

### FRESH EGGS & FLYING LESSONS

### 70 Small lessons with massive effect for Brands & Marketing

### MARK SAREFF
Copyright ©2017 by Mark Sareff

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

### CONTENTS

Introduction

Do you know the 2 fundamental laws of Marketing?

Why data won't get you very far

Where have all the dreamers gone?

"Walking it in": what we simply must learn from the Army

Eeny-meeny-miny-moe

Heart over head every time

Communicating well is a matter of life or death

I bet you don't know who owns your brand

Never hire a research company again

Does success create happiness or is happiness a marker of success?

Telling doesn't sell. Selling doesn't sell. Now what?

What do an Effie and a landing light have in common?

How to win friends by alienating people

To succeed, become young again

Why focusing on great products will make you fail

How much of your brand have you created without knowing it?

The proven way you can develop breakthrough insights

Why an architect from Newtown is a waste of oxygen

The secret of a world-class loyalty program

Advertising doesn't send messages

How not to shoot yourself in the foot with advertising

Why Ad research is like growing a pot plant

Why you must grow penetration to win

How to treble the power of your advertising dollar

How amateur Spielbergs kill advertising

Discontent about Content

Don't ever close the loop

How to get loved advertising: ask my chiropractor & Seth Godin

I don't like advertising that looks like advertising. I like advertising that looks like life

Most retail is not good enough for Carol

Infect your business with a virus

Unlock your Purpose: the 2400 year-old lesson that works today

Purpose is key. But it belongs to CEOs, not Marketing

Strategic Planning: Professor Levitt & the Cheshire Cat

2 hints for better ideas in workshops

Where Big Data will bite you

The plural of anecdote is not data – or is it?

'What is' versus 'what could be' *

Big data. Small data. Quality data. Your choice.

Why Purpose-driven Marketing works & 'Marketing Purpose' fails

How to lose £500 million in one speech

Sleep your way to amazing ideas

Beware of Averages - the kiss of death

"It's an ad. It's not important"

What Bones can teach the Marketing Community

Are you about to buy some Neuro-Bollocks?

How to marry your ideal PR/Ad/Media Agency

When the homeless wear Prada

Bad news. Surprise & Delight no longer delights

If you want to sell more, stop selling and seduce

When people think, brands lose

What's a great modern Idea? A lesson from Tunisia

Here's why you can't re-position your brand

Advertising that makes you hate brands

5 of the greatest lessons about advertising

Any doubt that you're Emotionally driven? Better read this

5 easy ways to get your competitors' secrets – listen & learn

Stop focusing on what separates us; study what binds us together

What if your Loyalty program is really a Disloyalty Program?

Time to improve Marketing Industry education

To make diversity work, you need Design Thinking

How messing with Brand Personality kills brands

Truly amazing Innovation needs a Building 20

Here's why the Market Leader has to be the Challenger

Is your Brand/Organisation in a Graveyard Spiral?

Marketers: what you say is not what they hear

Is your Company incentivising people to stifle growth?

John le Carré's key lesson for Business

A simple technique for writing punchy slogans

If you love ads, please buy a steak from Norman

About the author

Introduction

This e-book is intended as a mentoring piece \- for anyone interested in Brands, Marketing and Communication. It contains 70 of the most popular articles enjoyed in over 80 countries on the Flying Seraph blog.

They're short pieces, bite-size mental snacks really, based on real-world experience - typically no more than 3 minutes apiece.

Each is ideal as the basis for a discussion in the workplace or a tutorial in an education setting.

I hope you find inspiration and ideas to help make your Brand fly - at the very least, to protect you from having any unoriginal accidents!

Do you know the 2 fundamental laws of Marketing?

I'd imagine at least 50% of the world's marketers were reared on Professor Kotler's books – prescribed reading at a huge number of Universities. The primary course text when I taught 2nd and 3rd year students.

I'm stunned when I talk about the 2 fundamental laws of Marketing – a Kotler idea – and get blank looks.

This post will necessarily be short - the concept is very tight and needs little expansion beyond reminding folk who've forgotten.

Here they are:

The law of slow learning: People take a while to learn a new concept. For it to become a part of System 1 (the brain's autopilot) it may take a few uses of a product or service and perhaps a few exposures to communication.

If we layer the increased 'noise' people are trying to opt out of, and fragmentation, this law teaches us to persevere. At minimum, a reminder that ideas wear out in our boardrooms way faster than in 'consumer-land'.

The law of fast forgetting: Most people don't give a damn – about your company, your brand, or your campaign. Most of the time they're not trying to create a relationship with you or your products and services. In fact, most of the time, they'd prefer to opt out. Prefer not to think. Prefer not to have us trying to 'engage' them.

It follows in the case of the vast majority of brands, products, services and campaigns, that they are here today and forgotten tomorrow.

Consider what they're up against. They're competing for attention with life. Life in all its richness. With all its really important things. Against this, most brands and campaigns are trivial and not deserving of mental storage space.

The 2 laws, taken together, call for impactful ideas. Ideas that resonate strongly within the broader context of life and the culture. Reinforced - as good relationships are – by the right amount of relevant contact.

If there were a 'Maslow' hierarchy of Marketing thinking, these 2 laws would form the bottom layer, in my view.

All the tricks, techniques and nuances are for naught if you forget (or were never taught) these two fundamental and sobering guidelines.

Why data won't get you very far

W. Edwards Deming was a remarkable man. Often called the 'original data scientist'.

So it feels right, in one sense, to see so many people post, 'like', Tweet and otherwise share the following (attributed to him):

"Without data you're just another person with an opinion."

In this highly 'sciencified' era, we feel compelled to measure everything. Rushing to prove we're all logical, rational folk. We're smart. We're grounded. We think. We don't rush to judgment.

For those promoting data and the scientific approach, Deming's words provide great support and comfort.

Yet I can't help believing that publishing and promoting this quote is well-meaning, but only a half-truth (i.e. not good enough for a court).

You see Deming also said this:

"The most important things cannot be measured."

And this:

"The most important figures that one needs for management are unknown or unknowable...."

If I wanted to be mischievous – which I do enjoy – I'd say, on the evidence, he is saying that data is necessary but insufficient.

I worry far less about justification.

I'm far more interested in anticipation and imagination - the possibilities...

I see data far more as an after-the-fact explanation. Like most research I'm involved with, most data I'm exposed to is a rear view mirror.

Don't get me wrong. I love a clear explanation of 'what has been' or 'what is'.

It's just that I care far more about 'what could be'.

That is the domain of imagination and creativity. It's the realm of gut feel, intuition and possibility. Data will play a part (Informed gut feel, perhaps.). But compared to the value of conjecture and speculation, its role in making genuine breakthrough – as opposed to tinkering and optimising – is pretty small. Sometimes downright obstructive.

Any doubt? Here is but one example:

Akio Morita ran Sony. He was told that people in Sony Walkman focus groups couldn't possibly imagine why they'd want to carry their music around with them (data). No need for this type of product. Thankfully, he trusted his gut. Told his people to press on. Gave the world the Walkman and, indirectly the iPod.

In the non-commercial sphere, I often wonder why – when we can analyse music and reveal its mathematical heart – has data science not given us a new Beethoven? When we can subject text to rigorous scientific scrutiny – why don't we have a machine that writes with the elegance and beauty of Shakespeare? When we can deconstruct Picasso scientifically, where is our Picasso algorithm?

My suggestion is this:

If you really like the Deming saying about data and opinion, that's fine. As long as you balance it – as he did – with his 'important things can't be measured' saying.

I'd far prefer you follow this Bill Bernbach quote:

"We are so busy listening to statistics we forget we can create them."

Or this – also from Bernbach:

"Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art."

Sir Martin Sorrell got it right many years ago. In a paper for the IPA called 'Beans and Pearls' he explained that he hired extraordinarily imaginative people to produce pearls. He confined himself to counting the resulting beans.

And that, folks, is the sequence in which to use the 2 Deming quotes: first imagine, then measure. Have an opinion, then test.

Whatever you do, don't fool yourself into believing data takes precedence over imagination, gut feel or opinion.

Don't dismiss opinion, imagination, intuition, pet theory merely because the data hasn't got there yet.

Where have all the dreamers gone?

Eddie Hart was my dream CEO.

He barged into my office one day when I worked in Marketing demanding to know: 'Why, whenever I walk past your door, do I never see your feet on your desk?'

I was mid-twenties. He was a really daunting bloke. I had no idea where his line of thinking was going.

He followed that with: "You're infinitely more valuable to us if you spend your time with your feet up daydreaming. That's what I really pay you for."

I'm horrified by how much the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction.

Frankly, I've had a gutful of hearing that Marketing folk don't belong at the boardroom table. That they're 'fluffy'. Dreamers. That today's marketers need to be far more left-brained (if you subscribe to left brain/right brain).

This is utter nonsense.

I've had the great fortune to work with truly inspirational marketers – like Austin McGhie at Kellogg, Paul O'Brien at Warner-Lambert, David Thomason at MLA, Peter Bush at McDonalds, Don Meij at Domino's and Joe Saad (who ran Weight Watchers). The analytical stuff - piece of cake. Strength of character - there in spades. Far more importantly, they had courage, empathy, fertile imaginations and faith in their own gut-feel - damn good right-brains.

Stay with me a wee bit longer, please, and you'll see where I'm going with this:

A few years back, the Financial Times reported that: 'The average British and American company is valued by the stock market at around twice net balance sheets. Brand rich companies are valued by the stock market at four times net assets.'

The crucial difference between a product (the rational/functional bit we deliver) and a brand (rational + emotional) is the 'fluffy stuff'. The intangible, non-rational - sometimes will o' the wisp - component doesn't come from analytical thinking but from creativity, imagination, intuition, empathy.

The 'fluffy stuff' has huge economic benefit. It creates and sustains margin and doubles shareholder value. So it follows we need more, not less of these so-called 'fluffy' people - right at the very heart of the organisation where margin and shareholder value are created.

It's time for the pendulum to swing back the other way. Let's identify, nurture and promote the dreamers - they will create value for the left-brainers to count.

"Walking it in": what we simply must learn from the Army

Out on the battlefield where it is often literally 'rocket science' (nothing as trivial as our Marketing world) the artillery guys use a technique they call 'walking it in'.

If we're to make breakthroughs regularly – by design, not just good fortune - we need to learn from them.

Here's how it works: they fire a few shells, watch where they land, re-calibrate the weapons and fire again – more accurately each time. Actually, if you think about it, that's precisely how Angry Birds works.

And it's the way we need to re-frame the idea development process. Old-timers like me, you see, were taught this sequence: Ready, Aim, Fire. I grew up believing that you gather a whole load of facts, suspicions, pet theories and hypotheses, distil and polish like crazy until perfect and then (and only then) do you think about execution.

I recently had the great privilege of attending d.School at Stanford. Their Design Thinker program (taught with IDEO) breaks that model. Instead, you're taught Ready, Fire, Aim - the same technique used by armies worldwide. It's a far nimbler process of generating multiple options, testing them rapidly and cheaply, and building in order to learn fast (and abandon dead ends fast).

Come to think of it, the word strategy comes from the military – it meant 'army general' in Greek. Not a bad idea, then, for modern strategists to follow the modern military. How do you feel about 'walking it in'?

Eeny-meeny-miny-moe

There's a peculiar gravity trap in most categories, have you noticed? An invisible force-field that pulls brands back to the mean; back to same-ness.

You know how it goes: One brand does something really interesting; something that breaks through the clutter. And as sure as nuts, around the boardrooms comes the plea: 'can't we have one of those too?' And in our hurry to impress we scurry around to make that happen.

The worst culprits? Well, same-ness resides in every category, it seems. Sadly, no category is immune.

But the most distressing, I find, is car marketing. Can you believe that the same stretch of road in New Zealand was 'booked' to shoot 3 competing car commercials in just one week? Guess what, judging by the advertising, they all have wheels, gear levers and speedometers. Almost all of those shot in Australia seem to love the new(ish) Sea Cliff Bridge between Sydney and Wollongong.

They all appear the same. So you might as well buy any old car brand, it seems.

This is plain and simple convergent thinking. Which creates convergent brands - look-alikes, do-alikes and sound-alikes.

So how does the customer choose? Just like we did as kids: "Eeny-meeny-miny-moe" for we've just destroyed peoples' ability to pick us from among our competitors. We've destroyed differentiation. Which, in turn means we've successfully destroyed margin.

How can you help ensure we do something entirely fresh each time?

Heart over head every time

Just recently a marketeer I really like and respect floored me. "We need our advertising to be more rational because we're in a very rational category" was the request.

And deadly serious at that.

Well here's one thing we do know for certain: Brands are anchored in our memories in both thoughts and feelings. And whilst we may like to pretend we are highly rational, make our decisions logically, and are rarely swayed by emotion, that is not true at all.

In fact, whenever there is conflict between our thinking and our feelings, our emotions rule. And that goes for every decision we make – including those related to the biggest purchases we make in our lives – for most of us buying the family home or car. So why not for some of the smaller decisions with far less at stake?

No. The marketeer was well meaning but plain wrong.

Their brand's competitors all yell rational stuff at the world. But that says nothing for the way people consume communication. Instead, it presents us with the biggest opportunity – to be the first brand in the category to truly connect with people – by talking to their hearts.

Just as there are no boring categories; just boring marketing, so there are few, if any, rational categories in the world.

Communicating well is a matter of life or death

The most dangerous time in a twin-engine aircraft is just after lift-off.

In my light twin the most dangerous event is if I lose power on one side when I'm at takeoff power setting at pretty low airspeed. Not so bad below 50ft. I can close both throttles and land in the remaining runway. But between 50ft and 400ft lives are at stake – mine, my passengers' and probably some innocents in my path. Poorly handled, she'll roll on her back and plunge to the ground.

Every single takeoff – just before I enter the runway – I convince myself I'm going to lose an engine.

I invoke a bit of 'fight or flight' emotion (excuse the pun). I run through the engine-failure drill to make sure it's embedded in muscle memory. "Control yaw with rudder, lower the nose to maintain airspeed, Mixtures, Propellers, Throttles – full forward. Gear-up. Flap-up. Identify: 'dead foot, dead engine'. Confirm the failed engine. Feather that prop and continue the takeoff." I touch each and every control I will use as I chant that mantra. I need to be able to do every one of those things without thinking. In a matter of seconds. Or else.

I take my duty to keep you safe, to heart. So do the airlines when they carry you. They need you to hear and to process the pre-flight safety demonstration. Yes it's boring. And long. But the better people know it and the better they comply - if the unthinkable happens - they all get out alive.

Most airlines play the video. Most fail to communicate.

The worst in my recent experience is Qantas. In trying to get people to listen they simply cranked up the volume on the same old message to an uncomfortable level. The equivalent of upping the frequency on a dog of an ad.

The best (and they are truly magnificent at it) is Air New Zealand. For 2 great examples click **here** and then click **here**.

Can you believe an in-flight safety video has over 11 million views on YouTube? That people want to watch it?

The difference: Air New Zealand applies the wisdom of Daniel Kahneman.

In brief: people avoid thinking. So it's very hard to get them to process rational messages. But it is possible. Provided we 'open the emotional gateway' first, people will admit rational messages. But not by banging away with greater frequency or greater volume – with communication that didn't stand a chance in the first place.

There will be times you need to communicate a rational/functional message. Follow the lead of Air New Zealand: 'if you want people to admit and process rational communication, you have to open the emotional gateway first'.

It may not be the difference between life and death for everyone reading this. But for some of my clients, it actually is.

I bet you don't know who owns your brand

Here's a question for you. It's a curly one I often ask when teaching Marketing or Advertising students – and when I run brand workshops for clients. See how you go with it. (Apologies if, after reading this, you feel you've been tricked.)

So you're in the Leadership Team: tell me, who owns your brand?

I typically get some explanation about parent company and its structure, or shareholders, or something of that ilk. Generally, the consensus is that companies own their brands.

You don't need to be a lawyer to know that couldn't be further from the truth.

Companies don't own brands.

Sure, they own the legal rights to some properties associated with their brand – elements of design, colours, brand name, patents etc. Companies create the core product or service and clothe it in a range of behaviours. These are informed by some set of explicit or implied purpose, beliefs and values.

But companies don't own brands – the most they do is affect the way brands are perceived.

Brands belong to the consuming public. We forget this at our peril. They reside in peoples' memories as bundles of feelings, thoughts and associations. Those feelings are affected by the core product or service and the sum total of all the producer/marketers' behaviours.

They're also affected by the things we neglect to do. And the things that others write, say and do. All of these, taken together, elicit responses – feelings, thoughts, associations that may or may not make their way into your memory.

Which explains why you and I can have a totally different response to the same 'brand'. Because a brand does not belong to a business. It belongs to you. And me. And other people like us.

In the final analysis, a brand is, and always will be, a consumer response. In that sense, consumers own brands. Companies don't.

Never hire a research company again

Here are 2 blunt truths about marketing research (in all its forms):

People in research don't say what they mean and don't mean what they say.

Much of what passes for marketing research is simply pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

Which, in turn, means you need to hire the absolute best researcher your money will buy. Unless the outcome's not that important. In which case, bank the money and go with your gut – better than a charlatan doing something half-baked in the name of research.

It's not that respondents are deliberately dishonest in research. Well, some actually are. But a good deal of the time, we – that's you and me, and people just like you and me – have no real idea why we did what we did. Why we thought the way we thought. Why we felt the way we felt. Often it's 'just so'.

When pushed hard enough – in front of a group of strangers – who could be blamed for blurting out a complete untruth? Better that than look a fool. And have you noticed how rational our thinking becomes when among strangers (actually, even when we're completely alone)? We hate admitting to being driven by forces we don't quite understand. That most of our decisions are 'feels right' or 'feels wrong'.

The very fact of talking about System 1 \- where the bulk of our decision-making takes place - as our 'primitive/reptilian brain' makes it harder for us superior animals to admit that we avoid thinking wherever possible. That we rely on short cuts. That we're anything but rational.

So it needs a darn good researcher. The best your money can buy. The good ones are highly talented folk. They're open and able to discuss their way of working; their belief in what makes humans tick and respond the way they do. Truth is they're in short supply. They aren't everywhere. They're pretty special.

They're not companies. And not all companies have them. And they're not 'black box processes' – no matter the amount of validation.

So please, pick the most talented person you can afford.

And much as you might enjoy participating, observing, taking copious notes, drawing conclusions and making inferences please remember this (and I say this with utmost humility):

You're likely paying a very different brain to yours to do something you probably can't do well - work out what people really mean when they don't mean what they say. When they, themselves, are not entirely sure what they mean.

Does success create happiness or is happiness a marker of success?

If you do business in the so-called developed markets of the world, this is going to resonate with you:

I worked with the truly inspirational Reg Bryson at The Campaign Palace - Australia's Agency of the Decade - just after the turn of the century. (Sounds bizarre doesn't it: 'turn of the century'?).

We picked up a massive change in public sentiment. Through the Nineties we'd found that people believed 'success led to happiness'.

In the research we were doing, we found this had been turned on its head: happiness had 'suddenly' become a marker of success. We surmised it had something to do with the New Millennium – remember that? We thought this seminal event had triggered a re-appraisal of fundamental values.

Not true (or if true, only a partial contributor). There's a better explanation. And it's having a profound effect on brands and business.

You see, in the developed markets – across North America, Europe, Japan, Australasia – the median age of the population is 40 or older. In other words, there are now as many or more people over 40 than under.

Which means most people have the home, the car, the pool and the Plasma TV. They're beyond acquisition mode. They're increasingly concerned with higher order issues. You might argue this transition in thinking has been true of every generation. I'll grant you that. But this is the first time ever that the age pyramid is bulkier in the top half than the bottom.

Now, as never before, this mindset is dominant - asking questions higher up the Maslow hierarchy. (As a practical illustration: the main reason Kevin Rudd beat former Prime Minister John Howard in the elections of 2007? Howard offered people a better economy. Rudd offered us a better society. As did Obama in beating the Republicans in the US).

And that is why increasingly – to quote Simon Sinek – 'people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it'.

So if you're doing business anywhere – but especially in a developed market – the most important question you need to anticipate won't be: 'what do you make?'

It's more likely to be: 'Who are you?' 'What do you stand for?' or 'What do you believe in?'

We didn't spot it because it crept up on us. Now we know it's true, better get a wriggle on and do something about your purpose and values before any more time passes.

Telling doesn't sell. Selling doesn't sell. Now what?

We need to take a lesson from the best of the old door-to-door salesmen. They truly knew how to sell.

The less successful among them didn't. They knocked on the door. When the lady of the house answered, they'd launch into their spiel – 'have I got a great deal for you on vacuum cleaners'? And the door would slam shut in their faces.

The truly good ones started this way: 'Knock, knock'. Door opens. 'Ma'am you have a truly beautiful home'. And within seconds they're inside showing the lady of the house the perfect way to keep it beautiful - with a fabulous vacuum cleaner at an irresistible price, of course.

It seems to me most marketing and communications folk have lost their collective minds. How did we go so far off the rails? How have we got to a position where most advertising is shrill, shouty noise trying to flog stuff?

An all too rapid journey from enticement to interruption; from enchantment to hectoring.

And the most frightening thing – so many have become used to this way of speaking that it feels normal. Proper communication now feels odd.

It's no wonder people do everything they can to escape what we dish up.

Thankfully, the work of the neuro guys and the psychologists has brought a 'new legitimacy' to what great marketers and communications folk have always known - a lesson many of the old copywriters learned by observing brush and vacuum cleaner salesmen.

To paraphrase Daniel Kahneman: first open the emotional gateway and then people will (may) admit and process rational information.

I have head to head proof using two real ads for my KFC client to illustrate the point. The first is a film that focuses on how the product is made - 'food porn' as it were. The second tells a human-interest story and also has the product.

Consumers took less about the product out of the film that talked only about the product. Ironically, they learned more about the product from the film that talked less about the product.

It engaged first and gave some rational information thereafter. Please use this example. Please spread the word. Help make us all behave better.

I had the good fortune to learn from the late, great Stephen King - father of Planning at JWT.

It's time to stop talking about messages and go back to his focus on responses.

It's time to return to the art of seduction:

Develop an intimate understanding of people. Focus on 'what's in it for them'. Over train on ideas they like and want to share. Solve business problems through a deeper understanding of the human condition and large dollops of empathy and imagination.

I'm seeing it emerge again in patches. I'd love you to help generate the momentum we need.

It's been a dark night in Adland. Which is why, for me, the dawn is looking even brighter. I have a strong sense that we're getting back on the right track once again.

Now, having knocked on her door, what's the first thing you'll say to the lady of the house?

What do an Effie and a landing light have in common?

A pilot never forgets the first time an instructor closes the throttle and says: "what will you do now that your engine just failed?" Thankfully, Sydney has around 75 golf courses. A good fairway becomes a runway in a pinch. Every 500 ft. of altitude translates to 1 minute of gliding time – feverishly looking for a golf course.

Mid-way through my training I asked: 'What do you do if you lose the engine in your single-engine aircraft at night?'

Len Yates – my instructor - answered: 'take out your chart. Work out your height above ground. When you get to 100 ft, turn on your landing light. If you don't like what you see, turn it off again.'

Such is the black humour that pervades flying.

Reflecting on this, I should be laughing. I'm not. I'm shaking my head. You see we've recently submitted our Effie entries. There's a strong parallel.

It struck me that - apart from the 193 entries in the Australian tournament this year - most campaigns are not interrogated properly. As an industry - people like you and me \- marketers, media and communication folk across all disciplines are culpable.

The vast majority of campaigns have not had a strong beam shone on them. There's been insufficient learning. We've missed the chance to grow and improve. My JWT mentor, Stephen King, would be horrified. His "are we getting there?" question has gone unanswered once again - because it was never asked.

Effectiveness is the one topic that unites us all in the marketing, communications and research businesses.

It's our chance, and obligation, to show CFOs that company money has been well spent. When less than excellent, it's our chance to learn and improve. As in aviation, it's imperative we do an 'Air Crash Investigation'. We will all learn more and ensure we only have original prangs.

There is one thing I hate even more than not examining campaigns after the fact. It's the blind conclusion that 'we tried that before and it didn't work'. That is a direct result of shirking campaign post-analysis.

Ours is a simple business.

Issues typically lie in 1 of 3 places: Strategy, Idea or Execution. Properly studied, we have the chance to learn and improve. Or completely toss out poor thinking when appropriate. Equally, we are obliged to give things with genuine potential a proper chance.

But to willfully or negligently allow campaigns to slink into the darkness without shining a bright light on them is not an accident. It's a crying shame.

Turn your landing light on every time. If you don't like what you see, learn from it. In business, at least there's bound to be a next time.

How to win friends by alienating people

The most harmful phrase you can use in search of a new idea is: 'without alienating....'

Whoever introduced this (greedy) instruction into briefing is responsible for lots of business folk wasting loads of shareholder money. They have single-handedly - I'm certain unwittingly – given our world some of the blandest, 'beigest' ideas we have seen. Ideas that are incapable of moving anyone. Except perhaps to flee the scene, flee the channel, or whatever other activity the idea barely interrupted.

And then had to compensate by banging away with bigger budgets - trying to breathe life into something that had little chance of success in the first place.

Here's my plea to you – and I hope you can infect other people with this thinking:

Please make sure your ideas alienate some people.

The truly great brands (and ideas) in our world stand for something distinctive. They have a point of view. A clear guiding philosophy. A very strong sense of what they believe in. That, in turn, informs how they do (and don't do) things; what they choose to do and choose not to do.

Typically, great ideas and brands polarise. They have some people for them. And some people against them. Which is a darn side better than the alternative - having no one care much about them at all.

The great research companies are replete with cases proving this. Why, you only have to think of Apple, Nike and Google to realise that as much as their detractors dislike them so their fans love them to a corresponding or greater degree.

My all-time favourite example is a wonderful campaign from the UK for the processed meat stick Peperami. The brief was reputed to be: 'Piss off vegetarians'. And the resulting advertising was pure, joyful anarchy. See one of the ads here.

In my time on Meat & Livestock, the then CMO was the gutsy David Thomason. Brave enough to tell people that the difference between man and ape was the decision to eat Red Meat (or not). Brave enough to approve a brief that was essentially: 'Take the piss out of Hare Krishnas' (here). Did it work? You bet it did. It was part of a trilogy that won the Grand Prix of the Effectiveness awards. At the same time he encouraged a competing Agency to do the popular Sam Kekovich rants (here). Also an award winner.

Imagine what these brands and their fans would have been denied had someone - filled only with goodwill toward their fellow woman (better include 'or man' in order not to alienate anyone) had asked just that of their Agency - please don't alienate anyone...

To succeed, become young again

If you have raised or entertained young children in your home you have probably followed this ritual: You get down on your hands and knees. And you crawl around looking at the world as if through the eyes of a child.

Guess what? Things that had been right under your nose; things you'd never noticed, spring vividly into view. And make new sense.

You see, we all carry around a complex cocktail of expertise, understanding - even prejudice. If we try to make sense of the world – of customers, employees, interviewees etc. - without acknowledging this baggage, our view becomes filtered and skewed without us realizing it. What we see is not what they see.

I have 3 burning examples – 3 strikes, if you like, in the last week alone:

First: a 'persona' written to describe a group of customers that was nothing short of someone acting out their own personal life ambition – 'a 35 year-old architect living in Annandale...'

Second: a qualitative researcher hearing responses through the filter of dubious assumptions taken into the research. (Good quallies acknowledge the baggage they carry so as to ensure it doesn't pollute their work).

Third: the advice of a so-called 'category expert'. He/she can tell you everything that will work and everything that will never work in the category. Thus condemning us to incrementalism when our ambition was to break through.

Stop. Let's recognize this for the nonsense it is.

Here's what you need to do (as taught to me by the wonderful folk at Stanford's d.school):

Want fresh insight? Assume a beginner's mindset.

Be the young child you once were:

Try to adopt the wide-eyed curiosity that you see in young children when making sense of the unfamiliar. And especially – even if it sounds counterintuitive – when looking at the familiar.

Look for new patterns and new themes you may not have spotted before.

Observe, engage, listen. Truly listen – with every sense, not just your ears.

Above all: set aside judgment. Put your agenda away. Adopt a naïve and humble mindset. Observe people without making value judgments about their behaviour, personal circumstances, 'issues' or decisions.

From a position crawling around down low, an electric socket is obviously a knitting-needle poke place. A lamp cord can only be an aid to reaching the tabletop. And the dog's tail – well it causes a cool sound at the other end when you tweak it.

Seen through a child's eyes, this is all obvious. So how much obvious stuff are you not seeing – even though it's right in front of you?

Worse still, how much insight is being buried by people around you because they bring prejudice and other baggage to their observation?

Make sure you work at it. It comes with practice. In the words of Picasso: 'It takes a long time to become young'.

Why focusing on great products will make you fail

The late Sam Walton (Walmart founder) said: 'There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.'

The bad news is today's customer is a far harsher judge than in Mr Walton's time. Today's customer has far higher expectations of businesses they deal with.

So if you think that providing really great products and services is a sufficient goal, you've got another think coming. And if that's all you plan to focus on, I think your money will do better in an interest-bearing deposit.

Great quality products and services are merely price of entry to a market. Today's customer also demands to know:

Who are you? What do you stand for? What do you believe in?

If you have any reason to doubt this is happening – or that it will intensify - consider these 4Ds (there are more where these came from):

Demography: last week, speakers at Sydney's Conscious Capitalism Summit outlined the changing demographics in 'developed' countries. (I wrote a piece on this a while back here). The median age of the adult population has passed 40. Which means most adults are beyond acquisition mode. Following Maslow's thinking, they're asking higher order questions of businesses - and themselves.

Simply making good products is unimpressive. How you contribute to the welfare of your Employees, Community, Suppliers, Financiers, Customers are equally strong considerations.

Digital: you can't hide anything. Anything that can be known about your business – internal as well as external – will be known. Any doubt? I have 2 words for you: 'Julian' and 'Assange' or more recently 'Edward' and 'Snowden'.

Democratisation of ownership: Whereas share ownership had been limited to relatively few people, successive privatisations and universal Superannuation means almost everyone owns shares in a wide range of businesses. So people are often simultaneously your employee, your customer, and a shareholder. Thus, they think of you very differently.

Developments in society: Consider Australia – the concept applies elsewhere too - in the post-WWII years, everything was in short supply. People were only too grateful to have what they could get. You merely had to run ads saying: 'It's here.' And you had custom. Nowadays, savvy customers know Marketing is a game they're invited to play. And they may. Or may not.

This underpins a mindset that challenges businesses: 'Go on. Justify yourself.'

Now for the good news: Organisations that behave well are killing it. There is abundant proof that treating all stakeholders well pays back. In spades. Don't take my word for it. Read 'Firms of Endearment' (2nd edition is current).

Take the challenge. Go beyond Sam Walton. Go beyond product and price excellence. Behave well. Make darn sure you give customers every reason to spend their money with you.

How much of your brand have you created without knowing it?

I was on a panel at a conference, recently. I'm afraid I ran off at the mouth a bit. Panels - having an impromptu element - are like that. Someone quoted me saying: 'I have a message for Board members and CEOs in the audience. If you think 'Brand' is the responsibility of the marketing guys you're deluded.

My mother drummed manners into me as a kid. So the moment it was out of my mouth, I wanted to stuff it back in. Upon reflection, I'm convinced it's absolutely right.

Everyone in the company is in some way a brand manager. None more so than the person on the biggest money. The ultimate Brand Manager.

Here are some things businesses (maybe yours) do to customers. Any of these ring true?

You transfer a customer 3 times to different departments and she never has her problem solved. She hates the experience. And tells her friends. Who each tell some friends...

That's your brand.

You charge a customer extra for something they were sure was included in the original price.

That's your brand.

You put a customer on hold for over a minute (hello Telcos, banks, airlines, utilities...).

That's your brand.

Your website is confusing and hard to navigate.

That's your brand.

"I've got a sister who works there. Let me tell you what they're really like".

That's your brand, too.

Never, ever forget: a brand is a consumer response. To anything and everything we do. Including all the things we omit doing.

Make no mistake. This is not a call for CEOs to micro-manage Marketing. It is a reminder that everything a business does, or neglects to do, elicits a response. An emotional response.

Let's not obfuscate with jargon like 'touch points' and 'channels'. Everything matters. Everything affects the brand. And it's typically the CEO, alone, who can affect everything.

Again, I say: if you think 'Brand' is the responsibility of the marketing guys, you're seriously mistaken.

Any doubts, give the leaders of the Commonwealth Bank a ring.

The proven way you can develop breakthrough insights.

Here's a simple way to make genuine breakthroughs you could use immediately. (With acknowledgement to Stanford's d.school.) It works for me. It will work well for you, too.

Breakthroughs need fresh insight – ways to spot new needs or ways to spot needs people aren't yet aware they have.

But you must gather insights differently than the way we've all been taught...

I want you to start doing simple observations and having simple conversations – done with the naïve curiosity of a child. Yourself. Don't farm this out to a research company – you and your people need to do the old-fashioned thing – leave your desks (and Google) and go and watch and talk to people.

Not just any people. 'Extreme users'.

Here's why: Most research we use engages people in the middle of the Bell curve. But if you're looking for clues among the majority - people who are 1 standard deviation from the mean, say – at worst, you will confirm what you already know or suspect. At best, you'll only gain incremental insight leading to very small gains.

Instead, find extreme users – by that I mean atypical people. People at the outer ends of the Bell curve.

They are feeling things explicitly that are still latent in the 'middle majority'.

How do you spot them? An uncomfortable brief at first because it feels so open...you just have to use your imagination and keep your eyes open. (I can send you a cheat sheet if you like, just ask.) Rough rule of thumb - stay clear of anyone your research company typically recruits.

Here are 3 examples I came across while at Stanford:

1. Working on a dental health project (for P&G) what kind of interviewee do you imagine yielded the richest, new insight? Not your usual suspect – the best was a toothless meth-addict from a small, rural, mid-West town.

2. Studying men's grooming, team members zoomed in on a small group of men who wash their hair at least twice a day.

3. Tide – the detergent - had always focused on 'stain removing performance'. In trying to understand how to appeal to young adults, the Tide team found a gem. They uncovered some extreme users - Millennials who really value their jeans and hang them over the chair to wear unwashed, repeatedly. Those who really care would never wash them – definitely not in Tide. Their explanation: "I'd never wash my jeans, I want them to look great longer".

This gave Tide a totally new avenue into that market: "It's not about cleaning. It's about caring for clothes". And a new product line was born.

I confess. First time is a trifle unnerving. Like so much in life, it gets easier and you get better with practice. Just dive in and try it. And re-calibrate after each observation/interview 'til you're comfortable and breaking new ground regularly.

Why an architect from Newtown is a waste of oxygen

Personas.

Growing in popularity. Fun. Seductive. Giving loads of bright young things in Marketing and Advertising the chance to feel creative and self-actualised. Brainstorming, debating. Thinking they're making a major strategic contribution to a brand. Misguidedly believing they're developing insights.

Here's how a typical Persona reads:

(Hint: Knock yourself out. Swap descriptors as you see fit. Slip in a few of your own that capture a bit about you or your life's dream. It's a game we all can play.)

Who am I? Calvin/Annabelle is a 25/29/34 year old architect/dog whisperer/futurist (any trendy occupation you choose) who lives in Newtown/Williamsburg/Harajuku (pick the coolest suburb in your town - where you most wish you lived). He/she has a Labradoodle/French Bulldog called Monty/Jemima who he/she walks/drives to feed the ducks/ watch football (wait: is that soccer? Someone thinks it's more likely to be rugby....)

So it goes on, accommodating the foibles and predilections of everyone in the room.

Creating either a total fiction that exists nowhere. Or a near useless cliché that exists everywhere.

Not a hint of an insight to be found. Without which you haven't a hope in hell of getting to a good solution.

Before you say or think: It's not such a big deal, let me hasten to tell you it is. Because research into unconscious bias shows it will implicitly, or even explicitly, guide your judgement. Before you know it, this hokum is insidiously steering or confining strategy in a very harmful way.

Here's the question they're not asking – which might well uncover a proper insight: Why is our brand talking to these people?

The answer will never be: 'because they're men, or because they're 29, or because they're architects, or because they like a certain breed of dog'.

But it might be: 'because they don't feel something about the product/service we wish they did' or 'because they use the product in ways we wish they didn't' or 'because they feel something about an issue we wish they felt more intensely'. Or something similar. Then we can work out why this is so.

Hey presto! An insight. The starting point for a strategy.

I'm sad to think that this scenario is playing out in a meeting room somewhere as I write this. And again as you read this. It's real. You can't make this stuff up (actually, it seems you can..).

The output of most Persona workshops is so trite and unhelpful, it's fair to say the collective salaries in the room are money wasted. And the resulting (inane, unless you stumble on something by fluke) strategy is a further opportunity to throw a lot of good money down the drain.

There's no defense for this.

If your colleagues are so out of touch with the target market that they need this sort of spurious fairytale, I have a very simple message for them. Get off your bums, leave your desks, separate from Google. Watch some focus groups at the very least. At best, get out and watch and speak to some real people. Peer into their hearts. And their heads.

In the absence of genuine insight, even the most lyrical description of a stereotype (a.k.a. a Persona) is no more than simple gobbledygook. And a complete waste of everyone's time, money and oxygen.

The secret of a world-class loyalty program

It's in Sydney. And it's called Agnes.

I'm gob smacked by how well Agnes creates customers for life. I wish you could see it in action as I do every day. Agnes (Aggie) knows more about loyalty than almost every marketer I know – even those who think they've got it down pat.

Aggie is the angel in our café who makes me lunch most days. And coffee. And does so for around 500 people – from our building and lots from surrounding buildings. To a person we admire and love her. We can learn a lot from her.

Let's face it, when it comes to loyalty, the experience customers most desire is the service Aggie delivers intuitively. We yearn for a contemporary shopping experience with the characteristics of the old corner store. Not B2B. Not B2C. But H2H - human to human:

She knows us all well – our likes, dislikes and what we usually buy. Even the itinerants who visit the building maybe every 2nd or 3rd week

She tells us when she has things she knows we'll like.

She doesn't waste our time with irrelevant stuff. She knows I'm on a low carb routine and she's helping ensure less of me turns up each day.

She gives us all – all 500 or more of us – a sense of 'personal recognition'. Beyond knowing every single coffee and sandwich order by heart. She can tell me who's happy and who's troubled. Which of the businesses in our building are stressed and which are cruising. Like a great loyalty program, she not only listens intently, she hears clearly.

She cares about me (and everyone else) as a person; not just today's sale. How about this? One of her customers was the Wallabies (Australian) Rugby coach. She got me some exercise tips from him.

And that's why we all keep coming back. Day in and day out. Call it Customer Lifetime Value – Ogilvy House scale.

I suspect she's already forgotten what some of our biggest marketers have yet to learn. Those who fall below Aggie-standard make these mistakes:

They analyse patterns of purchasing behaviour far too narrowly. They're sales-driven not customer-focused. They assume a pattern of purchasing behaviour indicates loyalty. (Which is where Big Data devotees are going to come a cropper if they're not careful).

Focusing on what people are doing (behaviour) with insufficient understanding of why they're doing it (attitude) is simultaneously the biggest problem and - for the savvy - the biggest opportunity. For, deep down, we all know loyalty is both attitudinal and behavioural...

Here's a challenge. Think about the loyalty programs you know. How many make it to Tesco/Dunnhumby standard? Where they seem to know you almost better than you know yourself? Have a look at the simple "loyalty continuum" below. Where do they fit? Where is yours at?

At one end – the '1 free in 8' coffee shop/dry cleaner cards. Simple Bribery.

Through the middle is a variety of slow-burn sales promotions pretending they're loyalty programs. But loyalty is to the currency, not the brand.

Then there's the far right of the spectrum. That's the place to strive for - where few currently are. Which means scope to truly stand out. These are the programs that are obsessed with brilliant satisfaction of customer needs. These companies build loyalty programs for the right reason – to collect data that enables them to satisfy customer needs brilliantly. That is what builds lifetime loyalty. These programs go beyond 'surprise and delight' all the way to devotion.

When you get to this point, you know you have an Aggie. And you're totally smitten.

Advertising doesn't send messages

True story:

A Sydney home had a single garage and driveway that backed onto a lane near a well-known pub. (The Oaks - for Sydneysiders.)

Pub visitors constantly parked across the driveway blocking the owners in or out. The homeowners put up a sign: 'No Parking'. No good.

They tried: 'No parking. Driveway in use 24 hours'. Same outcome.

A copywriter friend offered a hand. He created a sign. Worked a treat. The sign read: 'Skinheads live here'.

Please use this as inspiration to get back to basic discipline. To apply what we know about how advertising works.

Advertising is about responses. It is not about messages. If you (or your associates) think 'messaging' or 'messaging strategy' or if you believe that advertising conveys messages I'm sorry to tell you, you've got it badly wrong.

Responses to a message (stimulus) differ widely depending on such things as context (in which received), culture (our backgrounds and ingoing understanding may differ), content (what, precisely, is said) and manner (executional enhancements or impediments)

What I say (send) may not be what you hear. In fact, the response can even be the direct opposite of the message you think you sent.

Here are two candidate posters featuring the crooked former President of the US, Richard Nixon. Both attempt to communicate the same thought – the President is dishonest.

The first poster fails. While some people will agree with it, they're likely to be those who thought that way going in – confirmation bias. But it backfires for many who we seek to convince. 'You can't speak about a President like that', was a common response.

The second works well. It elicits the desired response by being less direct. By inviting people in to interpret its meaning, whereupon they're immediately 'co-conspirators' – on the side of the communication/communicator.

It's not just what you say though. It's also how you say it. Here's a charming set of pictures (a teaching example from my first Agency over 20 years ago).

Imagine you're driving down a country lane. And you see a farm stall selling fresh eggs. People are queued up in response to this sign:

The next farmer – running a big, sophisticated operation sees the first guy's success and puts up this sign:

Same words. Doesn't have the same meaning, does it?

The local flying school instructor in the area, inspired by the first guy's success tries this:

No takers. No surprise.

Please, let's go back to the basics of Stimulus/Response theory. Let's get rid of the absurd message focus (the fault of big quantitative ad research) and let's start to elicit emotional responses.

Or I'll set the skinheads on you.

How not to shoot yourself in the foot with advertising

Peculiar thing happened a number of years ago. Two of our major banks simultaneously ran advertising that made them worse off.

I've never forgotten it. Be good if this story saves you from an unnecessary prang of your own.

Both ANZ and Westpac thought it would be a top idea to run advertising telling the public their customer service was really good.

I was working on a competing bank at the time. We tracked our own advertising. We also tracked theirs - across a wide range of dimensions.

Guess what? Every time their advertising ran, their scores on 'service in the banking hall' dropped through the floor.

Nothing had changed at the counters. The same pimple-faced guys and girls were delivering the same pimple-faced service and the same pimply smiles as before. (I've nothing against acne as long as it isn't me).

Two ill-advised Marketing departments and their complicit Agencies had made the same cardinal error. They had raised an expectation without improving the delivery. They encouraged rational scrutiny. And, when you get people thinking about a bank, it typically loses. (A principle that is not confined to banking brands.)

They had tried to sell sizzle without good steak. Been caught saying, not doing.

You'd think people would learn these lessons. Well, it seems it's true that when you don't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it.

Wind the clock forward a few years and I'm working on a bank once again. At a great advertising agency. We have a gorgeous campaign running that captures Australian hearts. A few months into the campaign, deposits are pouring in and a new CMO is appointed - bonused on improving Customer Satisfaction scores.

You'll never guess our first brief...

'People don't really understand what our advertising is asking them to do. I want advertising that raises Customer Satisfaction scores.'

Now I truly know what my flying instructor meant when he said: 'please don't have a prang unless it's an original.'

Please take his advice.

Please.

Why Ad research is like growing a pot plant

Don't get too excited. Not that kind of pot plant.

Here's a simple analogy - taught to me many years ago. It will help you spend your research budget wisely. As I watch what goes on in Marketing/Ad/Research land it seems many have forgotten, or simply never come across it.

Think about growing a plant. You spend time and take care choosing good seed and ensuring you have rich soil – good chance of a healthy plant. Plant weak seed into poor soil and you have very little chance at all. Even if, late in the process, you bring in the fertiliser and weed killer, you're unlikely to get lush growth from a stunted plant that stood little chance in the first place.

Well, that parallels your choices in communications research.

There are distinct stages in the development of communication when you can conduct research. Leading to 4 types of communication research.

One is extremely useful almost all the time.

One is pretty useful most of the time.

And one is occasionally useful.

The fourth – generally the most expensive - is most useful in lining the pockets of shareholders of research companies. It's least helpful to marketers or their communication Agencies. Often, it's downright harmful.

In sequence - from planting to harvesting - they are: Strategy Research, Development Research, Advertising Evaluation, and Tracking Research.

The 2 bookends – early and late are most useful:

Early research to inform strategy i.e. well before the brief, is always useful. When conducted well. It's the gardening equivalent of choosing robust seed and ensuring the earth is fertile.

Tracking research – once the communication is made and in market – is very often very useful.

Development research during the process is sometimes helpful. But there's a gigantic caveat: it must be research to learn how and why people respond to the idea. And how well it communicates the core strategic thought. It is definitely not about testing. Not about winners. Certainly not about execution.

But I despise – with a passion – the big, expensive pre-tests (a.k.a. copy tests). Pseudo-scientific, mumbo-jumbo mainly used for arse-covering. These big studies cost a bomb. They provide a sense of security because they're big and bulging with numbers. Generally, they're not much more reliable than the toss of a coin. And if our CMOs are no better than a coin toss – in my experience, they are – goodness help us all.

(It's at this point you'll hear the squealing and gnashing of teeth of a few research companies. And it's about now that a 'validation study' or two will appear.)

If you do have a communications research budget, spend as much as you can afford getting the strategy right, then switch what's left to tracking. Put a little bit aside for Development research – for the limited occasions it's needed.

If someone tries to sell you a big, expensive, 'consistently reliable' quantitative Evaluation study that 'usefully informs communication development', does a great job with emotional response, etc. ask them about their pot plant....

The other kind.

Why you must grow penetration to win

'Current users die'.

I really liked Don Fritz. He was Chairman of Kellogg in this part of the world when I worked on the business.

I've never forgotten presenting a 'copy strategy' to him that spoke of growth among current users. He thumped his fist on the table. He was a likeable but somewhat daunting man. Like so many Agency folk, we were a bit twitchy around him. His response was the terse: 'Current users die'.

We slunk back to the Agency, tails between our legs, to have another try.

I well recall reading articles over the past decade that lay out a case for growth among current users – because it's cheaper to maintain them than to obtain new users.

Well I have bad news for you. That may well be a successful short-term strategy. (Goodness knows, we do have a disproportionate emphasis on the now). But robust work out of Bain using our sister company Kantar's data is very clear:

'The best way brands can grow over the long term is to grow the number of buyers.'

The leading consumer brands focus a lot of their attention on growing Brand Consideration and thereby growing household penetration.

If this makes you uncomfortable, that's good. Trust me, you're nowhere near as uncomfortable as I was seated across the table from Don all those years ago.

The situation that worries me most – and it has played out in front of me more than once in the last 3 or 4 years - is this: customer counts have slipped a bit. But everyone seems happy because the contribution by Heavy users has gone up.

Think about this for a moment: When a brand is slipping, who tends to jump ship first? Probably your Lighter users - for whom the brand is less 'a part of life'.

If Light users desert you, what happens to the proportion of total sales attributable to Heavy users? It magically goes up. Which leads many a marketer (trust me, I've seen this a fair bit, firsthand) to claim they're doing really well. Even when their business is actually in trouble. After all, it seems their most valuable customers are accounting for even more of their business.

Taken to it's (ludicrous, I know) extreme, you end up with one highly committed customer buying loads more than they did before.

Or look at it differently: every Heavy User was once (by definition) a light user. So let's keep feeding in light users in order to have heavy users for our long term good.

If we fail to do this, not only do current users die. As a business, we do too.

How to treble the power of your advertising dollar

Reg Bryson* has the finest Planning mind in Australia.

Without a doubt.

Elected to the Hall of Fame of Australian advertising, he hired me as his Head of Planning at The Campaign Palace. Only because I got very lucky one year and beat him in the Effectiveness awards – a tournament he had made his own.

His partnerships with fellow 'Hall of Famer' Ronnie Mather, and other creative greats, produced a body of work that - to this day – is unparalleled in Australia.

Here's their secret to Effectiveness. They, and their most successful clients, knew the value of Impact. They used it as a secret weapon to amp up the value of every single media dollar. Their proof of effectiveness would typically show the cost per unit of impact compared to competitors.

Take, for instance, their Daewoo case. It consisted of a stunning body of work. Each 1% of Daewoo advertising awareness cost 100 units (indexed). The next closest was Honda at 163 units. Mitsubishi advertising dragged the chain at 310 units.

That shows how much extra had to be spent in media by competitors to compensate for weak advertising. It galls me still, to watch big advertisers banging away with creative that had very little chance in the first place. Believing – misguidedly – that frequency, reach, or time in market can compensate for lukewarm creative.

Reg's strategies were beyond smart; they were audacious. The Palace' ideas were to die for. Their executions were lovingly crafted.

To many clients and competing agencies, that was lavish. Indulgent even.

I shudder at what today's 'value' chasers would think: folk who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. I wonder if a single procurement executive has ever given thought to this kind of metric?

Here's a very simple 4-cell box that sums it all up (apologies to the media folk but, like ours, theirs is really a simple business, too.):

Imagine the outside of the box is a fixed size: It represents the total budget. Within that we have 4 levers we can pull. Reach: what proportion of all people we reach. Frequency: the number of times people 'see' our communication. Duration: how long we can afford to run the campaign. Impact: the ability to elicit a response in people.

Within the fixed box you can re-size the 4 cells. Re-allocate money between Reach, Frequency, Duration and Impact as you see fit. But the budget won't grow, so the outer box stays constant.

Reg's proof comes into its own here.

Skimp and spend as little as you can get away with in the Impact box - you'll never have enough in the remaining three to do the job properly.

Conversely, spend as much as you can afford to in the Impact box. So powerful is the multiplier effect of great creative, you'll need far less money in the remaining three.

That is how Reg demolished (almost) all in his path.

Simple and elegant, really. The path to the Hall of Fame.

*Reg is principal of Brand Council, a brand strategy consultancy.

How amateur Spielbergs kill advertising

Last week I came across a type of communication research that is sheer, unadulterated nonsense. Pseudo-scientific pretense that bamboozles while it pretends to illuminate.

My colleagues came back from a research presentation absolutely dumbfounded.

Picture this: bunches of people sit there with electrodes attached to their heads. They watch a 30 second TV ad. The researcher notes when and where their brains light up.

Then – like an amateur Spielberg – the researcher starts to take scissors to the ad. Cut this scene or that: 'It's not doing anything because their brains aren't lighting up.'

Which set me wondering about the great plays, sonnets, fairytales and movies we grew up with. Stories that relied on quiet moments to make the loud moments loud.

Light and shade, if you will.

I wondered what would have happened had we researched 'Little Red Riding Hood' this way – "cut the travelling through the forest bit, it's not 'up' enough". Or in Jaws – "just show continuous shark scenes, that's when their brains are firing".

Imagine we took the scalpel to Shakespeare: "cut the quiet, slow parts. No dramatic pauses, thanks. Let's just have all the bits where the brain lights up excitedly".

No shade thanks, we'll just have light.

Imagine we took the knife to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Who needs the quiet bits? Why not cut this 'soft' phrase:

'But I'm just a poor boy and nobody loves me'

The song's somber, quiet ending doesn't really set the neurons blazing either:

'Nothing really matters.

Anyone can see.

Nothing really matters - nothing really matters to me.

Any way the wind blows.'

Removing the shade is like shooting a zebra in the black part - the white part dies too.

When you kill the shade, the light loses its brilliance. What remains is uniform. Grey. Unvarying. No downs. Therefore, no ups. (Bit like a Harvey Norman '30 seconds of excited shouting' ad, really.)

When everything's a 'high' the piece, by definition, is flat. Nothing stands out. Nothing is noteworthy. Nothing worth processing. No attitude change. No behaviour change.

We've seen it all before with the infernal and destructive 'worm' – popularised in televised political debates. Entertaining – sure. Reliable? Not a chance. This updated version of the same codswallop pretends to have contemporary credibility by implying it has neuroscience backing.

The underlying premise is defective regardless of whether the 'worm' is generated by twiddling a knob or by sticking electrodes to subjects' heads.

As for the claimed or implied neuro-credentials, Prof Byron Sharp has this to say:

"Neuroscience is fashionably dragged in as support: 'Oh, look, this part of the brain lights up when people see a brand they know well and buy – this proves that brand preference is due to brands forging strong subconscious emotional bonds.' This is a gigantic leap of logic! It is worth noting that no serious neuroscientist has made such a claim, nor been willing to support such a claim."

To me, both the concept of a 'worm' as a valid research technique and the pretense that it has scientific sanction (neuro or otherwise) raises false hope in many in our industry.

I cannot recommend it. Nor turn a blind eye to it.

There you have it. My view. In black and white.

Discontent about Content

Peter Bloomfield (Bloomers) is the consummate filmmaker.

What he has forgotten about ideas, stories, composition, framing, focus, depth of field, lighting etc. many have yet to learn.

He is such a modest, self-effacing man. You may well have grown up with great film he shot and been none the wiser.

In a sign of the times, these days, he is often charged with producing content. (Here's a fun exercise: Google 'where to get good content' and you get almost 1 billion hits in 0.34 seconds).

Such huge demand for content. So much vacant time and space to fill. It frightens the lights out of me.

The notion is not new. After all, Commodore J. Walter Thompson, was originally a print media space-broker. Somewhere along the way, he twigged that, in addition to selling space, he could offer to help clients fill it.

Content, if you will.

There is some argy-bargy about whether, or not, his was the first formal advertising agency. Be that as it may, we seem to have come full circle. We're back in an age where media capacity well exceeds the available content.

Cool word – 'content'. There are 2 ways to think about it:

One's a definition I love, loaned to me by my CEO: 'Content - Marketing that works so well you choose to spend time with it (and even save or share it)'.

That presupposes strategic thought, strong ideas and stories told well. Take for example, the wonderful work W&K did for Old Spice: camera operator, writer, client and talent responding in real-time. Listening, writing, approving, shooting and uploading in response to the likes of Ellen.

Or think about the word 'content' this way: 'Satisfied'. 'Filling'.

Goodness help us and our brands if we allow ourselves to lapse into this second kind of content. Ill thought-through stuffing. Filler of space. Bar set at satisfactory.

"But it's not really 'main media'", I hear some thinking. Well, the truth is we never know how or when people first encounter a brand. Or what their most recent encounter might be/have been.

Imagine if it was through content. Content regarded as a mere filler. Content that only sought to satisfy.

Keep in mind Michael Eisner's wonderful view of brands: 'A brand is a living entity - and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures'.

Everything matters.

Simply put: Content that is merely satisfactory might just stuff your brand.

Don't ever close the loop

Here's a key lesson for modern marketing from a century ago.

Burmese-born writer H.H. Munro (who wrote under the pen name Saki) wrote:

"In baiting a mousetrap with cheese, always leave room for the mouse."

It's become the most violated principle in the Marketing/Communications game. Which is likely costing a lot of companies a lot of money.

My guess is it's because we've forgotten about the difference between stimulus and response. Or because we've become obsessed with messages, message testing and simple message playback. Or just lost faith in people's innate intelligence.

David Ogilvy had it bang on many years ago when he said: 'The consumer isn't a moron; she's your wife'. People are smart. They know the game of Marketing. They'd prefer to opt out. But if we respect their intellect and entice them to opt in, they'll play along, in my experience.

So what is Munro/Saki trying to teach us? What should we take from his mousetrap message?

Well simply this:

Patronising people by spelling it all out as if they're too stupid to work it out for themselves is fatal. Not only will they opt out. They'll likely come to despise you.

Leave the loop open. Leave something to the imagination. (There's an actress/vicar gag there, I'm sure). Invite them to participate in the communication. Let them feel a sense of co-authorship as they close the loop for themselves. Surely that's the real meaning of engagement?

Case in point: A few years back, I had the great privilege of working on Tontine pillows. With people yards more talented than me. We set out to shake up the pillow category (and take an unfair share of category growth). We put the world's first 'use-by' stamp on a pillow.

In the advertising we reminded people what lay just below the surface of their favourite pillow (an entire ecosystem feeding on their dead skin cells and saliva).

Importantly, we studiously avoided showing bugs in a pillow.

Here is a key extract from the Effie paper (quoting brilliant research done by David Tunnicliffe – one of our finest):

"People needed to conclude for themselves, not be told or shown the things directly that we wanted them to take out. This confirmed our deeply held view that we should not show bugs in pillows. Once consumers play the idea of bugs out in their own imagination – 'theatre of the mind' if you like - they own the problem themselves and they conclude for themselves that they should buy a Tontine pillow without being told to buy one. Had we shown bugs in a pillow, research suggests we would have given people wriggle room – 'that's your pillow, not mine'."

Subtlety, thoughtfulness, seduction, a light touch – all ways to catch a mouse.

Or a customer.

Don't close the loop. Invite them to involve themselves in the communication. Leave room for them. Let them write the final part.

How to get loved advertising: ask my chiropractor & Seth Godin

I have the loveliest chiropractor in the world. But last week I swear she deliberately dug her elbow in far harder than needed. Just after I told her we'd put AAMI's 'Rhonda & Katut' campaign to sleep. For good.

You see it was her favourite campaign. And that of her sisters. And her Mum.

Shouldn't have been a surprise - it was voted the nation's favourite.

It won Gold for Effectiveness across Asia and an Effie in Australia.

(It was a soapie in 30-second episodes that told the story of a car insurance customer – Rhonda – using her savings to holiday in Bali. She and Katut - a handsome local fell in love. The romance blossomed, twisted and turned by episode - each deftly and subtly introducing a product feature. Some better than others, admittedly.)

The public took ownership. Some crazy man tattooed a key frame on his foot. Some people - no client involved \- created a Facebook page with a monster following: 'The sexual tension between Rhonda and Katut'. A greyhound named – wait for it – 'Kiss me Katut' did pretty well. Loads of T-shirts sold in Bali featuring Rhonda and her beau.

So advertising can make its way into popular culture. Advertising can be truly loved. And really work. Even in a resented category like car insurance.

Come to think of it, in my early years in Johannesburg, the Cannes advertising reel was screened in cinemas at lunchtime – for the public. Screenings were packed. Queues flowed out onto the street.

Seems people do indeed love and choose to watch great advertising.

Which is very important because the biggest problem advertisers face - as Martin Weigel neatly points out - is Indifference.

On the other side of the ledger it wounded me recently to hear someone say: "It's only an ad. It's not important".

How can these 2 contradictory positions sit side by side?

Well there's a growing sense that we've done it to ourselves (that 'we' is you and me; marketers, researchers and communications agents). We've let our standards slip. We're content with OK and not striving for the real goal - ideas that people want to see again or even share. As much as we take the plaudits for the good stuff, we're jointly culpable when we dish up rubbish.

If we're trying to get people to opt in when they'd rather opt out – the Indifference/self-protection thing - we'd better get better at seduction, entertainment and likeability once more. Not just in some of our work. In everything.

Five years ago, my then business partner and one of the best ECDs I know - John Kane - spoke of 'Visual Swopsies'. By which he meant a vast body of today's ads that for all intents and purposes are identical, except for different casting or main visual.

If you think that's harsh, flick through the cosmetics ads at the front of glossy magazines. It's a joke.

Pat Baron, ECD at McCann wrote recently: 'So much work in our own market is fake, formulaic and contrived'. May not have John's Irish charm to it. But he's onto the same thing, I think.

A few months back I saved a Tweet. I don't know it's original author. It read: 'I don't like advertising that looks like advertising. I like advertising that looks like life.'

It was a call – like Pat's – to shun formulae and to once again nurture the kind of diversity and humanity in advertising our community demands. More 'Rhonda & Katut'; more Bigpond 'Rabbits'; more 'Dancing Butchers'; more 'Not Happy Jan'; more 'Dumb ways to die'...

Each Agency likes to be 'different'. How about we set aside the differences and go straight for what binds us all – a simple test of highly Relevant, highly Unexpected and highly Likeable?

To me, it seems this is the only way past sending out unintentional signals that say: 'this is an ad, you can go and turn the kettle on now'.

Seth Godin offers an even simpler test: 'Would you miss it if it weren't there?' To which he adds: 'And yes, I mean your fundraising newsletter and your Facebook updates, and I mean the announcements on the speaker at the airport and the robocalls too.'

Seems Seth gets my chiropractor. Way better than I ever did.

I don't like advertising that looks like advertising. I like advertising that looks like life.

The quote could just as easily be: 'I like advertising that sounds like life'.

That's the point. That's what we seem to be losing. And that's what you need to insist on having if you want to develop sticky ideas that are meaningful, enter the culture, and are differentiating.

Let me start with a story. I'm sure Sharon Howard won't mind me telling you.

She was the 'baby' copywriter at JWT when I joined to work on Kellogg. And she had written one of the country's favourite end-lines for Kellogg's Corn Flakes: 'The simple things in life are often the best'.

It ran for years and years. It was proven and re-proven – year-in and year-out - in the advertising. It resonated with the nation. Largely because the brand spoke to people in their terms.

You could say the same for a wide range of great end-lines (and headlines):

'Have a break. Have a Kit Kat.'

'Australians wouldn't give a XXXX for anything else'

'Dynamite against germs' – Listerine

'Every little helps' – Tesco

'The Fresh Food people' – Woolworths

'The cream of Manchester' – Boddingtons

'Dirt is good' – Omo

'Let's nibble Nobbies nuts' – Nobbies Nuts (naughty Palace)

They sound like life. They're easy to remember. They're easy to say. Without sounding like a pompous ass. They're rich in meaning. They readily spawn a wide variety of advertising ideas that keep proving the philosophy or claim in the line.

So how in the heck have we got to advertising that sounds so much like advertising? Like planners trying to impress planners? Or writers competing with writers? Lines that sound impressive but fail to communicate?

Can somebody please explain to real people what the following pompous/pretentious/inane/weird lines actually mean? Why they'll catch on? How they readily speak to System 1 etc.?

'Overload your senses' – a Sydney shopping mall – perhaps they sell bungee jumps there?

'Excite your senses' – suspiciously like a shopping mall but for Tetley Tea (really?)

'The future. Together. Now' – an AXA insurance gem

'Our force is your energy' - Olivetti

Then we have my pet hate – those that try to tell people how to respond:

'I'm lovin' it' – Peter Bush was right to resist it when Maccas imposed it.

'Love that car' – Mitsubishi, a few years ago

And – god bless – the sheer joy of unintended meaning:

Stilwell Ford: 'We put people in front of cars'

Great lines become incredibly valuable assets. They encapsulate the entire meaning of the brand. They act as short-cut or icon, holding a load of emotions and associations. They help us access meaning in memory – almost like an App for your brain.

Let's pull out the truly great lines. Laugh at what we've done recently. And then over train on truly good advertising and sparkling copy.

But more than anything, let's make them look and sound like life – not a signal to switch off, or a meaningless nonsense that passes people by.

Most retail is not good enough for Carol

Alec Baldwin appeared on 'Letterman' a few years back. When asked about his 80 year-old Mum, Carol, he told Letterman of her reluctance to move from Camillus – a small town in the coldest part of New York State. (Average high in January, minus 1°C)

The brothers Baldwin wanted her to move to be closer to Billy in sunny California.

Her response: 'And leave my Wegmans?'

So I ask you: like Carol, do you love any retailer enough that you'd stay put in 3m snow in an average year?

Wegmans - the grocer - is absolutely magic. But it's confined to the North-East of the US.

If you've never seen a Wegmans store, you're missing one of the ultimate grocery experiences in the world. Actually, one of the most impressive retail experiences you'll encounter anywhere.

Wegmans does a bunch of things brilliantly.

Their employees are highly motivated and superior in training, longevity, and ability to execute. For example, any employee – regardless of rank – has $50 discretionary spend to make sure a customer is happy. Without having to ask a superior for permission.

True story: A distraught young newlywed had bought a turkey for Thanksgiving but it was too big for her oven. One of Wegmans in-store chefs took it from her, cooked it and delivered it just before her in-laws turned up for their first Thanksgiving dinner with the new couple.

John Rand – my friend and Retail analyst who counsels manufacturers on their relationships with retailers - walked me through the then newly opened store just outside Boston. He had permission for us to linger – he knew the Wegman family personally.

His summation of what they do that's great is like this (for those technically minded about retail):

"Wegmans offers a superior food experience that mates with a value-oriented, shelf-stable, center store EDLP pricing system. The fresh side provides high margin, world-class service, and jaw-dropping range, the EDLP/center store side creates value and expands the basket. They are careful not to confuse the two. It is like two very different stores under the same roof. Both are executed well and they are an harmonious whole even though they are really two complementary business models."

Now I adore retailing. Enough to devote 4 years of my life to researching a post-grad thesis on Retail Strategy.

The penny dropped for me. And I could see by contrast where most of today's retailers are getting it wrong. And why very few will ever enjoy the emotional loyalty Carol Baldwin felt for Wegmans.

The greatest mistake a retailer makes is starting to rely on real estate instead of merchandising.

When you think you're in the business of selling space - either floor space or catalogue space to suppliers.

And you forget that great retail is about great theatre: buying with imagination and merchandising with flair. Inspiring and stimulating people.

Not being satisfied with the relatively low bar of 'surprise and delight' but shooting for devotion, instead.

A level of devotion that causes people to put up with bitter cold and life away from their children.

So retailers, who among you is good enough to earn Carol Baldwin's love?

Infect your business with a virus

The lovely Launa Inman, who ran Target Australia a number of years back, was one of my favourite clients. A lady to her fingertips, she surprised her Agency by asking us to help her create an 'Oh Shit' moment.

Her reasoning was right. Before she ran it, in 2000, Target made its first ever loss. Which caused everyone to pull together and try something new. Flush with success, the company soon became complacent once more. Launa was looking for a major shock to the system to get things moving again.

In my experience – and I've been round the block a few times now – Market Leaders seem to find the jumpstart the hardest thing to do. It comes more easily to those snapping at the leader's heels. Leaders are held back by a range of issues including complacency, the bonds of legacy systems, short-termism etc.

Many years ago Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote that there is only 1 strategy available to the Leader – to have the courage to attack and supersede itself.

I found this enormously appealing. Truth be told, I despise status quo. I am most interested in organisations and brands that 'want to have a go'. I agree wholeheartedly with the inspirational Diageo marketeer Matt Bruhn:

The two 'I's – Incrementalism and Inertia - are the 2 biggest evils in business today.

A number of years ago, working on Kellogg, we tried something that became really potent. We created 2 teams made up of Kellogg people (from various disciplines including supply chain, finance, production, sales, food tech and marketing) and Agency partners. Each became the 'shadow' planning team for a major competitor (Sanitarium and Uncle Toby's at the time). We went on factory tours – the opposition's factory, not ours. We visited printers - theirs, not ours. We interviewed retailers. We studied their websites and histories. We scrutinised their media behaviour.

Each team made believe they wanted to inflict harm on Kellogg. And we developed shadow business plans to attack ourselves.

We then put the most imaginative and potentially damaging (to Kellogg) plans in place.

On behalf of Kellogg.

And we did our 'Business as usual' jobs too.

Basically, we created 2 viruses. And then we developed 2 antidotes.

And just as modern medicine would have it, we inoculated ourselves.

You can do better, I'm sure.

We did this annually – as the planning cycle commenced in April.

You should be doing this continuously.

Remove a few people from 'business as usual'. Free them up to genuinely focus on the future. Because we know that, increasingly, today's urgent will drive out tomorrow's important. Ensure their skill-sets are diverse. Encourage them to think and behave like rogue elements. And then cycle them through the 'Virus squad/Skunkworks' and back into the business.

Have a permanent virus within the business. Continuously looking for ways to outmode what you currently do. Perpetually creating notional 'Oh Shit' moments.

It's the only way I know to remain the Leader.

Unlock your Purpose: the 2400 year-old lesson that works today

One of the most powerful concepts in modern business – Purpose - is taking hold as more organisations discover its power.

It's about time, too.

The proof is in. Centering a business on what it stands for and believes in (its Purpose) is infinitely more powerful than focusing on what it makes or does. And it pays back handsomely.

Financially – there is no longer any doubt.

You have only to read the 'Firms of Endearment' study (2007) and/or the Jim Stengel/Millward-Brown work of 2011.

The recency of these studies makes Purpose seem like a new concept – which couldn't be further from the truth.

Purpose was explained pretty concisely more than 2 400 years ago. By no less than Aristotle:

"Where your talents and the needs of the world cross; there lies your vocation."

Therein lies the basis for the most elegant and powerful method for defining Purpose:

Your company purpose.

Your own purpose.

The intersection between what you're good at and what the world needs. Your best self and a genuine need in your society.

Validating the concept is one thing; doing it is well is another...

The simplest (and one of the best) I've encountered is illustrated by the story of President Kennedy's visit to NASA. When Kennedy got to NASA, the first person he ran into was a janitor. And he asked him: 'What do you do here?' – fully expecting the janitor to say something like: 'I help keep the buildings clean'. The janitor didn't. He looked Kennedy in the eye and said:

'Mr. President...

I'm helping put a man on the moon'.

How wonderful would it be if all of the people in your organisation had exactly the same motivating clarity of purpose as in this story?

Do guard against the pompous or the overly worthy. Realistically, few brands actually exist 'for the greater good of God and mankind'.

I often feel that we feel pressured to write something lofty; something at the top of the Maslow hierarchy. Such Purpose statements sound impressive but they aren't terribly smart at all. The acid test is whether you ever have to say: 'What I mean by that is.....' (Failure to communicate)

Imagine if NASA had tried something like: 'To enrich mankind by engaging with the Universe'. How would that guide behaviour? We should not fall into that trap.

But Google's: 'To help organise the world's knowledge and make it available' and IKEA's: 'To help create a better life for the many people' are true gems that unite, inform and uplift all their stakeholders.

By the way, the great Stephen King (JWT) wrote in 1985: There is no reason why companies should not have a clear-cut corporate personality and stand for something very specific."

Australia's own Reg Bryson was uncovering Purpose for the likes of BHP, Camp Quality and Telstra as far back as 2000 – even slightly earlier from memory.

Given it started with Aristotle in the 300's (B.C.E). And given it pays back. Don't you think it's time you got a wriggle on?

Purpose is key. But it belongs to CEOs, not Marketing

I'll bet very few in your business know what builds your brand.

Big call? No. I think I'm on very safe ground.

Be patient with me for a few moments while we deal with a fundamental many people have lost sight of:

Tell me, what is a Brand?

A Brand is a person's response. To the things we do. The things we omit to do. And the things that others do or say around us. It is very individual in that different people can feel differently about the very same brand – proving that the brand actually belongs to people – where it resides in their minds as a bundle of feelings and associations. But it does not belong to a company.

And that's not confined to customers. It's also the way shareholders, employees, partners and community members feel that counts. Come to think of it, in an era where we all – directly or indirectly – own shares, many of us are simultaneously an employee, a shareholder and a customer of a business.

Don't give up yet.

We're in a good position to influence the integrity and value of our brand/s. Michael Eisner (former Disney CEO) said this of brands:

'A brand is a living entity \- and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time - the product of a thousand small gestures'.

Which means a great number of small gestures build your brand - gestures towards more than just customers. And it seems we can't really tell what will be a person's first, next, most recent, or even most memorable contact with your brand.

If you doubt me for a moment, think on this: You've just spent millions on a big ad campaign. Somebody who has begun to feel good about you talks to a friend in the school car park. The friend says: 'Hang on a bit. I have a sister who works there. Let me tell you what they're really like.' All the money spent on ads just went down the drain.

The same goes for a poorly designed website. Or for leaving a customer on hold for ages. Or for bullying suppliers (Yes Big Grocery, I'm talking about you.).

So it seems every behaviour matters. Equally.

It is obvious that Marketing folk can't control the total experience. Which is created by the total set of organization behaviours.

But the leader of the business can. And the best tool he/she has is Purpose and Values. Together they can inform all behaviours. Which means the CEO is the ultimate Brand Manager. Good CEOs use Purpose to inform all of company behaviour.

For those who think Purpose is Marketing frosting to dress up a mediocre brand cake, I wish you the very best of luck. Lots of it.

Strategic Planning: Professor Levitt & the Cheshire Cat

One of the great joys of retail is its sheer speed.

Things happen fast. When you do stuff, you don't die wondering.

Many years ago, I started work on a Research Master's. I sought to understand Strategic Planning in Retail businesses. I chose Retail deliberately for its sheer pace. I figured Retail would be a stress test for 'slower-paced' industries.

I interviewed C-suite folk in 18 listed retail companies. Some of them simply laughed at me:

"What value can strategic planning be? A plan's out of date before the ink is dry."

(The answer, ironically, is neatly concealed in that CEO's challenge.)

By contrast, I was determined to prove, for pretty volatile businesses, this thought from Sun Tzu (before he became fashionable):

'Now the General who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The General who loses a battle makes few calculations beforehand. It is by attention to this point that I can see who is likely to win or lose.' (This hangs framed on my wall)

So, believing in Sun Tzu, I bet the farm on proving that, based on the kind of Planning they do, I'd be able to tell which retailers would perform best.

After 4 years work I began to see the answer. The retailers that were truly killing it had two things in common:

They stood for something clear that everyone understood.

They were constantly scanning their world and planning – an ongoing, twitchy process. Virtually to the exclusion of the ring binder that contained 'the plan'.

I offer you two slightly more recent quotes which expand on Sun Tzu. They're deceptively simple. I am confident they're the 2 fundamental principles of planning any business need follow:

1. Standing for something clear:

"Alice came to a fork in the road. 'Which road do I take?' she asked.

'Where do you want to go?' responded the Cheshire Cat.

'I don't know,' Alice answered.

'Then,' said the Cat, 'it doesn't matter."

Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland, 1865

Or...

'...unless he knows where he is going, any road will take him there'

Prof. Theodore Levitt: 'Marketing Myopia', 1960

2. Conducting 'twitchy' planning:

'Plans are nothing; planning is everything.'

General (later President) Dwight D. Eisenhower

Albeit a small sample in my study (non-parametric statistics - for the purists) I uncovered a very strong relationship between 2 major financial measures over 5 years and the nature and quality of each retail company's strategic planning. In brief, and in today's language, define your Purpose and then behave like Angry Birds.

Thankfully, I had the last laugh.

Very privately.

Until now.

2 hints for better ideas in workshops

Could it be that the main purpose of workshops is to boost sales of voting dots?

What may seem trivial and inane – a discussion about dots – is actually about giving good ideas a chance. And I have two great hints for you.

I like using workshops. I also understand their pitfalls.

I love the way you can bring truly diverse people together. I love the way that diversity can help you get to a totally new place. And I love the fact that participants feel like co-authors of the ideas that emerge. With a whole new kind of commitment to the output.

Let me declare at the outset: I am no psychologist. I'm no sociologist. And I am no anthropologist. (I do have a talented anthropologist in the family - sadly, it's not me.) But I have always been fascinated (and horrified) when it came to 'voting dot' time in workshops. (Let me be clear, I'm not advocating for dots – merely recognising they get used a lot.)

I feel certain you've had this experience: All the ideas are up on the wall on Post-its. Come voting time, people glance around furtively and then – without fail – place a dot on their own idea. And the more politically-aware – having voted for their own - stand back, watch their bosses and vote where they vote.

Imagine the moderator gives out no more than around 3 dots. If everyone votes for their own as a matter of course, that seems like a third of the votes are wasted on ego. With yet more wasted being 'sucky'.

Here are 2 suggestions to get you a better outcome:

As taught at Stanford, brief the participants to 'pretend everyone else's idea is better than yours'. Which is a cute way of saying: 'you may not vote for your own'.

Thing is, I've tried both ways for comparison and the more gently phrased Californian way really works a treat, making participants feel generous, not chastised.

The second hint I want to pass on comes from the same source:

Create 3 classes of voting dot for new ideas:

• Ideas we really like that we know the business can execute.

• Ideas that we love which are a stretch given where the business is now

• Those ideas that are darlings but real long shots – they'd make everyone stand up and take notice and they'd probably be hard to pull off.

At worst, you know you have a banker.

You may well encourage some 'Goldilocks' thinking, encourage a stretch and end up with the second group.

And if you're working with someone like the inspirational Don Meij of Domino's (for example) – tighten your seat-belt, you're in for an exhilarating ride.

Seen simply as voting dots they are small and insignificant. Seen for what they represent – the ability to galvanise action behind truly magical ideas – please give them your all.

Don't let precious, fragile ideas die in the name of ego or ingratiation.

Take time. Imagine what could be. And then vote so you have a range from ambitious to downright terrifying.

That's the true value of a little voting dot

Where Big Data will bite you.

I heard a Big Data advocate talking just last week - a fellow who is considered to be a real fundi.

He proudly proclaimed that:

'This is a new dawn for business. We're entering a time when we have so much data and technological power available that we will know exactly what, when and how people are doing anything and everything.'

Hearing that frightened the lights out of me.

I believed him when he said we'll be able to manage the sheer quantity and velocity of the data flow. But I was truly alarmed by his narrow focus on how, when and what.

How people behave, When they behave, and What they do, is called observation.

There's nothing wrong with observation.

Observation is necessary. But, without Insight, it is hopelessly insufficient.

A confession: I'm a hoarder. Every so often it pays off (mostly I reckon it doesn't, but I conveniently ignore that). I dragged out a Creative Brief I'd written a few years back for an instant, packaged foods brand. Here's an extract (we were pitching so it's my property to share - I am not betraying any confidence):

Role for Communication:

To claim for XXXXX a primal, timeless and potent emotional territory associated with food. Not just eating food but positive feelings associated with its preparation, the nurture of loved ones, facilitation of social gatherings etc. Let us encourage people to recognise and savour the simple joys of everyday food moments – rather than let them simply pass us by in the name of hurry, easy, convenient, instant..

When you buy XXXXX, you're buying into one of the rich emotional instincts that bonds humans to eating.

Insight:

Everyday food has become highly functional for both eater and provider – no type of food more so than packaged, convenience food. By observing and replaying how we eat meals, marketing has all but forgotten why we eat meals. It's not just for fuel; it's not just for nutrition. We have powerful instincts that make us desire the spiritual aspects of eating too.

Therein lies my fear.

I am proud of those two sections of the brief. I think they set out a real understanding of what had gone wrong. And give real & helpful clues as to how we might start to think in order to fix/enhance the brand. They bring out the humanity in the client/brand's issues. The second paragraph explicitly sheets home an entire category's woes to a misguided focus on 'how' people behave at the expense of 'why'.

I am fearful that we might regress to a place where floods of data describing 'what/how/when people do things' drown us. Where data and technology become king. And wash away insight – the all-important 'Why' (or Why not).

I beg of you to keep your curiosity about people front and centre. No matter the seeming power of the evidence/data you're given, keep asking yourself 'Why'. Don't be seduced by the apparent magic, or intimidated by the apparent power, of data – big or small.

Big Data will only be useful if we interrogate it until we find Big Insights.

Failing that, it will be a dangerous tool that favours observation over understanding and sets us back decades.

The plural of anecdote is not data – or is it?

Do you know the story of the 5 monkeys, the ladder and the banana?

Well I saw it play out in real life.

Someone in a meeting I attended, boldly claimed that 48% of boxed chocolate buyers believed something in particular – precisely what that was, I can't recall.

Which doesn't matter much because his entire premise was bull dust.

Here's what had happened. His predecessor had watched a few focus groups. Then added up the number of people who claimed to feel or think a certain way. Converted that to a percentage. And then assumed that was true for the entire population.

In his hands, the plural of anecdote had just become data.

Think that's funny?

Well it became law (not just lore) in that company. As newbies joined, they accepted the received wisdom as an unassailable fact.

So two massive watch outs - assuming a few anecdotes make data. And the unquestioning use of received wisdom...

Now for the story of the monkeys. (I should tell you there is some doubt about its accuracy but you'll recognise the behaviour, I'm sure).

According to Michael Michalko, experimental psychologists performed the following experiment with Rhesus monkeys (here's the text version; there's a video version online if you prefer.):

"They started with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, they hung a banana on a string with a set of stairs placed under it. Before long, a monkey went to the stairs and started to climb towards the banana. As soon as he started up the stairs, the psychologists sprayed all of the other monkeys with ice cold water. After a while, another monkey made an attempt to obtain the banana. As soon as his foot touched the stairs, all of the other monkeys were sprayed with ice cold water. It's wasn't long before all of the other monkeys would physically prevent any monkey from climbing the stairs. Now, the psychologists shut off the cold water, removed one monkey from the cage and replaced it with a new one. The new monkey saw the banana and started to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attacked him. After another attempt and attack, he discovered that if he tried to climb the stairs, he would be assaulted. Next they removed another of the original five monkeys and replaced it with a new one. The newcomer went to the stairs and was attacked. The previous newcomer took part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, they replaced a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey tried to climb the stairs, he was attacked. The monkeys had no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they were beating any monkey that tried. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys had ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approached the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been around here."

There is, of course the opposite – where data collected is so dodgy that anecdote is highly preferable. That is for another time.

In the meantime, to borrow a different monkey story: hear no evil; see no evil; speak no evil...

Let's add: Do no evil.

Especially the evil that turns a few anecdotes into a universal truth. And the evil that blindly accepts it simply because 'that's the way we do things here'.

'What is' versus 'what could be' *

There's an inspiring story told of a shoe company that wanted to sell its products in the South Pacific Islands. So long ago that the only means of communication was telex. The story predates even fax machines. (I recall reading it as a University student – not as far back as this story, though)

They sent a sales guy to the islands to try and sell their shoes. After a while, he sent a telex back saying: 'Bad news, these guys don't wear shoes'.

Not satisfied, the company recalled him and sent their most ambitious sales rep out to the islands. He sent back a very different message: 'Great news. These guys haven't discovered shoes yet'.

The late, great Bill Bernbach – for those who don't know, the B in the highly regarded DDB – had a very similar message for us. He said:

"We are so busy measuring public opinion that we forget we can mold it. We are so busy listening to statistics we forget we can create them."

Nice in theory, but is it true in the real world?

If you were to look at the Press headlines and research into prevailing beliefs and behaviour in Australia in the late 1990s, red meat was the second biggest evil. Behind cigarettes. If cigarette smoking didn't kill you, red meat would.

My client at the time – David Thomason – was one of the most visionary marketers I've met. With his vision, belief and courage, we rehabilitated Red Meat within 5 years. Together, we won the Grand Prix of the Effectiveness Awards (now the Effies) and had the bulk of consumers and medicos telling people to eat a Red Meat Meal 3-4 times a week. And doing so themselves.

That was not a task for the faint-hearted. Admittedly, it's a rare person who is prepared to take on such bad odds. David was not one to shy away from a (monster) challenge.

If you can't bring yourself to listen to Bernbach, then at very least take it from David.

Interrogate statistics. Treat them as guilty until proven innocent. Spend most of your effort imagining what could be. And do all you can to see beyond what is.

Then, go out and make new statistics. Numbers that suit you far better.

*A tribute to the late David Thomason. Gone far too young.

Big data. Small data. Quality data. Your choice.

I wrote recently that 'the plural of anecdote is not data'.

Which created a robust and healthy discussion about what constitutes data.

A colleague argued: 'Surely data is really just anecdote at scale?'

Which set me thinking about Big and Small data (anecdote).

And I realised the Big versus Small debate is a total red herring.

Try this example:

Imagine you're standing in San Francisco airport (as I was).

An elderly couple passes through airport security (the TSA). They're about to board a flight to Paris. TSA operators confiscate a bottle of perfume from the elderly woman. Expensive perfume. More than that: in their 80s this couple were retracing the steps of their honeymoon and that's the perfume she'd worn on their first date. Around 60 years earlier. Huge sentimental value.

Anecdote? Sure.

Data? Most certainly.

We set about solving for that problem. (Real story: I worked in a Stanford d.school team. Brief: 'How might we improve the Ground experience for JetBlue passengers')

Another team – observing a fragile woman made to stand from her wheelchair in the full body scanner – designed a cardboard wheelchair that could go through the scanner.

Small data. Massive solution.

But the data came from observation followed by empathy interview. Not simple self-reporting. And therein – I think - lies the trick.

You see, people don't mean what they say. And don't say what they mean.

It's not that we're liars. We are simply subject to so many biases operating below the threshold of our consciousness, that our claimed behaviours and feelings are often suspect. Or blatantly wrong.

And that's when we're trying to be truthful.

Now try this second example I saw published recently:

'There's abundant proof that drinking water cures cancer. Just last week I read about a girl who was dying of cancer. After drinking water she was cured.'

If 1000 people reported the same nonsense, would it be data? What if it were 10 000 people? Even if each were convinced their anecdote had merit?

I think so. But would you rely on that data?

Probably not.

And therein lies the key for me. Without imagination, experience, savvy to draw on, you have no way of telling what data is quality or not.

No matter what Moore's Law does for computing power. No matter how fiercely the big data stream gushes. The debate needs to shift.

It's not about Small data. Or Big data.

It's about the quality of any data - big or small. And how much savvy you apply to it.

Why Purpose-driven Marketing works & 'Marketing Purpose' fails

Imagine I baked a mediocre cake. And decorated it with the loveliest frosting – really inviting – drawing you in, promising quite a special experience...

How many bites would it take you to realise you'd just been fed an impostor. A fraud. A fake.

How would you feel?

Probably more disappointed than if its superficial promise hadn't been so good.

Well, there are a lot of customers, employees, shareholders and neighbours of a large number of companies feeling just this way. Maybe even yours. Today.

Here's what's happening:

Loads of Marketing and Advertising folk have discovered "Purpose". They've been enchanted – rightly – by Simon Sinek's inspirational 'Start with Why'. They know Purpose pays back, thanks to 'Firms of Endearment' and the Jim Stengel/Millward-Brown work.

Purpose is now the trendy must-have. In fact, they say to themselves, let's just ditch the term Positioning and write a Purpose. And if we can't persuade the rest of the business that we need one, we'll just have a 'Marketing Purpose'.

Well here's the inconvenient truth. Purpose is an all-of-organisation construct. It's the base ingredient that establishes everything about the cake you're making. It is absolutely central and dictates the cake's entire character. The whole experience.

My most unfortunate lesson came from a wonderful, but short-lived, campaign I worked on for a Big 4 Australian bank. We created communications around a Brand Model that seemed marvellous – the epitome of an organisation behaving well. Alas, we soon discovered that front-line staff turnover was running at 70% per year. Stories of homes being repossessed were completely at odds with the picture the communication was painting. Not surprisingly, front line staff loved the advertising. But couldn't bring themselves to support it.

The Brand model and the Business model bore little resemblance to one another.

Imagine how much money went down the drain each time an expensive ad ran and a bank employee told someone: 'Actually, I work there. I wish we were like that. Unfortunately it's nothing like that all. Here's what we did to one customer....' Imagine that person told 10 others, who each told 10 more....

I applaud all of you who are desperate to introduce Purpose-centric Branding to your organisation. But please keep this in mind: a Brand is formed by peoples' responses to anything and everything to do with the organisation that they become aware of/experience. And if yours is only a claimed Purpose – confined to communication – you're on a slippery slope.

Purpose must be a central ingredient in your cake. Dictating the entire experience. But, at all costs, not just the icing on a poorly made cake – a raised expectation that just leaves an awful taste in the mouth.

How to lose £500 million in one speech

One of the biggest crimes in my book is denigrating a customer.

How many times have you heard someone talk about a customer or their client's customer in a less-than-flattering way?

Do they think it sounds clever or makes them seem bigger? A more impressive person?

Funny, really. Sometimes it's clearly intended to impress. (I find it hard to believe how that might work. Maybe I'm betraying my age or simply my archaic values.)

But, when I hear someone describe customers as asses, I'm more inclined to think the person talking this nonsense is the prize ass, instead.

There are at least 2 downsides to this behavior that I can think of: Firstly, what do you think would happen if the way you spoke or wrote, denigrating a customer, got into the public domain?

I have a one-word answer for you – Ratners. (UK readers will know this one well).

Gerald Ratner of Ratners jewellery chain wiped £500 million off the value of his company in one speech. Amongst other things, he said his stores' earrings were: 'cheaper than an M&S prawn sandwich but probably wouldn't last as long'. This gaffe, and others – implying his customers were tasteless, undiscerning morons - gave rise to the expression: 'Doing a Ratner'.

David Shepherd – former Brand Director of Topman - was asked in an interview to describe his target market. He said: 'Hooligans or whatever' and added: 'very few of our customers have to wear suits for work. They'll be for first interview or first court case.'

That's the more obvious error – when what you say goes public.

So: Rule 1 – assume anything you write or say can and will become known publicly.

The second, less obvious, arguably more dangerous mistake, is simply describing customers privately in an unfavourable way. Let's say a client, or even one of my Agency colleagues were to brief in an advertising task.

Being somewhere on the range from a bit silly to a total tosser, they might describe the audience as hooligans, dropkicks or losers, say. (Now, I've not heard 'hooligans' used. But I have actually heard the latter two in past years.)

How hard have you just made it for the person you're briefing? Do you really expect them to try their hardest to produce likeable ideas that motivate people you so clearly despise?

So: Rule 2 - Respect your audience and write/speak about them in a positive way.

If you don't, then without realising it, you will likely not get the best your colleagues can give. Which means your investment will likely return less than it should/could.

Cumulatively, over time, you too will have inadvertently wiped a lot of potential value off your brand – only this time far more insidiously. Far less obviously. Far less measurably.

And that's why I think anyone who describes a customer in an unflattering way is telling us more about themselves than about their customer.

Just who is the real tosser?

Sleep your way to amazing ideas

I'd like to share the best lesson I ever learned about running workshops to generate new ideas.

The secret - as you'll discover - is either a half pint of claret or a good night's sleep. Perhaps both.

First, though, I'd like you to reflect on this:

Ever woken up with a great idea? Or stepped out of the shower having made a breakthrough? Ever wondered how on earth your brain constructs dreams by weaving together little seemingly unrelated little snippets?

I'm pretty sure you have.

It's amazing what your subconscious can do when armed with information and left alone to go to work.

A good decade or more back, an inspiring group of Chicago-based psychologists helped overhaul the workshop process I use. Until then, I'd typically run workshops to fit peoples' busy diaries – all on the same day.

My attitude to stuffed diaries, now, is 'stuff the diary'. I get far better outcomes – amazing leaps – by running workshops for the same overall length of time, but spread over an afternoon and the following morning. Day 1 is a briefing/immersion session. Usually 2-5pm.

Day 2 is Imagination day – for brainstorming and other ideation techniques. Typically from 9 to midday the next day.

It's amazing. Every time, almost without fail, I release a tired group the first evening. And then welcome in fresh faces and minds enthused by ideas that seem to have 'come from nowhere' overnight. Bubbling over. Desperate to be heard.

Virtually every time I set one of these sessions up, I'm asked if we really need to do it this way. I'm told how disruptive it is for participants' schedules.

Therein lies the irony. Disruption is exactly what we need.

Disruption of convention.

Disruption of rules.

Disruption of received wisdom.

Disruption of 'we've always done it this way'.

I think we paid a small fortune for the counsel we received. I don't begrudge the psychologists a single cent. Their advice has paid for itself many times over.

Last week, however, I found a David Ogilvy quote. Years old. Here's what he wrote:

"Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science, and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information. Then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret."

Take my word for it - David's if you'd prefer.

Break workshops with an overnight.

When writing something that matters, don't share it the day you wrote it.

As often as you can – sleep on it.

If all else fails, fancy half a pint of claret?

Beware of Averages - the kiss of death

Imagine you're standing barefoot with one leg in red-hot coals. The other in a bucket of ice.

On average, you're comfortable...

Right?

Clearly, this couldn't be further from the truth.

Let's face it, you're in sheer agony.

Certainly not warm and comfy.

If this amused you, then ask yourself: how many times in the past 6 months you have heard the expression 'the average person'? The average Mum? The average teen? The average (insert ethnic descriptor)? The average light user?

Possibly in someone's write-up of a 'Persona'.

Very likely in some segmentation work.

The convenience and simplicity offered by averaging (sometimes simple stereotyping) is enticing. But is often outweighed by its tendency to obscure vital differences. Or even mask important similarities.

If you're trying to make breakthroughs, you don't want to be working with average people. You need people on the fringe. Spiky people. All of them. With each person's individuality respected and studied. But, at all costs, not blended to form a pseudo-trifle.

For it's highly unusual folk, people with frustrations and work-arounds, who feel intensely, now, what the majority will come to feel later, who will be most useful. So please don't take away their sharp edges by averaging or rounding.

Only after you've solved for each individual, should you go wider as you prototype and test. Even still, watch for individual responses and don't fall prey to averaging.

As in all our endeavours, light and shade are needed equally – each making the other stand out more noticeably. Averaged out, we leave ourselves with only greyness and dullness to work with.

If you're still (in thought only, I hope) standing with one foot in the fire and the other in ice, then by now you're nearly dead.

Therein lies the only average I can count on...

...the simple human truth that, once born, the average person will probably die.

"It's an ad. It's not important"

How many road workers or garbage collectors do you know with the unblemished complexion, pretty looks and perfect build of a male model?

Precious few I bet.

Probably because they have an outdoors life, do real manual labour, are sunburned, have hands that are toughened up so as not to blister (as an aside, the engineer who looks after my aircraft said to me one day: 'show me your hands. What do you really do for a living?')

You get the picture.

So what do you think happens when you cast a soft-skinned Adonis like me :) in a manual labour role in advertising? (Unless the idea demands this, for reasons of irony, unexpectedness etc.)

Simple. It has absolutely no credibility. In fact, it screams out: 'I'm just an ad.'

Here's another scenario: Imagine a well-meaning, but hopelessly ill-informed, researcher tells you to bring the 'branding' right to the front of the ad.

Imagine – as happened in my agency 6 months ago – it's a brand people dislike. Vodafone at the time.

Brilliant – 3 seconds in and you've affectively announced: 'the message that follows comes from someone you dislike'. 'No need to watch any further'. If they don't switch off physically, they certainly do mentally. And then you've no chance of engaging at all.

No my friends. Our game is that of seduction. Seducing people who'd really rather not be seeing your ad. Enticing people in. 'Opening the emotional gateway' which precedes and facilitates processing (courtesy Prof. Kahneman).

I posted a lovely quote some months back (apologies, but have no idea who first uttered it). It said:

"I don't like advertising that looks like advertising. I like advertising that looks like life."

Life is not formulaic. It has lumps and bumps. Light and shade. Beauties and beasts.

Therein lies the challenge – and the reason good creative folk and film directors are so highly valued. We've a fine line to walk between creating relatability – on one hand – and creating fiction and unexpected surprise that demands/enables people to suspend their disbelief, on the other.

Woe betide us we let well-meaning amateurs convince good ad makers to follow an ill-informed formula: brand name early, cast only attractive people, show the target audience, hold up a mirror to them, write lines that tell people how to respond/what their response should be... Oh trust me. It happens more often than you may realise.

If, for a moment, you think it doesn't matter that much, here's something to consider:

'I'm just an ad' is very simple code for 'this interruption to what you were really hoping to see doesn't really matter'.

Or 'it's time to put the kettle on'.

Or 'time for a wee break'.

Now.... speaking of garbage....

What Bones can teach the Marketing Community

A number of years ago the Red Meat Marketing folk (MLA) ran some research into how Aussie Mums prepared dinner for their families.

They found that most Mums were providing great, rounded meals – cooking a good balance of protein and vegetables, with a good dollop of love thrown in – almost every evening of the week.

I'm hoping you just called 'bullshit' on that.

Thankfully, my former boss and mentor – the brilliant Reg Bryson placed some planners and 'Walkie talkies' (his ad agency's third-year University field force) in peoples' homes for a week. With instructions to photograph every meal.

So was born a new concept: 'Short Cuts'. Products, recipes and communication.

Because the Polaroids looked nothing like the research debrief.

I have a strong feeling most Marketing misses out on roughly half the body of knowledge it should be drawing on. And that this kind of situation is playing out in business every day. For no good reason.

Here's what's going wrong, in my view: Two broad disciplines inform our understanding of consumer behaviour. (Sorry, Economics, not you.) Yet we use one almost to the exclusion of the other.

I'm talking about Psychology, on one hand, and Anthropology on the other.

Crudely put, Psychology examines individual behaviour – learning, motivation, attitude formation etc. - and tends to take the cultural context for granted.

Anthropology focuses on humans as cultural beings, so it puts the emphasis on cultural context. Among other things, how human behavior is shaped by culture and how culture affects the way individuals interact with each other and the world \- cultural anthropology. And Linguistics - focusing on how people communicate through symbol-systems.

We focus almost exclusively on the concepts and practices of Psychology. And (apart from when Semiotics or Ethnography are in vogue) we tend not to look at Brands, Marketing and Communication through the Cultural Anthropology lens at all.

Which is staggering considering virtually every brand owner of today seems to want his/her brands to 'stand out within the culture'.

Small confession: One of my favourite TV shows is 'Bones' - Forensic Anthropology working alongside Psychology. The two disciplines help each other to a better place – creating a pretty good picture of what a cadaver (sometimes just partial remains) was like in life. Sure there are moments of conflict, differing opinions, sometimes downright disdain for one another's methods. Almost invariably that tension forms the basis for breakthroughs.

I'm willing to bet you've got the Psychology going reasonably well – conventional research programs in place.

The culture piece: I urge you to leave your desk more often. Observe shoppers and users of your product. Watch how they buy and how they use. Check their pantries. Buy them a round. Get on the road with a sales rep. Hang around the call centre. Sit in a food court. Visit a suburb you'd never normally go to. Keep your eyes and ears open. Perhaps even hire someone with Anthropology skills.

My challenge to you: be more like Bones. Keep the Psych stuff going - it works well - but add the Cultural piece to it.

See a richer, more complete picture than your competitors do.

Then kill them.

Are you about to buy some Neuro-Bollocks?

Before you get sold a 'brain science' or 'neuro' dodgy,  here's an 11-minute TED talk from a real Neuroscientist – Dr Molly Crockett of Oxford and UCLA - that could stop you buying a load of Neuro-nonsense.

Here's why I think you should listen to it. Because history is repeating itself. And I have an overwhelming sense of déjà vu as I watch the same car crash happening all over again.

At least 15 years ago, a study on quantitative advertising research - copy-testing/pre-testing etc. - reported the various techniques to be 'about as reliable as the toss of a coin'. (Yeah, yeah, bring on your validation studies – everyone did so at the time....)

I couldn't help thinking 'that's a low bar for a good marketer'. Surely they're better than the toss of a coin?

Which made me reflect on the many sensational clients I've worked with in my time. Their judgment is terrific. Their intuition - more often than not - is great.

So I began to wonder why they/their organisation would need a 50:50 decision-making tool. Which pretends it's reliable because it is 'sciencey'; because it has numbers. I can speculate. But I really don't have a satisfactory answer.

(My memory is dodgy at the best of times. Clearly the cute sound bite has stuck. I am pretty sure it was a large-scale, split-cable study. I seem to recall the lovely Alice Sylvester was a co-author).

Leap forward to 2015 and heeeere's 'Neuro'.

Don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled to see that we're making advances in the brain science space. But here's the caution: 'Neuro' is nowhere near usable for communications/brand/marketing research yet.

Just as before, there are folk with vested interests. Many of them are the same dudes in shiny suits who, a decade ago, were proclaiming their pre-test methods infallible. Only this time they're claiming 'neuro' can do more than reputable Neuroscientists would claim.

Let's be honest, the bulk of 'neuro' as used in communication research is currently far less reliable than even the toss of a coin.

Which means - Marketers, ECDs and CEOs - I'd infinitely prefer to know what your gut tells you.

For your gut is far more reliable than what some pseudo-scientist claims other peoples' brains are telling you.

How to marry your ideal PR/Ad/Media Agency

A great friend of mine ran Marketing at a huge company with a monster budget. He'd been a copywriter, an Ad Agency MD, and had 'gone client–side' into this mega-role.

The Finance/Procurement people came to him one day. They asked him to initiate competitive reviews of their creative and media relationships. They were explicit – 'we're sure we can get this done for a lot less'.

I'll never forget his answer. I was there – this is not hearsay. He said: 'Help me understand what you're asking. We are currently in court being sued for copyright infringement. I'm assuming we hired the cheapest barrister we could find?'

'No. We hired one of the best in town', was the response.

Hmmmm.

Before you assume I'm about to give procurement people a kicking. I'm not. But I do want to make some suggestions for procurement, marketing and 'supplier' side folk to consider.

I've been in the industry for a good while. I've met a lot of very talented people. And worked with a great many. Because our industry is small and people move companies quite often. And work in a good few different places through their careers.

That implies that – on a good day – most Agencies (media, creative, PR, experiential, etc.) can produce ideas of similar quality to their competitors. Of course there are a handful of truly exceptional folk. But across the industry, I feel sure this is a reasonable observation.

So what should we really be focusing on? What leads to those enviable, highly productive 15-20 year relationships that Agencies and clients are so proud of? Relationships where, year-in and year-out, both parties collaborate and get the best out of one another?

We all know the answer. It's not today's pitch team – they will all move on 3 or 4 times in that period..

It's what endures beyond the transience of individuals.

We happily tell each other that 'Culture eats Strategy for breakfast'.

It is that simple. The right culture helps our people flourish.

The right cultural fit helps a relationship flourish.

Yet culture is the area we focus on least.

And that's where I'd urge the procurement folk to look hardest. The good 'marriage brokers' in our game try. But even their processes don't allow too much beyond 'chemistry sessions'.

The best I've experienced was when Nestle Confectionery reviewed their arrangements. The thoughtful, considerate Gregg Payne was Head of Marketing. He was only reviewing because the company had re-located. He took 2 struggling brands and gave one to JWT and one to Lintas – for a year. Fully paid for.

Sure, anyone can be on best behaviour for 3 weeks. Try play-acting nice for a whole year.

So here's my suggestion: Let's stop the silly speed dating. The hurried creative shoot-outs where you learn next to bugger-all about one another.

Let's think through this key relationship with the respect and responsibility it deserves. It is, after all akin to a marriage – trusting, intimate, knowing secrets about one another that should never be shared etc. Let's lengthen the process. Let's focus on getting to know one another.

The prevailing process restricts contact. 'Level playing field' and similar bollocks frustrate proper human connection. Let's turn it on its head. Shorter short lists. More, and richer, contact with fewer 'new best friends'.

Really get to know whether your 2 teams and companies can join successfully with a longer-term view.

Or put up with a cycle of speed date, shack up, disappoint, separate. And the uncosted cycle of repeated inductions, helping newbies up a learning curve, early errors, tension, disagreement, re-work, breakup, knowledge walking out the door, new induction...

My great friend had it right. He knew he could count on his Agency principal as his partner. He knew because, in his past, the tables had been reversed and he had been 'consigliere' to clients.

Please re-think the sad way we go about choosing our trusted advisers. Look for best fit. Pick based on value and values; not just price.

When the homeless wear Prada.

A number of years ago, George Clements, a fabulous Planning Director, retired.

He'd been with the same Ad Agency a long time. He'd been to loads of their conferences over the years. It was customary for delegates to be given a new company-branded shirt/sweater etc. almost every time.

Upon retiring, he had a clean-out and gave a lot of stuff to charity.

He swore blind that – all of a sudden – a large number of homeless Toronto residents could be spotted walking around in JWT-branded clothing.

Which must have looked like his creative department had all retired at once :)

This led me to think about the difference between a brand being widely known and respected - Fame - and the brand being widely used.

So I wanted to encourage you to think about how Luxury Brands, in particular, manage this balance.

In my early days in the game, the rough rule of thumb was: you want everyone to know about a luxury brand, including how 'out of reach' it is (increases the cachet for owners). And how only a 'special few' actually get to have it, so the brand isn't tainted by poor user imagery.

More recently, we've seen a large number of luxury brands behaving less like niche players. Offering themselves to all and sundry. Admitting people who couldn't previously own them. Some by defining clear tiers: Mercedes S, E, C, & B classes or Burberry's Bespoke, Prorsum, London and Brit, for example – where exclusivity is retained at the top end.

Because brand meaning follows the laws of gravity - travelling downward easily and upward - well - hardly ever.

Or simply providing product at entry-level price points: hence the increasingly ubiquitous Tiffany key ring, among others.

They balance mass sales with establishing and maintaining brand meaning at the 'upper end'.

It is a constant internal struggle – chasing short-term sales growth vs preserving the sense of specialness that the brand requires.

It is not easy.

It is constantly tempting to let a sales focus override a brand focus - 'today's sales' skewing the marketing effort to high volume items. It is hard to make the case that the Important – long-term brand value - should supersede Urgent - today's numbers.

You might get away with it as a tactic.

For a short time.

But the moment short term, mass sales dominates your strategy, your luxury brand's centre of gravity shifts lower. Its meaning and specialness are diluted and slowly trashed.

Before you know it, your once special brand looks like some poor unfortunate in a JWT shirt.

Lost its rightful place and sporting a logo that is practically ironic.

Bad news. Surprise & Delight no longer delights.

A number of years ago, a mate dined at a particularly snooty restaurant with a few colleagues.

One fellow ordered a steak - 'medium-rare'.

When it arrived, it was barely cooked. So he called the waiter across and asked gently: "Do me a favour my friend, ask the chef to whack it on the grill for another minute or two – it's a little underdone for me."

The waiter returned awkwardly and said: 'chef says that is medium-rare'.

Noting the waiter's obvious discomfort the diner said: ' Do me a favour, ask the chef if I can have a word with him.'

The chef emerged from his lair. A bit of discussion ensued. The chef dug in his heels. 'That is how you ordered it', he insisted. 'Medium-rare'.

To which the fellow responded with the best line I've heard in ages:

'My friend, I have a great mate who is a veterinarian. Given 2 minutes, he could have that back on its feet.'

Amidst roars of laughter – the chef, too – he got his medium-rare steak.

Just as he'd asked.

Currently, Customer Experience (or if you're a funky dude – CX) is all the rage.

The issue is where to set your standard for service/experience.

Over the years I've heard a great many folk speak of their intention to 'surprise and delight'. So I wanted to draw your attention to work done by Andy Hanselman (@andyhanselman). It crossed my desk many years ago. It stands the test of time.

Andy's view is simple. Customers with low expectations are relatively easily 'surprised and delighted' given a good experience.

But pleasing those that don't expect much is hardly a standard to aspire to.

How about we set the bar a little higher and try to provide a great experience to those 'difficult', 'picky' folk we often come across?

People with high expectations.

Delight is a good starting point but not enough, he argues. How about we go for Devotion?

Devotion, of course, is the key to bonding, stickiness, advocacy, forgiveness...

In short, Devotion is the share of heart that Millward-Brown shows delivers share of wallet.

On Andy's chart, where would you place the chef?

If you opened your own restaurant, which quadrant would you aim for?

What about the business you're in today?

What about the service you, personally, deliver day in and day out?

How will you create Devotion?

If you want to sell more, stop selling and seduce

This past weekend, our AAMI (Rhonda & Ketut) campaign did what it does best – it won Gold in the Asia-Pacific Effie awards.

It sold a shed-load of car insurance policies for our Suncorp/AAMI client.

It is truly lovely, and well-loved, advertising.

Yet I still bristle at the comment I saw from some spiteful arse on an advertising blog in its early days. 'But will it sell insurance?' sniffed the miserable sod.

Largely because it was advertising that didn't follow the category convention.

It didn't shout at the viewer. It didn't scream product and price.

It seduced.

It enticed those who'd prefer to opt out of car insurance advertising – let's face it that is probably everyone who doesn't work on/in the category – to become involved.

It was highly likeable. So much so that it spoke directly to System 1 and bypassed System 2's filters altogether.

Proof that likeability and emotional engagement are still the name of the game.

Seems we've spent a number of years in the wilderness. Marketers and Agencies have begun to believe in a super-rational, post-financial meltdown customer who rationally dissects everything online and then buys purely with his/her head.

And then followed that line of thinking faithfully. Making their brands and advertising ever more rational, more price-focused.

To those who have done this – with great respect – you've been derelict in your duty to your brands and shareholders.

People are still emotional beings. They still make decisions emotionally – even the most expensive purchases they make like the house and the car.

Don't believe me?

Have a look at the analysis (below) by Millward-Brown of a fairly unlikeable sector – Banking in Australia:

This uses the construct of 'the average brand' in Banking (to get past big brand effect).

The 'bottom slice' of the left-hand pyramid depicts the proportion of a large sample that 'know a fair bit' about the average bank brand – in this case 33%. We're interested in the proportion of people the brand is able to 'carry' to the upper layers – beyond product and price to true liking, advocacy, forgiveness (Bonding).

The pyramid to the right depicts share of wallet that the average brand will get.

Just look at the top 2 layers on the right: The huge leap in expected share of wallet through getting people to Bonding (up from 21% share of wallet to 51%) is the economic proof of the importance of Brand Likeability – the multiplier emotional engagement brings.

Seems there are green shoots out there.

To their credit, my KFC client is reaping the benefits of a shift from product sales focus to brand affinity. It seems McDonalds has twigged recently that this is the way, too.

As did our AAMI client when they bravely opted to build emotional bonding as a way to sell more insurance.

Much as I wanted to at the time my lovely friend made his/her inane observation, I couldn't respond to say sales were great.

Oh how I wish he/she were reading this now.

Not because I want revenge. But because it restores faith in the way advertising has always been thought to work.

Enticing people to opt in, when they'd far rather opt out. Building affinity. Preserving margin. Nurturing the future income stream of brands.

Actually, bugger it. For any and all doubters – ha! :)

When people think, brands lose

'What do we want people to think, feel or do?'

That's a central question in virtually every Marketing, Communications and Advertising brief.

In my experience, 'think' is the element most folk in the broader Marketing and Communications game have used most over the years. Because most people – those that brief communications and those that work in the communications Agencies - feel more comfortable with thinking. And the idea that people are thinking beings.

After all, none of us want to admit we are predominantly emotional and make most decisions using our primitive brain - using a 'feels right' gauge.

Intuition, if you like.

We far prefer to think of ourselves and the people we sell to as logical, rational types.

This fundamental error has given rise to some of the most awful advertising you'll see – not to mention some of the most ineffective you'll waste money running.

Take this Holden (GM) Australia campaign that has thankfully been euthanised recently but which should never have been born: Click here

It opened with massive titles/supers saying: "Think about this".

Every time it appeared I wanted to put my shoe through the screen. My blood pressure went through the roof.

Because it was such a waste of money. And so flagrantly ignored lessons we have already learned.

You see, precious few cars are ever bought based on thinking. They're all bought emotionally.

And the thinking bit – well that's engaged after the fact to provide an explanation to your partner, work mates, drinking pals. Because, after all, you'd never want them to think you'd just follow your heart and buy a car simply because it looks gorgeous. Or because it makes you feel like Elvis, would you?

Yet depth interviews we did for Aston-Martin (among high-end Porsche, Lamborghini, and Ferrari owners) revealed the purchase is entirely emotional. Ferrari owners were especially 'arty' talking of their prized possession as if it was a piece of sculpture.

Even at the opposite end of the scale – do you really think boy racers overcapitalise their cars with go-faster plastic, hard suspension and noisy exhausts because that's a thinking thing to do?

No, my friends. We humans are hard-wired to avoid thinking. It consumes too many calories. And in early man those were needed in case a sabre-tooth tiger should appear unannounced.

In fact, in many cases you actually want an emotional response to be strong enough to cut off rational scrutiny (if there's a danger of thinking happening at all). Because often times – if people think too hard - your brand may be found wanting and lose.

Let's face facts, even our biggest purchase – the family home – is made with the heart. Using intuition and emotion. My Behavioural Science colleagues can point to many examples where home buyers have tried to be logical/rational. Made lists even. And then re-arranged the rational criteria on the list after the event to make the emotional decision feel more right.

Fess up. I've done it. You have too.

(In those cases where you actually do want people thinking, please remember Prof. Kahneman's lesson - paraphrased - for rational message processing to occur, you must first open the emotional gateway)

Now I'm really happy to receive a 'do' brief. And to receive 'feel' briefs.

But 'think' briefs?

No. Or very rarely.

In the words of Albert Einstein:

'The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.'

Please value that gift. Look for it in people. Communicate with it and to it.

What's a great modern Idea? A lesson from Tunisia.

It is Effectiveness Awards season in Australia. The entry challenges us to do something most of us in Marketing and Communications do badly:

In a handful of words explain your Idea.

No. It's not the end line in the advertising.

No. It's not the title of the campaign.

No. It doesn't sound like: 'we open on...'

None of these are explanations of the idea.

In fact, I'm getting pretty good at identifying what is not the idea.

Which isn't terribly helpful to anyone.

So here's my best attempt to explain what I am looking for – in the hope it may help you. I don't claim to have the ultimate answer, but this works for me.

It's the answer to this simple question:

What piece of imaginative thinking helps solve the business issue/opportunity?

(Fewer than 25 words please. End lines and execution are banned.)

Here's a story that illustrates this well – it features my favourite campaign in years – from Tunisia.

Some kind people invited me to speak at their conference recently. They wanted me to talk to attendees about Marketing and Branding – not their industry's strong suit, by their admission.

In briefing me, I got the sense they wanted me to tell their members that small companies should use PR and big companies should use advertising. Which I really didn't want to do.

So I showed the very simple, yet utterly amazing Tunisian election campaign.

In a nutshell: some months after the Tunisian uprising – the start of the Arab Spring – Tunisia went to the polls. The dictator – Ben Ali - had fled into exile. You'd have thought after so many years denied democracy, everyone would vote. Research showed likely voter turnout was going to be terrible.

This highly awarded campaign turned that around – dramatically. Click here

I showed it to the attendees.

My question for them was this: is it advertising? Is it PR? Is it social? Does it matter?

It is a great idea. A highly imaginative solution to an (business) issue.

Had I been in the client presentation I'd have explained the idea thus:

We're going to pretend the dictator is returning in order to shock people into voting.

And then amplify the idea in whichever channels are appropriate – as my colleagues did.

Some years back I was privileged to work with some wonderful people on the Tontine pillows campaign – a world-first application of a date stamp to a pillow.

Communication appeared in almost every channel imaginable over just a few days: TV, current affairs programs, in-store, on packaging, radio, Press etc.

But it wasn't an advertising idea.

It was an idea that solved a business issue (and a latent consumer issue) amplified in media.

The idea was simply this:

We're going to put a date stamp on a pillow so you'll know when it's fresh and when it's not so fresh anymore.

The Effie judges gave it 2 Gold Effies and the Grand Prix.

Don't get me wrong. Great metaphors, demonstrations and lateral ideas still make for great communication. But the imaginations of Marketing and Communications people are capable of cracking more fundamental ideas than just great executional ideas.

Increasingly, that's where I want my colleagues and my industry to make their contribution. Using fabulous creative thinking to solve business problems or to extract the most from business opportunities.

So tell me. How's that for an idea?

Here's why you can't re-position your brand

'We've re-positioned our Brand' a rather enthusiastic speaker declared at a recent event.

Now that's an announcement that made me sit up and listen.

But you need to know, when I hear it these days, my finger is on the 'Bullshit trigger', the safety catch is off and I start taking aim.

"Yes. We ran some strategy workshops. Briefed our Agency. We have a new end line and the ads started running a few days ago. And we've re-positioned our brand."

Just like that. Hey presto. Change some ads. Re-positioning done.

What utter tripe.

You may well have adopted a new Position. Clarified your Purpose. Set out your values, vision, mission or any other jargon you may care to rearrange.

But you have most certainly not changed your positioning.

Let's go back to basics.

A brand's positioning is not yours to own.

Positioning – metaphorically speaking – is the place in the mental filing cabinet that people choose to allocate to your brand.

At best, you may influence this – to a greater or lesser degree. But if you think you can simply re-position a brand, you're having yourself on.

'Your' brand doesn't belong to you at all.

It's a bundle of feelings, thoughts and associations stored in someone's memory.

A re-positioning occurs when they accord it different meaning and re-file it in a different place (or not).

As they choose.

Now here's what we do know (Wendy Gordon wrote a lovely explanation of this, from memory):

There are three challenges we face with varying degrees of difficulty:

1.We can try to get people to add to existing memory

2.We can try to get them to adjust/amend existing memory

3.We can try to get them to change their minds entirely

You underestimate the difficulty of challenges 2 and (especially) 3 at your peril.

In 99% of cases your brand is, at most, a peripheral event in people's lives. They really would prefer not to think about it at all.

If you are to achieve a re-positioning, it's going to need something really compelling.

For a re-positioning is a clear-cut case of the difference between stimulus and response.

It's how they respond that counts. Not simply what you do.

So doing something to 'force reappraisal' (another buzz term) is merely an application to head office for a change of heart or mind. It is not a re-positioning.

It's only when the response (notionally) is: 'hmm...didn't think of it like that' that you may have begun to re-position your brand.

That is something only done by your audience.

Not you.

Advertising that makes you hate brands

Are you anything like me? Do you get really irritated when a YouTube ad gets in the way of what you really want to see?

Like me, do you transfer that dislike to the brand?

Go on. Re-live the last time that happened. How did you really feel? On a scale from: 'that's just the way it is' to 'get out of my way you f**king parasite'.

Not only when you're forced to watch an entire ad. Even those you can click to banish. Come on. Be honest. Do you see any of the ad or just focus intently on the countdown? Finger poised, ready to send it to oblivion?

Well it's a funny thing.

I polled around 20 folk – some in advertising; some not. Seems we have a similar thing going on. Being reared on commercial TV, most are resigned to ads interrupting their viewing. On TV, that is. Let's face it most of us are 'zapping' ads. If not with technology, then simply the old-fashioned way – zoning out or using the ad as a cue to go and wash their hands.

But the feeling towards a TV ad, I found, is far less intense.

Seems like TV is such a 'lean back', chill-out medium, that the resentment is far less pronounced. Besides, few can remember a time when TV didn't interrupt our viewing with Ads. It's our normal.

But when you're really 'leaning in'. Hunting for information. Looking for help. Searching for something very specific on your second/third screen and up pops something that gets in your way, much stronger emotions are aroused. And they're not positive, not even just neutral...

Which is high risk for a brand in an era when Indifference is our biggest enemy. At a time when more than ever before, it seems, people are trying to avoid hearing from us - we are misusing our ability to reach people.

Our task is to court, seduce and entice people to Opt In. When they'd prefer to Opt Out.

To produce ideas people are interested in instead of crudely and coarsely interrupting what they're interested in.

Reach that repels – I'd argue - is far more damaging than not talking to (at?) people, at all. And that goes for TV too, just in case you thought I was endorsing bad behaviour anywhere at all.

Rather bank the money. Do no harm to your brand.

So here's the challenge. (Let's acknowledge there are a handful of advertisers & agencies out there who are starting to get it right. Green shoots, as it were.) How about we set out to make that type of communication work well? Make it likeable. Entertaining. Designed for the medium.

Not simply the TV ad running as a pre-roll.

(That would be as daft as running a magazine ad on a poster site or on a bus side. Come to think of that, in the name of economy, I remember advertisers doing just that).

This is worse. Inexcusable, really. Because we're repeating a prang that's already been had.

Back to basics, please: Consumer journey. Role for channel. Audience Insight. Desired response. Then design your YouTube, Facebook, Instagram etc. communication.

Not hard really, is it.

Just needs fresh thinking. Or really old thinking.

In fact, just some thinking. Oh.. and a little empathy, please.

5 of the greatest lessons about advertising

Many years ago a young colleague – with the best will in the world – terrified me.

Here's how:

One of our highest rating TV programs was called (something like) 'The world's best advertising". And that's what it was. One of the TV networks was simply cobbling together compilations of great television ads – from either the 'Shots' reel or from award shows around the world. And showing it weekly.

Now there is a lesson in itself – people do love to watch great advertising.

The scary idea was this: seeing as the program rates so well i.e. plenty of eyeballs watching, let's place our clients' ads in this program's ad breaks.

Let's be honest. We were what you'd call a solid agency – large stretches of workman-like stuff punctuated ever so occasionally by a piece of genius. In truth, more by sheer luck than design.

I was genuinely worried that in the company of the world's best ads ours – and by extension, the reputation of our clients – would not do so well.

Thankfully, good sense prevailed. We gave some thought not just to Reach and Frequency but to the relationship between Content and Context – something you dare not forget.

Recently I came across a collection of ads from the now-defunct 'The Campaign Palace' - Australia's greatest agency by a country mile for a couple of decades. A place that was wonderful to me.

The ads are arranged in such a way as to 'prove' a bunch of key points that endure to this day.

The first point was:

1. "Great advertising knows that nobody wants to watch an ad. Nobody likes ads. Except for great ads; people love great ads".

There are quite a number of other significant points. I chose 4 others to share with you:

2. "Great advertising doesn't need a media barrage to cut through. It is finesse, not force. It's a knock-out punch, not 15 rounds of bombardment. It's brains, not muscle"

3. "Great advertising knows nobody counts the number of ads you run. They just remember the impression you make."

4. "Great advertising can change attitudes...instantly."

And – dedicated to a certain large Australian retailer who should know better:

5. "Great advertising knows the future is not about brand competitiveness. It's about brand distancing; brand separation. It's about creating space around a brand. Lots of space."

There is 30 years worth of wonderful advertising that proves these lessons. All available on The Campaign Palace' 30 year reel.

Any doubt that you're Emotionally driven? Better read this.

Did you know that a child can be born with memories of, say, a grandparent they never knew? Someone, perhaps, who died even before the child was conceived.

I was helping a PhD student a number of years ago. She was studying pregnant Mums' emotional responses. And how they might affect their unborn babies.

She explained it this way: Memory is stored in proteins.

Those same proteins can cross the placenta.

So it is possible, she explained, for a child to be born remembering events they could not possibly have experienced.

I found that unbelievably spooky. Although, you have to admit, it does make sense.

Now, many Mums have played music to their unborn babies. It's well known that the foetus hears these sounds while in the uterus. And it is able to recognise them – indeed be calmed by the same sounds - after birth. Many Mums use this knowledge deliberately – often sitting with headphones hugging their pregnant tummies. I've heard it said that at the height of 'Neighbours' popularity, a raft of babies was born who readily recognised and responded to the theme music.

What this student was studying, however, went way beyond that (at this point I go all layman and probably let her down with my explanation).

She set out to prove that a Mum's emotional reactions create chemical responses in her. Those chemicals cross the placenta. Mum's emotions, therefore, have an effect on her unborn infant. Without the infant being exposed to the original stimulus at all.

My role in all of this was negligible, really. I was charged with assembling a reel of ads. Each ad had to have the capacity to elicit an intense emotional response. Sheer, unadulterated joy. Deep sadness. Great fear. And so forth.

Mums viewed the ads wearing headphones. This time so the unborn child couldn't possibly hear the audio.

The PhD candidate was able to measure the foetal response through changes in heartbeat etc.

Mum's psychological reaction produced chemicals. Which crossed the placenta. And caused a reaction in the unborn child.

A remote control emotional response, if you like.

That goes way beyond spooky. In fact, as a parent myself, it makes me question what I may have done – unknowingly – to my kids.

So whenever I hear people questioning whether humans respond emotionally or rationally; when I listen in focus groups to folk pretending all their decisions are well thought through and perfectly logical/rational, I want to laugh out loud.

Not only are they driven almost entirely by their emotions, as adults.

They always have been.

Way back before they first drew breath on their own.

So...

Knowing that, how do you feel?

### 5 easy ways to get your competitors' secrets – listen & learn

Ever had a competitor spy on you? Ever had your offices bugged?

Guess what? Not necessary.

Your people are leaking valuable stuff all the time.

Perhaps they're too trusting. A little careless. Maybe they have inflated egos and a need to show off.

Here are 5 real career examples of mine that come to mind– the most recent, a day old:

1. Commonwealth Bank

The Sydney-Melbourne corridor is one of the busiest air sectors in the world. So you might be forgiven for thinking you're anonymous on a flight.

Qantas 737s have 3 seats abreast, each side of the single aisle. Some of us are bumped from a cancelled flight and end up near the back in middle seats.

Picture this: I'm in a middle seat right near the back. In the middle seat in front of me and the middle seat in front of that are 2 men. Either from Commbank's Agency or a production company

I suppose – before they got bumped - they were to be seated together. But alas, they end up in a sort of tandem arrangement.

They need to talk. About the upcoming launch of a highly anticipated, new Commbank campaign (CAN) and about the Commbank's Summer Olympics campaign.

How do I know this? Simple. The guy in the very front holds his laptop up over his shoulder so his mate behind can see the storyboards clearly on his screen.

Which is very considerate. It allows me – working for 2 banks in a major competing group to copy down what I'm seeing. And take it to my client.

2. Gillette

I'm walking through a shopping mall. A researcher stops me. 'Would you mind answering a few questions?' 'Sure.' Leads me to a smallish, private booth. Shows me pictures of a few versions of Gillette's – as yet unlaunched – multi-blade razor. Candidate names etc. We chat. Feigning innocence, I ask: 'so, this is a really interesting thing you do. Which one's doing best?' And I get an answer.

I scurry back to my Agency. Find an Art Director who draws brilliantly. And share everything with my Schick client.

3. Weight Watchers

I'm on a plane to Canberra for a Federal Govt. pitch. In the row in front, some dapper gent is flipping through a proposal for Weight Watchers to take over and assume responsibility for the weight management of the nation. For a considerable fee that I can clearly read.

The CEO of Weight Watchers – at the time - is a mate (coincidentally had been my Schick client). So I give him a call and ask him how he arrived at that price. 'How do you know this?' he asks horrified.

4. Sunsilk

I'm working for a Unilever Agency – years ago. We handle Sunsilk shampoo. We're at an away session at a Sydney hotel. Over breakfast, at the next table, an Agency is presenting a new script for a competing hair shampoo brand to their client.

5. A beer brand I can't name

Last night, a bunch of us attended the 30 under 30 awards. Some very silly young ladies (at the beginning of the evening, so drunkenness is probably not the excuse – if ever it could be) are talking about their Agency's pitch the next day. Quite loudly. In the ladies bathroom.

Which is both bewildering and excruciating for 2 of my colleagues.

You see, they're in the same ladies bathroom.

And we're pitching the same brand. On the next day (i.e. right now. As I write this).

It is an Ad industry function. So the odds of some advertising folk overhearing are fair to good.

Some very lovely, very bright people entered the 30 under 30 competition. Shame nobody told these few that the 30 referred to age, not IQ points.

You can't make this stuff up. And you can't afford this kind of stuff-up either.

Please, listen up, people.

If you won't, then at least remember other people may be. And watching. Anywhere. Any time.

Take care.

Stop focusing on what separates us; study what binds us together

I worked for an Advertising Agency CEO a number of years ago. A real wanker.

I'd have been about 35. He was in his 50s. He drove a Ferrari. I drove a Ford. He had been on the Worldwide Board of a multinational Agency group. I was Head of Planning in a Sydney Agency.

He was on his second marriage. With a second family. I still am in my first marriage (no intention of changing that, either)

You couldn't find 2 more different people if you tried.

One day I remarked that he and I were in 'the same market segment'. The horror was writ large across his face.

You see we both had young children. In a life-stage segmentation, we'd have been grouped together. On most criteria we had nothing in common. In certain areas we were near-identical. We both purchased childcare, children's clothes, schooling, baby food etc.

My memory of this was triggered by a gorgeous short (1 min.) video posted by Bruce Kasanoff.

Bruce claims to be a millennial.

Have a look (here)

If Bruce is a millennial, I'm Mother Theresa.

That said in jest, you'll see that Bruce shares a lot in common with so-called millennials.

He makes a great point. You see, we're doing an awful amount of 'slicing and dicing' these days.

Often because we can.

Not necessarily because it's meaningful or productive.

We're living such segmentation joy. Increased computing power and cheaper computing/software allow us to do this.

We can tell the finest differences between people.

That is only useful if we can adjust our business models and marketing to fit the subtle differences we've detected.

Which – in the case, I'd suggest, of 95% of marketers – we can't.

So we roll our fine slivers of segments back up into groups and offer trade-offs between precise need-satisfaction and marketing capability/convenience.

That's not so bad. Until we pretend we're satisfying their needs without any compromise...

So here's a wild idea: how about we take a lesson from Bruce?

How about we stop hunting for, and marketing to, differences?

How about we start looking for what binds people together, rather than what separates them?

How about we build brands as beacons? Let their light attract people with common values and beliefs toward them – a bit like attracting moths to a flame?

You see, in many respects, tomorrow I will be a millennial, too.

The next day I'll be more of a Boomer (lowest part of the range, I hasten to add).

The following day, a bit of both. Within minutes.

Let's stop worshipping blindly at the altar of difference. Let's pay much more attention to things people have in common.

And have the good sense to know when to follow separate or blended approaches.

What if your Loyalty program is really a Disloyalty Program?

I have loads of points accumulated in so-called loyalty programs.

I bet you have too.

But I wonder how many of those companies make you feel special? How many seem to know you well? How many treat you as a person, not just a sale? How many use their data brilliantly – so you get offered stuff they know you'll probably like. And don't have your time wasted with stuff that's obviously not for you?

The debate that raged when I was at University – the good Lord was still in short pants then – is not resolved. (In fairness, some of the best marketers have got it down pat, but a great many still haven't).

Many still think a pattern of repeat purchasing behaviour represents loyalty.

Now it might. But don't assume it does.

A lot of the time it's merely Behavioural loyalty. Often times it lacks the second dimension needed for sustainable loyalty – real share of wallet though share of heart.

That is Emotional loyalty.

Many so-called loyalty programs are either simple bribery or slow-burn sales promotions. Issuing some form of points or credits in return for desired behaviour.

The 'loyalty' to these programs is false.

It is loyalty to the currency, not to the brand.

I mostly fly Qantas. I happen to like Qantas. Frankly, I have a mountain of Frequent Flyer points with the airline. Assuming I had no emotional bond with them, I could buy a few hundred toasters with points and move to Singapore Airlines or Virgin.

Tomorrow.

What has kept me is not the points. It's my liking for the airline.

That is key. True share of wallet comes from share of heart. Winning share of heart demands both Emotional and Behavioural Loyalty.

More recently, though the Frequent Flyer program has started sending me wine offers. I am not a wine person. I don't think I've opened a single Qantas wine EDM.

They annoy me when they land in my Inbox. Repeatedly.

They prove to me that the airline actually doesn't know me. Isn't learning anything about me. And is putting its interests before mine.

Our relationship is changing: they are starting to run down all their points in my 'emotional points account'.

If they continue this way much longer, toasters and their major competitor are going to become increasingly attractive.

Am I saying loyalty/rewards programs don't work? Not at all.

I am asking those who have, or want to create, a loyalty program to think on this from Jon Ingall:

"Loyalty schemes themselves do not create loyalty. They are simply a means to an end. The primary function of a loyalty scheme should be to provide the company with customer data that can be used to improve its products and services. It is this that, ultimately, will improve loyalty."

In simple terms, the major reason for a loyalty program is to collect data.

The main reason for collecting data is to help serve customers brilliantly – to 'know' them as well as the old corner shop owner used to in simpler times.

That is a powerful way to go beyond 'surprise and delight' to devotion.

That is how loyalty programs nurture and retain customers who love you and stay with you forever.

So to my current favourite airline, let me ask this of you: read my data and work me out. Show me my loyalty is well placed.

Or send me the toaster catalogue when next you send me a wine offer.

Time to improve Marketing Industry education

I was gently bullied by some well-meaning University staff. A few years ago.

I gave as good as I got.

Not out of spite, but because I was horrified at what they were doing.

Here's a true story:

Two academics (strength in numbers?) from a University that prides itself on teaching Marketing and Advertising visited me. They said:

"We've come to see you because you're a respected Head of Planning. We'd like to show you our new syllabus."

They added: "we've shown it to number of Agency MDs and they love it."

I skim-read their pride and joy as they sat with me.

And said to them: "You're not going to like this very much, but – with great respect - I think it's terrible"

You see succumbing to pressure (perceived or actual) they'd developed a way to produce job-ready graduates – kids who know how to do what Agencies/Marketers do now.

Which might suit the expedient among us. Might work short-term. But does nothing for our future.

Here are the facts: We are learning so much, so fast, that the bulk of stuff students learn in the 1st year of a 4 year degree is out-dated by their 3rd year.

In fact, Universities are preparing students now for jobs that don't yet exist, using technology we haven't yet cracked which will solve problems we haven't yet identified as problems.

My own Agency – particularly the office I'm based in - is vastly different to when I joined – three and a half years back (approximate duration of a degree, as it happens).

No. I am more convinced they were wrong each passing day.

In the Agency (or Marketing department) we can teach people how to run traffic, brief people, edit ads, etc.

Point of fact – like going from high school to University – they'll learn more about how/what in 6 weeks with us than at University in 6 months.

My academic friends, I ask you with all the humility I can muster, please teach our kids how to think. Equip them to build the Marketing/Advertising business that we'll come to need. Not just the business we're currently in.

Stretch their minds. Stimulate them. Turn out critical and imaginative thinkers.

Give us bright, curious, young folk who can walk in and show us how to stop doing what we've been doing.

Give us flexible, resilient folk who can invent the future as they live it.

If you won't take my advice, take it from my former boss, Rob Lee. You see years before this, I taught Marketing and Advertising at a University.

Captains of Commerce & Industry would often needle Prof. Lee: "There's no education like good experience", they'd say.

And he'd always respond: "And there's no experience like a good education".

Go on then.

Look to the great Universities of the world and ask yourself: 'exactly what should a great Marketing/Advertising education look like?'

Then do that. And we'll hire your students. (If that feels like bullying or blackmail, remember, you started it).

To make diversity work, you need Design Thinking

Ever been in a workshop where people spot a 'stranger' in the group. In their demeanor you know exactly what those people are thinking:

Who are they? What could they possibly know about our issue/business? How can they be any use?

Yet, we all know how powerful diversity can be. How hard it is to break out of today's pattern of thinking when all the people in the room are identical.

Even a group of clones of an exceptionally bright person is still terribly one-dimensional. I grant you, there will be a range of issues they'll solve brilliantly.

But – as a group - they're totally inept when confronted by something very different or by the need to conjure up something very different.

And that's one major reason why you need a diverse group of people. With diverse thinking styles – all mashed together.

Diversity, you see, is an Intellect Multiplier.

But only when the diverse group collaborates well.

The more we specialise – and diverge – the more we seem to build walls around ourselves. Walls built of set thinking patterns, set beliefs, and impenetrable jargon.

The good folk at Stanford's d.school explain Design Thinking in a way that captures one of its primary features brilliantly: they talk about it as 'a common language that helps diverse groups come together and collaborate'.

The education system drums our belief in ourselves as creative thinkers out of us. So many of us think that we can only make leaps in 'our' fields of expertise.

Invited onto someone else's turf we're intimidated. We close down. We (and they) feel we can't possibly contribute.

Beyond its empathetic process, Design Thinking unifies. Conducted well, it permits wildly divergent groups to nudge one another to a better place.

If you're unfamiliar with it, don't worry. There is so much online. Including most of Stanford's materials – generously made available at no cost.

It's not the kind of discipline you have to be (overly) trained in to have a go.

Follow the d.school, read a bit, watch some Youtube tutorials on the topic, perhaps enrol in an OpenIDEO program.

Then simply "take action" – Stanford d.school's war cry – you and the disparate gang you've assembled. Very soon, the strangers won't seem strange.

Mashed-up together, you'll make magic.

How messing with Brand Personality kills brands

Our family butcher developed a brain tumour when I was quite young.

In the process of removal, his brain was damaged. Irreversibly.

He was the same man – physically. But he suffered a major personality change.

The tragedy played out before us as if in slo-mo: the poor devil lost most of his friends. In the end, his long-suffering, loyal and devoted wife left him.

It wasn't a matter of choice as much as this was no longer the man she'd married.

We attribute human-like properties to brands – anthropomorphising – as a way of explaining how best we think they work. As long as we recognise we're using metaphor, we can proceed.

Here's where there is huge potential to stuff up:

Picture the scenario - our brand is slowly losing relevance. Someone helpfully suggests it's an issue of 'tone of voice' or 'brand personality'. And we start tinkering.

It's a bit like pre-Charlie Teo* brain surgery. Fiddle a bit and hope you get it right.

Here's the thing. The brand is like poor old Mr Slabbert – the butcher. Muck with its personality without due care and you know the outcome.

It's brutally swift. Our 'System 1 brain' is happy to admit or dismiss brands based on 'I like it/I don't'. No correspondence entered into. And it does this relatively easily. Without thinking. A brand goes from 'feels right' to 'feels wrong' pretty easily.

There is no question: we can run projective research and allow people to paint a very clear picture of a brand's personality. We can show those who weren't alive in its formative years various stimuli e.g. packaging, old ads etc. And they can form a perfect picture of the brand – who it is/was like, what it thought was important, etc. (Yes, we're still talking in metaphor).

If needed we can express the brand's personality as it was. Or we can dust it off and express it in more contemporary fashion. Taking great care to maintain the fidelity of its underlying personality.

These days I prefer building/explaining brands using Purpose and Values. (I find this to be more all-of-brand than mostly Marketing.)

For those who are more comfortable with Positioning and Personality please remember this: they are strategic. Both are core to a brand's Identity.

Tone of voice may change – on sale/not on sale etc. But the core tenets of positioning and personality remain unchanging. For one simple reason, they exist in consumers' memory. Not actually in the brand itself. They're a consumer response to what the brand does/ doesn't do over time.

When you set out to 'change personality', this necessarily leads to behaviour change – a bit like Mr Slabbert.

Any time someone feels tempted, please tell them the story of the simple butcher whose personality and behaviours changed – through no fault of his own.

The man who lost his loose acquaintances first, and his most loyal fans soon after.

In marketing terms: first light users, then loyalists.

If you're still intent on modifying personality be very, very careful.

Or ask the last person to turn off the lights on the way out, please.

*Charlie Teo is one of Australia's leading brain surgeons

Truly amazing Innovation needs a Building 20

What kind of conversation do you imagine happens when Noam Chomsky (linguist) meets up with Amar Bose (acoustics/audio) and Paul Samuelson (economist) at morning tea?

This kind of gathering was a regular feature of Building 20 at MIT during and post WWII. Some of the most amazing breakthroughs – in wide-ranging, disparate fields of knowledge – occurred as a result.

It was partly due to the building. And partly due to the unusual diversity in the people it housed and the way they rubbed up against one another.

If you're charged with fresh thinking, if you're after real breakthrough, take some simple lessons from this humble building – described in this way by Prof Jerry Lettvin (Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering):

'You might regard it as the womb of the Institute. It is kind of messy, but by God it is procreative!'

Lesson 1: Space for creativity

Building 20 was erected (constructed is too grand a term) and always meant to be temporary. It went up cheaply and in a hurry – mainly to house the guys of the Radiation Laboratory. (They perfected Radar in the early 1940s.) Soon Linguistics moved in. A Nuclear Science Lab. An Electronics Research Lab. The Educational Research Center. Missile Guidance specialists. And some world class Economists – among others.

The 'temporary' mindset prevailed. People were assigned rooms in unconventional fashion – not clustered together by faculty as is typically the case. They congregated at the first ever vending machines. They met and formed friendships. Conversation and debate ensued. 'Weird' collaborations emerged.

Lesson 2: Complexity requires collaboration

The more specialised we become, the less likely it is that one person, acting alone, can make big breakthroughs. Building 20 formed the perfect platform for people who knew almost everything there was to know – albeit in a very specialised field - to rub together and open one another's eyes to ideas, work-arounds, modifications and tensions that simply weren't in their prior experience.

In a world where you collaborate and succeed, or fail alone, the most amazing collaborations ensued.

Lesson 3: Connected, but very different, participants

A while back, in conversation with a really smart colleague, I remarked that our game was becoming increasingly like an orchestra. Conducting lots of very different characters. He pushed it further. Jazz, he said. More improvisation. Fewer people. Connected by the music. But playing completely differently. Improvising much more.

Brian Uzzi, the sociologist, supports this. His research - looking at musicals - is pretty clear: he looked at hundreds of teams involving thousands of artists. He found that the relationship among collaborators was key: too close and they broke no new ground. If they didn't know each other at all, they struggled to work together and exchange ideas.

Your own Building 20:

This chaos – induced mainly by a 'temporary mindset' – yielded countless mind-blowing breakthroughs. Nine Nobel laureates, too.

Pixar is simply a more modern version of Building 20. Steve Jobs' design ensured that artists, computer boffins and writers would rub shoulders often.

You'd be surprised how much difference you can bring to your business simply by enabling your Chomskys, Boses and Samuelsons to collaborate.

It takes: The right physical Space. A celebration of Diversity. The Fusion of different skillsets. A common language to support collaboration. The Social connection that fosters trust.

There you have it – your own Building 20 – as permanent or temporary as you need.

Here's why the Market Leader has to be the Challenger

Everybody wants to be the Challenger. Everybody wants to work for a Challenger.

The Virgin taking on BA

It's the romantic and/or sexy thing to do: be David versus Goliath.

People like Adam Morgan have done work that makes Challenger strategy highly seductive. It's also very good.

What most don't realize is the Market Leader \- assuming it wants to remain leader – has the most pressing need to behave like a Challenger. Pretending it's number 2, desperate to beat number 1.

The only strategy the Leader has – given they're already out in front – is to continuously challenge and supersede themselves. If attack is the best form of defense, go ahead and attack yourself.

Here's a practical example:

Years ago, working with the breakfast cereal leader, we would divide the team up – that's everyone – media, advertising, sales, NPD, packaging etc folk. We'd become the 'shadow' team for a competitor. Each team would make believe they worked for an enemy. They'd do factory visits, apply for jobs and try to get an interview, talk to friendly retail buyers, etc.

Then they'd develop the strategy they thought would most harm their real employer.

We'd gather after a few weeks, review the stuff most likely to harm us, and do it to ourselves, first

But you dare not – as leader – let yourself start being led by followers. With one exception: threatening competitive moves should be countered – swiftly and determinedly (more on that in 'Marketing Warfare' by Ries and Trout: an oldie but a goodie).

Here's a shocker I was involved with:

I was embedded as a strategy consultant in our leading grocer. There are 2 major newspapers available to the grocers in Sydney. Each reached 50% of newspaper readers. My client only advertised in one of the titles - the Telegraph. So I asked why that was so. Could it be that our shoppers are skewed to the Tele?

The answer horrified me – as it will, you:

'Coles (smaller and weaker at the time) have shown no interest in using the Herald'.

The obvious conclusion is that Coles had become – by proxy – the authors of Woolworths' strategy. Woolworths' strategy had become derivative. And so it continues: Coles did a big red hand. Woolies did a green boxing glove. Coles did 'Down, Down'. Woolies followed with Cheap, Cheap.

The Leader becomes the follower. At best they're 'Colesworth' (consumer language, not mine). At worst, Coles is now seen to be the thought leader.

Which is lethal given a pattern I've seen all too often: Thought Leader becomes Brand Leader. Brand Leader becomes Share/Sales Leader.

To both of them I'd say Aldi is looking very dangerous. Can you bring yourselves to 'Aldi yourself' before Aldi, Aldi's you.

Who among you most wants to lead?

Go on. Challenge yourself. Attack yourself. Supersede yourself.

Is your Brand/Organisation in a Graveyard Spiral?

There is a lethal condition in flying.

It's called the Graveyard Spiral.

You get into it without realising it. And it is bloody hard to get out of it unless you correct early.

It parallels precisely what I see in Brands, in businesses and in entire categories.

Besides – now I'm flying a lot more– I'm more acutely aware of it than ever before.

Here's what happens in flying – see if you can spot any parallels in your business:

When a pilot can't see the horizon (in cloud or a moonless night, for example) a slight drop in a wing goes unnoticed. Fluid settles in his/her ears and the pilot believes they're flying 'wings-level'.

With a wing drop comes the beginnings of a nose drop.

Until the plane is in a downward spiral.

Just like water going down a drain.

But your ears let you think you're OK – fluid settles nicely.

The clue is on your 'dashboard' - altimeter is unwinding fast. Wind noise becoming a howl. Compass spinning.

Act impulsively to stop the descent – you pull the wings off. Don't act – well they retrieve you with a butter knife.

What does this have to do with business, you may be thinking:

I worked on brands in the boxed chocolate category years back.

Sales slipped a little. So they trimmed back on the advertising. Which made sales slip a little further. So we trimmed back on packaging – got rid of the little list of types of chocolate, removed foil from some of the individually wrapped sweets. So they felt a little less special.

Sales slid further.

High ground appeared through the murk – actually it was the rapid growth of Ferrero Rocher.

Where are brands like Black Magic, Dairy Box, Milk Tray, Quality Street?

Being scraped up with a butter knife.

You've seen it in organisations, too, I'm sure.

You know the pattern: revenue slips, they shed some people. They replace them with cheaper folk. Who try hard but have a little less to offer. So they lose a bit more revenue. And trim some more costs.

Shrinking their way to greatness.

In the coming weeks, I take my Command Instrument Rating test. I will wear a hood so I can't see the outside world.

The testing officer will ask me to look down into my lap. Fly a few S-turns so I'm well and truly disoriented. Put the 'plane into a spiral. Ask me to recover.

I will need to have my wits about me, study the dashboard.

Make a decision. Just like a Brand or Business in strife.

Continue downward? Break the spiral?

Your choice. And mine.

Marketers: what you say is not what they hear

Before the tragedy of 9/11, it was common for a Captain on a long haul flight to take a stroll through the cabin and chat to passengers.

To illustrate the difference between message and out-take (stimulus and response – a concept a old as the hills) we'd tell a story:

Captain on a 747 – over the middle of the ocean – steps out of the flight deck. He looks up and sees the passengers looking at him enquiringly. For some weird reason he says:

'Everything's just fine.'

That's his intended communication.

But his passengers are not all the same. Some are nervy fliers. Some are experienced and confident. He has no real idea who he's talking to. How they feel at the time. Or what filters – cultural and otherwise - his intended message has to pass through.

Let's say a third relax and think: "Oh, that's good news". Possibly another third react poorly: "Why would he say that? OMG, there's something really wrong." (There's an entire Seinfeld episode available here.) The final third shrug their shoulders and think: "What a daft thing to say."

That's the danger of focusing on messages/messaging. It's a danger that attaches to a focus on Propositions, too (unless balanced by equal consideration of the likely Response).

My experience, especially in but not confined to, Government-sponsored communication, is that 'staying on message' dominates thinking. Researchers checking out campaigns give the nod to those where people can repeat the message back to them.

Which means they might as well recruit parrots, not people in their focus groups.

Being able to play back the stimulus often bears no resemblance to the response it actually elicits.

In my early days, I was fortunate to train at JWT – one of the cradles of Communications Planning. At the time, their Creative Briefing document was seemingly out of step with the rest of the industry.

It focused everyone on "Desired/Key Response". It didn't even have a space on the template for a Proposition.

How do we want people to feel? What do we hope they will do?

Far more important than: What's our message? What do we need to tell them? What's the proposition?

So how about we all go back to basics?

Let's bring the old Marketing 101 Stimulus/Response discussion back into fashion.

Find yourself some of the best stories, fables, advertising, etc. you can lay your hands on.

And confirm for yourself how easily people are able to extract a message without being told it directly. How much more readily they remember it because they've been invited to process it/participate, not just memorise it.

Any doubts remaining? Go back to the oldest example in the book: do the great comedians get there by telling people they're funny?

Or by telling a great joke?

Response first. Then the stimulus most likely to elicit it.

Is your Company incentivising people to stifle growth?

Ever sat in a meeting with people who are actively trying to suffocate growth?

(Not in a good way – like reducing bad behaviour)

I have.

I was appalled. But I understand they were just playing the system.

Here's what was happening:

We were discussing the Marketing calendar for the next year – in around May.

The business in question had experienced a run of success – after some lean years.

People were earning good bonuses once more.

This team, though, were intent on dampening sales growth for the last quarter of the year we were in.

Why?

Why, when growth had been so hard to find?

Why, when momentum was running their way?

Why, when they were the darlings of their network?

Disturbingly simple really.

These guys figured that each year they excelled made the base upon which the next year's bonus would be set, higher. (This period vs same period last year etc.)

Because they're only bonused for short-term growth they were colluding to make sure they beat this year's hurdle – but not so well that next year's bonus might be hard to earn.

Basically, putting the brakes on growth.

Without disclosing who my client had been, I described it to one of the nation's leading experts in Retailing. Steve shook his head and told me he had seen the same thing play out in more places than you'd imagine.

The answer – on the face of it – seems obvious: a better balance of long and short-term incentives.

Two things conspire to defeat this idea:

Firstly, the average tenure of senior Marketing folk is relatively short. Secondly, the Behavioural Scientists would quickly point out the reduced potential for more distant gains to motivate people. (Ironically, you might argue their perspective had a longer time frame than the incentive programme, already.)

I used to rail against what I saw as 'stock market-induced short-termism'. It was a visceral reaction to the focus on short-term sales over brand building.

I now realise the problem is that and more.

It may lead to the deliberate 'management' of today's numbers to benefit individuals over shareholders. Especially when businesses are in growth.

A throttling of shareholder value.

The very system the City has imposed to ensure ongoing returns might well be dampening returns.

Makes me feel a little sick.

Makes brands, sales and shareholder value sick, too.

John le Carré's key lesson for Business

I had put on a fair bit of weight over the years.

I ran into a man I hadn't seen for ages.

'I can see they've been keeping you in the top paddock', he said.

That's the Australian way of speaking – and I love it.

Laid back. Open. Unpretentious. Gorgeous wit.

Spend time among people – at sporting grounds, in shopping malls, country towns, near worksites, in factories or supermarkets.

Anywhere real folk hang out.

Watch. Listen.

And you get the hang of it.

Fast.

But we get it wrong so often:

I was watching a Rugby League match on TV a few days ago.

In Australia, it's the 'working class' game. (Saying that is not offensive).

I'm sorry to pick on Hankook – the tyre people. But painted slap, bang in the middle of the field for spectators and TV viewers was a Hankook Tyres ad.

It read: 'Hankook. Driving Emotion.'

For tyres.

I ask you.

(With tears in my eyes.)

What on earth does that actually mean?

What does it mean to a Rugby League-watching audience?

A car or truck tyre 'driving emotion'?

Are we hinting at carrying your loved ones safely?

The heart-in-your-throat rush of high speed?

No. I don't think that's the answer.

It could be one of a few things: defining too lofty a Brand Purpose, perhaps.

Trying to be too smart with copy. And ending up pretentious and meaningless.

Unforgivable when there's been: 'Stick with Dunlop'. Or the Michelin Man. (See, you can communicate benefits simply and successfully in tyre world.)

The insidious advance of bullshit language in meetings, maybe?

John le Carré said: "A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world."

Therein lies the truth, I suspect.

We would all do ourselves, and our employers a great favour if we spent more time away from our desks and more time simply observing and listening to real people.

You know – end users of your products and services.

My friend Ryan Wallman is a copywriter by trade and a psychiatrist by training.

With a razor wit. And an eagle eye for nonsense that pretends, and fails, to communicate.

He shared this gem. Written in a letter from a leading Department store to its customers:

'We are investing in New Myer over the next five years to deliver a fresh interpretation of our brand, a re-energised and relevant range, improved service and in-store experiences complemented by a strong omni-channel offer. It brings the best of Myer to the customers who love us today, and to future generations'

What were they thinking?

Who did they imagine was going to read it?

I'm very sure they've worked hard at their transformation program. I'm sure there have been countless meetings. I know it will be good.

But they know - and I know - that their customers are after the magic of a great store, helpful advice, a great range etc.

Nobody will ever ask them for, or tell their friends about: 'a fresh interpretation of our brand'.

What does a 're-energised range' mean to people in Moonee Ponds?

Which customers in outer Western Sydney are hanging out for 'a strong omni-channel offer'?

No.

Down to earth expressions like: 'not the sharpest knife in the drawer', 'off with the Pixies' come to mind.

That's how customers might have responded – if they cared enough about the communication to read beyond the first handful of words which offered them precisely nothing.

Empathy.

That's the name of the game.

And it's not to be found at your desk. Or in your meeting room.

Get out there.

Use mouth and ears in the ratio the good Lord gave them to you.

Be more empathetic – if you don't quite succeed in 'Driving Emotion', you might at least feel more likeable.

A simple technique for writing punchy slogans

Yesterday, some friends circulated a new Hewlett-Packard ad.

With an amazing end line: 'Accelerating next'.

I marveled at this tightly written piece of communication.

I wondered if I could crack their secret and use it myself.

Now HP is a top company.

Really smart people who make great computers.

And then it struck me – one of their computers probably wrote this.

I wondered if I could get my hands on one of these wonderful 'Accelerating next' machines.

I started looking around.

Seems quite a few people have found the same computer already.

Hankook Tyres – who I've picked on before – 'Driving Emotion'.

Or those wonderful, abstract Japanese T-shirts that have equally concise, witty creative collisions.

(I hadn't realised HP was so big in Japan :)

You, too, can write material like this.

And you don't need Copy School or even a computer.

Why not build your own slogan generator?

1.Get a hat that's deeper than it is wide (so you can't peek inside).

2. Find pretentious words randomly in your dictionary.

3. Toss them in. Draw them out 2 at a time.

4. Hey Presto (no, that's taken already) you'll have instant punchy lines

5. Hold them up against the Japanese T-Shirts. If they pass the 'sufficiently bizarre' test, you're onto a winner.

6. Present it with conviction – Clive Pompous-arse style - and no one will argue lest it should appear they're not as bright as you.

Or...

You could find yourself a genuinely good writer. (They're rare these days)

Someone who truly cares about communicating.

Someone like Paul or Sharon:

"Every generation should live better than the last" (Paul Fishlock for Westpac Bank)

"The simple things in life are often the best" (Sharon Howard for Kellogg's Corn Flakes)

As much as Management-speak tries to infiltrate and mutilate our language, don't let it invade your communication.

If in doubt, eavesdrop on normal people.

Listen to the way they speak.

I'm willing to bet – unless they're poking fun at HP – you're not going to hear anyone 'Accelerating Next' in my lifetime.

If you love ads, please buy a steak from Norman

Good people at the Norman: I'm coming to get my steak.

Medium-rare, please.

This is an entirely emotionally driven and illogical post.

Because that's how humans are. Emotional. And illogical.

And that's how great ads work – hitting System 1 - the non-thinking brain.

Enchanting, amusing, speaking to emotional me (and you).

Picture this: I'm on my way to Brisbane airport by cab after a day's business

We pass a poster – too fast for me to photograph (if you're in BrisVegas and it's there still, please shoot it for me). Looks a bit like this:

It's for a well-known Brisbane steak restaurant.

It is deceptively simple – a shot of a set of horns.

And a gorgeous line of copy:

'Brisbane's worst vegetarian restaurant'

I haven't been back to Brissie yet.

When I do. I absolutely have to have a steak at The Norman.

To thank them for renewing my faith in advertising.

I loved the line.

I loved the Insight behind it.

I loved the pure Chutzpah.

I loved the courage.

I loved the recognition that people are bright and don't need to be told stuff in a conventional, literal and boring way to 'get it'.

I intend to reward them for making me scramble for my camera.

And for giving me a great smile to top off a great day.

Please reward them too, if you get the chance.

I'm dying to get my steak to see if it's as good as the ad says. (Trust me, it says precisely that).

Completely irrational, I know.

Just like most other people.

Small advertiser putting the big end of town – that's Agencies and clients alike – to shame.

While everyone else is making advertising that is barely medium, these guys are doing stuff that's just - well - rare.

Boom. Tish.

###

Many thanks for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, would you be so kind as to leave me a review at your e-book seller?

Since publishing this book, I've written a few more articles in similar vein. Feel free to read them at: FlyingSeraph

About the author

Mark Sareff is principal of Sydney-based Brand, Marketing and Communications consultancy Prophecy. He is obsessed with flying and has a pilot's license.

His first flying instructor taught him that the only excusable accident would be a completely original prang. This has inspired him to write - to share valuable lessons in the Brand and Marketing fields - so his readers need only have original prangs. (Hopefully, only successes.)

His background is dominated by serious stints in lead strategy roles in great Advertising Agencies. He has been a Marketing client, a Brand Consultant and a full-time University Marketing lecturer. His background is eclectic – as is his skill-set. His remit has always been to drive growth by creating imaginative solutions to business problems: strategies for products, markets, services, channels, communications etc.

He is probably the most awarded 'Effectiveness' leader in his industry. He has been awarded and credited with growth-building change by a wide range of companies.

Connect with Mark Sareff:

Twitter: <http://twitter.com/marksareff>

LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/marksareff>

Tumblr blog: http://flyingseraph.tumblr.com
