One of my favorite marketing metaphors ever is from Advertising Age, which termed the retail promotion / below the line space as "the fanny-pack of marketing: not pretty, and sort of embarrassing, but really functional."
Well the fanny-pack may be undergoing a bit of a makeover. At least that's what you're left to conclude from a few developments of late:
- RGA is "aiming to bring dynamic interactive shopping to the retail environment," opening a retail unit to bring their interactive brains to bear on the signage world
- Quotes like this are popping up around retail circles:
"Increasingly success at retail is less about what the retailer has to sell and more about how they sell it. This is the new experiential paradigm shift in shopping. This shift toward the shopping experience marks the biggest change to occur in the retailing landscape over the past century."
- Retail, media and CPG heavyweights are aiming to monetize the shopping environment and are seeing it as the next marketing frontier. The new PRISM initiative is all about the 'In-Store GRP'. They will ultimately put in-store in the media plan. But it raises the question, what is the 'art' that will complement the reach/frequency 'science'?
- And lastly, Integer, where I work, has created a blog called Shopper Culture around all things shopper culture. It's meant to create a dialogue around all these things.
I know Philips Bodygroom's shaveeverywhere.com has been around for awhile but I just heard a nugget I hadn't heard before. When you go to 'the basics' then leave your computer idle for a minute the guy prods you by saying "The longer you wait, the longer your pubes get."
I'm a skeptic about calls to action in general. I think they are a blunt instrument, overused and interruptive. But this is a great exception to the rule.
Relevance? Check. This is a body shaving product.
Attention getting? Uh, check! Ownable? Check. Where does a competitor go from here?
And it looks like we may be making contact with some of the members of the New Denver Ad Club, especially those in the Brand Development / Marketing Research Pod. But even if you're not a marketing strategy type, you're welcome to attend. We just like good people and interesting ideas, that's all.
And lastly, Paul, the coffee morning co-host will be leaving us for greener colder pastures at Space 150 in Minneapolis. This will be his last coffee (as a Denver resident at least). Come by and buy him a shot. Of espresso, of course.
Since returning from the Account Planning Conference I've been chewing over a few things. Here are a some thoughts that keep coming back to me.
In one Dutch city they are experimenting with the traffic congestion problem in a rather nontraditional way. They've removed more than 80% of all traffic lights and more than half of the road signs in Drachten, Holland. They call it Naked Streets. From an article in Good magazine:
Pulling up to an intersection where the traffic lights
aren’t working is confusing. Whose turn is it to go? Who has the
right-of-way? Inevitably, you have to negotiate the intersection by
interacting—you look around for pedestrians, then, making eye contact
with other drivers, slowly pull across the intersection.
After sitting through two and a half days of presentations in San Diego I was left with the sense that some fundamental assumptions within account planning - and in a bigger sense, advertising itself - are being removed like so many Dutch street signs, leaving us to lead more by our instinct. I think it is a good thing, to become more aware of the wayfinding crutches we use, and to step into the new marketing environment naked and hyper aware.
A few of the assumptions I'm talking about:
Keeping it stupid simple v. being mister clever smartypants Mark Earls' breakout session In Praise of Stupid argued for more Barnum, less brain surgery. He cautioned agency planners on becoming too clever for our own good. And he talked about planners playing the role of a creative producer rather than an artist.
Speed to market v. the single 'right' idea A lot of talk around the importance - especially with web 2.0 and social media and the like - of being quick to market in myriad ways as opposed to researching the hell out of one idea then executing it across all mediums. The greater point being that messaging is far inferior to brand behavior in building believers.
Creative as a department v. universal creativity Ken Robinson eloquently stated the case that everyone is endowed with a creative intelligence. It reminded me how sometimes you hear an agency say 'we believe creative ideas can come from anywhere' but this basically takes sit a step further to say 'creativity must come from everywhere'. Because in many ways creativity is the only competitive advantage. The planner then helps to create the climate for creativity to flourish.
Message v. behavior Moving from the business of messages to one of inciting belief in a brand through behavior. There was lot of discussion around Belief Brands with Eric Ryan's presentation of his company Method being the most prominent example. In a couple of the most amusing and memorable pirate / navy moments he compared his marketing budget to the amount P&G spends on their own toilet paper and said his company has an advantage over P&G, Unilever and S.C. Johnson because he's alive. (You can watch the webcast of his presentation but you can't actually see the slides in the video.) And Mark Earls talked about how thinking follows behavior and behavior follows belief.
Researching insight v. test marketing instinct Perhaps most shocking (not sure if that's too strong a word but I'll stick with it) was how diminished the role of research, especially qualitative, was in the conversations. Great planners that have broken free of agencies (Eric Ryan, the guys at Zeus Jones, Mark Earls, Adam Morgan, etc.) spoke very little about research. When it came up it seemed to be playing such a back seat role to informed action. In a climate that requires innovation it's no longer sufficient to talk to consumers to find answers. The role of research is becoming more about knowing your consumers but not letting them lead you; then putting something in market in different ways in measured amounts, and seeing how it performs.
Consistency and control v. other stuff And Gareth Kay and Mark Lewis argued there are Seven Deadly Sins of marketing today. I like how they talked about seven sins of marketing not just planning. The themes they identified pretty much cover the stuff above and then some.
Just returned from the Account Planning Conference.
I didn't attend this particular breakout session but the guys over at Butler Shine + Stern's Influx Insights and Aki Spicer of Fallon Planning Blog have posted the deck from the talk on Blogging the Agency.
They did a survey among planners which ended up segmenting them into three types on their attitudes about planning. This slide is a quote from from Jon Steel who obviously represents the skeptics.
Love the debate!
I've got more observations from the conference coming soon.
Driving from Orange County down to San Diego yesterday I had an hour or so to kill so I thought I'd stop by Legoland to see what it's all about. I only made it as far as the $10 parking lot because when I got to the front gate I balked at the $57 admission price (that's almost even with Disneyland's cheapest $63 pass!)
I suppose if I had half the day to kill and my family with me I'd have gone but it didn't seem worth it for a total of $67 (with parking) and an hour of wandering around trying not to step on small children.
Anyway, I did see this exclusive parking thing for Volvo on the way out. I'm not sure what to make of it except perhaps that people who drive Volvos deserve special treatment (and maybe the scorn of others?).
Margaret Mark: The Hero and the Outlaw The leading book on using archetypes in brand strategy, this blends motivational theory into the mix in a very readable way. It also segues nicely into storytelling.
David Ogilvy: The Unpublished Ogilvy A gem of internal memos and notes not meant for public view. Insight into his day-to-day agency management.
Daniel Pink: A Whole New Mind I saw Daniel Pink speak at Future Trends a year ago. Compelling speaker and a reluctant creative; a left-brain telling a right-brain story.
Cheri Huber: How You Do Anything is How You Do Everything This handwritten self-help workbook asks the simplest of questions, meant to reveal your inner priorities and motivations. Excellent as a spark for creating consumer workbooks.
Adam Morgan: The Pirate Inside As a follow-up to Eating the Big Fish this is a solid handbook for anyone advocating a challenger position in their organization.
Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics This is a comic book about comic books, but it completely goes to school on visual communications. A good aid for demistifying layouts and visual ideas.
Wendy Gordon: Good Thinking This well known British researcher gives a grounding for planners on how to think about qualitative research.
