Data or Love?

I'm reading an article in warc's morning newsletter titled "Brand Owners Must Build New Marketing Systems". It provides great commentary on the need for brands to think beyond the banner ad and approach the digital space differently than traditional media, correctly stating "in a Web 2.0 world... [it] isn't simply a matter of throwing some banner ads against a few likely websites and seeing what sticks." I was expecting the article to take a deeper dive into relationship building, however what followed felt like more of the same old, advice... more 1.5 than 2.0:

Any adequate response to the evolving preferences of shoppers should be premised on exploiting the vast amount of data now available

More broadly, corporate leadership, skill sets and incentives ought to be "geared towards the digital world" rather than reinforcing outdated models

While the article (based largely on data from a recent Booz & Co report) is tactically focused, almost systems based (and presumably not meant to address communication/relationship strategy), the absence of brand culture and community building is hard to ignore.

It still surprises me, even when we're talking about amplification tools, that we can ignore the importance of brand integration and brand culture. Echoing what so many have said before: branding is no longer (nor should it ever have been) the sole responsibility of the marketing department. No matter how fine tuned a communications plan is, if brands continue to focus on a) marketing materials to carry the burden of the brand message and b) building a brand that is not lived and loved by ALL employees, meaningful connections will not be meaningful at all, they'll continue to be traditional advertising (maybe in a non-traditional format). Zappos, Patagonia, Apple etc. are all great cases of integrated branding done right. Comcast, just about every legacy carrier, Bank of America etc. are examples of integrated branding gone wrong.

Let's face it, there's no ignoring internal branding. Every interaction with a company from traditional mass communication to the mile long receipt you get on check out, is a brand experience that gets hardwired into the consumer's mind.

My point is this: while the digital world is quantifiable and measurable, its greatest asset is qualitative. It's the relationships it has enabled us to build. Rather than spend millions focusing on fine tuning metrics and determining the best time to email, allocate resources to defining the brand's personality and expressing that in a natural, human way. It's a damn shame that we've gotten to the point where this is synonymous with unconventional in the business world.

I've long heard the phrase data is king. It's time data took up an advisory role and brand culture took its rightful seat at the head of the table.

Instead of Starting to Do It Right, Let's Stop Doing it Wrong

I was listening to an interview with a retail manager at Macy's on NPR's Marketplace on my way home last week. They were discussing their new marketing strategy, which was in essence – listening to consumers, tracking what they purchased and holding events that were customized to the local demographic. Or, in other words, "looking for other ways to stand out...retailers are tailoring products to local shoppers."

In short, this particular Macy's had started to think and act like a community member instead of a mega corp. Fine and good, but what strikes me as odd is that we're talking about this strategy as if it's something new. If large corporations are just thinking of this strategy now (despite the fact that companies have been doing this for ages, not to mention the fact that the web is founded on customization) then...well shit, I'm at a loss for words.

It's time we, as consumers, demand more and we, as brand partners, help clients understand that the brand experience goes beyond logo and brand personality. It needs to be integrated into all facets of the business model from sourcing to web functionality to business process to how easy it is to open a package.

One Size Fits All Brand Strategy.

Name it Awesome.

Spill Your Guts: Strategy & Intuition...Sitting in a Tree...

In a meeting earlier today, while discussing strategic direction for start-ups, someone chimed in "let's not plan to the point of perfection and sacrifice actually getting something done." It made me stop, smile, and remember that some of the greatest strategy is guided straight by the gut, influenced by opinion and cemented with passion.

I don't want to sit here pontificating on the reasons why this is the case; and sure enough, this is nothing new...the same "don't ignore your gut" advice is in every book on planning. However, at the end of the day, a strategy is only as good as its execution. And that's one huge advantage of a direction that the team is emotionally invested in...it's a hell of a lot easier to get excited about sound strategy built on sweat and love than reams of quantitative and piles of binary. Which begs the question, how good are you at selling the "unromantic."

The Advertising Challenge & Johnny Cash's One Piece at a Time

I'm rereading Jon Steel's Truth, Lies & Advertising. In the opening chapter he addresses the ever-persistent rift between effectiveness and efficiency. Efficiency, Steel explains is "doing something the right way" and effectiveness is "doing the right thing." A narrow minded, intense focus on "the right way" leads to the wrong results. In other words, if we're too focused on checking the boxes, we're likely to miss the intangible that make things work beautifully.

It's a forest through the trees thing and his point reminds me of the challenges agencies and brands are facing today. Looking down briefs, processes and project requirements, too often we're hitting check boxes blindly in an effort to meet productivity goals and get a project out the door. The effect, as Steel writes, is a tightly manicured, but misguided product

In my own view, the advertising industry too often preaches effectiveness while actually pursuing efficiency, transforming...a real world of difficult decisions and uncertain evidence into a comfortingly simplified one where indicies of performance are hard facts...

A friend sent me this video this morning, and I couldn't help but draw the parallel. And as I wrote this...Johnny Cash came to mind. In both cases all the pieces are there, the boxes are checked...so we've got efficiency covered...how about effectiveness?

Harvard Tea: Brand Micro-culture...or Synchronisity?

I made a mistake today when I was on Harvard's campus. While at the university's bookstore, I saw a POS display promoting "Well Red" tea from Republic of Tea. Guessing the tea company was nodding to the Harvard Crimson, I thought "shit, that's smart...make a tea blend specifically for a stressed-out audience and tap into their demonstrated enthusiasm. Way to integrate yourselves and way to think of a small audience with potential huge payoff..." But I was wrong...the "red" in "Well Red" is a line of tea using the red tea roobios as its main ingredient.

Despite the mistake, the idea is born from brand association/sponsorship that has been around for ages from toys in Happy Meals to product placement (Audi anyone?)...brands have always been looking for the right opportunity to integrate themselves into their audiences' lives.

It's almost cliche to say it, but with the increased clutter/competition brands face in the market and an audience that is ever distracted, integration is more important than ever. However, in my truly humble "bloggy" quick opinion, I'd argue there's potential for brands to do a better job with their partnerships.

What struck me about my make believe Republic of Tea/Harvard partnership was that a) tea is a perfect product for stressed out college students b) it was an inventive use of red tea and c) it was an example of brand micro-culture, which, in essence is why we love the web. It was the long tail theory in practice in the corporeal world - as if someone was saying "you like tea, you like Harvard, there's a product for you." It's that type of intimate, close to personalized connection, that once made relationships between brands and consumers so great (way back before mass production) and the web has made so great again. Just sayin'....

Have an example? Share it.

col*LAB*orate III: If Monsters Can, Why Can't We?

Selecting Sesame Street for our next installment in the col*LAB*orate series was an obvious choice, the challenge is which feature of the production should be highlighted. Sesame Street bridged the socio/economic divide, it captured the spirit of the time, it taught kids, it taught adults and it was funny as all hell. But above all, what really struck me about this show, was its far fetched approach to diversity and tolerance.

Henson and his team tackled these mammoth topics with a light-hearted, caviler nature that we all too often shelf when we attack big issues. So we're tipping our hats to one of the most perfect col*LAB*orations I know, the bond between monsters and humans on Sesame Street...teaching us that if Grouchy-Trash-Can-Living Creatures, OCD Counting Nobility, Imaginary Animals, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Asians, Old, Young and everyone else can get along...what's our problem?

Thanks to A&E Biography for their inspiration from their feature on Sesame Street.

Paradigm Shifting & Brand Cultures

During this morning's reading I came across little description of paradigm shifts via Erik Du Plessis in The Advertised Mind. Some of my favorite lines follow

• A paradigm shift derives from a discovery in one field, but a major shift affects other fields as well...
• Many people cling to the old paradigm even after it is clear that the new one is a better fit with experience...
• When there is a shift to a new paradigm previous knowledge makes more sense...
  

We are in the midst of a full fledged paradigm shift. The sinewy threads of the World Wide Web have connected folks previously stranded on an island of their peculiar interests (both personal and brand related). There are communities for everything. It's a cross section of celebrating individuality and a threat of homogeneity as we all discover that we're not that unique.

One implication, that we've written about before and continue to be enthralled with, is the effect of transparency and the aggregation of information. The Internet has reinforced our natural desire to build and interact with cultures, not just objects or products. And that is a clear paradigm shift. We're all recognizing the impact of our purchase decisions and that a purchase supports more than a product, it supports an entire brand culture.

More than ever, brands need to understand they are a culture and that a consumer's purchase is an investment into that culture. Likewise, as consumers evolve they will need to understand the power of their purchase. With the web making transparency and sharing easier and easier, we can expect to see some exciting changes and advancements in conscientious consumption and consumer communities.