People first

 

courtesy of JesseWarren from Flickr

Mike Follett is a great British guy who works at Tribal DDB. When I was in NYC we had a quick chat at an ING Direct store drinking a coffee and sharing ideas about our planning activity. I was curious to know more about his work once he moved from account planning to digital planning and how he experienced it.

Instead of talking about the relationship between people and technology, he talked about people and brands and people and their interests. His perspective about the experience was and is rich and I’ll put it in two terms: first, the thing is about people; second, it’s about creating value for them.

People do not divide the lines. Their interests and needs are the driving force behind how they behave concerning technology. Understanding people is the currency for the planner, be it on analog or digital space. This is how Mike adds in the process, for instance, not just throwing his insights, but knowing and predicting what kind of ideas connects to people’s interests on the digital space.

What leads to the second idea, about giving people something that will make part of their natural activities. And I’m not (as he wasn’t) talking about huge digital platforms or huge big ideas, but anything that could mean something to a specific group of consumers.

To exemplify that, Mike told me about a project they did in which the client had to connect to teen girls and they created a series of messenger gimmicks for them to use on their daily chats. Big idea? No. Meaningful idea? Hell yes.

I would say that these two points made by Mike are part of a conversational approach. One in which people has to be put as the main part so brands could really participate in.

Good micro site advertising

Contagious is a very inspiring source for me and I really like the way they cover what is happening in the communication’s world. A while ago, I sow an analysis of four automotive micro sites and decided to put two of them here. Because I think they illustrate well what I consider a good and not so good usage of a micro site as a medium for advertising.

The first case is the micro site of the New Ford Ka launching in Brazil where I felt like if I had wasted my precious time going to the site. I found a difficult navigation; I was lost and had to play games I didn’t want to; I didn’t know where to find information about the car and when they appeared they were like specs not translated into benefits. I wonder what kind of reaction the possible prospect of the car had with it…

The second case was different. I’m talking about the Smart micro site in UK. At first, it shows what it is all about – Smart truths. This site involves who’s there.  Easy to understand and navigate, intuitive and entertaining. The benefits of Smart For Two are directly and funny pointed out. Not just the experience was pleasant as I wanted my peers to take a look into that.

For me, what makes the two examples so different is the way they where thought for the consumer. The first case is the replication of the old advertising approach. The second is the application of a conversational approach. I’ll put it simple as that:

• Case 1 – message.
• Case 2 – message + MEDIUM EXPERIENCE.

 

I believe that when brands think about people’s experience they tend to get a good response. On the other hand, when they just want to communicate without thinking on the other part, they tend to get nothing.

Have you got a Monskey?

 

courtesy of ERIK98122 from Flickr

Monskey is a very cool idea. I’ve got my first as a gift and thought it was a very nice buddy. In fact, I think more people have the same impression as we can see at Flickr, for instance.

Despite been a great product and definitely one of the most sympathetic toy art created, it’s the idea and the purpose behind Monskey that I think is even greater. For those who don’t know it, Monskey’s concept is Equality of Mankind.

To express that, they put the power on people’s hands. This means that anyone who may think is capable of designing one can do that and submit for them his/her personal creation. If lucky enough, the person may see the toy on some shelves from around the world. Of course that designers have a lead and it’s nice to see how they are participating.

So, why do I think this is a great idea?

Basically, because it involves some of the main principles that make an idea going further these days:

• well-oriented vision and a solid mission or purpose;
• the power of social participation;
• self-expression and storytelling;
• collaborative process;
• pleasant experience in people’s hands.

At the same time, I think that the Monskey culture could be stronger and broader. The brand already has the principles and values to get it.  Maybe it has to face the digital and conversational channels as a space to truly amplify fans, make connections and drive business. This is what I hope that guys over Monskey are thinking about and working for.

Look at Nike and Red Bull

Everyday new powerful creative ideas emerge on the marketing field trying to empower the brands behind it. A lot of them make me feel very pleasant on the way some companies and agencies are walking the walk, by the way.

But nothing makes me feel so enthusiast as when I see brands doing differently on its strategy to connect and engage with consumers as a result of its inner belief on how to be more meaningful for them.

Two brands that I believe do differently because of their beliefs and behaviors are Red Bull and Nike.

Red Bull has always had its own particular way to build the brand. It ever knew what it was all about. And to communicate its values and spirit, there was no best way than to focus on the targets’ lifestyles, promote the integration between the brand and communities and offer incredible experiences only reached via Red Bull.

You can say that events, athlete sponsorships and PR coverage were the main pillars to deliver the Red Bull experience. But if we look more carefully, we see that digital marketing, and even advertising, were also important to complete the whole brand experience (delivering different messages as well).

Nike is another brand that has also always created its own culture, but is now putting more importance on the experience with the brand. What is most interesting about Nike today is how it is changing its marketing approach to connect with consumers.

The brand that once used tv ads to be at the top and to immaculate a bunch of sports stars is now more concerned on creating bonds with real people. Doing that through programs and strategies anchored on an idea of how the brand could provide experiences and services that are more useful. Moreover, using the power of its own brand and products combined (e.g.: Nike ID and Nike Plus).

For me, it’s the perfect example of a brand that understood that the age of brand image has passed away (as John Grant defends with Brand Innovation). Relevance and differentiation today have more to do with the way you connect linking brand experiences to what consumers can take from it.

More like comms planners

These days, I found a very interesting article from Campaign in which an account planner, David Hackworthy, and a communications planner, Ivan Pollard, respond to a question of the magazine: if one could do the other’s job.

This was the spark to put myself thinking on a subject that I usually tend to think: the role of the account planning in today’s landscape of brand communications. I’m an account planner, I’m still guided by its principles on daily activities and this is my background since I’ve started my career, but I really think that we should learn some good things with comms planners.

Ivan Pollard’s words not just enlightened the question for me, but also confirmed some thoughts that I have. I think the essence resides in this quote: “the journey is as important as the destination”.

What I see is that for a long time the account planner job’s mission was to find the best destination for brands, to find a place where the brand could be positioned based on a powerful insight and that could differentiate it from its competitors. To position a brand, the planner could count on time to construct that and on an environment without so much “noise”.

But, as we all know, things have changed. To find these destination spaces are not just so easy; the dynamic to construct brands requires messages on multiple levels (and please, not just messages), we have no time to base a brand on one proposition with the same message to repeat it in just one perspective; and, not to mention, the new demand patterns of consumers.

So, when the destinations get crowded and surrounded by too much noise, the quality of the means that you use to communicate your main idea is as important as the idea itself. That’s why I think that we, account planners, should think and try to pursuit things more like comms planners even more.

We have to change our idea that our ultimate client is the creative team. It’s broader! I’ll put that even the comms planners should be our client as well, because, at the end of the day, we will just be capable of constructing something if we make people participate on the stories we aim to create or if we make people move for and through the worlds we develop as big brand ideas.

It’s in this sense that I think that account planners’ role will have to change or evolve. The creation of big brand ideas is, or soon it will be, not enough. We will need to make it big since the beginning, by the quality of the interactions (be it products, concepts, ads, social interactions, etc) of the things we will propose to consumers for them to participate within our brand worlds.

Finally, I feel that within our role, we need to claim for more responsibility of making things happen – getting out of our sage position and going to the warrior one.