Innovation and Angry Birds

Having built something of a presence for myself on social media, I have no shortage of like-minded people around the world sending links to interesting ideas and articles.

In fact this has been where much of the content for this column has come from over the years.

Recently I got sent a link to a blog post that really got me thinking. It was titled; Can the next Instagram or Angry Birds be born within an agency?

The post in question was written by Murat Mutlu, a UK based creative innovation consultant, specialising in mobile communications.

Like me Mutlu has spent most of his working life within agencies, because, as he puts it, “The combination of creative and technical minds, plus big brands, has always had that lure and promise of creating amazing work.”

Mutlu argues that the reason ideas and utilities like Instagram could never be created in an agency is primarily down to two things – agency culture and clients themselves.

I have to admit I disagreed strongly with him on both counts.

I thought back over my career and came up with numerous examples of great work that would never have happened without the support of agency and client.

However, as I delved deeper into Mutlu’s post, I came to the conclusion that even though I disagreed with him, his argument was entirely valid.

So what changed my mind? This;

“Brands need to realise that the available hours and minutes of the people they are trying to reach are being eaten up by Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Angry Birds and browsing the web.”

Of course brands and their ads have always had to fight for our attention. But cutting through the clutter on television in the days of old was a lot more straightforward than gaining, and more importantly holding, someone’s attention in the digital world.

And, as I have argued for years, wouldn’t it better if we stopped spending our clients’ money on ads and similar branded messaging, and started creating things for brands that people could actually use and benefit from?

One example Mutlu gives is the incredibly popular social camera app Instagram.

Unless you’ve been living in the Amazon jungle for the last year, you’re sure to be familiar with Instagram and its amazing uptake. It really is a phenomenon.

So how come Kodak, or some other photography related brand for that matter, didn’t come up with the idea? After all, it seems kind of obvious that a camera maker would offer a camera app.

Yet Instagram was created by a couple of people with very little funding, as far as I’m aware.

This canny little idea, which was launched via the Apple App Store in October last year, has amassed more than 7 million users, who upload around 1.3 million photos every day.

You can bet your bottom dollar that most camera makers, and their agencies, are kicking themselves that they never thought of an idea like Instagram.

Or maybe they did. But a combination of client reticence, perceptions of what an agency actually does, and maybe even a reluctance to invest due to fear of failure, put paid to the idea in its early stages.

I guess we’ll never know.

But what I do know is that creative people, and I consider myself one of them, love dreaming up ideas. And whether those ideas are big or small, there is nothing worse than seeing a great idea die.

Not fail, die. Because an idea can only fail if it is actually produced.

And if agencies and their clients continue to focus more on so called success metrics than giving people something to fall in love with, then the next big thing in the digital world is never going to come out of an agency. Sadly.

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Murat Mutlu

Be nice people

In its infancy this column brought the chatter and commentary of the advertising blogosphere into a monthly periodical read by a group of people who had better things to do than read ad blogs.

At the end of most of my columns I’ve shared links to the websites and blogs where the conversations I had written about were taking place.

Over the journey there have been many emails and blog comments from readers thanking me for introducing them to a wealth of knowledge, ideas and thinking that they were totally unaware of.

All of it available on the internet. All of it free. And pretty much all of it self-published.

In recent times however, there has been much written and discussed about industry blogs. More specifically the bile and vitriol that appears on these blogs in the form of anonymous comments.

David Nobay from Droga5 in Sydney wrote about the problem a year or two ago. His article stirred up a hornet’s nest that sadly has since dissipated.

More recently John Mescall from the agency Smart has also rallied against anonymous comments and the overwhelming negativity that has become a feature of industry blogs.

He’s so fed up with the situation he’s; “Decided to make a deliberate attempt to opt out of being critical of other people’s work in public forums.”

Yet when I visited Mescall’s blog I found the following comment by someone known only as Susan;

“Reading your opinions about other peoples ideas for the names of hairdressing salons made me realise you are putting down others to make yourself look good.”

She went on to say, “…you have insulted them, but in such a way that is tacky and unprofessional to say the least.”

Ouch!

Personally I think it’s time we as individuals all took a long hard look at ourselves. And, as my Mum told me many years ago, treat people the same way we would like to be treated. Not just in blog comments, but in life.

Anyway, back to the blogs.

What so many adland figures who are critical of blog commenters don’t seem to realise, is that this situation is not unique to adland. Far from it.

It is rife amongst teenage Facebook users. And a major problem on YouTube. Yes YouTube.

You may think YouTube is just a place to go watch inane videos of Lol Cats, but scroll down the page an inch or two and nine times out of ten you’ll find some of the most horrendous bitchy, bullying commentary.

There’s no shortage of nasty racist undertones either. Yet we never hear of people getting on their high horse about the comments on YouTube.

Someone who has looked beyond the industry blogs is New York based digital entrepreneur, Anil Dash, who recently published a piece titled, “If your website’s full of assholes, it’s your fault”.

“How many times,” says Dash, “have you seen a website say we're not responsible for the content of our comments?”

Quite a lot I’d say.

As does Dash, who argues that there is a moral obligation expected of anyone who runs a blog or website where anti-social comments happen.

“It's your fault, say Dash. Take some goddamn responsibility for what you unleash on the world.

When people are saying ruinously cruel things about each other, and you're the person who made it possible, it's 100% your fault.

If you aren't willing to be a grown-up about that, then that's okay, but you're not ready to have a web business.”

Interesting perspective, don’t you think?

Of course it’s easy to blame the commenters. And so we should. But how ‘bout we follow Anil Dash’s lead and take aim at the blog owners too?

Failing that, as I mentioned before, let’s all start treating each other in the exact same way we would expect people to treat us.

Nicely!

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Anil Dash

John Mescall

Power of the brand

In the morning, while I’m having a shower and shave, I get a little bit of me time that I’m rarely able to get anywhere else.

And during that time I listen to sports radio.

My wife can’t stand it. Too much talking, blokey humour, and way too much football. Especially for first thing in the morning!

This 15 to 20 minute oasis of me time however has been interrupted of late by tobacco industry advertising.

Which is weird, because I thought the tobacco industry wasn’t allowed to advertise.

Anyway, the ads in question are not advertising tobacco, but arguing against impending plain packaging legislation.

The strategy behind these ads is quite clever I think, and they have a lot in common with the scaremongering we more usually associate with political advertising.

Which in essence is what the campaign is.

But scratch below the surface of the scare tactics and you’ll find that it is the tobacco industry itself that is scared.

And it is scared because the government is looking to legislate against something truly powerful and seriously addictive.

No, not tobacco. Brands.

As a reader of this magazine you know a strong brand is the most valuable asset a company can have.

There are numerous ways to define the meaning of the term brand. My favourite, is a brand is a consumer’s gut reaction to a service or product.

I’m sure there are many other variations of this.

In fact, if you search the question what is a brand on Google, you’ll get somewhere in the region of 220 million results.

The power of brands should never be under estimated. The government knows this and so too does the tobacco industry.

One man who really understands is Kevin Roberts of Saatchi & Saatchi, the man who coined the term Lovemarks.

He recently wrote on his blog about a BBC TV show he had just watched about superbrands;

“Chances are when you’re wandering around your local store doing your weekly grocery shop there are brands you gravitate to.

Without a second thought your trolley fills with brands that have a familiar spot in your cupboards at home, and you feel happy about that.

Happier than if you’d actually bought the exact same products under a different label, because these are the brands that mean something more to you.”

And with that oh so simple observation Kevin has nailed exactly what the plain packaging argument is all about.

It’s not about black marketeering. It’s not about gangsters and illegal imports. It’s about the inexplicable power and value of brands.

The golden box. The cursive font. The masculine overtones of the red and white colour combination. All of these seemingly small details are incredibly important. And valuable.

To borrow from Kevin Roberts, “They fire positive emotions that inspire loyalty.”

So it stands to reason, that if the government take away those things that fire positive emotions, then all that is left is a product.

Now I’m no expert, but I suspect that without the benefits of branding, cigarettes are pretty much interchangeable. Much like many of the products in our supermarkets.

And as Kevin Roberts says, “If you love the brand, the product actually tastes better. Effectively, your mind has seasoned it with love.”

So if you take away the seemingly intangible things people love about a product, then all you have left is the product itself.

Which on the surface may not seem like much, but is startling new territory in the government versus tobacco industry game.

Because, as Mr Lovemarks himself says, “The brands that bring us the greatest joy are like calling home, meeting a friend or turning through the pages of a photo album.”

And if we take away that joy, then perhaps our fondness for the product in question will dwindle.

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Kevin Roberts

Secrets of the superbrands

Recommendation engine

A few months ago a very good friend of mine sent me a link to a British newspaper review of a compilation album of early seventies music recorded in the southern states of the USA.

Now whilst I’m a child of the seventies, and love much of the music from that period, so called southern rock has never been of interest to me. Way too many beards and confederate flags.

However the friend who sent me the link is someone I trust when it comes to music. So if he recommends an album, I’m prepared to investigate further.

So off I went to Amazon, where the album had a series of glowing four and five star reviews.

Now seriously tempted, my next stop was iTunes, where I purchased the album. And it is indeed a great collection of music, by bands I would generally avoid like the plague.

This morning an email arrived in my inbox from Amazon suggesting albums I might like, based on my viewing of the southern rock compilation.

Whilst I love the idea of recommendation engines, my Amazon email proved to me that they can’t always be trusted. Well not by someone with specialised taste in music anyway!

In order to work really well, like good research, they need to make recommendations based on a broad source. An email after looking at just one album really can’t be accurate enough.

I should point out though, that I regularly get emails of this type from Amazon, and they’re generally pretty good in their choice of album and book suggestions.

Anyway, before I go way off track, let’s go back to the beginning of this month’s column – a recommendation from a friend.

Otherwise known as word of mouth this is what Bill Bernbach referred to decades ago as the most powerful form of advertising.

Bear in mind that when Bernbach made this statement the internet had yet to be invented. And it is via the internet that word of mouth goes in to overdrive.

It is why social media has to be a priority for any marketer today.

Because as exciting as it may seem to be involved a big budget TV ad with a hotshot director behind the camera, the recommendation of a friend is far more powerful.

And if you can get people to recommend your brand or product to their friends, then you’re definitely onto a winner.

Which brings me back to Amazon.

You see their recommendations are based on things they think you’re interested in. Which obviously sounds like a great idea, but based on the recent email they sent me is far from perfect.

I however have another problem with the recommendation engine model.

If everything you buy is based on things you have previously purchased or expressed an interest in, then how on earth are you going to discover something completely new?

And by completely new I mean something different, unexpected or outside your usual area of interest.

You can’t stumble upon something by accident if everything you buy is based on your shopping habits.

Which means that your shopping habits can very easily end up stereotyping you. The same applies to many of the smart new digital magazine formats.

I love the idea of the recently launched Zite – an iPad based magazine that learns which articles you do and don’t like, then over time personalises the content to suit you.

Sounds brilliant, but you could easily end up with everything you read being based on what you have read in the past.

Which, just like the recommendation engine, prevents you from stepping outside of your comfort zone and discovering completely new things.

Now that narrow minded digitally programmed way of living may suit some people, but it sure doesn’t suit me.

And hopefully it won’t suit you either.

Addicted to digital

The other day I was on the train on my way to the office. It was peak hour, and I ended up having to stand up most of the way. Sitting in front of me for a large part of the journey was a smartly dressed woman with an iPad.

Nothing out of the ordinary about that these days, but I couldn’t help sneaking a peak at what she was doing on her iPad.

Watching a movie? No.

Catching up on the latest news? No.

Playing Angry Birds? Sadly not!

In fact, for the entire twenty minute journey the woman did nothing more than check her email.

She opened emails. She read some of them. And deleted many of them. She also replied to one or two. But that was pretty much all she did during her journey to work.

A year ago this lady would have probably done the exact same thing on her smart phone. I doubt she’s alone in this behaviour. I often check emails on my iPhone. I’m sure you do too.

The thing is, it’s getting harder and harder to discipline yourself to actually switch off when you’re out of the office.

So just as many people have made a tree or sea change to break free of the urban grind, people are now starting to make the same kind of change digitally.

A digital sea change, if you will.

I first came across this phenomenon a couple of weeks ago when I caught up with my friend Ned Dwyer for a drink after work.

A partner in a small digital agency, he is of course an early adopter of most digital gadgets and devices.

During the course of our conversation, Ned answered a mobile phone call on exactly that – a mobile phone.

Not an iPhone. Not a Blackberry. Not even some sort of Android device. Just a good old mobile phone. The sort of phone I didn’t even realise they made any more.

I knew he had an iPhone, so I asked what happened to it. He laughed and said he’d send me a link in the morning. Which of course he did.

The link clicked through to a blog post that he’d recently published entitled; “Why we ditched our iPhones.” It’s a fascinating read. Here’s the opening couple of paragraphs;

“Over the last three months we’ve all switched off our iPhones, put them in a drawer and embraced the lo-fi life that comes with owning a burner.

A burner is the most basic handset that you can get.

The reference is from HBO’s The Wire where the drug-dealing protagonists are reduced to talking on pre-paid mobile phones that they can throw away to keep police off their backs.

There is no email, no Bluetooth, no camera. Just SMS and phone calls.”

Now I don’t know about you, but the idea of switching to a back-to-basics mobile sounds like hell on earth to me. I simply can’t imagine life without my iPhone.

However it looks like the optimum connectivity offered by smart devices like the iPhone is beginning to overwhelm people.

I guess one person’s idea of convenience is another’s notion of hell. But according to Ned Dwyer, there is a genuine upside to disconnecting;

“The best thing is the extra time that it gives you to sit and think. It forces you to take stock of your surroundings and get comfortable with your own company.”

Again, that sounds great in theory, but I’m still not sure that it’s for me.

However, as Ned himself says, “We’re connected to more information than we could ever consume in a lifetime, stealing moments away from the network is the best way to keep our sanity.”

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Ned Dwyer

Mail moments

On average 294 billion emails are sent every day. Not every week, every day. That is, I’m sure you’d agree, one hell of a lot of emails.

When I came across this statistic last week, it had me wondering how many emails would be sent of people had to pay for the privilege.

You see, like many digital offerings impacting on the offline world, email is and always has been free.

Unlike stamps, envelopes and packages.

Just imagine how many people would be far less inclined to communicate via email if it cost a couple of cents to send one.

And as for the spam industry, well the less said the better. In fact, the minimal cost of emailing thousands of people at any given time is what gave birth to spam in the first place.

Take spam out of the equation and the number of daily emails would probably be reduced quite substantially.

The daily number however would still be enormous. I wonder if it still will be many years from now?

Last year there was a lot of chatter in the blogosphere about Facebook introducing an email service.

Much of the talk centred around Facebook taking on Google’s G-Mail service and Microsoft’s Hotmail.

I spoke to my 18-year-old daughter about it and she couldn’t understand why anyone would want a Facebook email.

When I asked her to clarify why she had said this, she rolled her eyes (as teenagers tend to do) and proclaimed that email is too slow.

Too slow!

She went on to tell me that she had a couple of email addresses but very rarely used them, preferring instead to use instant messaging services, especially the one in Facebook or good old text messaging on her phone.

Which surely points to a decline in email use in the not too distant future, as my daughter and millions of kids younger than her, begin to enter the workforce.

So what then, does the future hold for good old snail mail?

After all, if my daughter says email is too slow, what on earth would she think of the postal service?

Well believe it or not, she holds it in very high regard.

Perhaps because we receive so little personal mail these days, she sees mail addressed to her as something special. Something worthwhile. And definitely something worth waiting for.

Hard to believe I know, but this “I want it now” generation is more than happy to wait for things that are worth waiting for.

My 14-year-old son is the same.

He ordered a skateboard from a website in the USA and is more than happy to wait six weeks for it to arrive. Weird, I know, but I think it bodes well for the direct marketing industry.

At least I hope it does!

Last year I judged at Australia’s greatest showcase for direct marketing, the ADMA Awards. One thing that really struck me during the judging was how few truly great direct mail packs there were.

Obviously email is impacting on direct mail volumes. A lot.

After all, if a stamp costs 60c, then it must be getting harder and harder for marketers to justify not communicating with their customer base via low cost email.

But just as kids hold the future of email in their hands, so too could they represent the saviours of direct mail.

This generation of kids who say email is too slow and, believe it or not, old fashioned, may not like brands to communicate with them via this channel.

What they may appreciate though, is brands sending them offers and enticements using good old snail mail.

Why?

Because, like you and me, they like to feel loved. And nothing makes a customer feel more valued than receiving something special in the mail.

That’s something special by the way. Not some cheap and tacky piece of junk mail.

Things seen differently

I read two outstanding think pieces about the advertising business last month. As is so often the case, both of them were on blogs, not in the trade press.

And both of them were written by planners; Amelia Torode, who is based in the UK, and Bud Cadell, who is based in the USA.

That, however, is where the similarity ends.

Torode’s piece, which generated plenty of blog comments and discussion, was titled “The future of advertising is utterly depressing.”

With a title like that, you know you’re up for an interesting read, especially given the current wave of change sweeping through the ad business.

On the surface, Bud Caddell’s piece had very little in common with Amelia Torode’s.

Snappily titled, “Rock stars, ninjas and assholes,” it looked at a something regularly discussed within the walls of agencies – people with a reputation for big ideas and even bigger attitude.

As a nigh on twenty year veteran of agency land, I have had plenty of experience with industry rock stars. Some of it good, some of it not so good, but always focussed in and around innovation and ideas.

And in my experience, people who are often dismissed or derided as rock stars, tend to be the people who drive agencies forward.

To quote from Apple’s legendary “Think Different” ad from many years ago;

“They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.

Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They explore. They create. They inspire.”

Bud Caldwell’s piece came not to damn the rock star, but to recast him or her. Which is why he also used the terms ninja and assholes.

In Caldwell’s eyes, “An asshole is an asshole, and assholes are not a new phenomenon. You shouldn’t hire them if you can’t stand them.”

No argument from me there.

As Caldwell says, “An asshole is someone who makes everyone’s life miserable, even when it has nothing to do with work.”

Rock stars however are an entirely different beast. And rock stars, I think, will be the people who help define the future of our industry.

Unlike previous generations though, the rock stars of today and tomorrow could well be found outside of agency creative departments.

The likes of Google and Facebook are proof of this.

Clever kids who were conveniently categorized as geeks and nerds, who went on to revolutionise our business using codes and algorithms.

For Amelia Torode, the future of our business may lay with, she feels, “People who don’t know (or dare I say care) about Snow Plough or Saatchi & Saatchi in the 80’s.”

I disagree.

And agree as well.

The new comers to our industry, people schooled in writing code and developing, are never going to be interested in Volkswagen’s classic Snow Plough ad.

This is because these people are generally not interested in the field of communication loosely known as advertising.

What they are interested in using their creativity to solve problems, innovation and rising to a challenge.

These are traits they share with the people who created the Snow Plough ad back in the pre-digital age.

The Saatchi brothers also shared these traits, as did legendary figures like Bill Bernbach and David Ogilvy.

For these people were the industry rock stars of their day.

And as Bud Caldwell clearly identifies in his blog post, rock stars should never be confused with assholes.

Another name for rock stars, I believe, is a term coined by Amelia Torode for another group of people she thinks will define the industry of the future, “madder people.”

I quite like the term madder people to be honest.

Although, I still think the best definition of all can be found in the Apple “Think Different” ad – “The ones who see things differently.”

They may often be a pain in the butt, but these rebels with a cause will create the industry of tomorrow. Not smiling, always looking to please “yes men” in perfectly tailored suits.

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Amelia Torode

Bud Caddell