Tom Morton's Blog

An Inevitable Post About Facebook

Like most posters, I have spent a lot more time on Facebook than on blogs in recent weeks.  And I've been thinking about how advertisers could make use of the service.  I'm no fan of most advertising activity on social network sites (big businesses hate protestors, so why do they behave like a mob of activists at a G8 summit with site takeovers?)  And this fine article has got me thinking.  Facebook Platform has made it easy to develop tools and applications for people to use on their sites.  There are some 900 tools doing the rounds, from the Chuck Norris Fact Generator to a bookshelf where you can display your favourite reads.  What a great opportunity for brands to develop useful tools for people.  Where's the Carling Pub Recommender or the Sky TV Im Watching XYZ recommender or even the FHM Facebook Stalker?  It's the perfect opportunity for brands to dip a toe into Branded Utility.

Talking Cats And Market Leaders

Barclaycard's new advertising campaign appeared in the papers this weekend.  In theory I should be a sucker for it.  I like debt.  I like cats.  I even worked on the Barclaycard account in my early days in the industry.  Bring all that together and I should be theirs for the taking.  But Barclaycard are playing a dangerous game with their advertising voice and with the standing of their brand.  Barclaycard hasn't had a consistent brand for a decade.  Initially it was understandable as new card launches and the advent of balance switching made their old Rowan Atkinson-fronted 'gets you out of trouble' positioning feel dated.  Brands, especially service brands, sometimes need to find their feet and reposition for a changed market. It appears that ten years later Barclaycard has yet to find its feet.  I'm concerned that Barclaycard is enjoying its lack of a positioning.  How tempting to lead with the offer and just make the public laugh.  But what happens when Barclaycard realises that constant new campaigns dilute its media spend? Or when Barclaycard needs to do something important?  Or when the offers run out?  Brand owners might enjoy the temporary expediency of working without a market position.  But their brands will never achieve any kind of brand leadership without one.   

Wildfire

I attended the Wildfire Conference in London's happening Shoreditch last week. I'll post on the best speakers later, but I'd rather capture a few observations about the conference first. (1) Location says a lot about a conference. Shoreditch might be a cliche but it felt right for the subject. Think of it as tone of voice for an event. You're never going to be a credible new-gen advertising event if you serve curly sandwiches in the QE2 conference centre. (2) I was impressed by the events that sprung up around the conference. Just as Glastonbury and Notting Hill Carnival spawn warm-up gigs and after parties, it would be great if advertising junkets did the same. (3) Finally, a plea for a bit of honesty about the hosts of the event. Wildfire is a thinly-disguised Leo Burnett pep rally, organised by Contagious Magazine. The speakers were first-rate, there was no propaganda in the agenda, but the huge number of Burnetts people on the delegate list was an unsubtle reminder that this was a company do, rather than an impartial get-together. I would be miffed if I had paid the full eleven hundred quid delegate fee and found that I was funding another agency's marketing push.

PoMo Marketing

Economist article about how postmodern philosophers pre-empted what's happened in marketing - liberation, subversion, choice, the society of the spectacle. It's an interesting observation rather than anything new. And it doesn't add respect to what planners do - you don't justify your existence to a practical-minded client by quoting Roland Barthes. "Seriously, Alan, you've got to commit your brand to this, it's what Foucault would recommend." Props as ever to Russell Davies, who originally recommended the article.
http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8401159

Marketing Enthusiasm

Here's the link to John's idea.John Grant's MARKETING ENTHUSIASM

Marketing Enthusiasm

Just as I'm breaking the back of my 2007 Ideas Homework, along comes a gem from John Grant.  His new idea is MARKETING ENTHUSIASM - the principles and practice of engaging people with your brand.  Will be interesting to put some of these ideas into practice.  I'm especially interested in defining a Brand Issue or Enthusiasm or Agenda and seeing what initiatives it could inspire.

1. find a bigger enthusiasm than your brand

Some markets make things people are enthusiastic about. Movies, gadgets, cars. Most dont. As many have commented (its becoming a stock response) you dont want a relationship with Tylenol. But you might be interested in a student programme on hangover prevention and cure? Flora made their campaign about cholestrol (eg getting it checked). Run London went for North vs South this year. Dove is about real beauty, not moisturiser.

2. Give people a way to get involved

You dont communicate enthusiasm you provoke it in people. It is automatically an interactive approach. People will want to chip in, register their support, spread the word. This could be a seed audience of bloggers (Stormhoek), head girls (Jamie Cullum) or it could be a mass involvement text thing (Oxfam I’m In, Big Brother vote)

3. Innovate to build life-relevance

Enthusiasm Marketing means translating products into everyday lives and concerns. The breakthrough innovations are in retrospect what we were missing. Disney mobile that lets you track your kids by GPS. InNYC credit card that lets New Yorkers get priority booking at the 7000 hottest venues. Wifi in Starbucks. I really liked Nike’s Test Drive pop up store; of course trying on trainers should include running round the block; these are sport shoes not brogues. A bigger point is that without innovation, news, it is hard to get enthusiastic.

4. Co-operate

Co-create, let the market have ideas too. People get enthusiastic about stuff they own and can shape. Not lame user generated content. But things like Nike iD, Lego Factory, Amazon (the world’s biggest book club).

5. Catch On

Enthusiasm in contagious. ‘Is a brand which people are enthusiastic about these days’ might well be a key measure. And you can amplify this; queues for Stella at H&M or the New Harry Potter (brand premieres). Or indeed base your whole approach on contagious ideas like Gmail Invites.

6. Partner Up

Aspiration marketing was about building brands in glorious isolation. Enthusiasm naturally gravitates towards partnerships. Pampers and unicef. iPod and U2 or Lost. (RED) and everyone.

7. Build a Molecule

Have one strategy; ie one enthusiasm. (Anyone who insists on calling this a proposition, that’s fine - it’s nearly Christmas after all - but I would tend to call it your issue or agenda). For instance Top Shop brings the high fashion experience to the high street. Then you need to add multiple ideas to keep it fresh, attract different segments, develop it organically, avoid being cling film wrapped with ‘consistency. Top Shop and London Fashion Week, Kate Moss, Personal Dressing, the AIDS charity auction, vintage range…

2007 Ideas Homework

Reading advertising blogs is a superb way of keeping abreast of emerging trends and making you feel like you work in the copy testing department at CPD in 1975. I'm going to need an opinion on the following topics very soon.

INTERESTINGNESS. Russell Davies observed that the first duty of a brand is to be interesting. Now that consistency and key messages feel like such inadequate concepts, Interestingness is a good yardstick for how well a brand is communicating with the public.

SUSTAINABILITY. Clients, the public and the media are miles ahead of agencies here. BSkyB is working on a digibox that automatically powers down to save electricity. You can carbon offset a Land Rover. This isn't issue marketing - this is mainstream. And it's also a source of good marketing ideas. Need to think about how sustainability could be an opportunity as well as a challenge for the brands we work on. Recycled PlayStations shipped to developing markets? A (GREEN) version of (RED)?

OPEN-SOURCE. What are the principles for inviting a crowd to answer your creative and strategic problems? We're piloting this at work with www.TheBigWhatAdventure.com. We need to capture our early experiences of this and learn from them.

NEW MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS. This year's IPA Effectiveness awards was a bunfight between the new marketing Mods and the old marketing Rockers who can only judge the merit of a campaign with a stash of ratings and panel data. No wonder the winners looked so traditional when the Rockers prevailed in the judging. We're still no closer to having a workable and effective set of tools for weighing the performance of an idea. We need to gather and codify all the potential ways of measuring the contribution of new generation marketing.

Old Boy Network

I've just been 'invited' to register on the Bristol University alumni website.  Benefits include the ability to see the university's famous old boys and old girls.  It turns out that I was there at roughly the same time as Marcus Brigstocke, David Walliams, Matt Lucas, Simon Pegg, Josh Lewsey and James Blunt.  Clearly Bristol University cornered the market in Radio 4 comedy and posh pricks.  I'm tempted to ask the alumni fund whether my monthly donation could finance an enormous statue of James Blunt being stung to death by killer bees.  It would be a challenge for any sculptor, but one worth meeting.  And it would be tax-deductible for me.

The Glass Half Full

Be careful what you wish for.  Two months later, my strategic, cross-the-political-barricades man-crush on David Cameron is set in political stone as the Tory party membership went by a majority of two to one for Glass Half Full David over Glass Half Empty David.  It's worth reflecting on what David Cameron brought to the party (in both senses of the word) and what that means for politics in general.  Cameron is that rarest conservative beast: an optimist. 

The last three Tory leaders have all campaigned on a narrative of how Britain is going to hell in a hand-basket, from Hague's X Days To Save The Pound to Michael Howard's ghastly dog whistle campaign for May's general election.  And even if this narrative resonates in editorials and saloon bars, it's hard to galvanize a nation around a spirit of pessimism.  No-one votes for a Jeremiah.  Optimism is something that American politicians have long understood, from Ronald Reagan's 1984 Morning In America campaign to the Compassionate Conservatism agenda that took George W. Bush to the White House.  The most convincing argument I've heard for the Bush Administration's mishandling of the Iraq war is Bush's optimism prevented him from imagining the worst case scenarios of the conflict, and therefore failing to plan for them. 

Time was when New Labour understood this optimism: cast your mind back to Blair's early years in opposition and government.  It goes back to the Enlightenment that all progressive governments need an animating faith that the world could be a better place.  It's no coincidence that Labour turn towards authoritarianism has co-incided with the gaping absence of optimism in their dialogue with the nation.  The same force of optimism that carried New Labour to power could well carry David Cameron in the same direction.  And I'm worried that I'm going to feel the same as I did then.

David Better Man: Why Cameron Is Still The Man

1.  He's the one candidate who could reach out beyond the Tories' ageing heartland.  Just a thought: the last time people voted wholeheartedly for the Tories was 1987.  So nobody aged under 36 has cast a heartfelt vote for the Tories.  That's an entire generation lost to the party.  And don't believe that people will grow into the Conservative cause.  Empathising with the Tories is the behaviour of an ageing and dying cohort, like reading The Daily Express or holidaying in Morecambe.

2.  Lose Cameron and you lose the brightest hopefuls in the parliamentary party.  David Davies has all the vindictiveness of a Whip - no way will his big tent extend to Cameronistas.  Can Cameron and you cast out George Osbourne and Michael Gove, who is probably the brightest intellect in the Commons today.  Ditch Davies and the Cameron party machine is inclusive enough to welcome back Davies supporters.

3.  Choosing Cameron despite his drugs ambiguities is a sign to the electorate that the Tories have grown out of their self-destructive phase.  It's a sign that human experience, rather than The Daily Mail, sets the moral agenda in Tory Britain.

Let's see what happens at today's hustings and tomorrow's first vote.