Joseph Gelman
Prophet
The story of brands getting old is a story of relevance. Individual brands, or even whole categories, that were once important for a particular consumer segment, become irrelevant as society evolves and tastes change.
In the past, one of the most common situations in which “brands aged badly” revolved around strong associations with national pride. Many brands, such as US automakers Ford and GM, once successfully owned this space. Over time, however, the kind of brand attributes that they were associated with lost their importance as purchase drivers. This was due to a diverse set of realities. More relevant attributes emerged such as the rise of the Japanese manufacturer Toyota’s reputation for quality in the US, the lack of relevance in national pride to new generations of consumers and even the emergence of a “global” mindset in which consumers were willing to try new things from other markets. The rise of new generations of consumers with new ideas and evolving needs and wants, meant that although these “legacy - national pride associated” brands retained their distinguishing characteristics from their competitors, their attributes were no longer relevant. This situation has been faced by a lot of European brands in categories such as retail, air travel, telecommunications and many others in which strong brands differentiated themselves by emphasizing their origin and roots: brands like France Telecom, British Airways or Marks & Spencer. A current example of this situation is observed at Waitrose, the upscale UK grocery retailer. With the credit crunch, mainstream consumer segments are moving away from premium price products as they recognize that acceptable quality exists elsewhere. The ethical and “British grown” part of the equity of Waitrose is not relevant enough to consumers, who are switching to cheaper and even to “foreign” brands such as the European hard discount retailers, Aldi and Lidl, that are performing quite strongly in the UK market. Brands such as Waitrose now face a tough question: Should I completely lose my current brand equity association so I can become relevant to new consumers? The answer to this question is usually “no”. Brands need to evolve their legacy to make sure the things that differentiate them from their competitors are complemented by more relevant purchase drivers. They need to upgrade the different touch points of the business, create new product brands, eliminate others and launch new product lines.
Recent corporate history is littered with examples of brands needing to adjust their brand image to cope with new scenarios and a new generation of consumers. When telecommunications companies evolved from public-sector businesses to multi-service providers, first expanding into mobile telephony, they created new brands. These were not completely independent from the “traditional fixed line operator” branding but incorporated new attributes that were relevant to this new line of business. Again, the beneficial aspects of the legacy of the ‘aging’ brand which provided scale, reliability and trust were complemented by the personality of the “new mobile brand”. This meant that old fixed telephony brands were able to compete with strong “young” attacker brands. One of the most successful examples of this was the launch and consolidation of Telefónica’s Movistar brand in Spain and Latin America. The Telefónica brand had a strong trust in its core Spain and Latin American markets, and it leveraged on its equity as the “big, traditional and Spanish” national incumbent. The “Spanish” side of this equation lost relevance in Spain and even became negative in Latin America, where the company wanted to move away from a perception of “here comes the Spanish colonialism again”.
Also, the emergence of mobile communications required it to have a more emotional relationship with consumers. In this context, Telefónica evolved its legacy brand to dial up the aspects of its equity that were relevant to residential and corporate consumers, such as quality, innovation, and any other magnitude related attributes that would build trust.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjMwnWNzq4U
An ad for Telefónica's Movistar brand, featuring footballer Lionel Messi, of Barcelona and Argentina
Also, its “Spanish roots” were shifted into emphasizing its corporate “spirit of progress” essence, which highlighted the positive impact that the company had in developing the economy in emerging markets. In parallel, it developed the “younger” Movistar brand. This brand would be supported by the equity of Telefónica but would allow communication with consumers in a language that was more relevant in the mobile business.
But the problem of aging brands is not limited to those with a patriotic tradition, as can be seen from the example of Burger King. Burger King was an “old” brand that consistently underperformed its category. The essence of its message was “We make better burgers, have them your way”, and this became irrelevant to its consumer base worldwide, who felt much closer to the more emotional approach to the fast food consumption experience that McDonalds was communicating. It took Burger King time, and multiple changes to its ownership structure, advertising campaigns, management teams and go-to market strategies before it finally understood that its brand had become irrelevant to 18-35 years old males. After it recognised this, and took appropriate action, the fast food giant never looked back. It reshaped its brand, tapping into its roots and embracing innovation across the four Ps - Product, Price, Promotion and Place.
Burger King’s brand evolved its “better quality burger” approach into a rule-breaking, politically incorrect positioning in which it almost tells the consumer, “Yes, we know it is fast food, we know it is red meat, but this is what you like, you like our big and greasy burgers, and nobody needs to tell you what is and isn’t good for you.” Coupled with bold advertising and innovative social media campaigns, this put Burger King back on the map with more than 13 straight quarters of sales growth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGLHlvb8skQ
Burger King's "I Am Man" spot
In the UK, we have recently observed how complete “product lines” at aging brands have died and then reinvented themselves. This situation is quite different from the previous scenarios outlined above because it assumes that the equity that existed needs to be completely wiped out before a brand is able to become relevant to a different segment of consumers. This is probably the reasoning behind the radical branding shift visible at the retail chain from Virgin Megastores to Zavvi. Management of the CD-retailer-turned-video-game-shop thought that its strong legacy brand, Virgin, was not appropriate for the new directions they wanted for the business. This is quite interesting as it implies that the irreverent/Richard Branson part of the equity of Virgin, that has worked so well in expanding the brand into new territories, was no longer relevant for the new consumer segment that the chain wanted to target. In this context, they completely wiped out all the brand equity and develop a new brand and a new mark. Not all cases are necessary so dramatic. Sometimes brands just need innovation-driven tactical solutions to rejuvenate themselves and become relevant. For example, the alcohol industry noticed that consumers loved to drink from martini glasses, so you had Sex and the City’s cosmopolitan, bringing vodka and triple sec back on to the scene; or how about putting some Baileys on your coffee? From these examples, we can see the different directions that companies with aging brands can take. Telefónica kept its stronger functional attributes and developed a new brand that benefits from it but that can talk to consumers in a more relevant language; Burger King made its brand edgier around its core quality attributes and invested across the four Ps to reshape its image; and Zavvi became a completely different brand with little leverage on its legacy brand (Virgin). To make these decisions, all these companies needed to understand the purchase drivers of their consumers and which parts of their legacy brands, if any, were still relevant and differentiated them from rivals. Brands aging (badly) is a reality in multiple industries. Once the company acknowledges the need for change, which is often difficult given their legacy and strong brand equity, the most important decision is to decide which part of the old equity (if any) can evolve, or whether a completely new brand is need. With the right decisions on these points, most brands can live long and healthy lives.
14.3.09
Precious brands: loyalty unlimited
Andrew Doyle
There's a new hero for marketers to worship. His name is Peter Thomas and he's an insurance worker from Brighton in England. Or rather he was called Peter Thomas. Today his legal name is Honey Monster and he is perhaps the most extreme case around of brand love. He just adores Sugar Puffs and their Honey Monster character.
If only consumers of all our brands loved them so much that they decided to do what Peter (sorry, Honey) has done! Sadly most brands don't inspire this kind of fanaticism, but there are some that do get close to us. We become emotionally attached to them. They become loved objects, irrespective of what they do or what they cost. In fact being loved, being 'precious', is the ultimate achievement for any brand.
For example, ask a designer anywhere in the world what they think of Apple and you're likely to be pinned against a wall for hours while they wax lyrical about their brand.
Or, how about getting a woman in her twenties to talk about Zara? I'm told that for her it's like going into a candy store – because there's always something new to excite and entice her. And no other clothes retailer seems to inspire like this Spanish retailer.
Then there's Tic Tac. Anyone who has recently seen the movie Juno will remember the heroine's boyfriend, who always has his orange Tic Tacs by him. That's why Juno demonstrates her love by filling his mailbox with hundreds of packets of this precious confectionery.
What is it about these brands that make so many people love them? What makes them precious? It goes beyond the product. It goes beyond packaging or advertising. It certainly goes beyond the rational.
Oh dear, it goes beyond the rational. That's a pity because the rational is the way we mostly handle our brand marketing, isn't it? For example, it's rational isn't it that if you offer a better product, people will buy it? At least that's the theory behind the wave of premium products that have appeared on the market. But this strategy doesn't do anything to make people love them. Premium simply becomes the next level of threshold values expected by shoppers from products. And as I have recently seen in research, consumers lump all the premium own-label brands from supermarkets together and see them as one thing, rather than discriminating between them.
This kind of push marketing doesn't work anymore. We are all expecting a lot more from the brands we buy. Something more than just knowing we have bought something better.
And that's where preciousness comes in. Preciousness translates into unswerving loyalty and that in turn converts into guaranteed income. But how do you get there? In my journey to find the answer, I uncovered some clues, which seem to work. But before letting you hear what I learnt, you truly must switch off your rational 'push' marketing mindset and really enter the emotional world of the consumer.
EMOTION
If you look at brands that are clearly precious, say Innocent, Tods or Gü, it's intriguing to see that they are all first-generation brands – that is, the people who created them are still directly involved in the business. And none of them went into business on purely rational grounds. Talk to any entrepreneur and passion oozes out of their pores. It is emotion that has driven each of them.
I remember hearing how the founder of the Campbell Soup-owned bakery Pepperidge Farm started her business. Margaret Rudkin had a sick, asthmatic son who had severe food allergies. To help pep him up, she decided to replace the highly processed food she had been feeding him with, among other things, her own all-natural home-baked loaves. And yes, I know it sounds cheesy, but the bread was wonderful and friends and neighbours did start asking her to bake for them. A huge business built on the emotions of a worried mum.
And this sort of emotion clearly infuses the products of these first-generation brands and rubs off on consumers. But how do they get this emotional content across to consumers? Certainly it's not by talking about gap analysis or positioning theory. They do it by having a story. And that seems to be the next component in building a precious brand.
THE STORY
I'm looking at a watch I bought this week in Zurich. It wasn't expensive. And it wasn't a Swatch. But it looks nice and gets compliments around the studio here. The great thing is that when I get asked about it, I can tell the story about its origins – how its look is based on the clocks used on Swiss railway station platforms.
The point is that this story tells something about me. I hate to admit it but it enables me to say look, I'm different, I'm discerning, I'm curious. And so the story not only brings the brand to life, it also brings me to life in the eyes of others.
I picked up on stories some years ago, and we often talk in our company about how design is the art of symbolising brand stories. But I was lost for a while trying to figure out how to take a brand's story and make it relevant for consumers. And that led me on to a brilliant discovery – a book by two Americans, Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson, called The Hero and the Outlaw (1). They helped me realise that precious brands are those that have a story personifying the product as a specific type of hero. And that brings us to the next part of making a precious brand (2).
MOTIVATION
So precious brands trigger emotion in consumers through their use of the story. But how should that story be pitched? Mark and Pearson point to motivational theory and Jung.
No, don't get worried. It's not that complicated. Apparently we're all driven at different times by four key drives: belonging, independence, stability and risk. And they are certainly present when we're buying things in the supermarket. So if your brand story fits snugly with one of these needs, you may find it becoming precious – because it moves your brand from being just an inanimate object to a support for the shopper's particular motivation.
Of course it gets a bit more complicated, because within each of these four motivation areas there are different types of stories that could be told to reflect different aspects or nuances of the motivational area – what Mark and Pearson call archetypes. The thing that really impressed me about all this though was that there seemed to be a direct correlation between precious brands and the clarity with which they fit human motivation.
Let me bring this alive with some examples. What motivates people to fall in love with Zara? How about the fact that its incredible business system allows for lightning-fast changes in merchandise. Not much to fall in love with there, surely? But think about the consumer value of this rapid turnaround of clothing. For someone who wants to dress differently, it is the place to go; there's always something new and inspiring on the racks. It helps people express their individuality and it really hits home for those motivated to explore – to be different.
I love the recent UK Carling beer campaign 'Belong'. It actually uses one of the four core human motivations as the copy line. Guys in their late teens and early twenties are strongly driven by a desire to belong to a gang or group. And Carling, their lager, really latches on to this need.
Some years ago I tested a range of ready meals across Europe for a multinational company. We presented the products in different forms of packaging and I was astonished when the results came in. All the products hit pretty well the motivation to be in control. They were convenient after all. But one pack did so much better than any of the others.
It was a ready meal steamed in a paper bag. And it drew out of Europeans an amazing nostalgia for that particular cooking style used by their mums and grandmas decades ago. It touched strongly on a desire for simpler times, a return to innocence, a search for paradise.
One of my precious brands is Post-its. Not the little ones sitting on your desk but the big flip-chart versions. They cost a fortune but I can't run a workshop without them. They stay on the wall, you don't need tape, and they look neat and tidy. They hit my need to feel safe in a workshop environment. They give me control.
We've even been able to bring this preciousness into the corporate world. When we begin working on a corporate identity, we use an A4 page with 24 famous faces on it – 12 men and 12 women. Each has been chosen to represent different facets of the four types of motivation, guided by the work of Mark and Pearson.
We give the sheets to company staff and ask them to choose one of these faces as the personification of their organisation. I can't tell you how spooky it is when the sheets are handed back in. There is always amazing consistency within an organisation. The same face appears on answer after answer, and helps us really get to grips with the underlying meaning or motivation behind the client's corporate brand.
STYLE
Something that really stands out with precious brands is style. I don't mean beauty, although some have it. No, it's more that they all are confident enough to have their own look. Red Bull is a great example. Absolut is another. As are Tic Tac and Heinz Ketchup.
An ownable style actually brings together many of the points already made about precious brands. The first-generation brand owners can find an outlet for their emotional attachment to their 'baby' by using a design style that flamboyantly says to the world 'I have arrived'. Style enables the creator to tell the brand story symbolically, and style can be a consumer's signal to all around them that says 'this is what I'm like'.
It's also very enlightening to observe that many precious brands actually have style guardians. I remember at Pepperidge Farm many years ago watching its style guardian pass or reject designs. Some of the rejects looked pretty good to me, but when I made that observation, the reply was that they weren't the Pepperidge Farm way of doing things – the product shots were too perfect and lacked the excessive dribbles of chocolate their style of cake would have.
Indeed, you could sort of argue that rejecting a design because of its lack of excessive chocolate dribbles is a form of precious brand zero tolerance. If a brand management will get hot under the collar about the exterior style, then imagine how difficult they will be about the product inside or the ingredients being used.
RITUAL
Style doesn't just need to be about the precious brands' look. It can also be about the way in which we use the brand. When I open my Danone yoghurt, I unconsciously lick the inside of the foil lid. When I grab the Heinz Ketchup, I always give it a hefty shake. When I want to drink a Leffe, I grab the right glass and sluice it under the cold tap before pouring in my precious beer. And I always leave my Weetabix soaking in the milk for three minutes before spooning it up.
Just as with style, you could also say that a precious brand often has rituals associated with it. They reinforce the specialness of the brand. And of course the brand owner can help ensure those rituals are created. I just bought some Ecco shoes. They came with a soft bag to hold them in and a very stylish matt black shoehorn. So now, whereas my other shoes get scant attention, the black Eccos go through a special ritual when being put on or taken off. And end up being more precious.
WORSHIP
While I am not about to claim that precious brands are the new religion, by worship I mean the set of attitudes that assign to the 'precious object' the status of being worthy of idolatry. Think Nike and teenagers and you'll get a clear indication of what this sort of worship is all about.
We did some brilliant research with 300 teenagers across Europe using our CLICK research method. This gave them cameras and asked them to answer all our questions using pictures. One key question was 'What is the most important object in your life?' The answer from most was a picture of their trainers. So maybe we should see Niketown as a church for the worship by devotees of their precious brand.
Worship is when the object practically owns the owner. It is a subtle, yet very powerful trigger. Worshipped brands are the ones consumers want to talk about. The ones they want to convert others to. The consumer becomes the brand's missionary.
CONCLUSIONS
We all want our brands to be precious – to be loved beyond reason, to be bought without a second thought, to be cherished as an old friend. It seems those brands that are precious combine the emotion of the founder, the expression of that emotion in a story, the grounding of its story in one of four deep-seated human motivations; they have their own unique style, are often handled in a ritualistic way and, yes, get close to being worshipped.
One final thought. I wrote this in the first person, because these are my thoughts. And it occurs to me that precious brands are always first-person brands. So if you want your brand to be precious stop calling it 'it' and start calling it 'me' or 'us'.
1.McGraw-Hill, 2001.
2. See, for example, J Howard-Spink: Who is your brand? And what is its story? Admap 443, October 2003.
There's a new hero for marketers to worship. His name is Peter Thomas and he's an insurance worker from Brighton in England. Or rather he was called Peter Thomas. Today his legal name is Honey Monster and he is perhaps the most extreme case around of brand love. He just adores Sugar Puffs and their Honey Monster character.
If only consumers of all our brands loved them so much that they decided to do what Peter (sorry, Honey) has done! Sadly most brands don't inspire this kind of fanaticism, but there are some that do get close to us. We become emotionally attached to them. They become loved objects, irrespective of what they do or what they cost. In fact being loved, being 'precious', is the ultimate achievement for any brand.
For example, ask a designer anywhere in the world what they think of Apple and you're likely to be pinned against a wall for hours while they wax lyrical about their brand.
Or, how about getting a woman in her twenties to talk about Zara? I'm told that for her it's like going into a candy store – because there's always something new to excite and entice her. And no other clothes retailer seems to inspire like this Spanish retailer.
Then there's Tic Tac. Anyone who has recently seen the movie Juno will remember the heroine's boyfriend, who always has his orange Tic Tacs by him. That's why Juno demonstrates her love by filling his mailbox with hundreds of packets of this precious confectionery.
What is it about these brands that make so many people love them? What makes them precious? It goes beyond the product. It goes beyond packaging or advertising. It certainly goes beyond the rational.
Oh dear, it goes beyond the rational. That's a pity because the rational is the way we mostly handle our brand marketing, isn't it? For example, it's rational isn't it that if you offer a better product, people will buy it? At least that's the theory behind the wave of premium products that have appeared on the market. But this strategy doesn't do anything to make people love them. Premium simply becomes the next level of threshold values expected by shoppers from products. And as I have recently seen in research, consumers lump all the premium own-label brands from supermarkets together and see them as one thing, rather than discriminating between them.
This kind of push marketing doesn't work anymore. We are all expecting a lot more from the brands we buy. Something more than just knowing we have bought something better.
And that's where preciousness comes in. Preciousness translates into unswerving loyalty and that in turn converts into guaranteed income. But how do you get there? In my journey to find the answer, I uncovered some clues, which seem to work. But before letting you hear what I learnt, you truly must switch off your rational 'push' marketing mindset and really enter the emotional world of the consumer.
EMOTION
If you look at brands that are clearly precious, say Innocent, Tods or Gü, it's intriguing to see that they are all first-generation brands – that is, the people who created them are still directly involved in the business. And none of them went into business on purely rational grounds. Talk to any entrepreneur and passion oozes out of their pores. It is emotion that has driven each of them.
I remember hearing how the founder of the Campbell Soup-owned bakery Pepperidge Farm started her business. Margaret Rudkin had a sick, asthmatic son who had severe food allergies. To help pep him up, she decided to replace the highly processed food she had been feeding him with, among other things, her own all-natural home-baked loaves. And yes, I know it sounds cheesy, but the bread was wonderful and friends and neighbours did start asking her to bake for them. A huge business built on the emotions of a worried mum.
And this sort of emotion clearly infuses the products of these first-generation brands and rubs off on consumers. But how do they get this emotional content across to consumers? Certainly it's not by talking about gap analysis or positioning theory. They do it by having a story. And that seems to be the next component in building a precious brand.
THE STORY
I'm looking at a watch I bought this week in Zurich. It wasn't expensive. And it wasn't a Swatch. But it looks nice and gets compliments around the studio here. The great thing is that when I get asked about it, I can tell the story about its origins – how its look is based on the clocks used on Swiss railway station platforms.
The point is that this story tells something about me. I hate to admit it but it enables me to say look, I'm different, I'm discerning, I'm curious. And so the story not only brings the brand to life, it also brings me to life in the eyes of others.
I picked up on stories some years ago, and we often talk in our company about how design is the art of symbolising brand stories. But I was lost for a while trying to figure out how to take a brand's story and make it relevant for consumers. And that led me on to a brilliant discovery – a book by two Americans, Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson, called The Hero and the Outlaw (1). They helped me realise that precious brands are those that have a story personifying the product as a specific type of hero. And that brings us to the next part of making a precious brand (2).
MOTIVATION
So precious brands trigger emotion in consumers through their use of the story. But how should that story be pitched? Mark and Pearson point to motivational theory and Jung.
No, don't get worried. It's not that complicated. Apparently we're all driven at different times by four key drives: belonging, independence, stability and risk. And they are certainly present when we're buying things in the supermarket. So if your brand story fits snugly with one of these needs, you may find it becoming precious – because it moves your brand from being just an inanimate object to a support for the shopper's particular motivation.
Of course it gets a bit more complicated, because within each of these four motivation areas there are different types of stories that could be told to reflect different aspects or nuances of the motivational area – what Mark and Pearson call archetypes. The thing that really impressed me about all this though was that there seemed to be a direct correlation between precious brands and the clarity with which they fit human motivation.
Let me bring this alive with some examples. What motivates people to fall in love with Zara? How about the fact that its incredible business system allows for lightning-fast changes in merchandise. Not much to fall in love with there, surely? But think about the consumer value of this rapid turnaround of clothing. For someone who wants to dress differently, it is the place to go; there's always something new and inspiring on the racks. It helps people express their individuality and it really hits home for those motivated to explore – to be different.
I love the recent UK Carling beer campaign 'Belong'. It actually uses one of the four core human motivations as the copy line. Guys in their late teens and early twenties are strongly driven by a desire to belong to a gang or group. And Carling, their lager, really latches on to this need.
Some years ago I tested a range of ready meals across Europe for a multinational company. We presented the products in different forms of packaging and I was astonished when the results came in. All the products hit pretty well the motivation to be in control. They were convenient after all. But one pack did so much better than any of the others.
It was a ready meal steamed in a paper bag. And it drew out of Europeans an amazing nostalgia for that particular cooking style used by their mums and grandmas decades ago. It touched strongly on a desire for simpler times, a return to innocence, a search for paradise.
One of my precious brands is Post-its. Not the little ones sitting on your desk but the big flip-chart versions. They cost a fortune but I can't run a workshop without them. They stay on the wall, you don't need tape, and they look neat and tidy. They hit my need to feel safe in a workshop environment. They give me control.
We've even been able to bring this preciousness into the corporate world. When we begin working on a corporate identity, we use an A4 page with 24 famous faces on it – 12 men and 12 women. Each has been chosen to represent different facets of the four types of motivation, guided by the work of Mark and Pearson.
We give the sheets to company staff and ask them to choose one of these faces as the personification of their organisation. I can't tell you how spooky it is when the sheets are handed back in. There is always amazing consistency within an organisation. The same face appears on answer after answer, and helps us really get to grips with the underlying meaning or motivation behind the client's corporate brand.
STYLE
Something that really stands out with precious brands is style. I don't mean beauty, although some have it. No, it's more that they all are confident enough to have their own look. Red Bull is a great example. Absolut is another. As are Tic Tac and Heinz Ketchup.
An ownable style actually brings together many of the points already made about precious brands. The first-generation brand owners can find an outlet for their emotional attachment to their 'baby' by using a design style that flamboyantly says to the world 'I have arrived'. Style enables the creator to tell the brand story symbolically, and style can be a consumer's signal to all around them that says 'this is what I'm like'.
It's also very enlightening to observe that many precious brands actually have style guardians. I remember at Pepperidge Farm many years ago watching its style guardian pass or reject designs. Some of the rejects looked pretty good to me, but when I made that observation, the reply was that they weren't the Pepperidge Farm way of doing things – the product shots were too perfect and lacked the excessive dribbles of chocolate their style of cake would have.
Indeed, you could sort of argue that rejecting a design because of its lack of excessive chocolate dribbles is a form of precious brand zero tolerance. If a brand management will get hot under the collar about the exterior style, then imagine how difficult they will be about the product inside or the ingredients being used.
RITUAL
Style doesn't just need to be about the precious brands' look. It can also be about the way in which we use the brand. When I open my Danone yoghurt, I unconsciously lick the inside of the foil lid. When I grab the Heinz Ketchup, I always give it a hefty shake. When I want to drink a Leffe, I grab the right glass and sluice it under the cold tap before pouring in my precious beer. And I always leave my Weetabix soaking in the milk for three minutes before spooning it up.
Just as with style, you could also say that a precious brand often has rituals associated with it. They reinforce the specialness of the brand. And of course the brand owner can help ensure those rituals are created. I just bought some Ecco shoes. They came with a soft bag to hold them in and a very stylish matt black shoehorn. So now, whereas my other shoes get scant attention, the black Eccos go through a special ritual when being put on or taken off. And end up being more precious.
WORSHIP
While I am not about to claim that precious brands are the new religion, by worship I mean the set of attitudes that assign to the 'precious object' the status of being worthy of idolatry. Think Nike and teenagers and you'll get a clear indication of what this sort of worship is all about.
We did some brilliant research with 300 teenagers across Europe using our CLICK research method. This gave them cameras and asked them to answer all our questions using pictures. One key question was 'What is the most important object in your life?' The answer from most was a picture of their trainers. So maybe we should see Niketown as a church for the worship by devotees of their precious brand.
Worship is when the object practically owns the owner. It is a subtle, yet very powerful trigger. Worshipped brands are the ones consumers want to talk about. The ones they want to convert others to. The consumer becomes the brand's missionary.
CONCLUSIONS
We all want our brands to be precious – to be loved beyond reason, to be bought without a second thought, to be cherished as an old friend. It seems those brands that are precious combine the emotion of the founder, the expression of that emotion in a story, the grounding of its story in one of four deep-seated human motivations; they have their own unique style, are often handled in a ritualistic way and, yes, get close to being worshipped.
One final thought. I wrote this in the first person, because these are my thoughts. And it occurs to me that precious brands are always first-person brands. So if you want your brand to be precious stop calling it 'it' and start calling it 'me' or 'us'.
1.McGraw-Hill, 2001.
2. See, for example, J Howard-Spink: Who is your brand? And what is its story? Admap 443, October 2003.
13.3.09
ad:tech New York: the digital strategies of IBM
Telling the IBM story
The idea of online "mini-mentaries" providing support for more traditional media is at play in a new Ogilvy effort for IBM. "IBM solves some of the world's toughest, most significant problems. And that's not something that's told easily in 30 seconds," Lazarus said. "Digital media is not constrained by pre-determined commercial lengths."
The IBM series includes work in support of the New York Police Department, pandemics, mapping DNA, and "Hollywood Comes to Galway," the tale of one-to-one entrepreneurial intelligence told on a global stage:
IBM's business of innovation now plays out on iTunes, in podcasts, and on YouTube. Some 23 million people have come to the IBM web site to hear the tales. "In the context of what you usually find on the web site of a technology company, it's refreshing," Lazarus said. "We're using story-telling in its most wonderful form."
Ogilvy, Lazarus continued, was the agency that was intuitive enough to use Craig's List (cost $0.00) when the client asked the agency to produce a series of newspaper and radio ads to support an anniversary ticket give-away of 45,000 free passes. The ticket supply was exhausted in just 45 minutes and the cost? $0.00. Almost as cost-efficient was a Hellman's mayonnaise "real food" consumer-centric series that appeared on Yahoo Food. "The program more than doubled sales coast to coast," Lazarus claimed, "and offered Unilever the highest ROI [250%] in its history."
And, of course, Ogilvy most likely will be globally famous forever for the $50,000 "Evolution" video it shot for Dove.
To date, more than 500 million viewers have witnessed the aging sequence that was inspired by a workshop for 12-year-old Canadian girls and became the first Cannes double-winner for film and interactive video.
"When he shot it, the creative director used his girlfriend," Lazarus said. "He told her, 'No one's going to see it. It's just going on the Internet.'
"They're not together anymore."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBr5clzbCYU
The idea of online "mini-mentaries" providing support for more traditional media is at play in a new Ogilvy effort for IBM. "IBM solves some of the world's toughest, most significant problems. And that's not something that's told easily in 30 seconds," Lazarus said. "Digital media is not constrained by pre-determined commercial lengths."
The IBM series includes work in support of the New York Police Department, pandemics, mapping DNA, and "Hollywood Comes to Galway," the tale of one-to-one entrepreneurial intelligence told on a global stage:
IBM's business of innovation now plays out on iTunes, in podcasts, and on YouTube. Some 23 million people have come to the IBM web site to hear the tales. "In the context of what you usually find on the web site of a technology company, it's refreshing," Lazarus said. "We're using story-telling in its most wonderful form."
Ogilvy, Lazarus continued, was the agency that was intuitive enough to use Craig's List (cost $0.00) when the client asked the agency to produce a series of newspaper and radio ads to support an anniversary ticket give-away of 45,000 free passes. The ticket supply was exhausted in just 45 minutes and the cost? $0.00. Almost as cost-efficient was a Hellman's mayonnaise "real food" consumer-centric series that appeared on Yahoo Food. "The program more than doubled sales coast to coast," Lazarus claimed, "and offered Unilever the highest ROI [250%] in its history."
And, of course, Ogilvy most likely will be globally famous forever for the $50,000 "Evolution" video it shot for Dove.
To date, more than 500 million viewers have witnessed the aging sequence that was inspired by a workshop for 12-year-old Canadian girls and became the first Cannes double-winner for film and interactive video.
"When he shot it, the creative director used his girlfriend," Lazarus said. "He told her, 'No one's going to see it. It's just going on the Internet.'
"They're not together anymore."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBr5clzbCYU
ad:tech New York: the digital strategies of Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton: digitizing luxury
Digital media, of course, are not just a bunch of stunts and tricks that can revive fading products - a case Lazarus made with new Ogilvy/Paris work for Louis Vuitton. "Ten years ago, we would have come up with the most gorgeous print ads you've ever seen," the Ogilvy chairman/ceo noted. And, so they did with the most recent execution for the brand, with lush, engaging, evocative Annie Liebowitz photographs of Catherine Deneuve, Keith Richards, Mikhail Gorbachev, Andre Agassi/Steffi Graf, and this one - two-filmaking Copploas-in-one-image: Francis Ford and Sofia:
In each case, Louis Vuitton products - featured ever-so-elegantly - somehow eased their transit as, said Lazarus, "we offered a deeper exploration of their personal journeys."
But unlike the print programs of just a decade ago, Ogilvy built the new campaign to last, to reinforce, and to build the brand even more powerfully. Gorbachev takes YouTubers on a visit of Moscow. Deneuve does Paris. And Keith Richards goes inside his London in a series of nine videos, including this trailer:
"Each of the Louis Vuitton people take us to places they love," Lazarus said. Keith Richards' love for Shepherd's Pie may not play to an association with one of the world's great luxury brands, but, Lazarus explained, "You experience life the way celebrities find it." Consumers who come to the Louis Vuitton site spend an average of 16 minutes viewing different video executions.
"The brand turns to experience," she added. "And that translates to public-relations impressions and blog impressions" that never could have been part of a pure-print campaign in the 1990s. "And we're driving double-digit growth in shop visits and growth."
While Lazarus recognized "it's impossible to know what will happen in the face of an economic downturn," the campaign will continue, with the next subject 78-year-old Sean Connery featured over the copyline, "There are journeys that turn into legends."
Digital media, of course, are not just a bunch of stunts and tricks that can revive fading products - a case Lazarus made with new Ogilvy/Paris work for Louis Vuitton. "Ten years ago, we would have come up with the most gorgeous print ads you've ever seen," the Ogilvy chairman/ceo noted. And, so they did with the most recent execution for the brand, with lush, engaging, evocative Annie Liebowitz photographs of Catherine Deneuve, Keith Richards, Mikhail Gorbachev, Andre Agassi/Steffi Graf, and this one - two-filmaking Copploas-in-one-image: Francis Ford and Sofia:
In each case, Louis Vuitton products - featured ever-so-elegantly - somehow eased their transit as, said Lazarus, "we offered a deeper exploration of their personal journeys."
But unlike the print programs of just a decade ago, Ogilvy built the new campaign to last, to reinforce, and to build the brand even more powerfully. Gorbachev takes YouTubers on a visit of Moscow. Deneuve does Paris. And Keith Richards goes inside his London in a series of nine videos, including this trailer:
"Each of the Louis Vuitton people take us to places they love," Lazarus said. Keith Richards' love for Shepherd's Pie may not play to an association with one of the world's great luxury brands, but, Lazarus explained, "You experience life the way celebrities find it." Consumers who come to the Louis Vuitton site spend an average of 16 minutes viewing different video executions.
"The brand turns to experience," she added. "And that translates to public-relations impressions and blog impressions" that never could have been part of a pure-print campaign in the 1990s. "And we're driving double-digit growth in shop visits and growth."
While Lazarus recognized "it's impossible to know what will happen in the face of an economic downturn," the campaign will continue, with the next subject 78-year-old Sean Connery featured over the copyline, "There are journeys that turn into legends."
Capri Sun:::the digital strategies of,
Capri Sun: refreshing a refreshment brand
"It's what you can do with an idea that's different," Lazarus said. Yet another original idea centered around much the same challenge of breathing new life into a tired product. Capri Sun is a beverage with very different packaging - not a bottle, not a jar, but a 200 ml. foil/plastic pouch. The tropical-themed refreshment was popular in the '80s, Lazarus explained, but "had not done much since then."
It's original consumers had long since moved onto coffee, and there was a target audience of six-to-11-year-old children who were being underserved - a "buzzworthy and respectable group," Lazarus called them.
To start kids talking - and, more specifically, spreading the word about Capri Sun - Ogilvy created a series of 30-second spots with identical set-ups but different ends. "They were sort of irreverent commercials that showed what happened when children didn't respect the pouch. They had an element of suspense. And they invited parody.
http://www.kraftbrands.com/caprisun/ "Six-to-11-year-old boys love playing games," Lazarus reported. And, because Web 2.0 is as familiar to this demographic as tap water, they fulfilled their viral promise with a series of imitative spots:
The agency, in kind, returned the fire with video games and a "Rayman Raving Rabbids" Wii game planned for launch in time for the Christmas 2008 season.
Lazarus' bottom line to the campaign was the same she used to describe the Obama effort: "If you think it, you can do it."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SesasYdKVI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YRigdFPeLg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-Gy0_ncqlM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGfS7zJ0ek0
"It's what you can do with an idea that's different," Lazarus said. Yet another original idea centered around much the same challenge of breathing new life into a tired product. Capri Sun is a beverage with very different packaging - not a bottle, not a jar, but a 200 ml. foil/plastic pouch. The tropical-themed refreshment was popular in the '80s, Lazarus explained, but "had not done much since then."
It's original consumers had long since moved onto coffee, and there was a target audience of six-to-11-year-old children who were being underserved - a "buzzworthy and respectable group," Lazarus called them.
To start kids talking - and, more specifically, spreading the word about Capri Sun - Ogilvy created a series of 30-second spots with identical set-ups but different ends. "They were sort of irreverent commercials that showed what happened when children didn't respect the pouch. They had an element of suspense. And they invited parody. 
http://www.kraftbrands.com/caprisun/ "Six-to-11-year-old boys love playing games," Lazarus reported. And, because Web 2.0 is as familiar to this demographic as tap water, they fulfilled their viral promise with a series of imitative spots:The agency, in kind, returned the fire with video games and a "Rayman Raving Rabbids" Wii game planned for launch in time for the Christmas 2008 season.
Lazarus' bottom line to the campaign was the same she used to describe the Obama effort: "If you think it, you can do it."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SesasYdKVI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YRigdFPeLg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-Gy0_ncqlM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGfS7zJ0ek0
ad:tech New York: the digital strategies of Shreddies
Shreddies: from one to many
Momentum, in fact, was a powerful driver in an Ogilvy/Toronto campaign that started with an intern in the creative department and ended up as a viral video with 800,000 views ("a lot for Canada," said Lazarus.)
Shreddies was a 67-year-old cereal that needed a brand refresher. "You've all heard it before and, in fact, you all can probably write the brief," Lazarus told the ad:tech audience. "We needed to do something interesting. And we had to do it in a fresh, unique way."
Enter a summer intern who was handed the assignment of taking a look at the box copy. And who, in fact, failed in that assignment by taking the assignment a step further by rotating the even-sided breakfast on its end - converting a square into a diamond.
"It became an immediate hit," Lazarus continued. The agency's creative team immediately recognized an idea bigger than box copy and ran with it. Diamond Shreddies were launched in much the same way that the agency would introduce a new product.
The agency posted a viral video of a supposed focus-group session (in fact, the moderator was a sponsor) while billboards echoed the idea of "Diamond Shreddies." The brand's president posted his own video addressing the controversy between the traditional square-shaped product and the upstart diamonds.
"Can you have more fun?" Lazarus asked. "It captured the imagination of the whole country. There were newspaper reviews of Diamond Shreddies. 81 Facebook groups popped up. The company got hundreds of letters, some of them asking how it managed to come up with such great new ideas. Someone actually wrote to complain that his box of Diamond Shreddies only contained 50 percent of the new design."
Supported by a word-of-mouth frenzy, sales for the brand jumped 20 percent in a matter of weeks. "A 67-year-old brand seemed an unlikely candidate for a viral campaign," Lazarus continued. "But this seemed to strike a chord. Or maybe a funny bone."
Digital tools brought to bear by a traditional agency resulted in a major marketing innovation for a brand that had held little consumer interest for decades. And, what about that unhappy customer who griped that he only got half his fair share of Diamond Shreddies? From the Ogilvy new-product development team, yet another launch: The Combo Pack.
Momentum, in fact, was a powerful driver in an Ogilvy/Toronto campaign that started with an intern in the creative department and ended up as a viral video with 800,000 views ("a lot for Canada," said Lazarus.)
Shreddies was a 67-year-old cereal that needed a brand refresher. "You've all heard it before and, in fact, you all can probably write the brief," Lazarus told the ad:tech audience. "We needed to do something interesting. And we had to do it in a fresh, unique way."
Enter a summer intern who was handed the assignment of taking a look at the box copy. And who, in fact, failed in that assignment by taking the assignment a step further by rotating the even-sided breakfast on its end - converting a square into a diamond.
"It became an immediate hit," Lazarus continued. The agency's creative team immediately recognized an idea bigger than box copy and ran with it. Diamond Shreddies were launched in much the same way that the agency would introduce a new product.
The agency posted a viral video of a supposed focus-group session (in fact, the moderator was a sponsor) while billboards echoed the idea of "Diamond Shreddies." The brand's president posted his own video addressing the controversy between the traditional square-shaped product and the upstart diamonds.
"Can you have more fun?" Lazarus asked. "It captured the imagination of the whole country. There were newspaper reviews of Diamond Shreddies. 81 Facebook groups popped up. The company got hundreds of letters, some of them asking how it managed to come up with such great new ideas. Someone actually wrote to complain that his box of Diamond Shreddies only contained 50 percent of the new design."
Supported by a word-of-mouth frenzy, sales for the brand jumped 20 percent in a matter of weeks. "A 67-year-old brand seemed an unlikely candidate for a viral campaign," Lazarus continued. "But this seemed to strike a chord. Or maybe a funny bone."
Digital tools brought to bear by a traditional agency resulted in a major marketing innovation for a brand that had held little consumer interest for decades. And, what about that unhappy customer who griped that he only got half his fair share of Diamond Shreddies? From the Ogilvy new-product development team, yet another launch: The Combo Pack.
ad:tech New York: the digital strategies of Lenova
Lenovo: going directTalking directly to consumers - and bypassing the intermediating mainstream media in the process - was a primary component of a largely digital "coming-coming out" program Ogilvy put together for Lenovo, the Chinese computer company that acquired IBM's PC Division in 2005.
The place was the 2008 Beijing Olympics. And the place was all over the world. "We asked ourselves, 'How can we use 21st-Century technology to make the Olympics come to life? How can we allow consumers to really feel the Olympics from the inside? And what would happen if we gave 100 Olympic athletes from all over the world laptops and video cameras and asked them to talk about their experiences online?"
The answer was 1.6 million unique visitors to a "Voices of the Olympic Games" web site that featured both written blogs from the participants as well as video diaries. "It was an unfiltered scoop, straight from the athletes," Lazarus recalled. "We reached 256 countries and 27 different sports."
The digital exercise continued with cellphone widgets that offered a link to the Voices site as well as up-to-the-minute results, photographs, records, and background stories. Lazarus called it "the largest social-media market campaign at the largest sporting event in the world… And it gave people a chance to feel Lenovo, to become familiar with the brand."
Perhaps the ultimate compliment came when the International Olympic Committee tried to stop the campaign, charging that Ogilvy and Lenovo were "stealing the content that they had sold exclusively to media outlets," Lazarus said. "What they didn't seem to understand was the true democratization of content. Once it starts, you cannot stop it."
ad:tech New York: the digital strategies of Obama
Drew Ianni, ad:tech advisory board chairman/programming, started off the Wednesday sessions with a technology-friendly introduction to Shelly Lazarus: "Ogilvy was the first major agency to believe in - and take an interest in - digital and integrating new kinds of advertising into programs for their clients."
But the chairman/ceo of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide had something else in mind: "As I stand before you, my daughter is in labor," Lazarus revealed. But that wasn't her punchline. She continued, "Remember how people used to save the front page of their daily newspaper to celebrate a child's birth? Well, I'm so happy. The front page of today's Times is a great page." The single word OBAMA - all caps, centered and splashed across the top of page 1 - will be the keeper for the Lazarus family. And, as luck would have it, the story beneath the banner was the first of a series of digital narratives that would ground the Ogilvy head's ad:tech presentation.
Digital comes of political age: the Obama campaign
"Team Obama brought their brand to life in ways that no candidate has ever done before," Lazarus declared. "They brought them directly to the people. He won and the world has changed forever."
"If you are uncomfortable with change and ambiguity," she cautioned the ad:tech gathering, "this is not your time. If you need to test something five times before you try a sixth, this is not your time. But, if you love to make it up as you go along, if you welcome the happy collision of advertising and technology, if you're really creative, if you want to try new tools, if you're looking to listen in on new conversations and respond instantly, your time has come.
"When I started in this business, direct-mail people used to say, 'Just try to imagine what is would be like if you could actually talk to a consumer or a prospect to find out if they really were interested. We don't have to imagine any more."
As brand builders and marketers, she continued, "We can conclude that the Obama team knew how to use the tools that are now available to us all." In fact, she added, it was fair to conclude that the candidate's "digital-ness" had helped drive his victorious campaign.
Indeed, the ultimate success of the new-media political effort "affords marketers with a way to use new opportunities for interactivity with their target audiences. Obama was in constant dialogue with his base without the interference of the established press. He took his messages directly to his missionaries.
"And here's a question," she continued. "He ran his campaign this way. Will he govern in the same way? Last night, around 11 p.m., I received a real-time email from Obama. 'I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there,' he wrote, 'but I wanted to write to you first. We just made history. We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.'"
"It was all part of the best CRM campaign that's ever been run," Lazarus said. "The Obama campaign had a state-of-the-art web site. Pages on social-media sites. Twitter to track the candidate from one moment to the next. They had their own 'Race to the White House' game, Xbox games, iPhone applications, free ringtones. More than 12 million downloads of a 'Yes We Can' You Tube video brought emotion and momentum to the campaign. Four million donors and volunteers got daily email updates. They used every trick in the marketers' book, right down to their own 'Front Row to History' that offered winners a trip to Chicago to watch the returns. It was just like Publisher's Clearing House.
"Their motto seemed to be, 'If you think it, you can do it.' They really were masters of CRM."
Digital comes of political age: the Obama campaign
"Team Obama brought their brand to life in ways that no candidate has ever done before," Lazarus declared. "They brought them directly to the people. He won and the world has changed forever."
"If you are uncomfortable with change and ambiguity," she cautioned the ad:tech gathering, "this is not your time. If you need to test something five times before you try a sixth, this is not your time. But, if you love to make it up as you go along, if you welcome the happy collision of advertising and technology, if you're really creative, if you want to try new tools, if you're looking to listen in on new conversations and respond instantly, your time has come.
"When I started in this business, direct-mail people used to say, 'Just try to imagine what is would be like if you could actually talk to a consumer or a prospect to find out if they really were interested. We don't have to imagine any more."
As brand builders and marketers, she continued, "We can conclude that the Obama team knew how to use the tools that are now available to us all." In fact, she added, it was fair to conclude that the candidate's "digital-ness" had helped drive his victorious campaign.
Indeed, the ultimate success of the new-media political effort "affords marketers with a way to use new opportunities for interactivity with their target audiences. Obama was in constant dialogue with his base without the interference of the established press. He took his messages directly to his missionaries.
"And here's a question," she continued. "He ran his campaign this way. Will he govern in the same way? Last night, around 11 p.m., I received a real-time email from Obama. 'I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there,' he wrote, 'but I wanted to write to you first. We just made history. We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.'"
"It was all part of the best CRM campaign that's ever been run," Lazarus said. "The Obama campaign had a state-of-the-art web site. Pages on social-media sites. Twitter to track the candidate from one moment to the next. They had their own 'Race to the White House' game, Xbox games, iPhone applications, free ringtones. More than 12 million downloads of a 'Yes We Can' You Tube video brought emotion and momentum to the campaign. Four million donors and volunteers got daily email updates. They used every trick in the marketers' book, right down to their own 'Front Row to History' that offered winners a trip to Chicago to watch the returns. It was just like Publisher's Clearing House.
"Their motto seemed to be, 'If you think it, you can do it.' They really were masters of CRM."
Nielsen: Social Nets Overtake E-mail
As online paradigm shifts, advertisers must find a way to add value, rather than follow the 'push' model
March 9, 2009
-By Brian Morrissey
NEW YORK Social networking has overtaken e-mail as the most popular Internet activity, according to a new study released by Nielsen. Active reach in what Nielsen defines as "member communities" now exceeds e-mail participation by 67 percent to 65 percent. What's more, the reach of social networking and blogging venues is growing at twice the rate of other large drivers of Internet use such as portals, e-mail and search. Nielsen, which is the parent company of Adweek, concluded that the shift to social activity online would have profound effects on marketers and publishers. For publishers, social networks are eating into time spent with other online activities, according to Nielsen.
For advertisers, the phenomenon at this stage represents mostly unfulfilled promise for a deeper connection with consumers who are more difficult to reach in social environments. The rise of social media coincides with the decline of portals. Social networking appears to be snatching away users' online time formerly spent with e-mail, traditionally a large draw to portals. Such fragmentation is decreasing portals' importance to advertisers. In a separate report, top digital shop Razorfish said its spending at portals declined from 24 percent in 2006 to 16 percent in 2008. Nielsen found that two-thirds of the world's Internet users visited a social networking site in 2008. All told, social media now accounts for almost 10 percent of Internet time. Facebook is leading the pack worldwide, with monthly visits by three out of 10 Internet users in nine global markets, per Nielsen. The growth in social media is not confined to the U.S. Nielsen charted comparable or higher growth for Australia, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom. Yet for now, user growth at social sites is outpacing advertising increases, per Nielsen. This will likely change, Nielsen said, as models shift to value engagement over exposure. "As the online industry matures and the value of online real estate is increasingly measured by time spent, rather than pages viewed, a significant shift in advertising revenue from 'traditional' online media towards social media could be realized -- if the successful ad model can be found," the report stated. The search for a workable ad model is even more urgent now that social media has broken out of the youth demographic, Nielsen found. For example, Facebook's greatest growth has come from 35-49-year-olds, and it has added twice as many 50-64-year-olds as those under 18. Yet advertising and social media to date have mixed like oil and water. Part of that is a function of social media's communications role -- advertising has typically performed poorly in chat and e-mail. The larger challenge for advertising is to move from an interruptive role to joining conversations. That means advertisers need to find ways to add value to users' experiences, Nielsen found. "Whatever the successful ad model turns out to be, the messaging will have to be authentic and humble, and built on the principle of two-way conversation -- not a push model -- that adds value to the consumer," the report said.
March 9, 2009
-By Brian Morrissey
NEW YORK Social networking has overtaken e-mail as the most popular Internet activity, according to a new study released by Nielsen. Active reach in what Nielsen defines as "member communities" now exceeds e-mail participation by 67 percent to 65 percent. What's more, the reach of social networking and blogging venues is growing at twice the rate of other large drivers of Internet use such as portals, e-mail and search. Nielsen, which is the parent company of Adweek, concluded that the shift to social activity online would have profound effects on marketers and publishers. For publishers, social networks are eating into time spent with other online activities, according to Nielsen. For advertisers, the phenomenon at this stage represents mostly unfulfilled promise for a deeper connection with consumers who are more difficult to reach in social environments. The rise of social media coincides with the decline of portals. Social networking appears to be snatching away users' online time formerly spent with e-mail, traditionally a large draw to portals. Such fragmentation is decreasing portals' importance to advertisers. In a separate report, top digital shop Razorfish said its spending at portals declined from 24 percent in 2006 to 16 percent in 2008. Nielsen found that two-thirds of the world's Internet users visited a social networking site in 2008. All told, social media now accounts for almost 10 percent of Internet time. Facebook is leading the pack worldwide, with monthly visits by three out of 10 Internet users in nine global markets, per Nielsen. The growth in social media is not confined to the U.S. Nielsen charted comparable or higher growth for Australia, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom. Yet for now, user growth at social sites is outpacing advertising increases, per Nielsen. This will likely change, Nielsen said, as models shift to value engagement over exposure. "As the online industry matures and the value of online real estate is increasingly measured by time spent, rather than pages viewed, a significant shift in advertising revenue from 'traditional' online media towards social media could be realized -- if the successful ad model can be found," the report stated. The search for a workable ad model is even more urgent now that social media has broken out of the youth demographic, Nielsen found. For example, Facebook's greatest growth has come from 35-49-year-olds, and it has added twice as many 50-64-year-olds as those under 18. Yet advertising and social media to date have mixed like oil and water. Part of that is a function of social media's communications role -- advertising has typically performed poorly in chat and e-mail. The larger challenge for advertising is to move from an interruptive role to joining conversations. That means advertisers need to find ways to add value to users' experiences, Nielsen found. "Whatever the successful ad model turns out to be, the messaging will have to be authentic and humble, and built on the principle of two-way conversation -- not a push model -- that adds value to the consumer," the report said.
Use Email Campaigns To Generate More Email Campaigns–And Conversions
March12th, 2009 by eydie
Some marketers have only recently realized the importance of email. Others think it’s old hat. But true forward-thinkers are already taking their campaigns to the next level.
A business blogger at the Sydney Morning Herald points out a particular email discussion that happened at the Adtech conference held in Sydney this week, regarding “trigger-based” messages. Trigger-based email is sent according to a consumer’s particular behavior or preferences. For example, in an emailed company newsletter, there might be a link about a particular product. When the reader clicks on that link, this then triggers another email sent to the customer, offering a special sales offer regarding that product. Such links don’t have to be about a company’s product; a consumer’s birthday or purchasing preferences are other types of triggers.
Trigger-based messages, then, ensure that a brand remains engaged with and relevant to consumers by giving them important updates. The Herald blog points to HSBC Bank in Australia, which used trigger-based email marketing “to keep consumers engaged and informed” during their loan application process. This was done because many loan applicants shop around with several banks, and HSBC did not want them to go elsewhere for their loans. The upshot? HSBC Bank saw an approximately 65 percent improvement in acceptance of home loans.
Think of trigger-based email as the master’s degree after getting a bachelor degree in email marketing: The rules of email marketing best practices must foremost be understood and used. The customer must be the one to subscribe to get email messages, and the company must explain what to expect in these messages–as well as how often to expect them. As always, relevance is the key–if you start sending messages of the type that were not expected, the consumer might ignore your email and/or cancel the subscription.
Of course, trigger-based messaging can only work if the marketer really knows the customer. So it’s important to use an email-sending platform that will gather certain information, both demographic and “psychographic,” into a user-friendly database. Once such a database is compiled, the marketer can start creating triggers based on consumers’ preferences and personal profiles. (And maybe this database creation can be accelerated by using a product-click triggered email campaign first.)
Clearly, marketers who aren’t yet in email had better get cracking. Their competitors have already mastered the basics!
Some marketers have only recently realized the importance of email. Others think it’s old hat. But true forward-thinkers are already taking their campaigns to the next level.
A business blogger at the Sydney Morning Herald points out a particular email discussion that happened at the Adtech conference held in Sydney this week, regarding “trigger-based” messages. Trigger-based email is sent according to a consumer’s particular behavior or preferences. For example, in an emailed company newsletter, there might be a link about a particular product. When the reader clicks on that link, this then triggers another email sent to the customer, offering a special sales offer regarding that product. Such links don’t have to be about a company’s product; a consumer’s birthday or purchasing preferences are other types of triggers.
Trigger-based messages, then, ensure that a brand remains engaged with and relevant to consumers by giving them important updates. The Herald blog points to HSBC Bank in Australia, which used trigger-based email marketing “to keep consumers engaged and informed” during their loan application process. This was done because many loan applicants shop around with several banks, and HSBC did not want them to go elsewhere for their loans. The upshot? HSBC Bank saw an approximately 65 percent improvement in acceptance of home loans.
Think of trigger-based email as the master’s degree after getting a bachelor degree in email marketing: The rules of email marketing best practices must foremost be understood and used. The customer must be the one to subscribe to get email messages, and the company must explain what to expect in these messages–as well as how often to expect them. As always, relevance is the key–if you start sending messages of the type that were not expected, the consumer might ignore your email and/or cancel the subscription.
Of course, trigger-based messaging can only work if the marketer really knows the customer. So it’s important to use an email-sending platform that will gather certain information, both demographic and “psychographic,” into a user-friendly database. Once such a database is compiled, the marketer can start creating triggers based on consumers’ preferences and personal profiles. (And maybe this database creation can be accelerated by using a product-click triggered email campaign first.)
Clearly, marketers who aren’t yet in email had better get cracking. Their competitors have already mastered the basics!
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Stretching 60 metres across and featuring blue halo lighting, sculptured front-lit lettering 2.5 metres tall and a variety of 2D cut-out cha... -
Creating online content is easy. However, creating actionable online content without using the right tools can be quite challenging. The g...
