This Week in Strategy: A man walked into his home and realized that all his lamps were stolen. He was delighted!
Hi Strat Pack,
Guys: the most important thing you can read this week is from The Cut: Garbage Language: Why do corporations speak the way they do? This is maybe the most important thing I've read in 2020. It's incisive and brilliant. A goldmine of insights on why people behave the way they do in corporate atmospheres. Here's a passage that really speaks to me. Hopefully we're on the same page:
The front of the plaid packet said UPTAPPED: ALL NATURAL ENERGY. The marketing copy said, “For too long athletic nutrition has been sweetened with cheap synthetic sugars. The simplicity of endurance sports deserves a simple ingredient — 100% pure, unadulterated, organic Vermont maple syrup, the all-natural, low glycemic-index sports fuel.”
It was a packet of maple syrup. Nothing more. Whenever I hear a word like operationalize or touchpoint, I think of that packet — of some anonymous individual, probably with a Stanford degree and a net worth many multiples of my own, funneling maple syrup into tubelets and calling it low-glycemic-index sports fuel. It’s not a crime to try to convince people that their favorite pancake accessory is a viable biohack, but the words have a scammy flavor. And that’s the closest I can come to a definition of garbage language that accounts for its eternal mutability: words with a scammy flavor. As with any scam, the effectiveness lies in the delivery. Thousands of companies have tricked us into believing that a mattress or lip-gloss order is an ideological position.
In more important news: Pokemon Magikarp Jump is the game I didn't know I needed. And while you might be saying "But Jordan, this game came out in 2017", I only discovered it this week. And it holds up really well. If you haven’t come across the game yet it stars Magikarp, a Pokémon notorious in the main video game series for being useless in battles and overly abundant in random encounters. Here, however, the underfish is the star of the show and it’s your job to grow your Magikarp by feeding it and training it so that it can compete in jumping competitions against other Magikarp. Doesn’t sound like much, right? Well, that’s part of what makes it so good. Magikarp Jump is simple both in terms of its controls and in the goals it sets you. I highly recommend downloading.
Alright, stop messing around trying to figure out the most cost-effective way to get deprogrammed from corporate garbage language (sorry, you can't. We're literally stuck with it). Let's jump right in.
The one thing to read this week
1) Brand Architecture Models [Julian Cole - Planning Dirty]
Another insanely useful resource from Julian. They've done a great job concentrating and categorizing the types of brand hierarchies in a format that even the most marketing-illiterate brand manager can understand.
Julian's LinkedIn post says it all:
It's scary thinking about the amount of time I've wasted sitting in meetings going around in circles on brand hierarchy.
Debopriyo Bhattacherjee, Davis Ballard and I have created a deck to reduce the spinning.
We've outlined the three major options when it comes to brand architecture, hope it helps get you some time back.
2) Mark Ritson: The story of Casper shows there is no DTC ‘revolution’ [Marketing Week]
Ripper of an article from Ritson. This is the one thing to read this week not to rag on DTC brand but to reinforce the importance of marketing and advertising in building a brand. Many of our clients seem to learn the marketing lessons of startups - the wrong lessons.
Of all the many annoyances of the marketing decade that has just passed, no other trend generated more bullshit and overstatement than the concept of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands.
It’s very hard to get excited about another mattress / razor / luggage supplier. The world has enough of them already. But if that supplier is radically different from all that has come before it, at least in theory, then suddenly this was something different and exciting. Not just dog food, but a radically new way to extend the life of your pet that contradicts everything the traditional pet food providers – those ancient old fuckers – had been telling you in the past.
while many of the new DTC brands were interesting and were challenging new businesses, most of their touted disruption and success was bullshit.
And they were singularly failing to achieve another ancient, old-fashioned hang-up from the 20th Century: profit. But because the notion of DTC fed the marketing world’s appetite for the pornography of change and its obsession with youth, our discipline lost its shit over brands that were not half as successful or as radical as we were told.
The much-touted DTC model worked fine at startup phase. The problems came at the next stage as it dawned on these companies that many of the “traditional” practices of incumbent businesses were not stupid butactually essential to scale up and make money.
DTC brands gradually shifted from their direct distribution models and started selling through a host of traditional retail channels. Their exclusively vertical distribution systems quickly became omni-channel – just like everyone else’s.
DTC brands like Harry’s, Barkbox, Quip and Native all have two things in common. Each initially pushed hard against the idea of indirect retailing and promoted their own direct channels instead. And all of them are now for sale in the US in Target nationwide.
While DTC brands have continued with their social missions, many have also become aware of the ancillary role that this purpose plays in their commercial success. DTC giant Warby Parker has always had a strong social mission through its partnership with Vision Spring, for example. But the brand’s founders became aware that this was not the main driving force behind the company’s commercial success.
“Consumers put fashion and design first: ‘How do these glasses look on my face?’,” explained co-founder Neil Blumenthal back in 2014 “Second: How much do they cost? Third: Are they good quality and is the service good? And lastly, if at all, what do these glasses mean in the broader context of the world?”
Warby Parker has continued to support Vision Spring but now does so for the genuine driver of doing good for the sake of doing good rather than some handy, hair brained theory that millennials only buy from companies they believe in.
All the constant bullshit about DTC marketing fails two important tests. First, it really is not a new model for marketing. Just a very old one, dressed up in a temporary, spangly garment that won’t last the week. And second, despite bold claims and disruptive manifestos, most of these DTC champions continue to fail the single most important test of marketing and business. Not cool ads. Not storytelling. Not conference speeches. Not even satisfied customers.
Mind you, if you are a founder or early investor in Casper you are set for exactly that. Despite the company not proving profitable, all the DTC bullshit and big talk will make some people a giant pile of cash in a few months’ time. Provided, that is, no-one gets the WeWork fever and realises that the fancy carriage is just a pumpkin.
And maybe that is the point and the ultimate triumph of the DTC ‘revolution’. The marketing message was never aimed at mattress buyers but incumbent firms worried about a new century and traditional investment companies fascinated with the shiny new baubles dangled in front of them and dressed up as the next Google.
I need to lie down.
3) Research: Why We’re Incentivized by Discounts and Surcharges [Harvard Business Review]
Starbucks' U.S. locations offer a 10-cent discount to customers who bring their own mugs. While customers at Starbucks locations in Germany face a 5-cent paper cup charge.
Everyday incentives typically come in one of two forms—discounts or surcharges—and are usually put in place for a simple reason: money motivates. And sure enough, it has been demonstrated time and time again that people change their behavior when they are financially incentivized: it’s pleasurable to earn money, and painful to lose it. But is it just the financial aspect that motivates us? Or is there something else influencing us too? Our recent research suggests there is.
The structure of an incentive—as either a surcharge or a discount—sends a subtle message to people about what others think and do. When people encounter surcharges (vs. discounts), they perceive that the incentivized behavior is a stronger social norm.
Participants who learned that the shop charges customers for not bringing their own mugs inferred that bringing a mug is more common and more socially expected compared to people who learned it offers a discount. On top of that, people who learned about a surcharge (vs. discount) thought that they would feel more embarrassed and guiltier if they did not comply with the expectation. And this anticipated emotional reaction increased people’s intentions to bring a mug to the store.
As social animals, humans are highly motivated to fit in with their peers—that is, to follow what they perceive to be a social norm. For this reason, many messaging campaigns have focused on social norms to successfully change a slew of behaviors, ranging from healthy eating to hotel towel re-use. These and many more examples suggest that when people infer strong social norms, they are more likely to carry out the normative behavior.
Our research proposes that encountering surcharges works in much the same way: they subtly send the message that performing the targeted behavior is a stronger norm, motivating people to take part in order to fit in. What’s more, we find that the people who care a lot about what others think of them are the most sensitive to surcharges. Those who report caring about their social reputation are much more likely to comply with a surcharge than with a discount. Whereas people who don’t seem to care much about fitting in with their peers don’t tend to change their behavior in response to the framing of the incentive.
Social norms encourage lasting change
Shifting social norms is particularly appealing not only to motivate behavior in the moment, but also because it can lead to lasting behavioral changes. Whereas offering a monetary incentive (including a discount) may indeed encourage one-time behaviors, our research suggests that framing that incentive as a surcharge can have longer-term effects on behavior because it signals a social norm.
As more and more organizations and governments use small, everyday incentives to encourage certain behaviors, our research suggests that these incentives are more powerful than we realize: they signal critical information about the popularity and appropriateness of a behavior. The seemingly simple decision of how to frame these incentives (as surcharges or discounts) can have surprisingly strong and lasting effects on people’s actions. Even the people who may not care to change their behavior for a 5-cent, 10-cent, or even $2 incentive may still be affected by surcharges, not for the money, but because they wish to fit in with their peers. As a result, these small surcharge incentives can capture a larger audience than previously believed, and can change behavior not only in the moment, but also down the line.
Ultimately, small incentives are tools that can be used to shape people’s behavior. Our research suggests that these tools can be very effective — not only in changing one-time behaviors, but also in shaping social norms.
4) Quick Hits: A few articles that are concise, important, interesting, impactful, and I'm not going to write long descriptions for them.
Generally, I don't believe in creative development research. Apart from a couple of clients with specific questions, we turn it down. But the idea focus groups kill great work is a feeble myth [Alice Salisbury - Twitter] Wonkish research thread... Yes, research kills creativity, but it does it by making us lazy and blind to our own failings. The real issue with creative testing is not that it underrates genius, it's that it pardons mediocrity. Weak ideas, with no chance of survival in the real world and which should have been given the Sabisky treatment at birth, get through because people are basically polite.
Cultural appropriation: don't be an invader [Campaign] Very important article that would be the One Thing to Read this Week if I could summarize it in a way that would do it justice. Which I cannot. Cultural appropriation may only recently have been given a name, but the practice has been around for a lot longer, with many brands still falling foul of what is and isn't acceptable when it comes to 'borrowing' from other cultures for their own gain .As long as a lack of diversity persists, so will cultural appropriation. "It’s always going to be an issue as long as the world is out of tilt. That’s the harsh reality,"
The Long and Short of Chinese Propaganda [BBH Labs] What can we learn from the world’s greatest propagandists? Tobias Wacker, Planning Director of BBH China, explores how China’s propaganda machine has embraced the 21st century… and left their beloved posters behind. If used well, OOH clearly still holds a tremendous potential for persuasion, in local communities as well as on the global stage. So perhaps the Communist Party should arrange a session with our friends at the IPA to catch up on the latest data on one of the oldest mediums around? Or perhaps the truth is they are successful enough already
A Frank Look at What 2020 Holds for the Creative Industry [Little Black Book] This is a short but wonderful read from Jelly founder Chris Page on how to take the right path in 2020. We in the creative business have to be careful to adapt and react to the changing social and political landscape that our industry exists within. Let’s not beat about the bush, commercial pressures, especially in the UK, are as tight, if not tighter than they’ve ever been: budgets are small, rents are high, competition is crazy and quality always needs to be sky high. It’s tough enough to stay in the game, let alone get ahead of it. No one can rest on their laurels. But in amongst all this, is a new business pressure, one mainly driven by conscience. The earth is burning, politics is screwed and society is suffering as a consequence. Shouldn’t we, as an industry steeped in innovation be recognising this and changing our behaviour as a consequence?I would like to think that every creative business, from the biggest agencies to the smallest studios can discover something within themselves to help make society a slightly better place right now. Who knows, maybe if we start, others will follow and 2020 will be the start of a decade that actually reverses what has recently sometimes felt like an unseemly race to a worse place?
Cannibalization. In marketing/analytics, few people understand the concept. Let's discuss the concept. [Kevin Hillstrom - Twitter] Please fucking read this. One particularly spicy excerpt: "E-commerce is a broth of cannibalization. You take an order that used to happen in a store, you specifically tell the customer a thousand times to instead buy the item online, the customer buys the item online, you pay $10 to ship the item, and then you wonder why stores are empty and the p&l structure is all wonky? Well of course it is. You cannibalized a store order, you added $10 of shipping expense, and you didn't generate any incremental (new) orders."
5) Department of Great Work
Guys, a quick word on the moldy Whopper. Yes, the hashtag has garnered 21 million impressions. Which is impressive. But 60% of Burger King mentions were negative. There were 50,000 mentions of "disgust" alone, compared to only 7,000 likes on the original tweet. The most common hashtags in social media responses after #burgerking and #moldywhopper were #advertising and #marketing, indicating that it truly made a splash among industry professionals. It's worth remembering who the audence for our ads really is.
Nutella Opens 'Pop-Up Swap Shop' For Mardi Gras 2020: How To Get Free Pancakes And Nutella [Newsweek] On February 29, 2020, the brand is opening the Nutella Syrup Swap Shop Pop-up in Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Bring your used bottle of maple syrup and exchange it for a complimentary new jar of Nutella. Why? Because research indicated that Nutella is delicious on pancakes, that's why! From Terri & Sandy
The makers of Jif peanut butter team up with Giphy to try to settle the GIF/Jif debate once and for all [The Verge] You can now buy a special jar of Jif peanut butter that replaces the classic Jif branding on the label with “Gif.” The idea seems to be that the special edition jar should be placed next to a normal jar of Jif, like it is in the picture in this articlet, to prove that there’s an obvious difference in how each word should be said. From Publicis Groupe’s New York-based PSOne.
"It's About Bloody TIme" Tesco releases Plasters in diverse skin tones [ed note: Plasters are what we call Band Aids in the US] [It's Nice That] “The UK’s biggest retailer has just moved the dial on something that needed to change,” says Uche Ezugwu, creative director of BBH. “We created a campaign that is bold and visually impactful, hopefully making it hard to ignore.” The release includes three new tones of plaster, the idea for which was inspired by an emotional Tweet on the subject that was found by a Tesco employee. The campaign imagery includes photos of skin with “About bloody time” obscured by a plaster that blends in with the skin in the background. From BBH London
Colgate Ice Cream and Candy [The Inspiration Room] A throwback from 2009 I came across on Twitter the other day. Colgate Palmolive in Thailand has started giving out ice creams and candy at annual events like Oral Health Month to remind target consumers, especially kids, to take better care of their teeth after eating sweets. The wooden ice cream stick carries a hidden message - it's shaped like a toothbrush with the message “Don’t Forget” with the Colgate logo. This simple message effectively reminded consumers to brush their teeth. It’s a change from the usual product samples that may or may not be used. From Y&R Thailand
This wild glimpse into the 5G future includes emoji water, face filters and a Lewis Capaldi hologram [AdAge] What I like about this film is that it's 3 minutes and 10 seconds fully committed to depicting a, frankly, super zany future. Like a spaceship for commercial space travel called "Spacey Mc Spaceship". I'm here for it. It's interesting and radically different than how *ahem* every carrier in the US talks about 5G. From Wieden + Kennedy London for Three UK
Volvo Trucks Stacked Four Trucks on Top of Each Other in Its Latest Bit of Lunacy [Muse By Clio] What I love about this is not the piece of film, which is fine by the way, but the fact that Volvo actually put four trucks on top of each other, and drove them down a road. For real. To top it off, the President of Volvo Trucks was literally standing on top of the whole thing. Talk about a vote of confidence in your product. From Forsman & Bodenfors
6) Platform Updates
The State of Influencer Marketing 2020: Benchmark Report [Influencer Marketing Hub] Only 14% of Influencers are currently compliant with FTC Legal Guidelines. More Than 2/3 of brands have experienced Influencer Fraud
Don't bother reading the rest.Google backtracks on search results design [TechCrunch] Earlier today, Google announced that it would be redesigning the redesign of its search results as a response to withering criticism from politicians, consumers and the press over the way in which search results displays were made to look like ads. Google makes money when users of its search service click on ads. It doesn’t make money when people click on an unpaid search result. Making ads look like search results makes Google more money. It’s also a pretty evil (or at least unethical) business decision by a company whose mantra was “Don’t be evil”(although they gave that up in 2018).
The best TikTok accounts are teenager-grandparent duos [Quartz] Gen Zers, who are between the ages of 16 and 22, dominate TikTok. Even millennials can find themselves feeling too old for the app. But 81-year-old Jenna Krupa and a handful of other aging account-holders are rejecting the notion that new social media is only for the young. By poking fun at their age, making jokes about sex, drinking, and even death, they produce a kind of uncomfortable, yet strangely addictive humor. And the appeal shows in their numbers: These accounts, with names like @youwishiwasyourgranny and @grandadjoe1933, have tens and hundreds of thousands of followers.
‘Nuclear winter’: Ad tech enters the vulture capital era [Digiday] The gap between the haves and the have nots in ad tech has never been starker: There is the high-flying company like The Trade Desk with a market capitalization of more than $13 billion. And at the other end is a laundry list of bankruptcies, firesales and companies going out of business altogether. And as the market consolidates, a set of opportunist buyers — the vulture capitalists — are ready to pounce on the remains. “It’s the nuclear winter of ad tech,” said Zeta Global CEO David Steinberg. “When everyone is running for the exit, walk in.”
Twitter is testing new ways to fight misinformation — including a community-based points system [NBC News] A leaked demo features bright red and orange badges for tweets that are deemed "harmfully misleading." posted by politicians and other public figures
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.Thanks for sticking around as always. See you next week!