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The advertising world descends on Cannes this week. #OgilvyCannes will be there in full force. I am looking forward to pretty much what is the anti-Cannes experience – sessions, seeing the work, valuable meetings with brands and partners and the press.
I know. It’s about parties. That’s often what is described as the real Cannes. A highly social event where agency and brands, from the tippy-top of the organization to the creatives in the ranks, get to stay up late and celebrate hard just as they worked hard to get their work there.
The Business Connection at Cannes
The real reason we are there with the type of investment it takes to get there, is that we believe creativity sells. While more cynical minds might disagree, no amount of pomp and circumstance could get so many agencies and brands to spend all that money. We go because creativity has a big business impact.
Jonathan Mildenhall, VP Global Advertising Strategy & Content Excellence at The Coca-Cola Company, captures this POV succinctly in a recent blog post.
“I have long been an absolute believer in the correlation between outstanding creative success and outstanding commercial success. In this year’s marketing platform for Cannes Lions I am quoted as saying ‘If Cannes has taught me one thing, it is that creativity drives effectiveness. You can not have one without the other. That knowledge has been instrumental to my career. I have been going to Cannes for nearly 20 years and can’t help but notice that the the client organizations recognized as Advertiser of the Year often enjoy periods of historic financial success at the same time.”
He references the work of James Hurman, who analyzed data on advertising creativity to demonstrate the connection to effectiveness of that advertising and the overall business performance of the advertiser.You can see a summary presentation here. He offers some defining characteristics of 'creativity.' And within that he hits on word of mouth.
"Creativity's third effect is that it makes advertising more likely to generate 'fame' and conversation."
Much like Twitter is now being used by television studios and networks as a barometer for success, how consumers talk about and share with their social graph about marketers will increasingly become the indicator of success.
Awards as a Predictor
It stands to reason that quality awards programs like Cannes Lions will put a premium on the results of a campaign - more objective than subjective - and on the creativity - more subjective than objective. There should be a correlation.
The big question is whether this year’s awards are predictive for what may win and, therefore sell, next year. I believe that we will see a shift towards more authentically ‘social’ work and more work that doesn’t resemble traditional advertising nor have an iconic video at its heart. Sure, creativity sells. But so does social and so does delivering value to people.
How Social Are They
I am looking forward to seeing tons of work. We have a bunch in there including quite a few that have ‘social’ at the center of their program. I believe it’s time for Cannes to adopt a super-category for Social. Next year, perhaps. For now, there are sub categories in other disciplines.
No doubt there will be many campaigns up for awards. Likely, not that many ‘always-on’ programs will be considered. They often lack that big piece of disruptive advertising which catches the eye of weary judges. I have already seen some terrific programs, like the Ogilvy Thailand anti-smoking videos, that have disruptive video at their heart. While that can be a terrific hook for driving word of mouth (see “Disruptive Ideas” in the Principles of Social Design here), too many creative rely solely on hitting a home-run with a precious piece of content.
We will see how many brands put social at the center of their programs this year. Meanwhile, the entire Ogilvy team will be sharing valuable content, sparking conversations and interviewing interesting people all week.
You can follow us:
https://social.ogilvy.com/thinking
and follow me as I trudge the road of Cannes;
I didn’t go to business school. Perhaps, I shouldn’t broadcast that fact. One look at my LinkedIn profile and it will be clear. The closest I got to Wharton was walking by the building on my way to semiotics class at Annenberg. I became a creative director. Then, somehow, I became a business leader. I don’t mean that in some self-aggrandizing way. I run a practice that is a business inside a big company. I count revenue. I innovate. I scale. I have a team. I try to delight customers of all different types everyday.
I have learned a few things trudging this uncharted course. Most of my lessons come from the great people who have come through my professional life. I am lucky to know some great folks.
LinkedIn Today
I admire LinkedIn. I like the new direction they are heading with their content play, LinkedIn Today. They were nice enough to ask me to write as one of their ‘Infuencers.’ Considering they have folks like Jack Welch and Tim Brown from Ideo in there, I jumped at the chance. I also, decided to write more about my business leadership experiences. I realized there were tons of subjects I cared deeply about. And thanks to folks like Kaitlyn, Virginia, Heather, Irfan, Hastie, Rachel, Chris, Brandon, John, Adam and so many other great people, I feel like I have some neat experiences to share.
Here are my first three posts on LinkedIn Today. Enjoy!
The Dangers of Growing Experts From Within
We started Social@Ogilvy eight years ago. Our team was called 360 Digital Influence then and we were a team of so-called experts in the art and science of social media marketing and communications. There was one big problem – hiring experts….
How the Matrix Changes Leadership Focus
No, this isn’t about an alternate reality created by computers where enlightened heroes punch their way through. It’s funny that one of the defining, dystopian science fiction movies of the past 20 years, The Matrix, is the name of the organizational structure of so many corporations today….
The Power and Myth of Company Culture
Company culture can be a huge motivator for people. At it’s best, it can provide a sense of belonging through shared values and an intangible, emotional belief that we are on a shared journey….
What causes us to share something we have discovered online with a friend, family member or our modern version of social connections – those who follow us on Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook?
Research has been done to reveal that ideas or stories with emotional resonance and in particular ‘emotional arousal’ get shared more often. Tucked inside of Jonah Berger’s book, Contagious, is a particularly strong section on the specific types of emotional cues that trigger engagement including this quality of arousal.
Good stuff. But for the marketer how practical on a daily basis? Also, our lives are a bit more multi-dimensional that repeated tugs at our heartstrings. Some days we are just trying to find an easier softer way to get the bison onto the dinner table.
I have shared about our Principles for Social Design both here and in my FastCoCreate posts. (Now in this handy and much simplified Slideshare preso) These are learned from research and from experience. They combine planning around the messenger and how an experience is designed to make it more likely that people will pass it along.
This post unpacks the 7 Driver of Word of Mouth. The previous post did the same for the messenger or Networks of Influence.
The 7 Driver of Word of Mouth Unpacked
Value Exchange: Have we offered a clear value exchange? Will the user find some utility, entertainment, or reward by taking the time to engage with us? What will the brand get from that attention and advocacy?
We often shorthand this in conversation as the reason someone would “care to share.” Seem like common sense? Then why do marketers routinely over estimate the fascination people have for some brand experience? Do people really need another branded recipe guide? A third-rate game that features brand imagery as the backdrop? A scavenger hunt to unearth the product attributes in a playful way?
We all need help getting through the day. Why don’t USB drives have an external display of space remaining? That would be useful. Brands have the unprecedented opportunity to distill insights from social listening and other sources to better understand what would be valuable to people. Let’s do more of that and less post-justification of our snazzy brand campaign and how much people will dig it.
Disruptive Ideas: Have we surprised or challenged expectations?
This is the advertising creative’s gift to mankind. Most award-winning advertising strives to have some cultural tension at the center of it where the advertising shines a light and even turns it on its head. But how do you find a disrupting idea? This is the art and science of creativity in marketing that is difficult to bottle up and sell.
In simplistic terms, first find a cultural tension:
- Discover everyday issues and struggles that may illicit mixed emotions
- Use insights from research and social intelligence to get to a ‘truth’
Next, find a way to disrupt it:
- Define a role the brand can play
- Offer a compelling point of view
- Challenge conventional thinking
I know. Not a very satisfying recipe. Finding that just-right disruptive idea (like Dove’s Ad Makeover) is a bit like pornography – we’ll know it when we see it.
Great Story: Do we have a great story with emotional and rational interest?
Back to emotion. The research tells us that emotion rules the day in so much of our decision-making. Often, we will post justify the emotional decision we made with a bunch of facts this the reason we ought to give both. Still, I am amazed at how many marketers insist on sticking to the facts. Electronics firms do this all the time when trying to convince people to but their new mobile phone or laptop. The feature wars are over. It’s all about the emotion.
My favorite quote recently from a communications professional was, “Public relations is so much more than storytelling.” You can just riff endlessly on this, “Marketing is so much more than storytelling.” “Great presentations are so much more that storytelling.”
Call it the story backlash. What it doesn’t change is the fact that we all do love a good story. Thinking and communicating in stories matters when we are trying to inspire people to share or relay our ideas through their online and offline social graph. It’s way easier to share a good story then some marketing “messages.”
Douglas Van Praet has a good series in FastCoCreate where he discovers his own 6 drivers of decisions. A lot of what he talks about is the power of emotion and the unconscious mind.
“For too long, standard marketing theory has had it backwards. The most startling truth is we don’t even think our way to logical solutions. We feel our way to reason. Emotions are the substrate, the base layer of neural circuitry underpinning even rational deliberation. Emotions don’t hinder decisions. They constitute the foundation on which they’re made!”
Fresh Interest: Do we have something new or interesting to talk about?
Who doesn’t like something unusual to share even if about a product or a brand? Turns out loads of people like that. I remember telling a bunch of hiker friends about the bug shielding qualities of Avon’s Skin So Soft. My social capital went “ca-ching.”
If we want people to talk about us, then lets give them something to talk about and in a form they can share.
Finding fresh interest is every marketer’s challenge. We wrestle with the truth behind “new and improved” claims when the facts are not all that much is new. In advertising, the creative can “punt” on this issue. Seen enough times an advert will make it’s impression regardless of the quality of the “newness.” Not so much in social. If we want people to remark to friends about the new lip balm, we may really have to re-design it in this cool little screw top ball…..
Social Proof: Can people show their involvement such that others can see?
Robert Cialdini documented significant shifts in behavior when people were confronted with messaging and/or evidence that others – turned their thermostat down, recycled plastics, took 3 minute showers, and so forth.
Given a choice between A or B, many times we will look to how others chose. Sure it’s a form of conformity and we all do it so get over it. When we display what other have done given a choice or a set of behaviors, we make it easier for people to decide. This comes to life in the New York Times most emailed articles and Amazon product reviews (“most people gave it 4 stars”). I would argue that social norms are a related and useful concept, especially when we are talking about changing behaviors. Being able to say that most people in Monroe County click their seatbelts on immediately upon getting into the car in order to motivate others to do so is a form of social proof.
Creative Participation: Do we invite people to play a creative role?
If we:
- Create an experience that involves people
- Ask them to be creative
- Involve people in the story-telling and content creation
Then they will be more likely to become invested in the process and outcome and share it. In Cialdini’s work, he talks about the persuasive power of public consistency. When I publish a badge that declares my support for heart disease prevention, then I am more likely to give to that cause (or take a supporting action_ when called to do so. I would argue that when someone nominates or votes in the Chengdu Pambassador program – all public actions showing up in our Facebook timelines – that is a form of public commitment that can spark future actions.
If I took the time to submit my child’s photo to the Gerber baby contest, I will likely promote that program. These are all creative roles. We need to be conscious of different levels of commitment. Not everyone will go so far as to submit the picture. But they may vote on a series of images. Or they may send an email with a link to friend with a particularly cute baby. We think in terms of a “ladder of engagement” where there are simple, five-second things to do at one end and more complex, time intensive things to do at the other end. The Forrester “Technographics” data set seems to reveal that there are demographic tendencies for who will do something intensive like create and submit a video in a contest, for example. That guidance can help set up the right ladder and avoid common problems like building a program that expects 55+ women in the middle of the country to create five minute video submissions.
Simple Advocacy: Do we remind people to share and make it easy?
If we want people to share something or even to take an action, we ought to clearly ask them to do so and them remind them to do it. We also, ought to make it as easy as possible. We ought to have a reckoning when it comes to UX and UI design. It's time we set aside all pretensions and embrace the art of making things clear and easy. Remember the Heath Brothers in Switch. They talk about Shaping the Path and within that gestalt, Tweaking the Environment.
Have we been ruthless in our design and persistent (but not annoying) in our 'ask?'
More and more, our jobs as marketers are to drive behavior. Sometimes that’s getting folks to buy something or more of something. Sometimes its to spend more time or interact with a brand in the hopes that will lead to them thinking about the brand in a moment of need. And more and more often, the behavior we all want is to drive people to advocate.
The best of marketing has always been about behavioral economics and those proven strategies that ‘nudge’ people to buy or take an action. Recently, behavioral science has been popularized and, even advanced, by some pretty smart people.
Robert Cialdini has the six drivers of persuasion (neat compressed summary here). The Heath Brothers have the “Rider” and the “Elephant.” Jonah Berger has his own six principles (“STEPPS”). Dan Ariely has his stuff. Paul Adams from Facebook has his own synthesis of what drives people to action.
There are great concepts born from research across many of these works. In fact, sometimes there is just too much in the behavioral canon to practically apply to a business problem today. In my article for FastCo Create last week outlining The Principles of Social Design, I made a point,
“Many of them, like ”loss aversion”--the tendency for people to move more quickly to avoid losing something rather than to gain something of value--are more like a bolt of fine, durable cloth than a ready-made suit of clothes. You need to know which ones to stitch together to tackle a particular problem.”
Practical Principles of Social Design
I am well aware that the Facebook sales and marketing team popularized the phrase “social by design.” This was used to package up the best practice approach to using the Facebook platform to drive engagement and advocacy KPIs from consumers.
Early on, Facebook found themselves having to educate traditional marketers on brand and agency sides about how Facebook was different than interruptive advertising. I find it ironic that that same group at Facebook has latched onto the mnemonic that Facebook is “the new print” to describe the popularization of clever graphics in use by brand after brand to generate object “likes.” It’s an old-school concept that any art director can understand. It just may not advance the people-centricity of the platform like ‘social by design’ did.
Facebook did not invent word of mouth behaviors. They merely built a platform that takes advantage of a some of them.
We (my team at Social@Ogilvy) have learned from 8 years of social media marketing and communications and a ton more time in related disciplines before that. We are sharp students of academics in this field. In fact, our original work was based upon Robert Cialdini’s six drivers of persuasion.
We needed a more practical synthesis of the best research-based ideas that predict why people will advocate (all forms of word of mouth including sharing content). Here is how we updated our original drivers into a new, highly useful “Principles of Social Design”
There are two parts to the principles. The first defines the messenger and outlines the various networks we might engage with to stimulate sharing or advocacy. These networks influence us all in new ways. Some are more influential because the network is made of family, friends or people with shared interests. The second part are the word of mouth drivers. These are the ways we design communications such that thye authentically capture the attention of people and networks of people and drive advocacy and, even, actions like sales.
Networks of Influence: The messenger matters. Trust in institutions and traditional media goes up and down (mostly down). And while there are new potentially influential voices in many markets and within certain contexts, sometimes what our friends, family and social connections say matters more.
Community Networks: How can we use communities to drive social behaviors? People come together around different affinities and interests. Sometimes that can be a brand. More often it’s a topic that matters to them – think about Maker communities; people who love the Outer Banks of North Carolina; or first time moms. If we can be of-use and deliver against the drivers of word of mouth, we can expect ideas and content to spread across the community.
Influencers: Who are the professional and amateur (and in-between) voices who may have some authority and potential influence on this subject? These may be popular bloggers, celebrities, popular Twitter users. Their subject matter expertise may be narrow like gadgets or raising adopted kids. If we deliver on the drivers of word of mouth, we can encourage influencers to share across their social graph. Sometimes this is akin to a mom reading about new family wellness techniques from a CNN Health editor, and sometimes it is a little closer to them like a tip from a mom you may not know yet who seems similar to you.
Content Network: How can we use our owned and controlled online and offline properties to extend the model? If for no other reason than to be found via Google, we need to use our own content network to publish relevant content such that when someone needs to know
Combine a thoughtful strategy around using the right Networks of Influence with The Drivers of Word of Mouth (see FastCo: The Principles of Social Design) and you are now designing with the Principles of Social Design. That’s what it takes to reliably spark sharing, advocacy, word of mouth and more.
Next post: An Inside View of The Drivers of Word of Mouth
More brands are considering how to put content at the center of their marketing. Coca-Cola has put a stake in the ground with “liquid and linked.” Ford is doing it with their Content Factory. Intel is committed.
Driven by the direct relationships brands now have through their social media platforms with customers, we are all seeing the value in not just using content more effectively but to operationalize it – get a bigger bang for a lesser buck.
It’s easy to believe this is a significant shift for marketers that will affect how budgets are organized, which positions are hired, how success is measured. It’s another thing to have the answers as to how all that will align for business as different as a global FMCG, a B2B tech company or a regional retailer.
Now is the time to get sharp, smart, educated, and generally collect a few different POVs. Here are three that I have found helpful:
Get wise about the various tech partners offering innovative services.
Jeremiah Owyang and the gang at Altimeter have shifted their sights on the content marketing space. I expect great insight from them over the next few months. It starts with a pretty good list of content marketing tech companies like Percolate,Visual.ly, Stipple and more.
Start thinking about how to better organize your company to work across internal teams.
Rebecca Lieb and team at Altimeter drafted a great starting point for brands organizing around content. From the Executive Editorial Board to the Center of Excellence (this time for content vs. ‘social’), they cover some reasonable choices. There are more options out there, yet this paper does a good job of dispelling the idea that you are a mere brand journalist away from becoming an effective content marketing enterprise.
Keep reading and talking with the ‘community of practice’ around content marketing.
As you would expect, there’s tons of content out there about…content. I have found the Content Marketing Institute routinely valuable with their nuts and bolts articles about how others are doing this out there. This article on the 3 building blocks is a good example of foundational and smart stuff.
(Thanks to Just Jared Jr for the horrific image)
Agencies are the Ocean Liners. Sleek, steady vessels following their routes. Start-ups are the Pirate Ships. Oblivious to custom, rough around the edges and ready to change course as it suits them.
I work at a large, global agency. We put a premium on creativity. We sell ideas and other things (like execution and actual business results). Today, those ideas are expressed in digital technologies and behaviors. That’s the way the world will increasingly head. There is a war for talented people who know how to creatively engage people via digital and social experiences.
We must embrace a new era of “creativity”
Insights and lots of diverse POVs lead to disruptive, valuable ideas. Really interesting and creative ideas sprout from putting different types of curious people in a room with the right coach. It’s not always about what’s on people’s business card that qualifies them in the room.
Certainly, the expertise they bring is valuable. That expertise might be in storytelling or architecture or shopper marketing or behavior change. It might also be in advertising. But assuming that ‘creativity’ is the rarified domain of the creative director and his tribe of writers and designers is just plain wrong.
Creativity comes from creating an atmosphere, a culture that values “creativity” in everyone, not “creatives.” That comes from a guy whose last job was as a Creative Director. Building a culture of creativity allows all types of people, with all types of time on the job to contribute. It works when we take the process of developing and cultivating creative ideas seriously. That means no more “magical thinking” about creativity. Oh, those guys on the 14th floor do that.
Agencies vs. Start-ups
Agencies have to change. And since agencies are largely a reflection of the brands they work for, I would argue that most businesses who value creativity (or innovation) need to consider change. Younger talent may be deselecting the agency world. If they cannot contribute because of hierarchical barriers, if they are not invited to be creative, then they will go somewhere where they can. Here’s how Jack Armstrong put it in Digiday:
“At startups, you start off being treated with respect and as an equal. The attitude is more “We’re all in this together” and less “Get used to it, kid.” There are no ropes to be shown, because startups are making up the rules as they go along. Startups are more receptive to the idea that you might be able to teach something, instead of learning what the old-timers already know. Life at startups just generally seems nicer than at agencies. At the end of the day, you can do the same work for people that actually appreciate you.”
I grew professionally in leaps and bounds in the three start-ups I worked in. There was a prevailing sense of “we are all figuring this out together” and people were judged more by their willingness, hard work and ability to get great stuff done.
Agencies sell experts. Or do we sell ideas? Technically, most charge clients for people’s time. Presumably that time is deemed valuable by the output of people’s efforts which very often ought to be remarkable ideas rendered in a way that can accelerate business. That means people within an agency must cultivate valuable and distinctive identities. If there is a group of people called ‘creatives,’ they naturally want to defend their distinct expertise at creative stuff.
It is time to let go of that. We need now what Miles Young Global CEO of Ogilvy & Mather calls “pervasive creativity.” (He didn’t call it “pervasive creatives”).
3 Ways to Help
Invest in Creative Collaboration
At Social@Ogilvy, some very smart people in our Hong Kong team led by Stephanie Chevalierand Jenna Boller, developed a collaborative workshop called Socialab. Originally, it was designed to help a diverse team that often included the client gain strength in thinking “socially.”
Socialab now describes how we collaborate routinely. It’s how we bring diverse expertise to a table to articulate a social brand character, a social strategy and the big social idea which we call the social experience. It’s also how we introduce people to the principles of social design – those behavioral triggers that drive people to share some form of word of mouth.
We invite social strategists, creative, brand experts, clients, tech and platform partners and more. Diversity is key.
Steve Simpson, Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy & Mather North America, has begun new habit of holding his own form of creative “hackathons.” These are purposely named after the tech startup community practice of creating collaborative work sessions that treat everyone equal and create a climate that helps individuals contribute.
Hire New Disciplines and Don’t Tell Them The Rules
No mystery that the last two people we hired came from editorial and content backgrounds with the BBC and Gannett. The two before that from tech start-ups. And so on.
We need different brands to develop creative ideas that can actually come to life in today’s fragmented world. We need to make room for them once they are on board. I suggest we hire some of them without overdoing the on-boarding process. I would rather encourage these new souls to disregard how things get done and the ruts of our routines and see what happens.
Form Start-ups and Take Hostages
Social@Ogilvy was a start-up inside Ogilvy. So is Ogilvy Change (behavior change). No one asked us to create this business. We did it. We hijacked some people and resources and proved pretty quickly we were on to something. Had we embarrassed ourselves and failed in any significant way, I am certain we would have been duly punished.
Start-ups inside big, operational companies have to be a bit more ruthless. You will not find a “Fail Faster” motto anywhere on the walls of these companies. But forming your own thing can work.
Pretty soon, you find people inside the mothership intrigued by what you are doing and wanting to come on board.
There you have three practical ways we can change and put a little pirate ship in the ocean liners.
My colleagues at Ogilvy India alerted me to a social campaign that aspires to movement status (they worked on this). That means they hope to gain broad awareness for their issue and presumably see that awareness translate into fund-raising and other key actions.
Helping Children in India
The issue is children born with cleft palates. The organization behind this is Operation Smile India – “Operation Smile India provides free surgery to repair cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities for children throughout the country.”
In case you were wondering how widespread this problem is like I was, “Approximately 1 in every 700 Indian children is born with a cleft lip and/or cleft palate with an estimated backlog of more than 1 million people living with untreated facial deformities.”
For many, the remedy is a 45-minute surgery at a cost of about $400.
We recently published an analysis of Social Brand Movements that compared the performance of movements supported by brands with social movements supported by NGOs like this one (see paper at end of post). The goal was to understand how big the largest of movements can actually aspire to get.
Operation Smile aspires to 1 million tweets/retweets with some number of complimentary video views. By our own review, that is 25% greater than the social actions supported by GlobalGiving following the Tsunami in Japan. Big goal. And the kids deserve it.
Is Raising Awareness Enough?
The recent effort to raise awareness has a few really smart elements.
1. They created a hashtag - #cleftosmile – that is easy to remember. They also created a graphic logo which uses a clever set of keystrokes - :{to:) - not quite as easy to remember nor as functional as the hashtag but still clever. There is a campaign site here.
2. They told the heart-wrenching story in a video that mixes the graphic animation and photography of affected children. This softens the aversion people instinctively have to the site of the cleft deformity
3. Users are prompted to tweet to celebrities to capture their attention and earn their own reach-busting tweets
4. They have a big, hairy, audacious goal of 1m tweets and a simple call to action
5. All calls-to-action beyond tweets and video views lead back to the Operation Smile India site. That’s where the clarity of this simple program softens a bit as users must hunt around for what they can do.
A Big Job-to-be-done
I am certain that the issue of India’s children suffering from cleft lip or palate lacks broad awareness. Still, there are likely other problems to solve as well, like making the condition relevant to more people than the parents and outer circle (e.g. grandparents) of those children affected. It is also likely a highly stigmatizing condition for all involved – child and parent. The video takes steps to soften the impact of seeing a beautiful child’s face with the condition. I don’t want to in any way feed into the stigma, merely acknowledge that fear and challenging imagery often cause people to shut down in social marketing (behavior change) programs. That's why the animation works well here.
If the tweets get loud enough, government and business leaders will pay attention:
“The idea is to raise enough of a noise to make cleft treatment a part of the government's agenda. If this translates into volunteers and funding, it would be the icing on the cake,” said an official.
When the program is meant to drive fundraising directly, we would adjust our approach. People don’t get pushed down the funnel anymore. The logic that if we just raise enough awareness a certain portion will donate isn’t sound anymore. We need to give people actions they can take now. If we are lucky enough to earn their attention, lets ask them for some money. If they will retweet then lets get them to ping a celebrity like this campaign does. Hey, how about pinging titans of industry like those who have big business stakes in India? What does Warren Buffet’s investment strategy in India look like? Maybe if I tweeted him, he might rewteet….
Presuming the bigger barrier to more children getting the much-needed surgery is money, then Operation Smile could take extra steps to make it easier for all of us to take an action. How can people donate $5 or $10? Can I start a pot of money and get my friends to give enough until we reach $400 for one surgery? Can we all give micro-donations via mobile device?
Clearly, one of the biggest innovations from digital in fund-raising is mobile micro-donations. Within that is the behavioral economics “truth” that we just need to remove all barriers and make taking an action easier.
Tweet this
All that being said, no child should struggle with the challenges of a cleft palate. Any parent can feel some of the emotional struggle that these children must feel.
Let’s throw caution to the wind. Give what you can. Tell your friends and social connections about these children. And by all means, copy-and-paste and tweet this today:
RT now #CleftToSmile and help Operation Smile India deliver a smile to children who deserve that simple beauty. http://bit.ly/ZgKfRs
Or how to really engage the true brand fans to become more productive advocates (and save you money while selling more).
So much energy and money is being spent on building what we all describe as big “fanbases” in Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks, that we lose sight of the fact that not all fans are created equal.
In our soon-to-be-released international study on brand advocacy, one finding is clear – the number of highly active and vocal fans for particular brands is quite small. So what are you doing for your best, most connected customers (here “best” might mean most vocal advocates and not necessarily the biggest spenders)? What are you doing for the 1-5% of your fan or follower base who are actually sharing a lot and championing the brand?
Certainly acknowledging them with replies on Facebook or Twitter is good practice. But if you really want to cultivate strong advocacy from those most inclined to express themselves you may want to go further.
Fan Loyalty Programs
Brand have run loyalty programs for centuries. Most are geared towards encouraging customers to spend more. Data programs are run to filter and identify big spenders with tons of nuance about what they spend on and so forth. Our own Lasek Group are expert at designing and running some of the world’s top loyalty programs.
What are relatively new are programs designed to inspire and drive more focused advocacy from the most active advocates. These programs need three components to succeed:
- A technological platform that makes it easy to deliver messages and build insightful profiles
- A steady stream of content, offers and access that the best advocates would find worth their time and their social capital
- A program design and execution discipline based upon the key drivers of behavior
Technology platforms
We designed our own Insider Circle as a way to subscribe a group of ‘super-fans’ to a private club where they receive exclusives – content before anyone else, access to interesting people and experiences, product and service offers and experiences. We saw other platforms on the market but none really reflected the feature-set that we had learned from experience were not only valuable but also ‘right-sized’ to the market. That means baking-in social drivers like game mechanics and rewards and making it easy to use other behavior-drivers.
There are other good choices out there now. Social Chorus is one. Greg Shove, CEO, has led a great team to create a useful platform that helps brands identify ‘social influencers’ and then subscribe them via the platform. There is a significant distinction between fans and influencers. Clearly having fans who have the attributes of potential influence (i.e. high-reach and relevance) is ideal. Still, identifying your most vocal fans and being mindful that they likely span the spectrum of high potential influence and to low potential influence is okay.
500 Friends sounds more like a loyalty-minded firm or as they would call it, “LoyaltyPlus”
“LoyaltyPlus empowers you to present your customers with relevant incentives, such as rewards, points, status, recognition, and exclusive access and promotions. Engage your customers at each stage of their lifecycle, from the time they become aware of your brand through conversion to loyalty and ultimately advocacy.”
The platform combines customer rewards, advocacy stimulants (they make it easy and provide incentives), and a way to capture reviews and other consumer generated content.
Now, Dropify adds some functionality to Facebook to deliver content to your community. You can literally lay on an exclusive downloadable video or white paper to your fanbase. It’s not clear of the platform will support targeting that to specific members of your community – like your 1%. It’s also not clear if this functionality is really a step above how we deliver content now through the Facebook Newsfeed. But its inevitable that Facebook and or the network of developers working within that environment will try to get real about the different levels of advocates in the myriad of brand fanbases out there and develop tools to treat them special.
A steady stream of value
Many brands are redefining budgets and staff to support the content needed to mange always-on social networks. It isn’t easy or a trivial matter. But its happening. Now, comes the question of what are you going to hold back and release exclusively to your best advocates?
Most brands are struggling to keep good stuff in the pipeline for the mass Facebook fanbase. Choosing to create exclusives for an even smaller group is tough. They must believe in the power of the ‘super-fan’ over the myth of the mass-engaged fanbase (my bias is pretty clear)
Key drivers of behavior
The more things change the more they stay the same. If your goal is to drive your most vocal fans to action, then you would use the proven drivers of social behaviors. Think Cialdini, Health Brothers, Ariely. If you just start with Cialdini’s ‘6 drivers of persuasion,’ you can see instantly how we bring those to bear. ‘Scarcity’ is what exclusive and limited run offers are all about. These are the assets we make available via the technology platform for a limited time. ‘Social Proof’ lets other advocates see what their peers are doing this reinforcing their own impulse to share particular content.
As you plan out the rest of your 2013 plan and identify next priorities on into 2014, what are you doing to embrace and activate your 1%?
Misleading headlines in research
Eric Schmidt, senior manager-marketing strategy and insights at Coca-Cola, presented research at ARF’s Re:think 2013 conference that seemed to indicate that what the AdAge article is calling “buzz” doesn’t drive short terms sales of Coca-Cola product.
Meanwhile Coca-Cola's Wendy Clark, senior VP-integrated marketing communications and capabilities, countered via another AdAge article that integrated social media – social media programs that are integrated in overall marcom efforts – can be highly effective. The research may, in isolation, be true – that “buzz” cannot be connected to short term sales lift for Coca-Cola products, but that is not what any of us are doing in social media. Wendy does go on to challenge the study pretty directly, “In beta testing with Facebook, we've been able to track closed-loop sales from site exposure to in-store purchase with very promising initial results that are above norms for what we see with other media.”
Even Eric framed up the limits of what his analysis covers, “…he cautioned against reading too much into the research, noting that it covers only buzz, not sharing, video views or other aspects of social media.”
The value of social media to marketers
I hate the term “buzz.” As the former President of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and a guy who runs a global business applying social media to business with measurable results, I find the term one-dimensional and misleading.
What we are all doing online is expressing some form of word of mouth – and it's not all created equal. When someone authentically recommends or relates something positive about a brand to their friends, family and social connections online and off, that is a powerful and trusted source that affects people’s opinion and their purchase behavior. Still, a customer “gushing” about great service or a great product experience online is not the same as an innocuous statement “blah, blah, blah, Coke.” The blanket term “buzz” does nothing to help our understanding of what is actually happening in social media – a range of consumer advocacy from subtle and implicit to bold and explicit recommendations.
If we simply treat online word of mouth – the very nature of social media – as just “impressions” to be counted and weighed against other impressions, we will never realize the true promise of word of mouth via social media. Word of mouth via social media delivers a scaled approach to building measurably valuable relationships with customers, activating an advocacy base that drives opinion and behavior beyond what traditional marketing alone can do and dramatically improving the efficiency of the complete marcom mix (equal or better result from equal or less investment).
“Buzz” is almost as bad as “chatter” – two words used in the AdAge article to dumb down what is a more complex and powerful phenomena. Both words conjure up an image of clouds of white noise surrounding us like flies. That’s my friends, family and social connections you are talking about.
Integrated social media marketing does drive sales
With respect to Eric Schmidt, there are limits to the research on “buzz” as to its usefulness in guiding our use of integrated social media. It made a splash and good headlines. It heated up debate even within Coke.
Our own research via our Integrated Social Media Sales Impact Study demonstrated the correlation of social media in the mix for quick service restaurants (many of which, by the way, serve Coca-Cola products). Clearly, the value of positive word of mouth is highly affected by the product category and context. Our study showed impressive benefits of social media as part of the overall marcom mix to driving higher levels of consumption (the things you buy at QSR’s like Coke) and greater brand-relevant KPIs. It’s all here.
Much like Wendy Clark at Coca-Cola, I don’t want marketers to mis-read the headlines around this one study. The power of social media is within an integrated approach. That’s what we do here at Social@Ogilvy and what we have spent 8 years strengthening. And we have done it for many multinational marketers across categories – including our wonderful client Coca-Cola.
As we all know, ‘attribution is a bitch.’ In our lives as consumers, I think it a fool’s errand to try and zero-in on the one communication that trumped all others and inordinately drove a sale. What we will continue to do is go deeper and deeper to understand how effective social media marketing and communications integrated in a multi-channel, multi-screen consumer experience drives business results – including sales.
The following are the POVs our team created over this year's SXSW2103. I spent a very productive week+ leading up to and into the SXSW Interactive event(s). I summarized that in the Day 2 summary below:
You can get our complete Slideshare POVs here.
All week, we are at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Martin Lange will lead the charge for Ogilvy. You can follow our observations via our Tumblr blog and our core Social@Ogilvy blog and Twitter handle.
Last post, I suggested the need and a way for putting social, mobile and value creation at the center of the creative and strategic marketing and communications process ("The SoMoVa System"). Practically speaking, brands can organize their efforts to bolster the mobile portion of that equation in three steps:
Unlock the mobile storefront: Consider this the hygiene step. Every brand starting a new initiative or refreshing an existing one must do the base level of mobile accessibility. That means creating a great experience for smartphone users, simple phone users and tablet users.
Part of this is simple design for the screen and likely connectivity throughputs (e.g. 3G and lower) part is designing for the use-cases or likely customer experience.
To this day, I am stunned by how many restaurant sites are not enabled for mobile with four buttons on screen: menu, location, make a reservation and photos. I stand on a corner of St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin trying to find a great place to eat.
For too many brands, their mobile “door” remains locked for all intent and purpose simply because they have no good mobile experience. Time to unlock that storefront and invite people inside.
Teach ourselves to ‘think’ mobile-first: One big challenge inside agencies and brands is the sense that mobile ought to be everyone’s expertise from day-one. While it will be someday, we ought to care enough to make our brand marketers more successful immediately. We designed a training program for social media strategists 7 years ago. It has evolved and grown. We believed we needed to supplement what even digital marketers understood about social behaviors and practices.
By creating the Principles of Mobile Design (“design” here takes the high road meaning the design of the experience not simply an interface), we establish a best practice checklist for expert marketers. Are they considering the top 3 mobile use-cases for their customer? Are they using the location-based data from mobile and/or the camera capabilities and/or the social network connectivity?
We also need to inject mobile expertise – creative, strategic and technological – into our creative ideation process. New team structures and fresh collaboration practices. Don’t treat mobile as a channel (just as you would not treat social as a channel). Making ideas mobile from the get-go is best.
Disrupt before the disruption: Martin Lange cites Uber and MyTaxi as disruptive services. My favorite is Bands in Town which alerts me to when any of my bands are playing in town – no matter what town I am in. How will mobile disrupt the core business of many of the brands out there? To some extent, it is pure hubris to think that an internal effort can anticipate the unimaginable disruptions that may come from a vast entrepreneurial landscape. On the other hand, smart businesses can do two things to stimulate that within their organization:
- Sanction ‘disruption-hunting’ from the top – the C-suite can challenge managers to be their own competitors at times. When I first started Social@Ogilvy 7+ years ago, there were plenty of business leaders invested in television advertising who would have liked us to go away. A little air-cover from the C-suite goes a long way to build internal courage.
- Put a bounty on disruptive ideas – are we all doing enough to stimulate and reward idea-generation from across our employees? Do we have a formal program that solicits ideas and then funds the most promising?
Three ways brands can make offer a shot of mobile adrenalin to their organizations:
- Unlock the mobile storefront
- Teach ourselves to ‘think’ mobile-first
- Disrupt before the disruption
We are not mobile enough. Brands are under investing in meeting customers at all of the mobile touch points just as they are under investing in social media. But business leaders want to lead and do more in mobile.
THIS WEEK
Media companies, brands, technologists, carriers and Ogilvy will flock to Barcelona to the Mobile World Congress 2013 to not just pace the trade floor for promising mobile solutions beyond the obvious, but they will also attend insightful keynotes like the panel on Vertical Disruption featuring GM, American Heart Association and Qualcomm and the panel on Mobile Innovation 2023 offering a near-future vision.
We will publish throughout the event and distill what we learn into useful takeaways just as we did for CES. Our own Martin Lange will be leading the charge and you can follow his team’s Tumblr here. Start off with their ‘5 Trends to Watch For…’
Mobile in the Middle of SoMoVa
Marketers need a “stimulus package” for mobile. They need an artificial way to motivate their marketers to commit to making mobile a core expertise and a primary way they engage customers. Someday, mobile will just be how we engage people from smartphones to the tablet-of-the-future to the ‘internet of things.’
But until that future arrives, and to ensure it does, we need ways to spark the imagination of marketers to put mobile first now - to make it routine and consistent. Clearly, mobile usage broadly defines varies market-by-market and consumer context-by-context. Still, you would be hard pressed to examine a market anywhere in the world and not be able to identify ways in which mobile is changing the customer journey.
Many would say that mobile (and social) don’t fundamentally change how marketing works. Maybe. To help ace marketers focus on mobile and social behaviors, I would suggest a simple rubric with checklists to help us all put these considerations front of mind.
Social + Mobile + Value = Successful Marketing
Okay, okay, that’s not all that goes into “successful marketing.” These ingredients are now essential, however.
Social
Brands can increase the social qualities of their marketing and communications by designing programs around the “Principles of Social Design.” These are the lessons we have learned that explain why people share all types of word of mouth (i.e. “earned media”). The more they do this and learn their own context-specific principles the more they will meet consumer’s needs.
Mobile
Likewise, brands can increase the mobile accessibility and utility by designing programs for the customer across the heterogeneous experiences of mobile. That means understanding the context in which we reach for our tablets at home on the couch or press on our smartphones standing in the aisle. Google’s Multiscreen Study continues to be a great reference that starts to articulate useful context.
We need the equivalent “principles of mobile design” to serve as a checklist to inform creative and strategic work from all marketers not just the token mobile experts. At the very least, our checklists include “…the inherent advantages found in the mobile world: location sensing, cameras and instant access to social networks.”
Value
Every marketer thinks about the additional value they are delivering to customers whether in the form of complimentary recipes posted on Facebook or via a mobile app or something much bigger like a Nike Fuel where a whole new business model is inspired by technology and mobility. What is the core value we are trying to dial up? How is that being enabled or amplified via our mobile and social-first design?
If brand marketers and their teams had this simple rubric and the questionnaires for each axis in front of them as they designed marketing and communications programs, it might serve as a stimulus package to making SoMoVa central to how we serve our consumers/customers today.
I just spent the last hour browsing my dashboard in Tumblr, “hearting” many posts and reblogging a couple that live up to what I am trying to publish in my Tumblr. I follow artists, designers, comic book artists, architects, map enthusiasts, photographers of empty spaces and much more. For me, it’s about inspiration. And pausing from the frenetic pace and tension of my life to remember what I care about deeply.
"EVENT: Don't miss my interview this week with Tumblr founder, David Karp.
A Conversation with David Karp, Founder of Tumblr: Brands Connecting Inside the Index of Passions -- Ogilvy & Mather Theater NYC February 20 -Time: 10:30am – 11:30am
Join us as for a candid conversation with David Karp who has created one of the fastest growing communities of people sharing what they care about most. How can brands participate in Tumblr with meaningful brand or business impact and how do we do it without spoiling the beauty of Tumblr? Join Social@Ogilvy’s John Bell as he asks David Karp about his vision for brands and Tumblr."
Tumblr is a place of passions, things we care about. Sure, it’s about “creators” but a broad, generous definition of creativity. As such it’s a network of people who care about the affinity that draws them there.
Many brands are more than experimenting with the site. You can browse some of the brand pages via the Brands on Tumblr page. The advantages are clear:
- Tumblr hosts interest and passion-driven content through the personalized dashboard
- Connecting with relevant microcommunities will become essential for brands in the next phase of data-driven social media marketing
- Tumblr pages are indexed by Google and enhance a brand’s discoverability
- They can be masked within a brand domain and therefore be part of the corporate domain
- The network of 150 million, highly engaged users has appreciable reach and a built-in social behavior - reblogging
- The simplicity of the platform supports brand ambitions to embrace content marketing
- They visual design of the service lends itself to visual expression and emotion
- There are some simple advertising solutions – two – that help brands be discovered
The 4th Place
If Facebook is the key social network that brands want to master due to its broad global reach, Twitter is likely number two due to broad global relevance, it’s influencer status and suitability for service brand care. YouTube comes in next as the defacto platform for serving up video inside the world’s #2 search engine.
Pinterest? Instagram? Tumblr stands a better chance at earning the 4th place position in social brand architecture for companies who know they need a searchable content place and who want to be inside a network of passions.
There are over 93 million Tumblrs (Tumblr blogs), users average 23 minutes on the platform per session and they clock 18 billion page views a month. It’s got reach and engagement. (Get some strong stats here)
Many arts-related brands have made a home here. Fashion brands are a strong niche.
Burberry: they established the Art of the Trench, the emotional “home” of the brand and are asking people to submit their photos of their ‘trench.’
Chanel: they keep it simple and post images that people can lust after and reblog
Dolce & Gabbana: An endless flow of fashion covers and spreads ready for reblogging and ‘hearting.’
Tory Burch: Torypedia is personal and luscious. Big, rebloggable pictures which si just what we want from fashion
Urban Outfitters: their pages start with the UP Community which aggregates a growing collection of pages that tie seamlessly into the ecommerce site. Check out the Swim Look Book in their site. Now check out the Tumblr.
Not just Fashion
Now is the time to explore in Tumblr. Brands like Ford, IBM, Amex and others are exploring how to use great content within this interest community.
The Lincoln Motor Company: our team did this work and created a poetic and beautiful site for Lincoln that taps the heritage of the brand.
Beautiful Creatures, the Movie: Hollywood embraces Tumblr as the platform of choice for new releases. Think about all those wasted dollars creating the Flash sites of yesteryear.
Coca Cola: the brand that embraced content marketing (see Content 2020) brings you a tumblr full of shareable images and gifs
Whole Foods: the Dark Rye Tumblr aggregates "pioneers of unconventional ideas..." thus building on the brand story of Whole Foods as a disrupter.
I know the guys/gals at Tumblr and have a lot of faith in their plans. They are embracing brands while staying committed to their original vision of a platform for creative-types. They have created an index of passions in my own words. That means emotion is part of what you will find there and as brands re-embrace the power of emotion and, perhaps, how to create great brand experience in a social world, Tumblr is the place to do that. They are innovating and working with brands now. That's why our team participates on their A-List and produces Tumblr-based ideas for Ford, IBM and other brands.
Facebook and Twitter serve to point to other content. Tumblr is content.
I met Damien Mulley (@damienmulley) a few years back when I first visited Ireland to work with our team here. He is one of the earliest folks to get serious about social and has been sharing that with brands and organization since. He took a bunch of us to a wonderful dinner last night at Chapter One - a worthwhile WOM story, in and of itself.
He also runs two great events in Ireland and today is one of them - Measurement.ie. I will be keynoting later on and am looking forward to a lot of sessions including the next one from Matt Morrison (@mediaczar) from Starvest. I saw that he actually has an homage slide to Robert Cialdini in his deck.
Measurement Kevlar: The Master Markleter's Armor for 2013
We'll see how my session is received (just gave it this am to a closed group of brands who were very engaged). I wanted to share what i see as the big measurement jobs to be done for major brands this year. Some of it is advanced thinking yet still, it's time. Here's the section titles:
Cultivated Brand Advocacy - Time to proactively design, execute and measure organized brand advocacy programs
Integrated Social Media Impact - The customer journey is complex. We buy based on lot of influences from word of mouth (often via social media) to advertising to media relations. Its time to measure the impact of social media within intergrated programs to understand its effect/contribution to brand metrics and actual sales.
Everyday Social Media Measurement - We can measure the performance and efficacy of social-centered programs today. We have a model. You have a model. It's harder work than most established measurement model but time for us to get limber and get busy.
Anyhow, I will share the story/presentation later on.
Now, back to the conference which you can follow via teh sponsor Hashtag #DoneDealSocial
Social@Ogilvy grows. I need an exceptional “social/digital strategist on-the-rise” to work directly with me at our global center as the VP of Content and Business Development. As we enable a world’s worth of social and digital strategists and specialists to do awesome work for Ford, IBM, Nestlé, Caterpillar and more, I need a skilled marketer who understands how to create great social and digital programs and who knows how to create great content that scales what we do. This is the content that we use globally to design and deliver great work. From helping document our 3rd generation planning framework to drafting our latest POV on Google+ to creating award-winning case studies, content is king and this person knows how to write it and produce it.
It’s a mix of brand-facing work and team-facing enablement with a common goal of expanding what we do for our clients and our next clients. As we evolve an 8-year young practice, this magical person will work very closely with me and other Social@Ogilvy leaders to guide the next phase of growth. You will be creating and guiding the creation of content that we use ourselves.
If you want to grow a start-upy business within a great brand (Ogilvy), know how to tell great stories and write super-well, love building business and inventing what’s next and know how to roll up your own sleeves and get stuff done, you should send me an email. Include your LinkedIn url and answer three questions ever so briefly:
- One social program you admire but didn’t create
- What is your best piece of content that you created over the last 12 months
- How are you and I connected in some way
Send me your stuff: john.bell@ogilvy.com
Include “Rockstar” in the subject line. I'm serious.
For all of the hullabaloo about BIG DATA (so BIG it requires capital letters), the tangible examples remain ghost-like and hard to grip. Yes, I am sure that all the wonderful data-crunching recommendations I receive when logged into Amazon are valid examples. I even believe the data collection, mashing and outputs that drive Progressive’s Snapshot (collects data on how you and 1mm other people drive to build a personalized insurance rate) is a decent example of BIG DATA applied.
Still, we need more examples to better understand its potential and what are the best practices of applying BIG DATA to business.HBR has a section online dedicated to just this. It features stories on predicting movie blockbusters via data and...well, not too many more examples actually.
A story in the NY Times this past weekend highlighted the use of data to derive insights from literature.
A study from the University of Nebraska used technology to crunch 3600 19th century literary novels to reveal that, among other things, Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott are the proverbial ‘trail head’ of influence on other writers.
“The study, which involved statistical parsing and aggregation of thousands of novels, made other striking observations. For example, Austen’s works cluster tightly together in style and theme, while those of George Eliot (a k a Mary Ann Evans) range more broadly, and more closely resemble the patterns of male writers. Using similar criteria, Harriet Beecher Stowe was 20 years ahead of her time, said Mr. Jockers, whose research will soon be published in a book, “Macroanalysis: Digital Methods and Literary History” (University of Illinois Press).”
Big Data People
My vision of BIG DATA applied is not some automated process where if you simply combine the right massive feeds of data, even crunching them via some mind-bending algorithm, that actionable meaning shoots out the other side. If I simply look at my own world of digital intelligence derived form behavior and content online, it is all about the human analysis that converts it into meaning.
“Quantitative tools in the humanities and the social sciences, as in other fields, are most powerful when they are controlled by an intelligent human. Experts with deep knowledge of a subject are needed to ask the right questions and to recognize the shortcomings of statistical models.
“You’ll always need both,” says Mr. Jockers, the literary quant. “But we’re at a moment now when there is much greater acceptance of these methods than in the past. There will come a time when this kind of analysis is just part of the tool kit in the humanities, as in every other discipline.””
We need to be growing new hybrid professionals who understand data analysis but understand other things as well. Just look at assistant professor Matthew Jockers. His qualifications span two unlikely worlds.
“Mr. Jockers, 46, personifies the digital advance in the humanities. He received a Ph.D. in English literature from Southern Illinois University, but was also fascinated by computing and became a self-taught programmer. Before he moved to the University of Nebraska last year, he spent more than a decade at Stanford, where he was a founder of the Stanford Literary Lab, which is dedicated to the digital exploration of books.“
These guys and gals won’t graduate out of some “BIG DATA meets marketing” program, to focus on my industry as an example. We need to train and grow these experts now by investing, in my industry’s case, in “Digital Intelligence Teams” who are working with data sources everyday and applying them to real work. This applied innovation is where new, valuable capabilities will be born. It is also where the BIG DATA People will come from.
(image: thank you Brett Shollenberger for the perfect pic)
Yup, they’re back (The Constellations, above, are a great band in the service). Many in the trades will get snarky about
the rising from the ashes of the flameout social network that lost its way. In
the apparent triumph of Facebook as the primary social plumbing of our lives,
they might be right. Many more will criticize the celebrity backing of Justin
Timberlake as a hail-mary pass of brand beyond hope.
I don’t think MySpace should be mistaken for Twinkies. That product brand is part of our history but hopelessly out of step with our healthful present. The New MySpace (I shall call it the “New MySpace” for about a year and then we can go back to just saying “MySpace”) is trying to be something new while at the same time getting back to its knitting – music.
Beta Beta
Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot that’s messed up here. While wonderfully visual (I love the big type in the search function), the interface is a messy work-in-progress. Still, I give them credit for trying to mesh the big picture-swipes of the tablet world with an almost simple dashboard design.
Building a playlist that is a mix of songs, videos and full albums is do-able. The significance of what are “Connections” is not clear. That is the primary activity like Facebook’s “Like” or Twitter’s “Follow.” I can Connect with another user by also with any type of media. I got tired connecting to all the Nick Cave songs displayed. Unfortunately, no matter what or who I connected to, nothing ever appeared in my stream. Then I realized the interesting user experience twist – it’s all based upon a horizontal scroll. Clearly a way to distinguish from Facebook but also connect to the horizontal scroll/swipe of iTunes and many tablet functions including our own Web site at Social@Ogilvy.
Music Fans First
Upon registering, you will be asked to self-identify to a stack of creative titles (or the ubiquitous “fan” category). Even though they hint at serving visual artists, too, the actual content and experience appears to be all music focus now. Again, that’s the territory that “old” MySpace staked out at one time.
As a music fan, I hate being force fed a ‘top-of-the-charts’ experience. That’s what we have today in the service. I respect Beyonce, Adele, and even Justin Timberlake. That’s just not my turf. I suspect this is simply how the service launches. It took me only a few minutes to find J Roddy Walston tracks and a simply awesome Social Distortion video.
Pandora and YouTube and, someday, Tumblr?
Forget Facebook. That’s not the territory for the New MySpace. They seem to have staked out some interesting white space wedged between Pandora and YouTube. I love being able to build a playlist that is a mix of songs, albums and videos. It plays in the background. Once in a while, I will watch the video. Of course, Pandora’s magic sauce is the recommendations from their wonderful human-powered DNA analysis. Hard to beat that for music discovery. Currently, there is no real way to discover new music short of browsing endless pages of album art and photo thumbnails or selecting a handful of “related” links. I like recommendations pushed to me.
I have a confession. I love music videos. As corny as they can be, I grew up when MTV was born (“old” MTV) and worked on some of the first music videos seen on the channel. There just isn’t a great experience to find and watch music videos. I know YouTube has everything, but I like a bit of quality curation. I imagine that is what I get in the New MySpace.
Clearly, New MySpace starts with music and music fans. The ambition seems to be a space for all types of creators/creatives. In that regard they may be aiming for some of the territory currently blowing up in Tumblr where we are all asked to “Follow the World’s Creators.” Interestingly, it may just be the user experience that keeps those services apart. Tumblr is the epitome of simple (I love my Tumblr – Smoldering Embers). My Space requires more investment. Tumblr is also great as it holds wonderful content – often visual – that the world can access and link to. I tried for 10 minutes to send a link to my wife to the Social Distortion video and gave up.
We’ll See
I don’t know if the New MySpace will flourish and survive. I don’t think anyone knows. It feels fresh to me. I hope that it evolves to allow more connections outside the service (e.g. Facebook Connect, Tweets).
I suppose part of their success depends on their ability to lure artists back into MySpace to interact (The Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds page is empty). I don’t think Top40 or even Top500 radio artists can carry the service. Lastly, many services have tried to navigate the licensing and legal quagmire of music rights and ownership and died trying. I hope they know what they are doing.
If you are a music fan, you have to try it.
This video captures the POVs of several noteworthy designers on how interaction design changes as we move towards the "Internet of things." I find this a refreshing conversation about what I sense is being revealed/wrestled with on the floor of CES 2013
This week 156,000 people and 3000 companies will form a virtual mosh pit at CES 2013 in Las Vegas. What was once all about devices – TVs, audio, phones, computers – is broadening every year to include new technologies that don’t look like the traditional devices. Software in all its many forms will play a huge role.
CES is evolving to include all sorts of more embedded & connected technology (e.g. cars, home automation), key “human verticals” like health and fitness, and everywhere access (mobile TV). All of this offers glimpses of potential new human behaviors. But at such a scale, it begs thoughtful review and analysis even to find the most interesting bets.
A marketers lens
Much of the show will remain focused on introducing devices with incremental feature enhancements. Ultra 3D is a good example, Any tablet that may be revealed is another. I respect that someone may be interested in those devices and each may represent potential big business for someone. I am much more interested in specialty areas. I am not attending this year, but several people from the Ogilvy and the Social@Ogilvy teams will be. And while I believe that ‘being there’ will be the best experience, I am convinced that many of us can stay connected to select coverage of the show and learn more about what matters to us thanks to those brave souls trekking through the record 1.9 million square feet of exhibit space, endless presentations, interminable social events and more.
Best ways to follow the event
To plan out how you can tap into Ogilvy’s feed from the show and the most relevant coverage, check out our post – Suit Up For CES 2013: Your Coverage Guide.
Seven Topics to Watch at this Year's CES 2013
More Social TV and the Second Screen Experience
77% of the time we are watching TV, we are simultaneously on another device. 22% of that time is “complimentary usage” meaning that whatever you are doing on the PC, tablet or smartphone has something to do with the TV (vs multitasking like checking email).
How will technology continue to shape this complimentary behavior? Twitter made some wise moves by really courting television media companies to integrate Twitter handles and/or hashtags to inspire a two screen experience. Services like GetGlue helped people build community around programs they love (i.e. “check-ins” to Walking Dead).
What will emerge at CES that further enables a SocialTV or complimentary second screen experience? One reason I am keen to see innovations here is because people have already changed their behavior and demonstrated demand. There are plenty of other technology innovations that did not catch on. Will 3D TV, now Ultra 3D, really go mass? Check out the focus on 2nd Screen Experience.
More Connected Automotive
We all spend so much time in our cars. Smart connectivity and/or new behaviors that enhance that experience via utility or entertainment without introducing additional safety concerns are a big deal. We work with Ford. I own 2 Ford vehicles. I love what Sync and My Ford Touch have made possible. Sync plus Siri is pretty great. Finding a restaurant and calling for a reservation via voice commands and with 1 initiated step and 1-2 voice reactions is a bonafide improvement on tasks.
What’s next? I am productivity geek. I think in terms of time chunks. An hour long drive to me could easily be 20 minutes of voice-accessed email, 20 minutes of Mashable headlines and stories and 20 minutes of the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds recording (due next month).
Google’s great Multiscreen World research preso (get it here), points out how we initiate an activity on one device and continue on another. How will the “buyer journey” change as I seamlessly continue a shopper activity started on a PC and moved to my drive to store/pick up/purchase location? (e.g. “hey Best Buy, I will be there in 20 minutes and can a TV sales specialist just show me three of the 60” 4K TVs that I tagged online?”)
Check out the automotive focus here.
Next Gen Entertainment Content
Content marketing is the new “social media”. It is capturing the interest of marketers and will only be eclipsed when we actually know what to do with “big data” on an everyday basis. In its hugeness, CES 2013 has sections dedicated to content and specifically, they have a track called Entertainment Matters. If you want to get a sampling of what Hollywood-centered content creators are doing and thinking in terms of creating, delivering and monetizing new forms of content, check some of these sessions.
Our own Doug Scott, President of Ogilvy Entertainment, will be driving a session Brands: This Is How You Work With Content Creators.
Attentive Computing
Computers/devices that can understand what I want to do by deciphering where my attention is, where my eyes are looking, where my hand points will change how we interact and rely on technology. (Check out an MIT view of Attentive Visual Interfaces here).
A neat example of this is Tobii Technologies “gaze interaction peripheral” which essentially will add eye gaze to the ways in which we control our devices. Freeing computer control from our hands driving some type of interface could lead to many unanticipated behaviors well beyond controlling Master Chief in Halo.
Connected and Enabled Healthcare and Fitness
Nike Fuelband adorns the wrists of at least half of my colleagues, or so it seems. Devices like the Fuelband or the Basis Band which launched at least year’s CES, are the tip of the iceberg in terms of how we will get healthier. I also believe we have yet to see the fullest integration of game mechanics into everyday behaviors. What about a family healthy eating scorecard displayed on the refrigerator door (remember the screens that were integrated in high-end refrigerators?). Or community billboards of Basis Band data to pit neighbor against neighbor, so-to-speak.
The Digital Health Summit within CES 2013 will feature sessions that cover these devices but also how big data can be used to affect health behaviors, whether sharing can affect outcomes and how pervasive wireless devices can connect those with chronic health issues to health care maintenance that makes sense.
Appy Hour
If toaster ovens and VCRs answered what will we do with this great OS called ‘electricity’, then applications answer the question of what do we do with this great platform called pervasive computing.
At CES 2013, the Appy Hour will pit 25 teams against each other to develop a winning app and win the $25k prize. You can watch and hear CEA President Gary Shapiro @garyshapiro discuss the upcoming show with Mashable here.
Eureka Park
It’s just as interesting who is forgoing their big exhibitor floor presence. No Microsoft. No HP. No Dell. No Apple. But clearly there are many more there including this year’s Eureka Park – a space dedicated to small startups. If part of the purpose of attending CES 2013 is to gauge possible trends, you are juts as likely to glimpse the seeds of one in Eureka Park as with the established companies still banging out size variations on tablets.
Celebrities
Clearly the most impressive draw (serious draw) is Vinton Cerf. Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist. While I would love to see Lemmy from Motorhead who is there on behalf of Krussel (cases for electronics), I could pass on Snooki and some of the other celebs there just for booth draw.
(IMAGES respectfully taken from the CES Instagram feed)
This past year, I had the good fortune to speak at the EuroPCom Conference on Public Communication held adjacent to the European Parliament in Brussels. This happened concurrent with a EU leaders session and immediately after the Nobel Prize announced that the EU would be presented with the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012. One thrill was not only meeting great leaders like Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission, but inspiring her to take photos of my presentation from my return monitor.
My POV - Government communicators can learn a tremendous amount from the brands, agile non-profits and scrappy start-ups all innovating in digital and social media. Too often, government communicators feel their circumstance is ‘terminally unique,’ that nothing can be learned from the Nestle’s and Ford’s of the world.
Brands are spending billions to figure our how to engage people via social media. Investment firms invest billions in start-ups attempting to build businesses and disrupt the way we get things done via digital. It would be a shame if public communicators and leaders turned a blind eye to all the learnings from these efforts.
The result? Well, hopefully a good session overall. But more importantly, I walked away with a fresh understanding and appreciation for the innovations and efforts of the folks working for the European Commission, the European Council, and the European Parliament.
Learning is a two-way street. Who will you learn from this year?