The brand time bomb is ticking
London, November 26, 2009: The advertising industry is put to the test at the Battle of Big Thinking. Twenty-four speakers each have exactly 15 minutes to present a big idea. Whether it’s planning, marketing, or mobile thinking, the audience votes immediately in each category to decide who is the most convincing. At the end of the day, the overall winner is chosen. This year marks the fourth edition of the event.
We hear about the reinvention of the advertising agency, the defusing of the brand time bomb and rescue methods for social media. Not a bad way to sum up a year that just 12 months ago the Economist magazine was simply calling "Oh shit". The good news first: there is absolutely no moaning about the financial crisis. The self-deprecating British common sense is: flat is the new up. The main thing is that the curve no longer goes down. If you don't lose, you've already won.
Significantly, the agency model is being reinvented by the customer. Nokia's marketing director, Will Harris, is tired of working with different agencies that are at war with each other. But he also doesn't want to be dependent on a single partner who can never be the best in every discipline. Solution: people instead of agencies. Three or four experts from each agency are invited to come together to form a new virtual entity. This is no longer called an agency, but a "magazine". Launch January 1. Every Friday is the editorial meeting of this "magazine". There, everyone decides together what will be published next week and what will be the topic of conversation. An event, a commercial, an online vote, a music hit? Creation is interdisciplinary, the only goal is to stay in the conversation. Media planning no longer exists. There's no need for research anyway if everything happens in real time. Sounds visionary. Only cynics rumor: a dying model (from the publishing industry) for a dying brand (from the pre-iPhone era). Will that work out well?
Social ideas are needed
The focus has simply shifted from creative agencies to the media discussion. Here, of course, social media takes center stage. The hope is as great as the fear. Will Facebook even exist in a year's time? In 2007, Second Life was predicted to have a great future, but today it has been abandoned. The offices of the advertising agencies BBH or Leo Burnett, who were the first to be there, are empty, desolate, sunk into insignificance. Everyone agrees that the biggest threat to social media is advertising itself. The step from being followed to being followed is micro. Nobody wants a million followers on Twitter if, instead of interested contemporaries, they are just Fanta, Gala Käsli, Zurich Insurance or other brands that want to sell you something. Paying bloggers to post opinions in forums is considered outright hijacking and is radically rejected. The problem with social media starts with the word "media". This implies buying and paying. Wrong. We don't need social media ideas. We need social ideas. Ideas that interest people and connect brands in an interesting way, says Amelia Torode, Head of Strategy at VCCP. Social media is real time.
Brands experience a revival
Over 50 percent of all Twitter messages on a topic are usually generated in the first hour. But what everyone calls viral, says Claus Moseholm from GoViral, is not free. Not even almost. Viral is simply a mechanic. Just as expensive as any other idea that is based on a relevant insight and cleverly brings great content to the people. Is "free space thinking", i.e. Skype, Flickr, Xing and Wikipedia, a business model? Yes, says Mike Bartlett, Director of Product Strategy at Skype. If the solution is freemium. Give a little free, whet the appetite, then charge for premium services. It works like the freebies in perfumeries used to. That's why Murdoch is not given much credit for his paid-only content in the Wall Street Journal.
Mobile marketing is more critical than ever. Hold your cell phone up in the air. Now hand it briefly to the person sitting next to you. With this little test, Scott Seaburn, Head of Mobile at Ogilvy, makes it tangible that there is probably nothing more personal. The laptop is getting smaller and smaller, merging with the cell phone to become a mobile brain that can dock anywhere or beam to the wall. Innovation Thinking takes augmented reality one step further. John Willshire, Head of Innovation at PHD, believes that we will soon be shaping something with our hands in the air, which will be captured by a webcam and then spit out by the printer in three dimensions.
When advertising is the most threatening spectre, when the media plan is the most horrible misunderstanding, the product itself takes center stage again. An iPhone has the talking point built right in. Like any ingenious invention. But not every product can be brilliant. And who knows in advance whether it will be a hit? You might think that market research could help us with this. But it doesn't. Methods such as focus groups, which have hardly changed in three decades (!), do not capture today's social phenomena in any way. While cell phones and computers have been invented in the last 30 years, research methodology has practically come to a standstill. Depressing. Only one half of the brain, the rational half, can still be questioned. Today, thanks to neuroscience, it has been proven that this rational hemisphere is the right one, but not the right one, because it is not the decisive one, as decisions are not made there. The brain doesn't want to think every time, it takes far too much energy. The brain wants to be unburdened, people want nothing more than to be able to make emotional decisions. This is why brands are experiencing a real revival. As the word suggests, brands mark products so that our brains no longer have to think. Brands are emotional, people love that. No wonder strategic planning is more important today than ever before.
However, brands are threatened with extinction in a very curious way. Namely through advertising itself. Guy Murphy, Worldwide Planning Director at JWT, can show from 30,000 interviews worldwide that the Dutch only like to spend a few minutes a day with brands, whereas Indians and Asians prefer to spend hours. If we brand consultants in the developed markets carry on like this, the brand bomb threatens to implode. Worse still. What are we exporting to Asia? Exactly this kind of consulting. And what does Asia export to us? Toys. Instead of destroying the market for brands in Asia with our way of advising brands, it would be better to learn from the optimism of the Asians. Namely the playful approach to brands. The brand as a sexy toy is fun - and will also save the survival of the brand in our country. The model for this is software that is used to develop a play figure for each brand. It can be produced in three dimensions, for the CEO's desk.
The Black Eyed Peas' latest hit sings "Tonight is going to be a good night. A good good night." Social optimism is in. Not defeatism. Consequently, Guy Murphy wins with his highly optimistic, playful redefinition of the brand. The Biggest Thinker of them all 2009 is: a Global Planner.
Pascal Schaub, Chief Strategic Officer, Saatchi & Saatchi
3 words we should remember for 2010
Twitticide: Someone deletes their Twitter account.
Flow: Life flows seamlessly the way I want it to.
Social idea: An idea that interests people and makes brands interesting.
Significantly, the agency model is being reinvented by the customer. Nokia's marketing director, Will Harris, is tired of working with different agencies that are at war with each other. But he also doesn't want to be dependent on a single partner who can never be the best in every discipline. Solution: people instead of agencies. Three or four experts from each agency are invited to come together to form a new virtual entity. This is no longer called an agency, but a "magazine". Launch January 1. Every Friday is the editorial meeting of this "magazine". There, everyone decides together what will be published next week and what will be the topic of conversation. An event, a commercial, an online vote, a music hit? Creation is interdisciplinary, the only goal is to stay in the conversation. Media planning no longer exists. There's no need for research anyway if everything happens in real time. Sounds visionary. Only cynics rumor: a dying model (from the publishing industry) for a dying brand (from the pre-iPhone era). Will that work out well?
Social ideas are needed
The focus has simply shifted from creative agencies to the media discussion. Here, of course, social media takes center stage. The hope is as great as the fear. Will Facebook even exist in a year's time? In 2007, Second Life was predicted to have a great future, but today it has been abandoned. The offices of the advertising agencies BBH or Leo Burnett, who were the first to be there, are empty, desolate, sunk into insignificance. Everyone agrees that the biggest threat to social media is advertising itself. The step from being followed to being followed is micro. Nobody wants a million followers on Twitter if, instead of interested contemporaries, they are just Fanta, Gala Käsli, Zurich Insurance or other brands that want to sell you something. Paying bloggers to post opinions in forums is considered outright hijacking and is radically rejected. The problem with social media starts with the word "media". This implies buying and paying. Wrong. We don't need social media ideas. We need social ideas. Ideas that interest people and connect brands in an interesting way, says Amelia Torode, Head of Strategy at VCCP. Social media is real time.
Brands experience a revival
Over 50 percent of all Twitter messages on a topic are usually generated in the first hour. But what everyone calls viral, says Claus Moseholm from GoViral, is not free. Not even almost. Viral is simply a mechanic. Just as expensive as any other idea that is based on a relevant insight and cleverly brings great content to the people. Is "free space thinking", i.e. Skype, Flickr, Xing and Wikipedia, a business model? Yes, says Mike Bartlett, Director of Product Strategy at Skype. If the solution is freemium. Give a little free, whet the appetite, then charge for premium services. It works like the freebies in perfumeries used to. That's why Murdoch is not given much credit for his paid-only content in the Wall Street Journal.
Mobile marketing is more critical than ever. Hold your cell phone up in the air. Now hand it briefly to the person sitting next to you. With this little test, Scott Seaburn, Head of Mobile at Ogilvy, makes it tangible that there is probably nothing more personal. The laptop is getting smaller and smaller, merging with the cell phone to become a mobile brain that can dock anywhere or beam to the wall. Innovation Thinking takes augmented reality one step further. John Willshire, Head of Innovation at PHD, believes that we will soon be shaping something with our hands in the air, which will be captured by a webcam and then spit out by the printer in three dimensions.
When advertising is the most threatening spectre, when the media plan is the most horrible misunderstanding, the product itself takes center stage again. An iPhone has the talking point built right in. Like any ingenious invention. But not every product can be brilliant. And who knows in advance whether it will be a hit? You might think that market research could help us with this. But it doesn't. Methods such as focus groups, which have hardly changed in three decades (!), do not capture today's social phenomena in any way. While cell phones and computers have been invented in the last 30 years, research methodology has practically come to a standstill. Depressing. Only one half of the brain, the rational half, can still be questioned. Today, thanks to neuroscience, it has been proven that this rational hemisphere is the right one, but not the right one, because it is not the decisive one, as decisions are not made there. The brain doesn't want to think every time, it takes far too much energy. The brain wants to be unburdened, people want nothing more than to be able to make emotional decisions. This is why brands are experiencing a real revival. As the word suggests, brands mark products so that our brains no longer have to think. Brands are emotional, people love that. No wonder strategic planning is more important today than ever before.
However, brands are threatened with extinction in a very curious way. Namely through advertising itself. Guy Murphy, Worldwide Planning Director at JWT, can show from 30,000 interviews worldwide that the Dutch only like to spend a few minutes a day with brands, whereas Indians and Asians prefer to spend hours. If we brand consultants in the developed markets carry on like this, the brand bomb threatens to implode. Worse still. What are we exporting to Asia? Exactly this kind of consulting. And what does Asia export to us? Toys. Instead of destroying the market for brands in Asia with our way of advising brands, it would be better to learn from the optimism of the Asians. Namely the playful approach to brands. The brand as a sexy toy is fun - and will also save the survival of the brand in our country. The model for this is software that is used to develop a play figure for each brand. It can be produced in three dimensions, for the CEO's desk.
The Black Eyed Peas' latest hit sings "Tonight is going to be a good night. A good good night." Social optimism is in. Not defeatism. Consequently, Guy Murphy wins with his highly optimistic, playful redefinition of the brand. The Biggest Thinker of them all 2009 is: a Global Planner.
Pascal Schaub, Chief Strategic Officer, Saatchi & Saatchi
3 words we should remember for 2010
Twitticide: Someone deletes their Twitter account.
Flow: Life flows seamlessly the way I want it to.
Social idea: An idea that interests people and makes brands interesting.
Overall winner 2009: Guy Murphy,
Worldwide Planning Director at JWT.
Worldwide Planning Director at JWT.
