Advertising

find products for your customers

Advertising, Marketing, Technology 0 Comment

I remember this story from last year about the kid who invented a doorbell which calls the householder’s mobile phone if nobody answers the door.

Laurence Rook, the 13 year old boy from Croydon in South London, said he got the idea after noticing his mother had missed several deliveries by not being in the house.

Laurence licensed his invention off to the tune of circa 250k.

At the time it struck me that the combined innovation departments of BT, Orange, T-mobile, Vodafone and goodness knows who else from the telco sector had failed to notice this simple customer insight/problem, yet a 13 year-old kid, paying attention, had come up with fantastic piece of utility using a sim card and some bits and pieces lying about the house.

Another one that the telco’s have missed cropped up on FIR: the Hobson and Holtz Report podcast that I listened to this morning in the car.

This was the first time I’d heard of Connectify, a software based router for Windows computer that shares wi-fi connections your other devices.

One of the principal benefits for the business, or otherwise, traveller being that in many hotels the wi-fi access is limited to one device at a time – Connectify solves that conundrum.

Again, one has to wonder why this had to be invented by a small start-up (the software’s development was funded via crowd-funding platform Kickstarter, by the way)
when there was a simple customer insight to be leveraged and yet none of the telco’s saw the opportunity.

I’m reminded of this simple maxim that Seth Godin is often quoted on, in regard to where businesses should look for innovation opportunities and to temper the impulses that lead them to be hellbent on acquisition of new customers.

‘Don’t just look to finding customers for your products, find products for your customers.’

System justification

Advertising, Agencies, Strategy 0 Comment

‘Systems are inherently brittle and retain authority only as long as we treat them as having authority’, according to Beaudrillard.

As humans, of course, we have this inherent authority bias, never more apparent than in the famous Stanford Prison experiment that we rediscovered recently.

The experiment was conducted at Stanford University from August 14 to August 20 of 1971 by a team of researchers led by professor Philip Zimbardo to examine the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard, with pretty startling results.

While likening the advertising establishment to the situation Zimbardo was attempting to evoke is probably a bit harsh,  the system justification we persistently hear describes how multi-channel advertising campaigns are nearly twice as effective as their traditional counterparts. Read More

It ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at

Advertising, Agencies 0 Comment

 

At Sputnik Planning Labs we love our cognitive biases; and a particular favourite is the one sometimes called ‘the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon’ or more commonly the ‘frequency illusion’.

This particular foible being the illusion in which a word, name, phrase or other thing that has recently come to one’s attention suddenly appears ‘everywhere’ with ridiculous frequency.

So, if you’ve never heard of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, never fear, you’ll absolutely be hearing about it again soon.

In this case it’s the phrase ‘world class’, and the context principally Australian advertising.

This or that campaign or spot is ‘world class’. This CD/Planner/other is ‘world class‘, this or that agency are ‘world-class’. Read More

Momentum and strategy

Advertising, behavioural economics, Brand, Social media, Strategy 0 Comment

I’ve always thought that the single most valuable skill of a strategist or planner, if you prefer, is the ability to be constantly on the alert, noticing things and then interpreting them.

This is called having insight.

It doesn’t have to be an earth shattering revaluation, just ‘apprehending the true nature of things’.

Our thanks then go to our Tahlia, in the Sputnik Insight and Planning Lab, who noticed this yesterday and pointed the rest of us to it.

An excellent short sequence of heavily loaded tweets – posted below – from the Obama 2012 campaign that clearly demonstrates that – despite Cass R. Sunstein’s recent departure from the Obama camp – applied behavioural economics are still very much part of the Obama strategy. Read More

Do not track

Advertising, Marketing, Technology 0 Comment

Certain unscrupulous corners of the advertising world, those on the dark side of the (other) digital divide, are not best pleased.

It appears that Microsoft are sticking to Plan A and shipping ‘Do-Not-Track’ as the default option in Internet Explorer 10.

Do Not Track is a web privacy scheme that tells online advertisers to NOT collect or use data specific to a user’s web activity.

Advertisers can still show ads, obviously, but they would not be allowed to record that a user browsed certain car websites, for example, and then proceed show car ads where ever they go.

While these advertisers were reported to be willing to put up with ‘Do-Not-Track’, they were only accepting the basis that it was certain to be something that users had to actually enable and activate for themselves. Read More

Shot by both sides

Advertising, Brand, Inspiration, Marketing, Strategy 1 Comment

In the quest for enlightenment extremes of self-indulgence on the one side and self-mortification on the other are not advised by the Buddha.

Thus the recommendation, as described by the Noble Eightfold Path, is often called the Middle Way.

Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

Notice there’s no specific mention of Right Facebooking and Right Tweeting (though these are covered as subsections of all of the above).

For the new marketing provocateur this, however, presents another problem. Read More

The man in the chair

Advertising, Brand, Creative, Inspiration 0 Comment

Apparently the below is one of the best known, and most oft quoted examples of advertising advertising.

Not so for me, I only came across it last week as I plough through The Intention Economy, the latest book from Doc Searls, of Cluetrain and Project VRM fame.

Created for The McGraw-Hill Business Publications Company in 1958, ‘The Man in the Chair‘ ad is revered as one of the most effective and influential works in the genre. In a 2012 context there is still much to be gleaned from its message. Read More

Time and pressure

Advertising, Creative, Inspiration 1 Comment

As creatives we spend our careers carefully explaining that good creative thinking needs plenty of time and consideration “you can’t just turn creative genius on and off like a tap” we say. Equal parts Don Draper style contemplation and starring at beer mats combined with manic pacing about, smoking fags, drinking coffee and 3am wake-up jottings and hair pulling.

But, I’m always amazed about what can be achieved when the pressure is really on.

A month or so ago I was part of the Cannes Young Lions judging committee. For those who don’t know the process young hopefuls are given an initial brief to respond to in their relative leisure. The fruit of their time is laid out on a table whilst judges um and ahh, pick the best few to move on to the next round – the 24hr start to finish brief test. The winners of this round go to Cannes to compete against other top teams from around the world in a final 24hr showdown. Read More

How Much is a Like Worth?

Advertising, Brand, Social influence, Social media, Strategy 1 Comment

Nothing. Zero. A Like on Facebook has zero value.

Yet so many brands are obsessed with Likes, as if this is the ultimate indicator of social media success. In award entries I judge, there are boasts of hundreds of thousands (or millions) of likes, which to me has all the credibility of a businessman boasting to his friends that a stripper in a gentleman’s club (has there ever been more of a misnomer?) winked at him. I know the love, or in this case the like, was bought. Most of the time, the more dollars you put into attracting (buying) Likes, the more Likes you will get. And Likes by themselves are of no value.

Before you slam me in 140 characters, let me explain. Read More

Will Australians pay for something that was free?

Advertising, Marketing 1 Comment

[Original post by Peter Jefferson]

The Herald Sun’s new digital pass is its first step into paid content. It will also be a test for other publications in the News stable and other traditional media globally who are attempting to monetise the digital tidal wave that is upon us. But will it succeed?

Australians have a long history of not paying for stuff that was once free. There are many examples. Tollways, parking, trips to the tip, water, pay TV. The latest bru-ha-ha is the carbon tax. Expecting those who emit CO2 to pay for it will probably bring down a government, such is the angst around paying for stuff that was once free.

The Herald Sun has adopted the age old “product trial” approach. Theirs is the digital version of a shampoo sachet arriving in the mail or being offered a small piece of cooked sausage in Coles. The aim is simple; subscribe as many as they can to a two-month digital pass prior to turning off the “free” switch. But will it work? Read More

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