Thursday, February 27, 2014

Remember the mission statement? Now the talk is of brand purpose

As with much to do with the written word, encapsulating an idea into a few succinct lines is a tougher task than writing a lot.

When I worked in the corporate world, mission statements were a fashion for a while. Writing something short and to the point to describe the purpose of a company is not a job for a team exercise but nonetheless our board of directors decided to embark on writing a mission statement that way. Back in,  I guess the 1980's, it was not uncommon to see these texts framed and hung on display in Reception. They were a bit like the embroidered biblical quotes with which my grandmother was fond of adorning the walls of her home, or placing above the fireplace.

Here is an example mission statement from a Fortune 500 company.

"To combine aggressive strategic marketing with quality products and services at competitive prices to provide the best insurance value for consumers."

Probably fairly typical, but what is it for? Is it a mantra to be repeated at the start of each day to remind employees of what they should be doing? Is it to impress customers? Is it to display in reception? Either way a web site claims to be able to knock out a Mission Statement within the hour. Perhaps that puts it in perspective. Maybe they also write mottos for Christmas crackers.

But hold on. Marketing Week has noted a current trend to define 'Brand Purpose'. Wow what's that? Apparently it is the "deepest expression of a brand" - "a winning combination of brand heritage, positioning, mission statement and social conscience." Guess that will take more than an hour to come up with.

Here are some examples quoted in the article:-

  • Amazon's brand purpose is "freedom of choice" and you thought they sold books and an increasing heap of other stuff online.
  • Coke doesn't sell fizzy drinks, it "inspires moments of happiness" and
  • Johnnie Walker whiskey is " celebrating journeys of progress and success." 

Perhaps they should turn to real estate novelists to come up with this stuff rather than a one hour online service. Or better still ensure the customer base continues to receive positive
messages that consistently explain what differentiates your brand from its competitors and why thy should stick with it.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Dogs, babies, weird photos, odd videos, quotations and press releases


With Facebook spending $19billion on buying WhatsApp I  only hope their user profiles are different to mine.

Most evenings, before dinner I skim through the social media stuff on my iPad, primarily to see what my social media savvy clients are talking about. The same messages flash across Facebook, LinkedIn,  and Twitter, none us Instagram or Pinterest. Long ago I  culled the people I follow on Twitter to clients only, made LinkedIn connections with people I  actually know and abandoned Facebook, at least in terms of active participation. According to a report published by International Business Times, the young are leaving Facebook and the largest growth at 80.4% is the 55 and above age group. So as the youth defect to Snapchat and Tumblr, the Facebook audience is getting older. Oddly that corresponds with my experience that the people I know that use it at all are mainly retired, or old and still working. But not all. The weird cocktail of messages and photos that someone thinks funny or appealing are of cute dogs, babies, pictures of wise sayings on cards, quirky videos and engineering press releases I get elsewhere - or actually everywhere.

Now suppose the creators of Facebook had been asked to make a pitch in the Dragon's Den. Would the pitch have gone along the lines of, "we are a couple of university drop-outs writing code day and night for a web site for people like us locked away in a room who don't really socialise - and we need a few million dollars of your money to fund us." A rigorous analysis would have exposed a lack of a business plan and big questions over income. And yet they  embarked on buying Instagram at $1 billion and now WhatsApp at a whopping $19 billion! Yes billions, not millions. When the quarterly results were announced at the end of last month, mobile advertising account for over half the ad revenue with CEO Zuckerberg saying 2013 was the year we turned our business into a mobile business.

A big issue here is despite the big numbers is a mobile advertising presence on Facebook a good deal for B2B  marketers. It's not easy to demonstrate sales resulting from Facebook engagement amongst the clients I look at. The thing is does it work?

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Are agencies staying relevant?

In the fast moving digital marketing world, agencies are having to evolve.
Traditionally creative strategy has been driven by the advertising agency, a role apparently being challenged by PR agencies as content assumes greater importance. Into this space come digital agencies who understand the technology, but more often than not have yet to understand the client's business because of the short-term nature of the relationship.

Why do agencies prefer a  long-term relationship? Simple. There is a big investment in understanding the client's business, typically a role driven by the account executive. The agency analyses,  researches and identifies the product proposition. This clarification of pinning it all down to a few crucial words is a skill in itself. Clients are frequently too close to the subject to be objective and further more unable to express the proposition in words that a customer will relate to. Identifying the essence of the product proposition, then enshrining that in a creative wrapper that gains attention amongst the target audience. The vehicle for the advertising communication has been mainly visual - print and video and the media used to gain attention.

But here's the thing, in the current digital era it is largely a text only universe driven by position in things like search results. Prominence is down to position rather than crafting an advertisement that attracts attention. And new technology driven stuff keeps coming along. Some clients are very keen to embrace new media whereas traditionally agencies in b-2-b haven't jumped into advertising in new titles until circulation is verified, editorial content evaluated and in short it has become established. Digital is faster and where increasingly people are spending time. More a case of jumping on a bandwagon then.

What people though? Are they customers and prospects? We have clients with strongly held and quite different views. Take Facebook. Opinions range from, "it's for children - not engineers' to "it's out of date" by way of those who embrace the channel and are busy posting messages. So what are agencies to do? Be skilled in everything, because it's not just Facebook, but Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and hundreds of less well known competing vehicles?

Successful agencies will be those that provide the most effective campaigns for clients embracing whatever technology is most relevant. Agencies that seek to sell the output of their studio production capability will struggle.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

The Stage Awards - Photos

Photos of Ben Collier accepting the Unsung Hero Award on behalf of Andy Collier's family at The Stage annual ceremony on 31st January.


Ben Collier with his Dad's award from The Stage
Unsung Hero of the Year 2014 - Andy Collier
Andy's sister, Liz and his son Ben flanked by Robin Towney and Mark White of the ABTT.

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Setting the creative strategy

Advertising agencies have traditionally taken the creative lead, but with the rising demand for content, PR agencies are making a claim for strategic leadership.

With PR no longer just about obtaining media coverage, embracing social media sharing and content creation, the old rules and demarcations are changing. But then again there have always been turf wars between advertising and PR agencies because although display advertising or editorial coverage are the lead products for each respectively, they merely head up a raft of other creative services. Product brochures and newsletters being typical examples which arguably differ on content derivation from copywriters versus journalists, but other products become less attributable to one camp or the other, but can be profitable work and worth fighting for. And then again there are the digital agencies that also thrive on content consumption.

To the typical b-2-b business this may not matter. May be a good marketing manager can set and hold the line on strategic direction and micro manage external agencies. But then again creative concepts are one of the reasons you hire an external agency in the first case. Undoubtably creative, relevant and 'on message' content is essential for not only being taken seriously on the web, but also being found on there too.

Because of the immediacy of content sharing the author needs to be well informed, skilled at communicating, mindful of legal pitfalls and perhaps wary of revealing confidential information. Hardly a job for a junior employee and may explain why chief executives are responding to twitter messages?

Monday, February 03, 2014

Harlequin launch info graphic series

TML client Harlequin Floors is using info graphics to communicate important statistics about a the risks of dancing on poor quality dance floors.
  Danger on the Dance Floor: Harlequin Infographic
[Source: Infographic by uk.harlequinfloors.com]