larsbusekist

[larsbusekist]

Tiden er kommet for marketing til at betyde noget for kunderne.

Af Lars Busekist, kreativ direktør, Bob the Robot Helsingfors, med speciale i bæredygtig markedsføring, ekstern lektor og konsulent.

Vi står overfor et kæmpe paradigme-skift i værdier og adfærd. Hvad førhen tog en generation tager nu kun et par år. 

Forrige år sad Greta Thunberg alene med et skilt uden foran Rigsdagen i Sverige. For et par dage siden gik hun og over 500 000 mennesker sammen på gaden i Montreal for at beskytte klimaet. Det er det største antal nogen sinde i byens historie. 

Extinction Rebellion - en et årig grøn aktivistisk organisation, som sidste år lagde det centrale London ned i en uge, vil nu gøre det samme i skrivende stund samt rundt om i resten af verden. Deres målsætning er at regeringer skal deklarere en klima krise. Regeringer skal binde sig at være Co2 neutral i 2025. Et nationalt borgerting, skal overvåge ændringerne. 

Det er selvfølgeligt umuligt, og vil kræve kæmpe omlægninger af; hvordan vi stopper med at flyve, spise minimalt kød, ikke drikker mælk, en massiv omlægning til grøn energy etc, men det er en bevægelse støttet af specielt 18-24, og tildels 25-49 årige hvis målsætning må skræmme mange organisationer. 

Vi lever også i en tid, hvor vi ser laboratorie fremstillet kødprotein, som bliver til burger på restauranter i NYC. Det er vanvittige populært, og du kan ikke få en plads, hvis du ville. Sergey Brin fra Google har investeret i et netop sådan et fortagende. 

Det lyder futuristisk tænker sikkert mange, men for en del år siden siden takket Arla nej til et havrebaseret drikke produkt med ordne: “ det smager af helvede til, det kommer ingen til at drikke” Det var Rickard Öste fra Oatly som de takkede nej til. 

Oatly har siden bygget et kæmpe internationalt brand og en enorm international fanbase op ved nettop at gå op mod mælke-industrien. De er pt. ved at bygge 4 nye fabrikker for at kunne levere havreprodukter nok, og når de er færdige, skal de til at bygge nye igen.

Samtidig står mange brands måbende og kigger på og kan ikke flytte sig hurtigt nok der hvor folk er på vej hen.

De fleste reklamebureauer er ligeså fast frosset. De store bliver nødt til at tænke praktisk - på løn til medarbejdere, leje af imponerende kontor lokaler, IT, et overskud til enten de store kæder, konsulenthuse, eller en ejerkreds. De små har ikke råd til at midste en stor kunde.

De fleste bureauer evner derfor ikke insisterende at rådgive kunderne i at løse deres virkelige problemer ved at flytte dem hurtigt nok derhen, og hjælpe folk hvor de i virkligheden allerede er. Det vil være for riskofyldt og ofte alt for aktivistisk for dem. De bliver nødt til at tænke på sig selv – bundlinjen - først.

Forbrugerne, incl mig selv, finder hele tiden på nye måder at undgå reklamer på. Vi bruger adblock stirrer kun på the skip button, spamfiltre tager spam mail, premium modellerne  - gud ske tak og lov ja tak og uden reklamer, men den vigtigste skip button er inde i mit hovede, og hvis det lugter af reklame, er jeg videre, eller - som jeg så en lille dreng i bussen give begge fingre, da han blev afbrudt af en reklame på sin telefon. 

Men hvem tør sige højt til deres kunde, at det de er med til at lave, er ligegyldig spam, som de fleste normale mennesker for enhver pris helst vil undgå?

Netop pga. den manglende værdi for forbrugerne, kan 74% af alle brands i følge Havas Media Group være forsvundet i morgen, uden at forbrugerne vil så meget som løfte et øjenbryn.

Samtidig er produktet blivet mindre vigtigt, vi køber det som brands står for og som passer med vores livssyn. Produkter uden tilsætningstoffer, skabt uden børne arbejde og klima venlige produkter. Hvordan det er tilvirket, transporteret, lavet og solgt, er blevet vigtigere en produkterne selv.

For at give et eksemple. En lille håndfuld Unilever brands stod for 60% af deres globale vækst i 2018. Samtidig voksede de 50% hurtigere end alle andre af deres mærker. Kendetegnet ved dem er, de er alle drevet af noget meningsfuld for kunderne. Brands som; Ben & Jerry’s, Dove and Hellman’s. 

 Marc Pritchard for P&G snakker om det samme, og hvordan brands skal til at være en “force for good”. Det er god forretning, og det skaber vækst via nye og meningsfyldte tiltag.

 For at skabe reel værdi - og her mener jeg ikke den postuleret værdi, reklamebranchen leverer - er branchen tvunget til at forny sig. Budgetterne bliver hele tiden mindre, og jeg tror ikke kun det løses i bedre og nære relationer mellem kundernes marketing afd. og bureau, men at anerkende den nye dagsorden – være hudløst ærlige og rådgive organisstionerne om, hvordan de kan bevæge sig hen, der hvor deres kunder i virkeligheden mentalt befinder sig.

Mange bruger i dag data, men det vil altid være bagudrettet. Det vil kræve mod og kreativitet at se fremad.

Det vil kræve nye modige meningsfylde strategier for vækst funderet i kundernes værdigrundlag, men som deler forbrugernes livsstil og syn på verdenen.

Du kan, hvis du er kunde eller arbejder på et bureau med et brand og læser dette, lave et lille tankeeksperiment. Ville du gå med dit brand eller din kundes logo på en T-shirt under en klima demonstration i Kbh., og hvor mange tror du, vil være positive og give dig en thumbs up? 

Den ændring, vil kræve radikale omstillinger, både hos kunder og bureauer. Bureauerne kan f.eks skabe små nye agile enheder, isoleret for resten af bureauet, og den dødvægt som i dag holder dem tilbage, for troværdigt at rådgive kunderne. 

Bureauer kan indgå i nye og troværdige konstellationer, med partnere uden for reklamebranchen og marketingafdelingerne skal internt skabe adgang til organisationens virkelig beslutningstagere - og i højre grad håndterer og orkestrere et samspil mellem organisationens forskellige enheder: marketing, salg, R&D, forretnings udvikling, bæredygtighed etc.

På den måde kan marketing blive drivkraften bag at skabe reel meningsfyldt værdig via f.eks. nye produkter og services, som passer ind i kundernes verden.

Jeg tog selv til Finland for 3 år siden for at få erfaring med netop den nye type bæredygtig/ meningsfyldt marketing, fordi jeg ikke kunne finde den i Danmark. Jeg har nu en masse erfaring og kan sige, det er enormt besværligt, tidskrævende og kræver en helt anden tilgang en den som reklamebranchen og kunderne er vandt til at arbejde efter i dag, men det er det hele værd og giver mening for kunderne og kundens kunder og i sidste ende også på bureauets omsætning.. 

[larsbusekist]

Budskaber kan være mikromålrettede, men meningen skal masseproduceres.

Vi lever i en verden, som er drevet af data og afhængig af algoritmer, så det følte rigtigt at tage et job som kreativ direktør i en af Nordens største marketing automation virsomheder med kontorer i fire lande, 150 ansatte og en årlig vækst på 40%.

Min nye arbejdsplads var cremen af et fremadstormende teknologisk marketingfirma. Medarbejderne bar deres ID-kort rundt om halsen. En god fredagsbar var et LAN-party med Counter Strike. Mange var nørder og kodede AI og machine learning algoritmer uafbrudt. Jeg kalder dem nørder her, og jeg mener det oprigtigt på den mest positive og respektfulde måde.

Det, der lokkede mig til at sige ja til jobbet, var at se, om det er muligt at kombinere kreativitet med data.

Allerede nu vil jeg afsløre, at eksperimentet slog fejl og her er hvorfor.

95% af den traditionelle reklame vi udsættes for, er irrelevant og spildt. Et globalt studie fra Havas Group viser, at de fleste mennesker ville være hamrende ligeglade, om hele 74% af alle varemærker forsvandt i morgen. Kun ca. 28% af af samtlige varemærker er værdsatte og vurderes til at forbedre vores livskvalitet og velvære.

Den traditionelle reklamemodel er eroderet af internettet. Omsætning fra traditionel annoncering domineres nu af teknologiselskaberne; Google, Facebook og Amazon osv. Pengene går nu ind i komplekse digitale økosystemer, hvori alt kan måles og vejes og optimeres (automatisk) med det formål at være så effektiv som overhovedet muligt.

Markedsføring anno 2018 handler om at levere succesfulde cross-chan­nel kampagner med en personlig meddelelse til den rigtige person på det rigtige tidspunkt – 24/7. Opgaven løses af robotter, som forhandler indbyrdes for at placere en automatiseret annonce på vores skærm millisekunder før vi ser den. Denne tilgang til kommunikation er grundlæggende teknisk.

Her er et dilemma. Hvis jeg skulle købe en ny bil i morgen, og ikke bekymre mig om prisen, ville jeg købe en Tesla. Her bliver det interessant. Tesla har ikke en payoff. De annoncerer aldrig. Pop op beskeder på mine enheder findes ikke. De inviterer mig ikke til at teste deres biler om søndagen. Serverer ikke gratis kaffe og hotdogs. De giver mig heller ikke tilbud om masser af ekstra udstyr, hvis jeg køber en nu. De opfører sig ikke som andre bilmærker, og jeg vil stadig have en.

De teknologi- og forretningsfolk jeg arbejdede med, var meget skeptiske overfor alt, der ikke kunne puttes ind i målbare systemer. Men der, hvor vi virkelig var uenige var, hvordan vi så på kreativitet. For dem var kreativitet forbundet med tekniske udtænkte “funnels”, trafikdrivers og customer journeys – produktinformation, som kan målrettes og indrager kunderne gennem forskellige kanaler, platforme og enheder.

For mig blev problemet tydeligere og tydeligere.

Mennesker er ikke forudsigelige. Vi ved det fra Behavioural Economy. Jeg er sikker på, at en korrupt forretningsmand som Donald Trump ikke ville være præsident i dag, hvis vælgerne  havde stemt rationelt. Jeg tror, at mange amerikanere - skuffede over det politiske system - tog en chance og stemte for Trump blot for at se, hvad sker der. Det er ret langt fra at være rationelt, og konsekvenserne døjer vi med nu.

Alt for ofte er det indhold, vi modtager stadig irrelevant og trænger sig nu også aggressivt på, så vi har måtte opfinde nye teknologier for at undgå dem; ad-blokkere, skip-knapper og “køb-den-reklamefri-version”-knapper. Alt dette er egentlig ikke nyt. Remoten blev fx opfundet af Eugene F. MacDonald’s fra Zenith Electronics, så han kunne skippe reklamerne, som ødelagde det, han ville se på tv. Men den mest kraftfulde skip knap, vi har til vores rådighed er - skip knappen i vores bevidsthed, synliggjort ved din tommelfinger, som scroller og kun stopper ved noget, du finder interessant.

I nærmeste fremtid vil dine personlige AI-assistenter, Siri, Cortana eller Xiaomi begynde at foreslå hvilke varer og serviceydelser, der passer bedst til dig. AI-assistenterne vil være meget bedre til at finde den bedste bilforsikring, eller finde dine daglig fornødenheder til laveste pris, og levere dem direkte hjem til dig. Assistenterne vil gøre det endnu sværere for annoncørerne at få din opmærksomhed.

Et andet problem er, at vi mennesker foretrækker historier og ikke fakta. Jeg kan stadig huske aftenen i 2012, da Felix Baumgartner stod i døren til RedBull-rumkapslen. Et ufatteligt modigt og skrøbeligt og meget lille menneske, som kiggede ud mod et frit fald på 39.045 meter over den buede, blå jordklode. Han gav slip og lod sig falde. Med Oberst Joe Kittingers ord, “var der ikke andet at gøre end at håbe en engel passede godt på ham” mens hans styrtede mod jorden. Red Bull har brændt sig fast og er blevet det eneste brand, som kan slå klodens måske stærkeste varemærke, Coca Cola.

Så hvad er vejen frem?

At fokusere vores opmærksomhed mod information eller et godt tilbud er ikke den eneste løsning. Automation og AI kan sortere og udvælge og præsentere et budskab nok så relevant, men det kan ikke stå alene. Jeg tror ikke, at denne forretningsmodel vil bestå, vi mennesker er komplekse og uforudsigelige og vi finder hele tiden nye teknologier og måder at filtre budskaberne fra på. Jeg tror på, at et sted mellem fakta og følelser er det rigtige område at opererer i. Et brands skal beherske begge færdigheder, hvis du vil bygge dit varemærkes værdi op over tid.

Brands har to primære værdier – den immaterielle på den ene siden og produktet på den anden. Sagt på en anden måde. Marketing automation kan skabe et salg nu og her, men de historien du fortæller om dit varemærke skaber en plads i hjertet hos forbrugeren for evigt.

De stigende mængder at micro-managed data-annoncering har også en kulturel betydning. Mikromålretning er kun synlige for den enkelte, og det er menneskets natur at værdsætte ting, når vi ved, at andre også værdsætter dem. Lidt ligesom papirpenge. I bund og grund er de ikke andet end et stykke trykt papir - men det er en social konstruktion, og fordi andre er enige om, at papiret har værdi, tror jeg det også.

Lidt absurd, kan man sige, men overført til markedsføring er absurditet godt i en verden med mere og mere rationel tænkning. Om det siger Rory Southerland OgilvyOne’s Executive Creative Chairman: “Som en militær strategi har virksomhederne brug for det overraskende element. Hvis de altid er effektive, bliver de forudsigelig.”

I en verden overfyldt nettop med spam - burde vi markedsføringsfolk altid starte hvert projekt med at overveje, hvorfor fanden folk skal gide rette deres opmærksomhed mod nettop det vi laver. Det er den form for tankegang og handling, der er behov for også i Danmark.

En god test er at forstille sig selv hvad der vil stå i overskriften eller på en PR meddelelse og hvis du ikke selv vil ofre tid på det, hvorfor skulle andre så gøre det? Vi bliver nødt til at finde ind til, hvilken vigtig rolle produktet og varemærket spiller i samfundet. Vi skal turde bygge vores kommunikation op omkring dette i den virkelige verden og ikke postulerer det. Moderne Markedsføring skal føre til samtaler, og ingen taler om noget, medmindre det er interessant og har betydning for dem. Påstande og metaforer skaber ikke nogen reel værdi hos forbrugerne.

Vi mennesker er ikke logiske væsener. Vores købsbeslutninger sker i den del af vores hjerner, der ikke har et sprog. Hvor tillid ligger. Simon Sinek som bla. er kendt fra TED gjorde dette berømt ved at sige: "Folk køber ikke, hvad du gør, og hvordan du gør det, men hvorfor du gør det.”

Jeg vil ikke skrotte datadrevet kommunikation – naturligvis ikke! Men vi skal være meget bedre til at orkestre alle budskabet så det er afstemt og ensrettet med firmaets forretnings model. Det er varemærkets løfte, over for en bestemt målgruppen, måden det ser ud på og taler på, og endelig de historier vi fortæller på vegne af varemærket. Jeg vil gerne bidrage til at vi kommer ind i processerne langt tidligere, før et evt. produkt eller service er færdigt, ellers er det som at komme læbestift på en gorilla.

Så da jeg spurgte mig selv, hvilken bil jeg gerne ville have, var det en Tesla. Ikke fordi jeg ser det på min enhed, mikro-placeret af en smart algoritme på det helt rigtige tidspunkt. Nej, behovet for at eje en Tesla kommer fra et andet sted dybt inde i mig, fra de mange online diskussioner og en tro på Elon Musk’s og co. er oppe til langt ud på natten for at bruge bæredygtige energi til at skabe en bedre verden.

[larsbusekist]

https://hbr.org/2018/05/marketing-in-the-age-of-alexa

[larsbusekist]

There a single point, when you know you have to leave a company. It crystallise everything that’s wrong. For months I couldn't put my finger on what it was. It was a dizzy sensation in my stomach of sailing in the wrong direction. It felt like being on a vast endless ocean, without a horizon in sight. I didn’t have a "sea map" infront of me until one day we had a workshop about our new company values.

But the story starts before, in the summer of 2017. Mangement changed that summer and the company merged 6 companies into one. They hired a dude from the clothing business. He and the new mangement started an internal value discussion. Basically he copied what his clothing business has been using. It might have worked for the retail-business, but they sell clothes, and with the data tsunami in the horizon, I had serious doubt it was the right place to focus.

I asked if it wasn’t better to have a clear goal of where we’re going and why. A simple, easy understood goal, that we all worked toward. When I joined, we wanted; To be the best international agency in Finland. That’s was clear to me, what needed to be done, and a clear goal that steered the ship in the right direction. But they answer I got was, that we get to that later.

Now fast forward to later. The new mangement had organised a big workshop day to find the new internal values. I guess you do that when you don’t know where you’re going. I and few others had “too much work” to join. We started getting updates about people massaging each other while running around in a big circle. Then more messages followed, about how much it sucked. My fear had become a reality. But it was nothing compared to when I finally went there.

I walked into a big hall, that used to be old police retreat, by the sea. On stage was part of the new mangement team with mikrophones. Most of my other colleagues stared, with bright wide shiny eyes at a big screen, while clapping their hands in unison, like they were at some Scientology event. To my horror on the screen it said: “PEEL ONLY ONE POTATO AT A TIME, AND LOVE EVERY POTATO” ! I might have missed how they got there, but that moment it became crystal clear how I didn't belong there anymore.

[larsbusekist]

Why the fuck should anyone care about what we as advertiser make?

Two things shaped my summer (2017) - an article from Fastcompany about David Droga and a book by Byron Sharp, How Big Brands Grow.

Droga say in an article “It’s crude, but the essence, whether we’re talking to a billion-dollar client or a startup, is: Why would anyone give a shit about what we’re making?” he says. “Not, Do we think it’s cool or clever or funny or worthy? It’s, Why is this relevant?”  "Advertising Superstar David Droga Knows How To Get In Your Head, Fast company 06.15.17"

Most tv and print advertising has to me always felt like a clown entering my living room all the time. It’s fucking annoying and the more it happens the worse it gets. Today marketeers are stocking us online with banners and adds where-ever we go. It might be smart, and the smarts will of course gain from this. But as bots become better and cheeper, than humans doing this 24/7 365 it is every marketeers wet dream and everyone is able do it. Problem is when everyone is doing it, it too looses is meaning and becomes nuisance just like the man in the clown suit. Droga points out that we have invented technology to protect us from this, I use; adblock, adblocker by f secure etc. Therefore I think Dave is spot on when asking - why should people give a shit about what we’re making?

As advertisers we foremost have responsibility to our clients, but I also think to society, and of course the planet as a whole. if we pollute, spam and annoy people, to gain short sighted benefits, we're soil our own nest. I don’t wanna be part of that, never respected those in our profession who do.

My former boss Jari Ullakko used to say; the world of communication has changed, from shooting off pretty fireworks - read tv and print ads. Where people went, "ohh ahh". To building small bonfires where people gather and talk - read shared conversations online. Most of us recognise this is true. This is how the world turns. This means that you need to have something meaningful to say, for people to hang around, listen and participate in the conversation.

So why aren’t more clients and agencies doing this? I guess Tv still works, to some extend if you’re a big client with loads of money. This is where; How Brands Grow, by Byron Sharp comes in. Basically it boils down to two things, mental availability and physical availability. You have to be mentally aware when a consumer shops, and you have to be there where they are - kinda self-explanatory, and as other research confirms we use our emotional brain to make those decisions. So in his words it comes down to what you remember. If you’re big brand you can dominate the market, all the time, over time, years on end, and keep your competitors at bay. But here’s the catch, most brands are not even close to have that sort of marketing money in Nordics. We’re talking, Coke, Pepsi and the big cars brands here folks. The telco and oil companies, and a few others can do this.

i believe most brands are opperation under false assumption, that they should act like the multi billion dollar brands, and it's what being taught in business schools, but what they forget to tell you is that you need big ass company sized budgets, to think like this.

So that’s why I believe it much more effective to think as Dave suggest. It’s much better to create things people really care about. There's a saying that goes. It’s easier to make things people like, than make people like things. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

So why aren’t more clients doing this type of work? According to Nobel price winner, in Behavioural economy, Daniel Kahneman, "Thinking, Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2011" it can be related to something called Risk Aversion. That means “losses loom larger than gains” The pain of losing is psychologically about twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining, and since people are more willing to take risks to avoid a loss."

That means you know what you got, you know what others do and have been doing, so it feels right - even though you probably agree with the above way, of doing meaningful work is far better and makes more sense. That means our brains are still operation with the default, if you 10 000 years ago took a change and looked for food in a new place, changes were, that if you failed you’d be lucky to be alive. That same mechanism is making our marketing choices when, clearly there’s a more sensible way to create real value.

By creating value, I mean true value. Opposed to claiming, which is what most advertising do, when you think about it. Like Pepsi. The biggest evidence is the Pepsi commercial, which was so wrong and bad and obviously had absolutely nothing to do with soda pop. That’s the misguided part of trying to create value. Brands pretend, often using humor or - a word I hate with a sparke in the eye. Kinda the equivalent of bad jokes uncles at parties dish out, while everyone polite laughs, except that already super drunk person who are the only ones who finds it truly funny. Advertisers have protected themsleves from real life, by claiming and pretending. They create semi real worlds, where week men are dominated by strong women, revolutions are put on hold because of a soda, walls are broken down by a mob of male and female models, where nincompoop products solve peoples crises, and promises you fulfilled life you wouldn’t other wise have, if you don’t have or use this and that product. None of this is real.

The future I think lies not in distancing ourselves from real life, but embracing it for all it is. We have to align ourselves with what our Instagram profiles, FB, art, movies, books do. Embracing real life - or to be truly funny and ironic, can if done well work too - but the best humor is being brutally honest too. Embracing real meaningful values might seem more scary and frightening, because you can't lie and pretend and distance ourselves from it. As the saying goes, no guts no glory.

Companies are becoming transparent, and all their actions are known to the public, thus becoming their marketing, so embrace that shit and dive head in. One company that successfully have done this is Patagonia and Yvon Chouinard. As a company the have told their customers, not to buy their clothes, but to fix what’s already there. It was the 2011 advertising campaign that read “Don’t Buy This Jacket.” It went on, “The environmental cost of everything we make is astonishing.” Manufacturing and shipping just one of the jackets in question required a hundred and thirty-five litres of water and generated nearly twenty pounds of carbon dioxide. “Don’t buy what you don’t need.” This logic might seem counterproductive as a company to most, but in a transparet world it has only gotten them more liked not ignoring the fact and distanced themselves with claiming communication as outdoor posers, but laying it out there for everyone to be seen. People understand that you can’t be perfect, but at least your trying to make things better.

This approach, has created a lot more sympathy among its growing fan base. Patagonia is bigger, a billion dollar company, and more active in environmental and labor advocacy, than it has ever been.

I have for the past 3 years done mostly that kind of value creating work, trying to find meaningful ways to engage the many conversation around bonfires, and it has only been rewarding so far.

[larsbusekist]

George Prest: Advertising is dying. Long live design

Increasingly aware consumers are changing the rules of advertising, and agencies must adapt to prosper, argues George Prest of R/GA London drawing board Design is thinking made visual – Saul Bass Good design is good business – Thomas Watson

Once upon a time it was easy buying products.

We're talking 150 years ago here. You went to the guy who sold soap. Maybe he had a shop. You bought the soap off the guy. If he was a nice chap, then even better. Product and seller bound up in a small but pleasant experience.

Then brands came along. Layers of veneer were added – emotional benefits, empty promises and, in the case of TV advertising, metaphorical journeys that attached all sorts of mystical significance to what was, most likely, still a bar of soap.

What I find really interesting, exciting and energising about the marketing landscape today is that these layers of artifice are being stripped away. You can't get away with bullshit any more. If people want to find out more about a brand, they can go online and see if the reality and behaviour of the brand lives up to the message.

If the walk doesn't measure up to the talk then people will just switch off and move on.

We are living in a world where non-fiction is as important as fiction. Where brands' behaviours are more important than what they say about themselves, and the experiences they create are more important than the metaphors that they weave.

Let's go back to the man in the soap shop. He had two things at his disposal. His product and his personality. He wasn't messaging. He was a human being. For sure he could be charming. A twinkle in his eye would no doubt persuade his customers to more readily part with their cash but if his customers took the soap home and didn't get clean and smell nice then his business would be doomed.

I think we're heading back that way. It's way more complicated these days, of course but the fundamentals of marketing now are about products and the experiences that we create around them.

And what that boils down to is design.

We have ideas which differentiate, of course. And we have technology, embedded within the creative process to allow us to create as well as be creative.

But the key to every aspect of the new, digitally-centred marketing world is design.

Back to the man in the soap shop. He, in modern terms had three different design things going on: Product design. The soap.

Experience design. His shop.

And service design. His schtick.

(These are radical simplifications, I know.)

Modern brands do all of this as well.

Product design is still the king. If what you are selling doesn't deliver the beef, go home. The packaging has got to be right. The product has got to be right. It's all got to add up.

Experience design:, retail, websites, apps, events. All of these are spaces to be designed and perfected; to be as frictionless and as true to the product and its values as possible.

Service design: People, infrastructure and communication materials. What's it like when someone engages with you or walks into your store? How do you make them feel? Think of the difference between how you are served by a top-end retailer versus a lower-minded competitor.

Visual design: every touch-point, every interface between a product/brand and its people has got to look right, not dominate and contribute effortlessly to the experience.

Information design: Knowledge is power. Look at the Nike Fuelband. Look at big data. Look at how it produces effective behavior change. We all want our selves to be quantified these days for a reason – it helps us become who we want to become. Beautiful, clear, differentiated information – the dog's bollocks of non-fiction – is where brands should be playing.

So where does that leave advertising? Whither the sloganeering magician? The alchemist of old? Well, if my hunch is right, she is on the way out.

Advertising should become another part of the design resurgence: factual, demonstrative of design, pointing to deeper, online experiences, indicative of behaviours and reality. Sure there'll be metaphor. Sure there'll be bluster, probably for ever. But good advertising will be part of a bigger whole, an ecosystem of design that surrounds consumers and products.

I'd think of advertising now as Communication Design. To be done carefully, by considered professionals with a balanced view of the bigger marketing picture. Not at the heart of the ecosystem but in its margins.

Design, design, design. If your marketing company isn't built around it then your days are running out. If you're getting into our business now, look for the companies that have design at their core.

Design, creativity and technology.

We're going back to the soap seller in his shop. It's more complicated now: he's got a website that recreates the experience of his store, advocates who evangelise about his soap because they've met him and tried the product and a funny little man out the back on a computer, creating lovely visualisations of the battle between soap and dirt.

Maybe he's even developing a new product, hooked into the showering ecosystem? Maybe he's even looking at disrupting the shower itself, analyzing the scum that comes off people's bodies down their plughole and telling them about the environmental stresses they are putting their skin through?

Who knows what he's doing now. What we do know though, is that it's all about him and his product and what his brand gives to people that adds value to their lives and creates meaningful, two-way relationships with them.

Whatever the man in the shop is doing now, his success won't be by accident. It will be by design.

Thank God some humanity is seeping back into our industry. It's long overdue. Ironic, though, that it took technology, machines that we invented, to make it happen.

George Prest is executive creative director for R/GA London.

[larsbusekist]

Advertisers are more untrustworthy than car sales men, but less than real estate agents.

If working in the ad-biz, you’re according to research power house Ray Morgan (2013) stuck between the two must untrustworthy professions in the world.

In a recent study - out of 30 professions, advertising professionals are ranked #29. Car sales-men #30 and real estate agents are #28.

As the old joke goes, an ad guy is too embarrassed to tell’s his mother, what he does for a living, so he tells her he’s playing piano in whorehouse, much to her relief.

I’m not surprised. Most traditional agencies - in my opinion, suck. They have for years made tons of money creating oceans of nincompoop work, and their lack of ethics and morals therefore have put us where we are now. I’m proud to say I never been part of this polluting content,- come to think of it - that’s probably the reason for not driving a Porsche either.

What really gets me going at the moment is pre-rolls. I hate that shit more than all the bad ads on TV. They even tell me how long I am going to endure it 20 seconds, 15 seconds. You only have to watch this shit for another 10 seconds and then you are going to get to the content that you wanted. This business model is so wrong. Do they seriously think I’m going to be interested, in their particular offer, after annoying the shit out of me? This is just one example of polluting content, form the ad-biz industry that is not sustainable.

But the good news is, advertising can become useful to the world. We just have to stop advertising. It’s as simple as that.There’s real need for telling truthful interesting stories on behalf of brands. Stories that positively can make a difference. Most brands have - in my opinion, an opportunity to play a positive role in our lives. Not the fake annoying work, that constitutes 95% of the work out there. Start making things people want and can use to help them in their lives. Entertain us in a way that’s really authentic and interesting, that we want to spend our time with.

Only this way can the ad -biz get out of this obnoxious #29th place. But nincompoop work and thirst for money and growth will still drive the industry to try to make people like things - until they become extinct.

The smart ones, knows we need to move up that list because there’s a need. The only way to do it is to be serious, and start making things people like.

[larsbusekist]

We share what we feel.

A viral video is every marketer’s wet dream. But no consumer decision journey strategy or a well argumented value proposition, will make people share anything. And truth is, if you need to use words like that, there’s a big chance you don’t know what you’re doing.

People who use them do it for two reasons - I think. To gain acceptance from other people, like a secret handshake, nodding their heads in mutual understanding, or do disguise the fact, that most of us don’t know what the hell we’re doing most of the time. We have an intuition, but we don’t know beyond - it feels right.

The latter has been proven by Nobel prize winner in Behavioural Economy, Daniel Kahneman and HBR. Most of the time we go with intuition or system one. An recent HBR Study shows that we share things that’s social motivated and things that make us feel something. Not think, not analyse, not because we happen to be somewhere online - but feel.

Let’s be honest - it’s ok not to know. Because no one really knows, and they ones who pretend to do, should set off all your alarms. Like a nuclear warning siren.

We have to feel, when judging if our ideas are good enough to be shared. Clients also have to feel it. But how do you convince a business education power suit, to trust feelings and ignore logic and all that wonderful stuff that can be measured and showed in PPT? But playing safe and trusting logic has now been proven to be a most dangerous thing, and a complete waste of money.

The feelings we like to share. Beyond, humour, surprise, disgust, happiness, love, etc. are feelings of belonging to a group, or a community, how others will think of us, and starting a conversation. These are powerfull forces. But if true feelings aren’t there, they can’t be faked by using fancy words.

[larsbusekist]

lars busekist turned 3 today! Time flies when having fun!!

[larsbusekist]

Part 1. The future of marketing communication.

There’s a big difference between persuading and inspiring.

I’ve never pictured myself working in the advertising industry. To me advertising is created by people - who drives Porsches - make nincompoop commercials - glossy photoshopped ads - persuading people to take or continue some action, with respect to a commercial offering. I’m not like that!

Persuade reminds me of trickery or making someone do something against their will. The commercial offering, means that these people are loyal to making money. Not the truth. Not real people. Not you and me.

There’s a big difference between being persuading or inspiring. George W. Bush persuaded the world to go to war in Iraq. Obama inspired people to join him help build a better world.

[larsbusekist]

Part 2. What does that have to with; how we work, how we get paid and how we organise ourself?

First of all we have to make work with the infinite canvas of the internet in mind -  billions of people connected, talking and sharing things all the time. That means work that’s unique, that inspires, and moves people.

This work is more like entertainment than advertising. It holds the attention and interest of an audience and gives pleasure and delight. Work that reflects back on who we are and what we stand for and thus gets shared

This kind of work wouldn’t make sense to be priced on hours only, but also measured by how well it works.

This kind of branded entertainment could be a fixed fee, covering the basic costs, freelance employees, renting a space, salary of a small permanent staff, heat, data etc. and then paying for how good the work actually is.

Architects and movies studios works like this. They get their basic fees covered, and later share the overhead with key people and investors.

They also organise themself in small core teams, with specialised talented freelancers assembling around projects for a given period of time.

There’s of course a problem. The traditional nincompoop work would not stand a chance, and the majority of people creating this kind of garbage will fight not to get payed by perfomance.

Then there’s how do you measure it? Everything digital can be measured - so it’s really how you wanna bechmark it. An analyse of how the entertainment industry does it could also shed light on this.

Performance pay has another advantage. It will build trust, uniting the agency and client - agencies will fight for what actually will work - not just make money - and clients will pay only for how well it works - but will have to trust the agencies.

If communication agencies create work that are more like entertainment, why aren’t agencies more like them? I believe they are held back by the belief that they still work in advertising and not the branded entertainment industry. So they have to redefine themself, not build new structures within old systems.

The physical space, would change too. No more expensive corporate buildings with marble receptions. But to more flexible inspiring work spaces, for everybody, more like Google, University campus’s or studio setups. No fixed personal space but lots of break out space where assembled teams can work on problems.

We need to make people, feel. Therefore we need to inspire not persuade.

[larsbusekist]

Complicated isn’t hard - it’s easy.

I’ve been struggling making ideas less and less complicated most of my life. From communication ideas, to politics. I have always felt it’s much harder and more time consuming making ideas more simple. 

Seeing a skilled dancer, it looks easy and effortless. An old school friend of mine - after watching White Nights back in the mid eighties,  wanted to show - after a beer or two, he too could dance like; Mikhail Baryshnikov - he could for about a second - and then his otherwise promising career as a dancer was over and his leg was in a cast for 6 weeks.

The way ideas see the light of day is complicated too. There’s conflicting interests. There’s a lot of stakeholders. Complicated processes.  Lots of people and opinions.

It goes like this:

The clients objective, or in some cases external consultants influence on what the clients objective should be, kick off the process. It then trickles down to agency management. Most of whom want’s to make the most money out of the client before they can move their budget elsewhere. Then planning and account try to decipher what the client wants, so the creatives can understand it. Then the creatives have a go and think how they can solve it and win an award with it too. Then it’s fed back to account - who wants to make their own life easy by giving the client what they want, then back to creatives and after a few numbing rounds like this - a compromise is presented to the client. Then client has a few changes, gives them to account who interprets them, then back down to the creatives - who now have lost any interest in the project because they no longer stand a chance of wining an award. Creatives go into shit mode fix whatever needs done and hands it over to production. Then production makes changes and then with a little luck it’s off into the real world.

If you don’t believe me - read: 9.99. It’s a very funny read and unfortunately also very true: Frederic Beigbeder (Author)

This way of decision making - by comity, creates dull ideas, where person gets what they want, but everybody looses in the end. This way of working means you don’t have to think very hard and don’t have to make big decisions. 

This way of working creates bland ideas that are created to make the customer do what suits the interest of the business.

Today your dependent on people sharing your content. I believe it should be the opposite. If you want to be famously effective - you should be in the business of doing what suits the interest of the customer.

But it takes guts. It takes making the right decisions and standing by them. It takes authentic, honesty and wonderfulness. It takes authentic stories that the customer falls in love with and shares. This cannot be done by a comity.

Jon V. Williams puts it like this: Don’t put the experience on the internet, put the internet in the experience.

It’s so simple yet so hard to do and I couldn’t agree more.

[larsbusekist]

Real people like what most project managers and clients fear the most!

The marketing taught in most business schools, and what works in real life is not the same at all. It’s like night and day. Right is wrong - and wrong is right.

What trend and get shared on Youtube and FB is everything; that’s new, freaky, weird, emotional, and the more daring - the better. FB is a little more conservative than Youtube, but I combine the two here, since they have more in common than they are different. They also happen to be the biggest and most dominant media channels in the West. Russia and China have their own channels - and often better versions of these, but more about these at an other time.

Brands that want to be contagious, needs to understand the mechanics of what get’s shared and why. But that knowledge has so far been lost on the majority of the marketing executives I’ve met.

But it’s really the fault of the systems and the people in charge. Agencies and clients alike have become really good at talking the game. Analysing the consumer. Using Big Data to dig deep for insights and hidden needs. Analysing the consumer’s journey within eco systems.

To make it contagious they rely on “creative agencies” to bring the right idea to the table. The problem is most agencies have no idea either - or simply don’t have the balls to present the right ideas.

They make more money playing it safe. They invent semi scientific documents and presentations about why this or that idea is right, and will reach the right people. That way they stay on the client’s payroll for another year or two and can go ahead and buy themselves a new Porsche.

Years at business schools have taught clients and account people the right business models how to succeed. Like a sausage factory, if you add this at one end the result at the other end will be this or that. But real life doesn’t always work that way and that’s why so many fail miserably - and end up making nincompoop work no one cares about.

The truth is success is not a safe and rational path. On the contrary. It’s full of - what great advertising always had at it’s core, gut feeling and doing something bold, creative, new, no one have dreamed up before. Red Bull and Go-Pro happen to own the two biggest media channels in the world - if anybody should doubt this type of work actually works. They are playing in their own league, so won’t go further into that here - they’re cool and what they do is awesome.

But most brands obey and live by the same rules without knowing it. Clients might say we’re nothing like Red Bull or Go-pro. That’s true but you’re still competing against them when people school down their feed, or choose what to watch and share on Youtube.

To compete you need to understand you live and die by the same rules. People like new. The love real emotions  They are drawn to weird. They arrested by brave. They can’t take their eyes off freaky people..…in other words, they like all that, most project managers and clients fear the most!

If you work in the creative field. When’s the last time you had a brief to make it weird, wonderful and with crazy freaky people, please? You should have, because that’s what working in real life. We like the weird and wonderful out there. In fact we can’t get enough it.

But some are getting it.

Volvo trucks. A freak - Van Damme - there’s not many like Van Damme out there, is there? - talking about his ups and downs while doing an epic split between to reversing Volvo trucks - brilliantly set to Enya’s music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7FIvfx5J10&spfreload=10

Or Old Spice, a black man build like a Greek God, telling women to look at him, and then their man, telling them he smell like a man - and their man - well, he smells like a women because he uses women body shampoo. While the background keeps changing to make it even more humorous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE&spfreload=10

Where’s the logic in these? Could this have been taught at a business school? In fact they are among the most successful campaigns the last 5 years according to Google. They play by new rules. Make stuff people like and not what you think they like.

Schools should be teaching, not what’s right - but what’s wrong. How to have the guts to fail, take a chance - and then maybe you might actually succeed beyond imagination.

Google just published a document - Instead of focusing on what happens when people tune out, it focused on what happens when people tune in? The result is not surprising people, like to watch great creative work, as mentioned above on Youtube. It turns out nincompoop work and pessimism can be turned to optimism when the work positively surprises people.

The future might not have to be taught at any school. The future of advertising might lie in Googles TrueView where you choose what to see, helping to herald a new era of video advertising putting the user first, and killing off the stuff no one seems to care about anyway.

In the long run the problem might solve itself. Be bold, different, weird and daring, or die.

[larsbusekist]

First impressions

When arriving at Schiphol airport, Holland you’re greeted by a big sign saying; Well Hello There! I already feel the radical vibes. In Finland you greeted by a sign saying; Innovation, you arrived. A 40 something guy, in a Angry Bird hoodie looks creative. It’s Peter Vesterbacka, CMO and co-founder of Rovio Entertainment, maker of Angry Birds. He also happens to be founder of SLUSH conference – the biggest non-profit startup conference in Northern Europe and Russia, attracting more than $40 billion worth of venture capital every year.

In Denmark - one of Europe’s supposedly most innovative countries measured in new products, processes and how companies advertise themselves. You’re greeted by …well a big ice-cream! How crazy innovative is that!

[larsbusekist]

Storytelling for from the inside out.

Building your brand story from the inside can be the most powerful form of storytelling. The traditional way of storytelling has been extracting or adding it onto the brand after it has been developed. But true power can also lie in the storytelling being an integrated part of the innovative process at product level. 

This requires a new form of leadership and a new agile form of working cross disciplines and utilising the best storytellers or doers at the beginning of the process. Not exactly a habit most C-level are used to. 

Many brands don’t use this opportunity. From social scientific research we have now come to understand; that action changes attitude faster, than than attitude changes action. This means if you can make a small change in action, larger actions and attitude are much more likely to happen or change later.This is true in organisations and true at the individual level.

Let me give you an example. For 40 years, governments around the world have been trying to change the attitude of individuals towards smoking is bad for you. Tons of legislation, from putting grim pictures on cigarette packs, to endless public campaigns telling you, it’s dangerous to smoke and you most likely die if you smoke. I It has been a huge effort with very little result compared to the amount of money spent. In Us and the UK alone, it amounts to over 150 million dollars a year.

This thinking has been trying to change the attitude of the individual, not the other way around. When things finally got turned around, and it became social unacceptable and harder to smoke, action changed attitude. Smoking is declining in most levels of society, changing the attitude through action. A small change in how one does things, but with a huge impact.

Nike is an other great example of someone who has done this. Nike+ has reversed this order. It’s great storytelling at product level that creates action, that then changes attitude. It creates an emotion through the product, story, service and experience and thus changes how we feel and talk about them.

[larsbusekist]

Do what you feel. Not what you think

  Ad agencies and the people in them working with one eye on awards, miss the point. You end up making eccentric choices, avoiding what’s really true, and you produce work that calls attention to itself, instead of truly moving others.  It’s harder to trust, what feels true and go with that. It takes experience, guts, and sometimes stubbornness.It puts most agencies into a stage of anxiety. It's much easier turning real life into a vapid cliché. It’s of course also safer and no one will get you fired for doing it. But these clichés are the root of dissatisfaction.  I believe most of us have developed a set of filters that makes us, not pay attention to online ads, or this recent example: A TV commercial for the Danish Lottery.  It promise you the ultimate cliche. If you win, you will of course, like the senseless human being you are, leave this broken world, and use all your Lottery money, decorating your own spaceship with gold while drinking champagne, laughing at the rest of us down here left to actually fix things.  Most of us have come to understand that the environmental crisis we all face stem from unwillingness to consume less, and not more. The people behind this work, will likely pass it off as just a joke. But underneath this postmodern outrageous behaviour, we might recognise the old workings, of talking to our subconsciousness and our inadequacies; that we're not in possession of what will save us and make us happy- if we don’t buy a Lottery ticket. That’s why they are so out of step. You can see it here: http://youtu.be/M3BavH0LcCQ Our filters screen this kind of nonsense, because we seen this before, and know where it’s going, because it’s obvious from the beginning and it’s boring because no sane human being really behaves like this. Agencies that creates this type of work, I believe doesn’t go with what’s true and tell that, in a never before seen way. They reach into the world of clichés, because their true feelings have left them scared. It’s stuff we all seen before, but disguised as new and their own ideas. It’s like advertising leftovers of boredom served cold from the day before. Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swqPwy2XVjE Problem of course being that no one ends up really caring in the end. Most people don’t bother watching the TV commercial breaks anymore, or clicking on banner ads on Facebook. They surf past them, or go make coffee, or like me having a second screen within reach, when I’m interrupted with dunce ad-breaks.  This thinking is lacking the understanding of clear positioning, a true insight and a concept that imaginatively, and originally communicates it and do it - see my previous post. Do what you believe and not what you think, there’s a big difference, also in the awards you might get - if you get it right. Just look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2A11nqY8Zg

[larsbusekist]

Storytelling for from the inside out.

Building your brand story from the inside can be the most powerful form of storytelling. The traditional way of storytelling has been extracting or adding it onto the brand after it has been developed. But true power can also lie in the storytelling being an integrated part of the innovative process at product level. 

This requires a new form of leadership and a new agile form of working cross disciplines and utilising the best storytellers or doers at the beginning of the process. Not exactly a habit most C-level are used to. 

Many brands don’t use this opportunity. From social scientific research we have now come to understand; that action changes attitude faster, than than attitude changes action. This means if you can make a small change in action, larger actions and attitude are much more likely to happen or change later.This is true in organisations and true at the individual level.

Let me give you an example. For 40 years, governments around the world have been trying to change the attitude of individuals towards smoking is bad for you. Tons of legislation, from putting grim pictures on cigarette packs, to endless public campaigns telling you, it’s dangerous to smoke and you most likely die if you smoke. I It has been a huge effort with very little result compared to the amount of money spent. In Us and the UK alone, it amounts to over 150 million dollars a year.

This thinking has been trying to change the attitude of the individual, not the other way around. When things finally got turned around, and it became social unacceptable and harder to smoke, action changed attitude. Smoking is declining in most levels of society, changing the attitude through action. A small change in how one does things, but with a huge impact.

Nike is am other great example of someone who has done this. Nike+ has reversed this order. It’s great storytelling at product level that creates action, that then changes attitude. It creates an emotion through the product, story, service and experience and thus changes how we feel and talk about them.