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.