Tuesday 27 July 2010

Show A Little Class

Some people believe that we live in a class-less society.
That those hierarchies of yesteryear are consigned to the history books.
Not true.
It’s just that we’re obsessed with a different kind of class system.
In agency life, we’re fixated with what happens at the top-table.
If we could just get in front of the Lord of the Manor, we’d have it made.
I don’t agree.
First off, it’s a bad idea.
Very few spending decisions are made at the top.
Sure, the budget might be signed off there, but not by anyone with any interest in the project at hand.
Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with aiming for the top.
But it’s much more rewarding, and beneficial, to help your client get to the top table instead.
Do great work, support them all the way, and they won’t forget what you’ve done for them.

Friday 23 July 2010

Sharing The Love

OK, I admit it.
I’m a relationship junkie.
Sometimes they’re all I think about.
And I can’t stop talking about them.
You may have noticed.
The thing is, they’re the key to all business success.
It all comes down to the partnerships you forge.
With your agency.
With your clients.
With the people around you.
The relationships may differ, but the rules don’t.
Trust, honesty and openness.
I mention this because I spent the day with some clients yesterday.
And that’s exactly how it felt.
I came back to the office full of excitement about the future of our relationship.
When you think about it, we spend more time at work than we do at home.
So the relationships we build had better be good.
Otherwise........ and .........................
(You’ll need to fill in the blanks yourself – I can sense trouble brewing in my personal relationship if I finish that sentence)

Thursday 22 July 2010

Pick Me Pick Me

There's an old adage in sales that nobody really sells anything.
You can only help people who already want to buy something choose
your offer over someone else’s.
It’s not a perfect concept, but that’s for another day and another blog.
But there’s a sound principle at work here.
It’s always useful to think about what will make someone choose you rather than one of your competitors.
Let me give you some clues.
They won’t choose you for your annoying persistence.
For never calling.
Or for not caring.
Remember, we’re in the relationships business.
Nobody wants a stalker.
But they also get tired of people who play hard to get.
So you need to offer support where you can.
Show that you’re always ready.
And make it clear why you’re there.
Don’t be afraid to ask for the business.
As one of my mentors once told me: The salesman’s job is all about the two As.
That’s affable and available, in case you were wondering.

Monday 19 July 2010

Brand Love Means Sometimes Saying You’re Sorry

To hear the news coverage of Apple last week, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the world was about to tip of its axis.
In fact, Apple had simply marketed a phone with a weak signal.
In the grand scheme of things, nothing too important.
But this is Apple we’re talking about.
The ultimate modern cult.
Brand badvocates rubbed their hands in glee at the notion of the tarnished giant.
News reporters clamoured for details about the spur-of the-moment press conference.
And dedicated brand fans prayed that this wouldn’t signal the end of the greatest love story ever told.
In typically low key fashion, Steve Jobs took to the stage and said “sorry”.
They screwed up.
No-one’s perfect.
Suddenly, all the heat was gone.
By Saturday, everyone’s conversations had moved onto other things.
Equilibrium restored.
The thing is, Steve Jobs understands about experience brands.
He transformed the technology industry by focusing on the user experience.
Just like he transformed the retail industry by thinking about the consumer experience.
He knows that the way a brand behaves is far more important that what it says.
His apology was short, simple and easy to understand.
No stress, no fuss.
Just honest and believable.
Much like the brand itself.

Friday 16 July 2010

Let Me Entertain You

There was an interesting article in Monday’s Evening Standard about the shifting role of advertising in the broader marketing mix.
Although some people in ad-land may be glancing over their shoulders nervously, I couldn’t be more excited about the changes that are taking place.
Let’s not kid ourselves.
Audiences are wise to the way advertising works.
They know all the tricks of the trade, and have become almost immune to their impact.
Sure, there are still some great ideas out there.
And the big agencies will continue to win awards for their 30-second slices of brilliance.
But brands also need to use their cultural resonance to explore new spaces.
Rather than simply sponsoring a show or paying for product placement, they’re helping to develop the content.
Smart brands, and the marketers behind them, understand that content is king.
So they’re finding ways to create their own entertainment platforms.
They’re developing TV properties built around the brand.
And in doing so, they’re finding new ways to connect with consumers in a real world context.
Best of all, audiences are fine with that.
It’s a simple principle - If you entertain them, they will come.
They’ll stick around.
They’ll feel a lot more positive about your brand.

They'll even buy

Wednesday 14 July 2010

Getting On The Same Page

I talked yesterday about the recruitment communications industry.
I’m interested because that’s a space where we’re finding lots more opportunities to help our clients.
Coincidentally, that also leads quite nicely into a Jack Morton offering.
We call it ‘align’ because it’s not just about internal comms anymore.
It’s about aligning all the people with responsibility for representing a brand.
We live in an age of acquisition, expansion, franchises, outsourcing and globalisation.
So the old methods of ‘stick a poster in the staff room’ simply won’t cut it.
From car salespeople to Subway sandwich artists, we find ways of engaging the broader brand community.
Because if we can help them to understand the brand’s behaviours, we can make sure that they’re living them and talking about them every day.

Tuesday 13 July 2010

In It To Win It

In case you didn’t know, last week saw the 2010 CIPD Awards.
The recruitment industry’s annual marketing awards, recognising the best ideas in employee recruitment and retention.
Big winners on the night were the Army and its agency Skive, who collectively took home five gongs.
Given that Jack Morton played a key role in the delivery of the ‘Start thinking Soldier’ experiential campaign, we’re delighted to see this work getting the recognition it deserved.
But there seem to be some mutterings of discontent within the ranks (pun intended) about Skive’s inclusion in the honour roll.
The thing is, Skive is perceived as a ‘consumer agency’.

Which left traditional ‘recruitment agencies’ out in the cold.
Unfortunately, this territorial attitude is nothing new.
And it affects every sub-sector within the broader marketing community.
It’s a real shame, because awards are supposed to recognise the best work.
The only eligibility criteria should be the quality of the idea – not the heritage of the agency that came up with it.
Likewise, people who complain about the budget of the winning work are missing the point.
A great idea can be scribbled on a napkin.
The execution could cost a few thousand pounds, or several million.
As the dividing lines between industries continue to be eroded, we should be seeing this as an opportunity to compete in exciting new spaces.
New entrants into our marketplace simply mean we need to raise our game.
Get hungrier.
Try harder.
If you believe an award is worth winning, it’s worth working for.

Monday 12 July 2010

Talk About A Cliffhanger

Remember the good old days when you just needed to stick a pack-shot, a logo and strapline in front of your target audience?
I’m not so sure that they were ‘good old’ days.
The competition may be tougher, the world may be more sophisticated and the audience may be smarter.
But the opportunities are also much greater.
Raising awareness is yesterday’s news.
Any brand that wants to be current, relevant and successful has to engage.
Changing beliefs and behaviours doesn’t happen with a 30 second TV spot.
It demands a combination of education, persuasion and experience.
And the same rules apply whether you’re talking to consumers or other businesses.
They’re all looking for points of connection, with your brand and with each other.
They don’t want to be interrupted by a disruptive child shouting “Look at me, look at me.”
They want a value exchange.
Experience brands are the ones that give something back.
They add richness to your life as a direct consequence of the experience itself.

So create experiences that engage and you will get a happy ending.

Friday 9 July 2010

We Have Ignition.....Lift Off.....

Here is another in the ‘Postcards from Rhode Island …series’
When you have skills and capabilities as broad ranging as ours, you’re often left with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to telling people about your business.
Problem is, that can sometimes get a bit complicated.
So I’m delighted that we’ve now developed a way to talk about what we do in a genuinely compelling way.
The first of our business offerings falls under the heading of ‘launch’.
Whether it’s a new brand, product, service or even an idea

We can introduce it to the marketplace through the delivery of a compelling experience.
It’s an efficient way of getting maximum bang-for-your-buck and generating instant awareness.
High visibility, PR coverage, excitement.
That's all great and important but for me is not the key.
Awareness is only one element of an effective launch.
The success or failure of any venture depends on the cumulative energy you can generate behind the offer.
It’s about creating talkability – co-opted content that anyone can transmit and share.
We’re all natural born communicators with a hunger for stories we can tell.
Give people the raw materials, and a personalised take on it

and the energy that they will create will ensure the your launch explodes into life
BOOM!

Wednesday 7 July 2010

A Place To Call My Own

In the brand experience world we spend a lot of time thinking about venues.
Why choose this location over that one?
For years, hotels have monopolised much of the industry.
After all, they have the resources, the space and the infrastructure to make our lives a little easier.
But that's changing.
Those destinations that used to be our first port of call are going to miss out.
When everything you offer is built-in, it's hard to add any extra value.
The next generation of venues will be the ones with an audience of their own.
High-end shopping malls.
Concert venues.
Festivals.
These are the destination venues that audiences already consider a 'home from home'.
Rather than expecting our audience to come to us, we need to be willing to go to them.
Then we need to focus on stopping them in their tracks with a great brand experience.
Authenticity, surprise, immersion - all in one place.
Isn't that everything that we're aiming for?

Tuesday 6 July 2010

Nature Will Find A Way

I mentioned last week that we spent a few days in Rhode Island last week for the Jack Morton officers meeting.
(Note to all, live meetings to align key stakeholders behind a mission really work: see driver for details.)
One of the highlights of the packed agenda was a three-hour seminar led by Scott A. Snook, an Associate Professor at Harvard Business School. .
In a broad-ranging presentation, Scott addressed a number of guiding principles for leadership, using talking points from his military career, college sports and popular culture.
One particularly memorable section was based on learnings from Jurassic Park’ – which applied elements of chaos theory to the principles of change management.
Still with me?
Good.
Anyway, by focusing on the film rather than the novel by Michael Crichton,

Scott missed my favourite anecdotes from the story.
In the book, our intrepid heroes are shown around the laboratory where the dinosaurs are bred and genetically manipulated.
The scientist in charge of the process points out that all the dinosaurs are bred to be female so that there will be no unauthorised breeding on the island.
The ‘chaotician’ Ian Malcolm (played in the film by Jeff Goldblum) gravely warns that

“nature will find a way”.
And of course it does.
When it later emerges that the dinosaurs have been spontaneously changing sex in order to reproduce
John Hammond (the park’s incredulous owner) refuses to believe the facts.
He claims that the park’s motion sensors have not detected an increase in the dinosaur population. Several times a day they count all the animals on the island and always find the same number.
Until, of course, someone points out how the system was programmed.
Since nobody ever assumed that the population could grow, the algorithms never allows for any increased numbers.
As soon as the motion sensors located the ‘confirmed’ population, it simply stopped counting.
Meanwhile, the island’s prehistoric inhabitants had steadily been increasing their head-count.
So what does this all mean for business?
Well, if you look at growth strategy, you can learn an interesting lesson from this analogy.
You have to extend your targets if you want to achieve ambitious growth.
Limit your thinking and you’ll never grow the business, you’ll simply maintain the status quo.
Aim for more, beyond the realms of what you ‘know’ to be possible.
Because the business and your capabilities will soon expand to fill the gap.
Just watch out for the velociraptors
.

Monday 5 July 2010

I Can See Clearly Now

There are many perks of the job here at Jack Morton
One of them is to be present at one of the many launch events we create on behalf of our clients.
I’m not talking about the usual “product launch”
This is the launch of an idea
A company’s new vision,
It’s always very exciting .
Lots of satisfied executives
Lots of eager faces
Lots of relieved sales and marketing teams
“We have a new story to tell” they say
“I love it. I get it”
“Our clients are gonna love it too.”
The energy is infectious
Visions are big, bold and revelatory
They fuel some interesting conversations and help give you a clear POV
And they start with lines like “I have a dream...”
That’s how you align your stakeholders
That’s how you change the world.

Friday 2 July 2010

Livin' On A Prayer

Who doesn't love Bon Jovi?
I was lucky enough to go and see Jon and the guys at the O2 last week.
It was the last of a 12-day run at one of London's biggest and best concert venues.
That means that in under two weeks they played to almost a quarter of a million people.
Of course it was a great gig.
But even though what happened on the stage was fantastic, I was even more amazed when I turned around and looked at the crowd.
Around three quarters of the audience spent most of the gig with their phones in the air.
Not for the obligatory virtual lighter ballad moment.
They were filming the show.
They'd paid over 50 pounds a head for their tickets but they saw most of the show through a mobile phone viewfinder.
It's true that there's nothing better than a great live experience.
But these days that's still not enough.
Nowadays, it's not enough to simply be there.
You’ve got to be able to share the experience
So now we're all journalists and documentarians.
The moment is only complete if we're able to capture, record and share it.
We often talk about the convergence of the live and digital experience.
It’s not the future
It’s Now!

Thursday 1 July 2010

Teşekkür Ederim

That's thank you in Turkish.........So before we begin a few things to say.
First thank you for continuing to read and support my blog it really is much appreciated.
Second, I want to apologise for a rather inconsistent week of posts.
I've been clocking up the air miles over the last few days.
In fact, this blog is coming to you from beautiful Rhode Island, USA.

(More of that over the coming days and weeks)
Last week I was in Turkey, where I was speaking at the 13th (unlucky for some?) Brand Marker Conference.
It was a great event, and another fantastic opportunity to meet new people and share ideas.
It's three years since I was last in Turkey, and I was really struck by how much things had changed.
Now, it may sound rather trivial, but my rule of thumb for judging the prosperity of an emerging economy is the car stock used by it's cab drivers.
As I walked out of the airport, the first thing I noticed was the vast fleet of shiny new cabs lined up outside.
But it's also the leapfrogging of technology and attitudes.
In more developed countries we find our progression and evolution is restricted by existing investments and infrastructure that we need to protect.
Conversely, emerging economies like Turkey are much freer to just go for it.
There's an interesting lesson here for those of us who live in the agency world.
Entrenched attitudes and behaviours can get in the way of true development.
Don't be afraid to change everything.