Research Groupthink.

I recently sat in on a research group. There'd already been home testing and diary writing. Now there was a discussion about what the product/service category meant to the assembled group and, lastly, there was an element of further testing. It was a long, informed and opinionated session. And then they left the building and went home.

The research company will, no doubt, host other groups, write reports and make presentations that the client will digest, consider and have meetings about. But these engaged, informed and interested users will probably hear nothing more.

What a missed opportunity. One I've seen repeated by innumerable businesses employing a variety of external agencies throughout the process of product development and market research that make no attempt to leverage the enthusiasm of the potential customers they ultimately view solely as "participants".

Just think what might be unleashed by sending them a trial subscription or samples and discounts once their project finally gets to market. They're invested, they're interested and they're primed to promote and yet nothing happens because of the increasing compartmentalisation of marketing and its separation from product development.

Or, perhaps, the enthusing of a handful of people is not seen as a sufficiently grand gesture to feature on the marketing plan. A marketing plan that will pay lip-service to the importance of "lighting lots of small fires" but will ignore what's right in front of its face.

Refutational Marketing.

When I saw this indicator board on the Tube some months ago, I immediately assumed it was faulty and sure enough (as you can see) a train arrived in three minutes. But, in those three minutes, it was amazing how many others passengers (not tourist) surprisingly took it at face value and left to make other journey arrangements.

People believe what they believe. They do so based on their world experience, and yet the majority of marketers focus on positive proclamations about their product or service in the hope that this will change their mind. But to supplant an existing worldview, you need to do more than provide an alternative, you need to undermine their status quo.

People are arguably more intrigued by persuasive arguments that are at odds with their beliefs (especially about trivial stuff like brands). So don't make nebulous claims, debunk received wisdom. Refute people's prejudices. You may be selling products or services, but bundled therein is your expertise and it's that which people really buy.

The True Gamification Of Advertising.

This multiple award-winning advertisement from the 1980s indicates that it's promoting Silk Cut cigarettes solely by use of packaging colours and the visual metaphor of slashed material.

It left the reader/viewer to work out the rest and thereby engaged them with a form of extrinsic gamification at a time before any marketers had heard that word.

That's quite a contrast with yesterday's unsubtle approach that scans as poorly as the ubiquitous obtrusive QR codes which are flavour of the month right now.

You can have engagement or you can have a shotgun wedding - we all know which is most likely to develop into a lengthy, meaningful relationship.

Make Marketing More Subtle.

Ah the festive season. Family fun and a sense of bonhomie. Not in the hands of the marketers behind Ann Summers - UK high-street purveyors of "lingerie" and adult toys.

"It's the dirty thoughts that count."

Isn't Christmas the time for giving? So why not give your customers the opportunity to join the dots and engage with you a little rather than shoe-horning that dirty in there? It avoids the risk of appearing cheap and having a low opinion of your customers' literacy and, after all, don't they say subtle is sexier?

Proving Your Claim Is The Best Marketing.

Show and tell.
In an interesting way.
It's that simple.

Says Who?

Having met Nicky Kinnaird many years ago, I know her to be a very smart woman building a terrific business founded on deep personal beliefs and thus I'm willing to accept the statement as true.

But I was a bit bemused to see this in the window of a Space NK store. Does the attribution make it more credible? The stores are the physical incarnation of her philosophy - so those who know what NK stands for will not need to be convinced while others will wonder who Nicky Kinnaird is.

It seems to me to be a form of celebrity endorsement in the eyes of her marketers, but does it weaken the advice? After all, she's not Japanese. Wouldn't modest anonymity be more in line with the slow organic growth of the business? Or does it just jar with me because I'm someone who knows the story rather than a potential customer?

Occasional Partial Attention.

Last year, lots of people seemed to be blown away by the whole concept of the second screen. At this year's event, there were inaccurate murmurings that nothing new had been said. Such is the nature of media industry audiences - always looking for the radical when they should be dealing with the every day.

But 2 screen is nothing new. We rarely, if ever, focussed entirely on the TV or anything else. The new thing is that the second screen is, in fact, a screen. In the past, we all experienced multiple input sources, but the second screen back then was radio, music or print.

Media folk are excited that the second screen experience has interactive potential, but if they listened to Starling TV's CEO they'd have noted that the 90-9-1 rule abides. 90% of second screen "viewers" are viewing that second screen passively and, I would contend, casually.

Nothing's really changed. Attention has always been partial and occasional - the question that marketers have to answer is, as ever, how to be interesting and relevant so that you get that attention when the opportunity arises.

Just a thought, a fleeting one.

The Most Important Eyeballs Are Your Own.

Forget focus groups, quantitative research and ethnography, the future of marketing lies with noise-cancelling headphones. Yesterday, I donned a pair as part of this art installation at St Pancras station and I saw the light.

The idea of the piece was to transpose the characters from the headphones onto the people moving through the station, its retail units and its food outlets. For a while it worked very well, but then I realised I was cancelling out the soundtrack and focusing solely on the silent interaction of the people around me.

Without the overhearings and the hubbub, it was a different sort of noticing - something akin to that experience of being in a country where you don't speak the language, but without the helplessness.

As long as you remember to leave your preconceptions at the door, you can learn a lot from the mass of non-verbal communication that's highlighted by the silence. It's not the future of marketing research, but it is revelatory.

This Isn't Just A Typo, This Is An M&S Typo.

[Click on image to enlarge.]

I'm pretty sure this isn't what M&S chief executive Marc Bolland meant when he criticised the poor signage in his stores. But it was amusing to see this on the day the media is filled with his £600 million revamp.



While the usual bewilderment regarding the number of senior executives who must have signed off on the artwork applies, it's also chastening to note that store staff said the wall displays had been in place for about three months.

Do customers not notice such things even when they're staring them in the face while standing at the check-out tills? Or do they see it and not care? Either way, M&S can never again reject a potential employee on the basis of a typo in their resume.

Lowest Common Denominator Marketing.

Announcing that you're offering customers a great product for a low price is hardly revolutionary. But I thought the French Connection lesson had long since been learned.

Notwithstanding the moral responsibility that marketers share with all public communicators, the issue here is that of consistency. Short-term controversy generates noise and that's fine, but it is just short-term and it mustn't be allowed to distract from the overall tone of voice.

Standing out is only half the equation. You need to ensure you stand out for the right reasons.

Marketing By Numbers.

Many people are commenting about the staggering innumeracy that features on today's cover of the UK's largest free newspaper.



Now, they could be suggesting that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and that the more you eat the more delicious it becomes, but that sort of counting only works in effectiveness awards papers.



But it is important and not just because it will get passed around the internet. It's important because the people who usually are numerate i.e the finance department will yet again use it to diminish the credibility of those expensive arty marketers.



Marketing is not just about selling. It's about understanding business. If you don't understand numbers, you cant understand business and you should get your coat.

Eliminate The Negative.

I've written before about the importance of eliminating mistakes rather than looking for the next big thing.



It sounds negative, but I still contend it's not about being risk-averse, it's about avoiding delusion. All too often, marketers' career ambition leads them to seek the heinous wow factor. The intention is to startle and dazzle, but I'm not convinced that customers are looking for that.



And anyway, that's not what they truly absorb. It may temporarily blind them, but then their eyes clear and they notice the minor irritations that are foisted upon them day in day out. It is those irritations that build into their true sense of your "brand".



To eliminate those negatives is to be truly customer-centric via the provision of enduring improvement. So, as Doc Searls restated it recently, "can you identify your core incompetencies?"

Making The Cutomer's Mind Up.

I don't know if it was just a British thing, but I remember when people used to ask "what make is it?" especially when they were talking about vehicles.

It also applied to white goods, electrical products and, I think, clothes. It was a question filled with aspiration, but it must also have reflected a belief that the "maker" was an important part of the equation.

I don't know when that attitude changed. I'm not convinced it has. Going back to thinking about makes and marques would be a terrific antidote to the pompous entitlement that pervades so much skin-deep branding.

Why Would I Have What He's Having?

So, I've been noticing a plethora of ads (such as the one above) that feature "real" people. They're cheaper than discredited celebrity endorsements.

The trouble is people don't believe they're average and they certainly don't want to identify with the typical customer. They don't see one of us, they see someone they'd cross the street to avoid.

Far better to focus on your customers' aspirations than some aggregated categorisation that exists in the marketing department and probably nowhere else.

Social Objects Masterclass.

I was roused from my marketing world exile last night by a live performance of the acclaimed MacLeod-Earls double-act. They were discussing social objects in a convivial social setting (well as convivial as a media member's club can muster).

Having known them both for years, it's a subject we've discussed at length, but I never fail to come away with some new nuance. That didn't seem to be true for some of the audience who were still thinking in terms of deliverables despite having been explicitly told not to.

The deliverable may, in fact, be the ability to distinguish between a contrived social object and a genuine one. The former is that produced by those marketers who see this as the latest marketing bolt-on. The latter is that which is shared by those marketers who know that disruption isn't gentle and that it requires you to question all your previous assumptions.

I've Been Away.

I felt I was repeating myself and didn't want to fill the blogosphere with even more noise.

But, in the past month, I've noticed the blogging world has been stirring. It's getting interesting again. I'll have to think of something new to say.

Do Customers Deconstruct Advertising?

It's all too easy to get bogged down in analysing advertising given the investment of time, money and reputation that it represents. I'm not always sure what good it does and I'm far from certain that non-marketing professionals ever do that - unless of course we foolishly ask them to do so in focus groups.

But I'm going to do it anyway because this ad from a company close to my heart has appeared everywhere. Can you see what grabbed my attention? It's the small i in innocent, juxtaposed with the capital J in juicy in the line at the bottom - a design conceit that means that the start of both sentences is different and, to me, visually jarring.

Designers rightly talk about fonts being important - but what's the point if simple consistency is overlooked? In the great scheme of things, it probably doesn't matter. It's unlikely to stop people from buying juice, but it irritated me and I wonder if I am not alone in that.

Customer Service Personified.

"There's so much we can do in this crazy world with a little effort and imagination." Especially if you really know your product/service and why your customers are your customers, as is perfectly demonstrated here

Three's Not A Charm.

I noted a tweet in which the author complained that he'd be on hold with a customer service phone-line for so long that he'd realised that the music being played to him was a loop of three tunes and he'd hung up.

Now, obviously, he'd been kept holding for far too long. But it's also true that the company in question had idiotically ensured that he realised this by limiting the music to a cycle of three. The first priority is to deal with the customer swiftly, the second is to ensure they don't feel taken for granted.

In this case, the company got it wrong on both counts. If I were him, I'd ring up and complain. Or maybe not.

Making Things Better.

Making good stuff from scratch is really difficult.

Removing bad stuff is relatively simple.

The former is to be encouraged, the latter is compulsory.

The Uncanny Cityscape.

There's something odd about that cityscape. That was my reaction as I looked at the poster advertising the launch of a TV channel which has exclusive first-look access to all HBO's output. The idea of merging the New York buildings into the London skyline is understandable, but the choices are odd and the effect dis-easing.

I may be wrong but it seems that they've only used New York buildings - that is the South Street Seaport isn't it? So, firstly, they're projecting New York rather than the USA even though not all the shows are New York-based. Moreover, the majority of the office blocks are, to me at least, anonymous. They're neither specifically New York or London or, indeed, specifically American or British.

The overall impression is that of a quasi-generic cityscape - you know what it wants to be but it's not quite there and it's proximity to reality is unnerving. In robotics this is known as the uncanny valley but I think it can be applied here too. Especially, as my attention was drawn to the poster right next to it in the Tube station.



The theme is similar, but they don't try to be overly subtle and the result feels much better to me and gets the job done.

Despite what I heard a panel of creative director assert recently - it's not art it's marketing. It can and often should be artistic, but only when that doesn't get in the way of its purpose.

Make Marketing Authentic?

Yes, it is a bit late in the day for car ads to jump on the knowing-ness bandwagon, but this one seems to me to manage to be self-deprecating without being self-denigrating. While it might exude a little self-satisfaction when viewed in isolation, it's a beacon of sobriety by comparison with most other car marketing.

In an age of mass comment, isn't it strange how much marketing continues to be inauthentic? Be it pristine interiors, fake beauty or prettified food, the obsession is all too often with an aspiration that is likely to be perceived as ridiculous.

The thinking behind the marketing may well be sound, but the deception of the customer or the self-deception of the marketer so often undermines it. There is a difference between dreams and fantasy. Credibility is key.

The B-Word Resolution.

Forget about all this talk of branding and brands. Your focus should be on a simpler model.

A) This is what we produce (and what we think it can do for you).

B) This is how we behave (in every realm of activity).

C) We'll let you decide what we are, what we stand for and what we might mean to you.

You can console yourself with what they say they think of you when prompted in a focus group. But that is probably very different from what comes to mind on those rare occasions when they actually think about you.

You Can't Market Good Service.

A comment on the previous post indicated the reader's willingness to include good service in his insurance purchase decision. A common sentiment that might make insurance companies think about emphasising good service in their marketing.

The problem is I'm not sure you can actively market good service.

You can make all the claims you like backed up with all the data you like but for claims to have real impact they have to be provable.

To make claims before purchase is to court sceptisicm and to risk disappointed customers. To make claims afterwards is to risk disbelief - be it of the relevance of the tiny survey samples so evident in beauty product advertising or be it the viewers' questioning of your vague definitions of satisfaction.

No, I'm not sure you can market customer service. You can truly only provide it on a one to one personalised basis. Its provision is part of your marketing. Its promotion isn't.

Marketing Awareness.

Modern marketers tend to get very excited by ideas of conversation and engagement with customers. Given that they are aware how many images and messages each of us receive every day, they have become less impressed by the more basic aim of generating awareness. This, I think, is why this pun-based campaign has received such criticism from within the advertising world.

Some complain that the imitation of Morgan Freeman is a deceitful hijacking of the actor's gravitas while others just deem it trite, shouty advertising disguised as something else. But that is to overlook context.

It's an ad for insurance. Insurance stubbornly remains a commodity business where price trumps service because we buy it before we need it. The engagement with the product/service occurs at a time of distress and not at a time of purchase.

In a commodity business, awareness is key. You want your customer to have your name come to mind when they consider the purchase. It's brutally simple. A differentiation strategy predicated on engagement ignores the mindset of the audience.

From a business strategy perspective you don't want to be in the diminishing-margin commodity game, but from a marketer's perspective you have to accept that an increasing number of industries are becoming commoditised. If you're working in or for one, you can try to get your boss/client to adapt their offering, but in the mean time, you have to swallow your pretensions and do what the context demands.