At MOP, we have recently boosted our investment in social media capacity in response to its growing importance, but we would make the following cautionary comments before you simply chuck more money in Facebook’s bucket – or wherever.
What is the real role of strategy in creating your communications content?
More words are written about the role of strategy in devising your advertising and marketing communications than any other single subject. And we don’t want to add to this endless morass of words, which actually serve to confuse people more than they do to create clarity.
But here are a few things for you to consider, before you spend another cent on comms. We mean it: don’t spend another penny till you have asked yourself ALL these questions. And even this list is not exhaustive!
WHO are you talking to? Can you describe them? Not just demographically (age, sex, income, location etc – everyone does that) but psychographically. What moves them? What annoys them? What makes them excited and happy? What do they think about? What will they be thinking about when your message hits them?
Think of your advertising and marketing communications as being like walking up to complete strangers in the street and asking them questions or proposing ideas to them, when you don’t know anything about them. If you expected any real level of success, you simply wouldn’t.
Of course, nowadays we talk a lot about creating relationships with our target audiences – which is good, and wise – where we communicate with them steadily over a period of time, hopefully gathering information about them along the way. In reality, though, we will have always have limited success because while we think we are keeping in very close contact with our prospects, they are actually enjoying/enduring literally thousands of communications messages every week, not to mention just trying to get along with their daily lives. And what moves them changes over time.
So we need to understand the real environment into which our communications will drop, and treat every item of communications with equal seriousness. We also need to be aware that if we send messages TOO often, about things that matter to us but which are possibly of marginal interest to the person receiving the communication, then we risk pissing them off.
IS YOUR BUSINESS READY if your marketplace responds in numbers? And how will the response, if it’s positive, affect your business?
Could your business be put under pressure if your communications work too well?
And can you be sure that success in one area won’t mean a drought in another? Cannibalising one area of the business to feed another is one of the commonest mistakes marketers make, and then when that happens, everyone rushes over to support the area of the business that’s been cannibalised, and often with inadequate thought.
And then the $64,000 question: what will you do if they don’t work well – what is your “Plan B”?
IS WHAT YOU ARE SAYING WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO SAY? Have you done the hard yards to know exactly what you need to communicate, and why? Most advertising tries to do too much. People aren’t sitting there waiting to receive your messages and prepared to sift through a mass of information to get to the bit that motivates them. If there are ten things you could tell them, what is the one thing you must? Golden Rule: Say less, and say it better.
ARE YOU BEING ORIGINAL? Most ads are boring. It’s a simple fact. Advertising people get just as bored with the crap that’s around just like you do, by the way.
Creativity exists to break through the clutter of all the advertising and promotions that we see. Are you giving your advertising agency permission to be creative on your behalf, or are you holding them back because you don’t think like them? Remember, you’re working with a creative agency because you don’t think like them! Let them do their job ….
HOW WILL YOUR OFFERING LOOK NEXT TO YOUR COMPETITORS? “Me Too” is the weakest communications territory you can own. After all, if we can already get what we need from our existing supplier, why switch to you? You have to have a point of difference, and it starts right back with your product or service design, and not just your communications. And if you really are a “Me Too” product or service, then your communications need to work doubly hard – they really have to be different or you will simply be ignored.
This is just a short sample of the mental discipline that needs to be applied to any communications you do – and it applies internally as much as externally. Good, solid strategic planning will help you answer these questions, and the net result of good strategy will turn up on directly your bottom line as sure as day follows night.
Don’t go waiving budgets at ad agencies unless you have the answers to these questions absolutely nutted out – or unless they can help you nut them out. Any agency worth its salt simply must nowadays be able to offer you independent, credentialed advice on strategy and be able to quote real world examples where their strategic input has improved communications plans and helped to turn them into a success. If they can’t – or if they’re not convincing – look elsewhere.
And accept that your agency may challenge your pre-conceptions about your market place. You need a group of dynamic, honest minds working for you. Not an echo chamber.
Research + Strategy + Creative Execution = more than an Ad Agency.
Are you ready for this?
The world has now got so complicated that we need to employ “futurists” to tell us what’s going to happen, never mind what’s going on. Here’s some interesting predictions:
In a recent interview, the Head of Daimler Benz said their competitors are no longer other car companies, but Tesla (obviously), but also now, Google, Apple, Amazon ‘et al’ because software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.
After all, Uber is just a software tool, they don’t own any cars, and they’re now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties. And so it goes.
Artificial Intelligence mean computers will become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.
In the U.S., young lawyers are already finding it more difficult to find jobs. This is allegedly because of IBM Watson, meaning you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. Some futurists believe there will be 90% less lawyers in the future, and only specialists will remain.
Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, four times more accurately than human nurses. In February 2013, IBM announced that Watson software system’s first commercial application would be for utilization management decisions in lung cancer treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, in conjunction with health insurance company WellPoint. IBM Watson’s former business chief, Manoj Saxena, says that 90% of nurses in the field who use Watson now follow its guidance.
Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognise faces better than humans can.
Autonomous cars? In 2018 it is believed the first self-driving cars – already being experimented with – will appear for the public to actually use. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be utterly disrupted. As a result, increasingly people won’t want to own a car anymore. Within a few short years it is predicted you will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You won’t need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance, and you can be productive while driving.
Some people think the children of today – or definitely tomorrow – will never get a driver’s license and will never own a car.
The changes will fundamentally change the look, feel and utilisation of cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars. We can transform former parking spaces into parks … or well, anything. Homes?
1.2 million people now die each year in car accidents worldwide. We currently have one accident every 60,000 miles (100,000 km). With autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 6 million miles (10 million km).
That will save a million lives each year. Just that. Right there. And imagine the saving in trauma care and rehab.
Most car companies will probably go bankrupt in their current form. Traditional car companies will keep trying the traditional approach and try to build a better and better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will take a revolutionary approach and build a better computer on wheels.
Car insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, car insurance will become much less relevant, and thus much cheaper and less profitable. The “car insurance business model” will slowly disappear. As for panel shops, they simply won’t be needed.
Real estate will change, too. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away from the centre of town to live in a more beautiful neighbourhood.
Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity.
Electricity will become cheaper and cleaner: solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, and we are already seeing the burgeoning impact. Last year, for the first time, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil.
Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that can’t last. Technology – and the need to cool the planet – will take care of that strategy.
With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination of salt water now only needs 2kwh per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We don’t have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as they want, for nearly no cost?
We will handle our health differently. The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. A medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample, and you can breathe into it.
It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medical analysis, nearly for free. Goodbye, medical establishment.
3D printing: the price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies have already started 3D printing shoes. At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoes at home. Goodbye shoe shops.
Some common spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. Even the space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to keep in the past.
In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, less than ten years from now, some experts believe that 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3D printed.
Business opportunities: if you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: “In the future, do you think we will have that?”. If the answer is yes, then how can you make that happen sooner?
But be careful. If the business idea doesn’t work with a phone, forget the idea. Already over 80% of internet transactions are phone based. Any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century.
The world is going to look very very different. Up to 70-80% of current jobs may disappear in the next 20 years. Yes, there will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.
It’s expected there will be a $100 “agricultural robot” in the future. Farmers can then become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields, especially in the third world. Agricultural production will soar, changing the balance of trade relationships completely.
Aeroponics will mean that food production will need much less water. We will grow plants in air.
And the first petri-dish produced hamburger has now been produced. The burger was created by Maastricht University’s Mark Post from the cultured muscle cells of living cows. Other scientists want to engineer meat from plant-based materials. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don’t need that space anymore?
And imagine if all those cows stopped farting? Livestock currently produce anywhere from 18 to 50 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.
There is presently a global herd of 60 billion land animals for 7 billion people, and 70 percent of agricultural land and 8 percent of the global water supply is already devoted to livestock production. With the global herd in 2050 projected to be 100 billion land animals for 10 billion people, we just don’t have the resources to maintain more animals. But meat consumption is growing too fast, and we need to come up with several solutions for mitigating the risk to sustainability. In fact, current production is already unsustainable.
Also, our current factory farming methods bring about many opportunities to create widespread disease. Epidemic viruses are almost all from livestock farming (swine flu, avian flu), and widespread bacterial contamination opportunities make meat recalls an everyday occurrence. More animals means more risk to our population.
There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as “alternative protein source” (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).
It goes on. Politics will change. Doing business will change.
There is an app called “Moodies” which can already tell in which mood you’re in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it’s being displayed when they’re telling the truth and when they’re not. Imagine pointing your phone at a salesman while you listen to his claims.
And you will change, too. This will vary, but right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it’s 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there may well be more than one year increase per year. So, we all might live for a long time: probably way more than 100. Ah, but will we have any money to live on? That’s the multi-million dollar question for all of us.
Are the futurists correct? In everything, no. In a great deal of it? Yes. And there will be hundreds and thousands of other changes that we cannot yet predict. Just watch tomorrow’s news headlines.
But one thing will never change.
Whatever confronts us – and no matter how much change there is – we will always need creative thinkers. People who can turn the Rubik’s cube of the world round and round until they discover new ways of doing business, new ways to solve problems, new possibilities, new markets and new industries.
People who can pick their way patiently through a strategic problem and offer you actionable ideas, insights and solutions.
At MOP, we employ those people. Come talk to them.
TV DEAD? RUMOURS OF ITS DEMISE HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED.
Has the influence of online advertising on actual purchasing behaviour, and the decline of TV as an advertising medium, been over-stated by marketing industry?
In yet more startling findings, the MOP Awareness Survey conducted by THINK Global Research asks big questions of those who believe that online advertising is – in and of itself – a new dawn for advertisers, or that good old TV ads have done their day.
The survey dug down to discover how often consumers are currently utilising various media channels, which advertising channels they perceived as being the most impactful, and perhaps most importantly, which channels have the most influence on consumers’ real life purchase decisions.
Seeking to link purchasing preferences with actual behaviour, the survey also asked the public how often consumers had made a purchase directly after clicking an ad they came across on a website or social media site.
Magnum Opus Partners say the findings require careful analysis by all those who recommend media purchases for advertisers, because the results are notably different to what many people are being led to believe.
CHANNEL USAGE SNAPSHOT
According to the people, TV (however delivered) is still by far their most utilised medium, clocking up 16 hours a week compared to 9 hours a week on social media, 7 hours a week on radio, and just 2 hours a week reading magazines and 2 hours spent on online shopping.
Needless to say, two hours a week online shopping is a new phenomenon that needs to be taken seriously. But it’s probably less than many have been suggesting.
But the real shock comes when people are asked which channel they considered impacted on them most and then which channel they found most influential.
The questions were phrased very carefully to discover both things.
Advertising is presented to you in many ways. Thinking about all the different ways you experience advertising, which of the following advertising types do you find impacts on you most?
And
Based on the list below, which channel would influence you the most to purchase a product or service?
TV BY FAR STILL THE MOST IMPACTFUL AND INFLUENTIAL
With the sole exception of Gen Z, who marginally preferred social media, for getting their information, (please see later), TV was considered by far the most impactful ad medium, quoted by 62% of the survey as having the most impactful advertising.
This contrasted with just 33% for social media, and a paltry 18% for an online ad on a website, and even less for the new darling of advertising commentary, just 16% for a video ad on a website.
Consumers said that TV was also considered the most influential medium for them, with 25% quoting it as having influenced their decision to purchase something, as opposed to 15% for social media, and just 5% for an online ad on a website and 2% for a video ad on a website.
(Note these were multiple response questions which means the totals do not equal 100%.)
SO WHAT DOES THE DETAIL OF THE SURVEY REVEAL?
Magnum Opus Partners Director of Creative Strategy, Stephen Yolland, was emphatic:
“First of all, we must emphasise again that these are findings from a rigorous independently-conducted survey, and not just opinion.
If the survey had come up with reversed results, we would have faithfully reported those.
But this survey shows categorically that, at least as far as Australia is concerned - and we doubt it is wildly different in similar markets overseas because Aussies are known as “new adopters” of technology - that TV still remains by far the most important medium available to advertisers, and “online” has been over-sold as an effective ad medium to drive actual sales. Certainly so far, at least.
So if an advertiser is diverting a large percentage of their funds into online the may end up disappointed in the actual result.
Our survey previously revealed that brands were now having difficulty “cutting through” on TV, and we speculated that this was because ads weren’t getting a long enough run on TV, that the push for TV creativity has slowed somewhat, and also as a result of a large switch of media investment into online – what we called “Robbing Peter to pay Paul”.
We invite debate, of course, but to our eyes the core message of this part of the MOP Awareness Survey is nevertheless clear and indisputable.
Essentially, the decline of TV as an ad medium has been greatly exaggerated. And rumours of the new dawn of online advertising suggest it is certainly a growing medium, but the wilder claims for it are somewhat inflated.”
CONSUMERS CLICKING ON ONLINE ADS? NOT SO MUCH.
The survey also drilled down to understand more about real consumers’ behaviour. It asked “How often would you click on an advertisement displayed on a website?”
It was revealed that a massive 2/3rds of the survey reported “Never” or “Not Often”, and only 11% reported “Often” or “Very Often”.
Yolland commented further:
“No one would suggest that online advertising is useless, that would just be silly. But it is clearly not the ‘cure all’ that some people have assumed it must be, just because it’s new and shiny.
Anecdotally, when we encouraged consumers to say why they are cautious about buying online, they reported some nervousness about the medium, and this might explain why the changes in buying patterns that flow from online use are still relatively small. (See later.)
Of course, even a very small percentage of a massive total market is still huge, but nothing like what is going on in the rest of the economy.
This has profound implications not only for where advertisers place their money, but also for real world business strategies way beyond just decisions on where to place advertising dollars, such as the decisions surrounding the future of investment in “bricks and mortar” retailing for example.”
FOR 2/3rds OF CONSUMERS, ADS ON WEBSITES DON’T DRIVE ACTUAL PURCHASING, AT LEAST SO FAR
Websites certainly don’t seem to be exciting all that much real-world purchasing activity yet.
Yolland commented:
“We need to be totally clear that we’re talking about websites as an advertising medium. Obviously the online economy is robust and growing healthily. It’s how people are getting to the moment when they actually buy something that the survey looks at.”
Asked “Have you ever made a purchase directly from an online advertisement that you have seen and clicked on while browsing a website (excluding social media websites)?” the public said that more than 2/3rds of them had not made a purchase this way.
And of those that had, their purchase history was a total of four times.
When the survey sought to understand why people weren’t clicking and buying on online ads, answers like these came back:
• “I like to research my options … not much of an impulse buyer.”
• “It ended up being more expensive than I thought.”
• “I don’t look at advertising on websites often.”
• “I don’t trust online advertising and am worried about where links can lead.”
And when the question was asked of social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn, only 27% said they had made a purchase, and 73% said no. And of those that had, they had also done so less often.
RESULTS VERY CONSISTENT
What makes the survey results more compelling is that it doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re male or female, or where you live in Australia, the figures track very similarly. Men and women seem equally impacted and influenced by TV, for example, and equally unlikely to click on online ads and buy things.
And the situation looks unlikely to change anytime soon. Whilst there is more likelihood of people to consume social media the younger they are, Australians spent virtually the same amount of time online shopping regardless of their age.
The youngest consumers spent three hours a week, and the oldest two.
And for those that actually buy online after clicking through on an online advertisement, the frequency was startlingly similar regardless of age. The average was 3-4 times – hardly a revolution in buying patterns.
GEN Z SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT, BUT FOR HOW LONG?
Only in “Gen Z” was social media considered more impactful than TV (79% to 53%) and most likely to influence a purchase, by 49% to 17%.
“This makes sense” said Yolland “but we suspect it might not be the sign of a huge demographic or psychographic shift in buying patterns coming down the line. It might be just that Gen Z simply has better things to do than watching TV, especially if it’s with their folks.
They’re in their rooms face-timing friends, they’re studying, or they’re out of home: a lot of online activity now happens on smart phones out of home, of course. They were much more enthusiastic about cinema previews than anyone else, for example, as cinema is a key part of their social activity.
Ask us to speculate, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see these results duplicated in five years or so, when a new generation of younger people will mimic the current Gen Z results, but by then we will also see today’s Gen Z exhibiting more typical media habits as their lifestyle choices have changed.
On the other hand of course, we can also speculate that if, later in life, they carried on preferring online over media then that would really would be a dramatic shift. But there’s no current evidence that they will. We’re really getting into the area of guessing here.
In simple terms, we need to keep surveying, and watch the results.”
BOTTOM LINE? DON’T TURN YOUR BROADACRE ADVERTISING OFF TO FUND ONLINE ADVERTISING
Yolland said the results of the survey made one thing plain:
“This was a very large survey, conducted with scrupulous care, using carefully-crafted questions to avoid ambiguity and to produce meaningful, usable data.
And the wash up is undeniable – bottom line, it would be a very brave marketer who switched their ad spend massively away from mainstream media into online and expected either their brand salience to survive or very much by the way of immediate sales to be the result.
Essentially, this survey punctures the recent groupthink that online is “where it’s at”, certainly as far as the general consumer ad dollar goes. Online cannot be ignored - of course - it is definitely a useful additional advertising medium and it is increasingly important as a way in which we understand our world. We can speculate that it may produce different results in B2B advertising, which could usefully be measured separately. And without any doubt it represents, taken as a whole, an important new market.
But anyone denuding their main media expenditure to fund online advertising, and especially at expense of their TV advertising, certainly in terms of broadacre consumers, is being – frankly – unwise.”
Stephen Yolland pointed to advertiser Trivago (with whom Magnum Opus Partners have no relationship) as illustrating the research’s findings.
“Media choice – where to place your investment as an advertiser - is all about horses for courses. Trivago’s brand has been built through enjoyable, simple, high-rotation ads on TV. Yet their entire business is online.
One of the great arguments in favour of online advertising is that you can A/B test different messages and maximise on what works, and that’s true. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do the very same – and very successfully – on TV, too, as Trivago have proven.
He also noted that recent cutbacks in online advertising from some of the largest advertisers in the world has apparently not affected growth, and he urged advertisers to look at these examples and others to understand which mediums they should be using to drive “real world sales” and to support their brand.
“In short, TV advertising is not dead. Quite the contrary. And the Magnum Awareness Survey now proves it.” said Yolland.
Supplementary background data sources, background reading:
P&G and Unilever cut back online ad spend
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/07/28/pg-s-multimillion-dollar-cutback-ineffective-digital-ads-hasn-t-hampered-its-growth
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/two-of-the-worlds-biggest-brands-are-cutting-back-on-on-digital-ads-2017-6?r=US&IR=T
Trivago
https://skift.com/2016/03/21/trivagos-tv-advertising-secrets-go-way-beyond-a-scruffy-looking-actor/
https://skift.com/2014/01/22/skift-qa-trivago-co-founder-on-why-it-doesnt-really-need-expedia/
The MOP Awareness Survey conducted by THINK Global Research was performed nationally in early June 2017 with an ABS representative sample of 1,500 participants representing the voice of Australia. One more set of findings will be released in coming weeks after further data analysis.
For further comment call Stephen Yolland on 0419 290 708 or email yolly@mo.partners.
5 logos that will blow your mind
Everyone is trying to say something, brands are telling us to drink this, eat that, live like him, and think like that, but only a select few resonate with us. These brands have changed the way we think and see the world.
It's interesting to think about these big brands and their distinguishable characteristics. We’re able to understand and identify each one, to the point where we don’t even need a logo, but simply the words ‘Think Different’.
When we combine Nike’s ‘just do it’ attitude with Pepsi, we get something quite interesting. We’re saying exactly what both of these brands want to say, but the result is slightly obnoxious. ‘Just drink it.’ Pepsi is like Coca Cola’s younger brother, (the eldest is always the favourite) Pepsi just can’t pull it off.