The other day, I was listening to a popular marketing podcast. This was a post super bowl episode, and the topic was the commercials. Guests on the show included various brand managers and agency folk. They were talking about a common theme of their work which they all agreed was the big driver of their success.
They waxed on in glorious terms about their achievements in large part due to this major insight. It was if they were the first to discover electricity or the Beatles or something…. I turned up the volume.
The driver of their work, the holy grail, the golden nugget, the secret sauce…”it’s all about the customer.”
That’s it. The customer. They managed to fill over 40 minutes of airtime talking about why it is essential to keep the customer first in all they do and how it affects the strategy and the work and the success of their work.
Maybe these folks were raised by robots. The notion that the audience is central to their success seemed a revelation. Hello? These were all articulate people but to me they missed an opportunity to have a more nuanced and valuable discussion about their audience insight and not limit themselves to the cleverness of the work.
Audience, Brand, Creative – the ABC’s of advertising.
As one of the last truly large-scale communal cultural events, super bowls ads are no longer simply about advertising, they are part of the show, the cultural moment, let’s go all-in and call it a high point. But the real game is away from the ball. The real game of advertising is being won and lost in the trenches, day-in and day-out. It’s the integrated campaigns that have the legs to live in the media, where the customer lives every day that will be the real winners. The Super bowl happens once a year, the super segmented social super bowl (say that 10 times fast) happens 24/7, 365. There is no getting around it. Targeted media to your Audience, the Brand relevance, and the Creativity to make it stick.
After reading the rankings from Forbes, NY Times, Boston Globe, iSpot TV, USA Today’s Ad Meter and others, it’s clear that if you are in need of support to justify your personal top 5- 10 spots you are bound to find it. Only a couple of the rankings mentioned consideration of the game away from the ball; the knock-on effect of the social impact of a strategically integrated idea, an idea with its hooks in culture. The more thoughtfully integrated ideas have potential for real shelf life, the rest are at risk of just being part of game day entertainment.
Perhaps being entertaining is enough, but to quote a famous film about football, Show me the money.
According to Inside Higher Ed, The College of Saint Rose is not alone in the sinking ship of colleges floundering on the reefs of change.
From Inside Higher Ed: Saint Rose’s closure was preceded by similar announcements from other institutions this year, including Magdalen College, Lincoln Christian University, Alderson Broaddus University, Alliance University, Cabrini University, Cardinal Stritch University, Finlandia University, Hodges University, Holy Names University, Iowa Wesleyan University, Medaille University, Presentation College and various for-profits. Though it has not announced a closure, the King’s College in New York City has ceased its academic offerings and was stripped of accreditation earlier this year.
For the sake of brevity, I am not going to attempt to outline all the contributing socio-economic factors that are dramatically impacting higher ed these days. Running a college is like running a small country, no easy task. There are near countless factors that contribute to the sustenance of a college. The ultimate expression of success is the ability to attract more students than the college can handle in any given academic year; keeping demand high. But what keeps demand high in higher ed? Where did Saint Rose go wrong, where are all these colleges and many, many others going wrong?
A few years ago, I was privileged to judge marketing and creativity awards in higher ed. These are recruitment campaigns designed to entice college bound students to choose for themselves the “perfect college.” With rare exception, most of these campaigns were undifferentiated. It would be quite easy to remove the names and logos and not be able to tell one from the other. All the same types of pictures of smiling students, shiny new buildings, earnest student – instructor interactions, clubs, events, sports, food porn. All of it the essential table stakes in editorializing the institution.
At some point in the not-too-distant past, colleges began an arms race of infrastructure development. Money was readily available, and loans were easy to get. I can hear the marketplace research, “students and families are wanting a different experience, we need to make these improvements to keep them looking our way.” The rationalizations, no matter how justified and legitimate, failed to grasp the bigger picture, that this is a treadmill that is hard to get off, especially when it becomes what you are selling. And that is exactly what began happening. Colleges began selling shiny new buildings, dormitories as nice as any hotel, state-of-the-art fitness facilities, etc. For institutions without the marketplace momentum and financials to play this game, remaining in contention is going to be a herculean task.
9 years ago, we responded to an RFP from a college, which will remain nameless. During the process, the college held an open Q&A for all those responding to the RFP. There were approximately 30 people in the audience with another dozen or so seated at the front of the room giving the briefing. This is already not a good sign, too many opinions on the selection committee. During the briefing, what became apparent to anyone really listening was that one of the main criteria for a successful candidate was the ability to demonstrate that you could do exactly the type of work that was done before.
When approaching Manhattan, from any direction one is inevitably struck by all the towers of the skyline. Gleaming beacons, with distinctive architectural styles.
Colleges would do well to remember that when someone takes the decision to ride to the top of the Freedom Tower, ultimately the view matters more than the building.
Scrolling and clicking, clicking, and scrolling, the mobile economy is surely a boon to retail brands. Strong brands are not defined by sales alone. Strong brands are built on a feeling.
None of this is new or news, yet the media environment and the metrics associated with algorithms of mobile media would appear to favor sales at the expense of brand building.
There is more than one way to build a brand. All brands want to achieve sales. The differences in approach to building a brand often have to do with its origins. If you built your brand out of your garage, then sales are essential to keep building and growing and keeping the lights on. In this scenario, sales are essential to keep funding the operation. If your product or service is good and your sales grow, you’re a success at creating something of value. Why need awareness advertising and brand building efforts? Let’s call this garage scenario brand A.
Let’s consider another scenario, we’ll call it brand B. You’re a well-established entity that has already achieved scale and you have a new idea for a product or service, and you have budget. You can build demand for this brand through an awareness advertising campaign that demonstrates or implies the value of your new idea. This will be the lead driver of sales. In scenario B, you are investing in a feeling, in the aspiration of your idea as an integral part of the life of the consumer. If the advertising is effective and the brand idea is good and the product or service delivers on its promise, you’ll begin to grow your brand and sales too.
How do you measure the effectiveness of one approach over the other? Let’s conduct a thought experiment. If your brand were to disappear, is it easily replaced in the lives of consumers? Would it be missed in a manner that people would find disturbing?
Most brand managers don’t like to answer this question.
If the world wakes up tomorrow and the Apple brand is gone, is there a replacement? Nike? Amazon? Prada?
Functionally you may try to argue there are alternatives. Emotionally, if you’re being honest, your response will be no. This is the signal of a true brand, it’s irreplaceable in hearts and minds.
Why? Brands and branding are not simply about driving sales. It’s about making deep connections with your audience. Connections that head for the heart. It’s these connections that drive more than sales, they drive loyalty above all other choices, they create advocacy among users; spokespeople who recommend your brand. They defend against upstarts, build positive association that protect against the odd mishap and build equity. This equity shows up as brand value that support brand extensions, partnerships, and new offerings in an ever-present response to evolving consumer needs. Most importantly, brand drives market value.
If you can only speak of your brand in terms of sales, chances are pretty good it can easily be replaced in the lives of your customers. You can start with scenario A and build a substantial bottom line but failing to invest in the brand building approach of scenario B leaves your business open to the vagaries of ruthless competition with little more to protect you than price.
Price alone is a race to the bottom.
One thing I’ve noticed in this semi-post pandemic work world is that despite demands by many companies that people return to the office, many people continue to work with a remote mindset.
There seems to be an aversion to getting together in the same room and hashing it out, whatever it is. Physically, on days back in the office, people are not taking full advantage of the opportunity for being in the same place at the same time, working on the same stuff, solving problems together. And, most importantly, learning from each other.
The world is suffering a virtual hangover.
Poor habits from the home office abound. For example, chatting via text or slack, slacking off is what I’m calling it. If you’re a senior manager, you have the obligation to guide junior team members, who may lack the experience as well as others who should know better. It’s your job. Get the ball rolling, help your teams appreciate the benefits of getting into the same room and hammering out a solution.
No more slack time.
If you’re running a brand, a marketing team, agency or even a production company, I can offer you this insight. There are members of these teams who are junior and have no idea what they are doing. They are wasting a great deal of time and probably costing you money. They need leadership, management, and mentors.
Tools like Slack are effective when used with intention and clear purpose. In fact they can save time and create efficiency, but they are terrible for training your team on the ins and outs of producing great work.
I’m happy to bill you for my time.
A friend of Henri Cartier Bresson once said to him, “you do not work, you take a hard pleasure.”
While I often feel I’m working very hard and certainly too long, I must admit I take a pleasure in the work. At its best, it’s inspiring to stare down the proverbial blank sheet of paper.
The work of crafting a simple, expansive idea that holds the power of attention and provokes the desired emotion is where it’s at.
A simple idea can be expressed in many forms and therein lies the charm. This is the hard pleasure, seeing the elegant idea.
As a photographer Bresson was credited with the idea of the decisive moment. He did not come up with these words, but he certainly delivered it with his eye and his camera. He could see and anticipate the decisive moment to press the shutter. To capture the emotion and energy of a moment.
I’m charmed by this. Working, searching out the ideas, seeing them come to form. When I’m lucky, I can admit to anticipating the outcome of my efforts, the moment when I click the shutter in the mind and the idea snaps into view.
Bresson would go deeply into his chosen subject, immerse himself completely for weeks, months, years. It is this devotion that allows the decisive moment to be understood. It is the same behind the cameras as it is behind a blank sheet of paper. Total commitment to the subject allows the ideas to surface, to be seen. It is not usually a happy accident. Ideas are a byproduct of the effort of immersion. Of a selfless giving over to the subject.
Whether I have a camera at the ready, a script in hand or a blank sheet of paper, it is a devotion to the subject that renders the outcome. The ideas, the images, flow from a river of details large and small, from vague associations, references, past experiences, seemingly unrelated events, the song of a bird, a passing road sign, overheard conversations, the sound of the subway, a cold shower, a book well read, or a film watched yet again.
Images… ideas emerge. Devotion, immersion, life.
The rise of Ai and its impact on image making has me rethinking what it means to create photographic work. It’s true that images have been easily manipulated since the earliest days of photography, but each day it gets tougher to tell the difference between fiction and non-fiction. It’s wonderful and discouraging at the same time. Photography is not illustration. Ai, to me, is more akin to illustration. This post image was captured approximately 23 years ago during a trip to Andros Island in the Bahamas. I was on a fishing holiday and during down time wandered the island with the Holga. For the uninformed, the Holga is a medium format camera (plastic lens, no light meter). Finding focus is no small task either. Everything by eye and importantly, feel. The B&W film was processed, and I pulled a contact sheet. I would scan the contact sheets because I did not have a film scanner. Other than scanning the contact sheet, no manipulation was done to the image. It is as I saw it, as I captured it. It’s an accurate representation of reality. It is non-fiction.
Ai as a tool of fiction does not diminish its value or potential but to me, it is not photography. It is commercial, it is industrial, it will change many things but for the moment at least, it lacks an easily achieved celluloid negative, proof positive of a life more tangible.
For brands seeking to connect with an audience seeking authenticity, like Gen Z for instance, Ai generated images represent the exact opposite. As consumers we may all get fooled once, but great brands deal in authenticity. It’s true that many a brand has leaned heavily into illustration to tell its value, but those illustrations are also authentic works aligned with the authenticity of the brand. Little opportunity existed for the consumer to question if the talent is a real person, no matter how retouched.
The Dove Real Beauty Campaign is a perfect example of consumers seeking authenticity. There is no room for a lack of authenticity with Dove consumers. Hint, hint, there’s none for your brand either.
An Ai rendering of a person is a complete work of fiction. Is the spokesperson, the influencer real? A lack of authenticity will eventually reveal itself as fiction. Even in the sugary perfection of most advertising campaigns, the greatest brands are anchored in their authenticity. If the lived experience of the customer does not align with the promise, the authenticity of the brand, the customers will vote with their wallets.
Ai generated images make a great case for film capture as a validating providence for images anchored in authentic origins.
The most important context of user experience design is consumer mindset.
Before we start pushing pixels around, we should be working hard to understand consumer wants and needs. Gathering insights into their emotional desires is critical to creating an experience, throughout the entire customer journey, that in both subtle and direct ways will reinforce your brand’s ability to help fulfill their desire.
These learnings can inform all design in both form and content to help deliver effective consumer engagement.
Once prototypes are developed, conducting user experience research, including eye tracking, allow refinements to be made that work to optimize the user experience right down to the micro interaction level.
Creators need to find the right balance between being engaging-entertaining while also being honest about the fact that the entire purpose is to facilitate the customers acquisition of the product or service.
User experience can also be thought of as utility.
The utility of the user experience, as a lens through which to view the entire customer journey, offers designers the opportunity to apply their talents to enhance the performance of the entire team.
Understanding and tracking the entire customer journey is essential to a successful engagement. The fractured media environment today demands simple brand ideas that are delivered simply and always in context of consumer desires. When user experience design diverges from the brand idea, it is no longer doing its job well. There are often opportunities to chase trends and implement ideas, methods, and tactics that may create a short-term boost in sales, but at the same time are weakening the brand.
In the long run, a great, well-executed, brand idea will outperform clever transactional tactics. It takes a strong idea and the willpower to resist the temptation of short-term thinking to build a strong and enduring brand.
To connect the dots, the customer experience journey is an obligation to the brand idea and strong brands are anchored in the mindset of consumer desire.
As some of you may be aware, I’m currently teaching at Skidmore College as the F. William Harder Chair Professor of Management and Business. Being a place of higher education and a fine one at that, there are weekly guest lectures given by thought leaders from both inside and outside academia.
For the most part, these are highly intellectual and interesting discussions. I prefer to think of them as discussions because the Q&A that follow is often more interesting than the lecture itself. Students and faculty engage the speaker with challenging questions. The freewheeling endings, if Skidmore students are a barometer, gives me hope for the future of our country.
A recent discussion led by an extremely well-studied thought leader, presented years of data that pointed to a significant insight in the world of business. I’m not going to try to unpack the topic, my point of writing this post is the use of data.
The data was significant and overwhelmingly clear in what it implied and what could be inferred.
During the Q&A a student asked the million-dollar question. If the data is so clear why is nothing changing…why are the trend lines continuing as they were?
The speakers answer: The data is not enough.
Bingo.
The world has become overly reliant on data as an end point. Data alone is not enough. If it was, no one would ever smoke, Hillary Clinton may have gotten elected and maybe (if this applies to you) more people would buy your brand.
Compelling ideas move people. Ideas that slap folks in the face, stun them into awareness and seep into their hearts, turn ideas into action.
This is the work of creativity. Let’s get busy.
I recently came across this wonderful quote attributed to Ann Richards, commenting on the talents of the famed dancer Ginger Rogers.
“After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.”
The phrase “backwards and in high heels” struck a chord with me. It reminds me of camera work. Especially the hand-held or shoulder mount variety. I love this type of work, particularly in a less scripted context like a documentary project.
It gives the feeling of doing a dance with the subject and the subject matter, following the lead of the story. The work of following the action, framing, pulling focus is very much performance art. It hones the instincts and sharpens the senses. It also places me in the heart of the story, not observing from a distance but observing from the inside.
The intimacy of the viewfinder and anonymity of the camera are a strange and lovely paradox.
When I’m hired to produce a story, it is authenticity we are after. This is what is so powerful about documentary work. It’s an act of bravery. For people who have a story they want to tell, it’s essential that our relationship is anchored in trust and mutual appreciation. It’s all part of the dance that shows up on the screen.
As partner to Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers was certainly his equal, if not superior, in every way.
Their combined talents achieve something more than either could do alone.