram has added some new options to its Boomerang camera mode for Stories, including 'SloMo', 'Echo' and 'Duo' variants. The new options add more ways in which you can use the Boomerang mode to liven up your Instagram Stories. In addition to this, Instagram has also added capacity to 'trim and tweak' your Boomerang loop (visible in the second screenshot in the example above) in order to better control your final clip.
How Effective are Ads On Social Media? [GlobalWebIndex] Globally, ads placed on social media rank as the fourth most popular source of brand discovery, with 28% of internet users saying ads help them find out about new products. (And other interesting tidbits! Click through!
The “Jeopardy: Greatest of All Time” tournament is bigger than most American sports [Quartz] The latest Jeopardy! tournament is a TV ratings juggernaut, proving itself more popular with viewers than every major American sports league outside the NFL. It's averaging 15 million viewers in the US through its first three nights. That’s more than the averages of last year’s NBA Finals, World Series, Stanley Cup, and MLS Cup
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