Keep It Real

It’s a few months ago now so you’ve probably all seen the Facebook exchange between a young woman and her boss.

In it, she complained about her ‘pervy’ boss and the general tedium of her role.

He then surprised her by responding to point out that, since she’d ‘added’ him as a friend, he’d seen her comments and she would no longer be working for the company.

What really stands out for me about this story is people’s reaction.

Everyone who sees it laughs.

Then they question if it is real.

We spend so much time in a virtual world and consuming fictional media disguised as ‘reality’, it’s no wonder we’re all striving for proof that our experiences are authentic.

Authenticity isn’t as straightforward as it used to be, because our viewpoint is always subjective.

Seven people can see the same play or attend the same meeting, and yet each version of events will differ when it’s retold.

As Mel Brooks once famously pointed out, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.”

History is controlled by whoever writes it down.

So it’s not the authenticity that matters, so much as creating a memorable experience that’s worth sharing with people

I Know This Much Is True

So the eighties revival is in full swing.
Frankie is relaxing again.
Belinda Carlisle is packing them at the Shaftesbury theatre.
And last night the recently reformed Spandau Ballet took to the O2 stage for the third time this week.
It was a fantastic show, and great to meet the band backstage.
But what really struck me, other than how well the songs stand up after nearly 25 years, was just how minimal the staging was.
Gone were all the New Romantic flourishes, and in their place was simply a band at the top of their game playing all their best loved songs.
It’s easy to get carried away with ‘putting on a show’ and forget that, ultimately, content is king.
Experiential marketing has to be prepared to offer more than "a production".
It needs a reason for being and a story to tell.
Get the balance right and, like the boys, you’ll be ......Gold.

Join Me In The Virtual World

The problem with experiential events in the consumer arena has always the cost per contact.
If you want to get your brand in front of three million people, there’ll always be the temptation to just stick it on the TV.
After all, it’d have to be a pretty big event to accommodate that size of audience.
But the growth of the digital channel has opened up a brave new world of virtual events, which ultimately mean that the scale of your event is limited only by your imagination.
Look at T-Mobile, who staged a (relatively) small event at Liverpool Street, and turned it into a campaign that lives online.
People watched it, engaged with it and, most importantly, shared it.
The same goes for Sony’s Bravia campaign.
Great ideas, simply executed and a virtually limitless audience.
In last week’s Campaign, Charles Vallance of VCCP talked about the fact that there’s a change occurring within the industry, and that agencies will soon be “judged on their ability to create experiences rather than messages.”
Since we know the secret of creating engaging events that change people’s beliefs and behaviours, the virtual world’s our oyster.

Do We Ever Grow Up?

Watching my kids playing in the park the other day, I was reminded of my own childhood and the way we all behaved in the schoolyard.
It’s interesting – the behaviours you observe when children get together make for a compelling analogy about the marketing industry.
Here’s a kid with a pocket full of sweets, and he’ll give you one if you agree to be his friend. I think there might be a future in sales promotion for him.
At the other end of the playground are a bunch of kids marching arm-in-arm shouting ‘Who wants to play at army!’
Round and round they go, gradually swelling their ranks. Could they grow up to be in advertising?
Then there’s the pretty girl who persuades her friend to tell that handsome boy “My friend really likes you”
Someone’s heading for a career in PR.
And finally, there’s the budding sponsor, who’s planning a big party on Friday evening and everyone’s invited.
So where does experiential fit into all of this?
Well, the experience is the doing, not the communicating.
The experience is the enjoyment of the sweets, the game of army that takes place in the field, the thrill of that first date and the celebration of the party.
It’s the thing you do rather than the thing you talk about.
And it’s the thing you remember and talk about forever.

The Best Sofa Ever

We’ve all felt it.
After a long day of shopping with our significant other.
Trudging from one shop to the next and trying to feign interest, we end up in a furniture store.
Our fatigue turns to bliss as we sink into an overstuffed sofa, thankful for the chance to sit down and switch off.
It’s the best sofa ever and we’ve never felt so comfortable.
Before we know it, we’ve paid the deposit, chosen the fabric and accepted a delivery date three months from now.
Then it arrives.
It looks kind of funny in the living room.
It’s a bit too big, and its colours don’t really match.
Worst of all, it’s uncomfortable.
The realisation finally hits – great experiences are all about context.
Whenever we create an experiential solution for an audience, we need to think about their context.
How are they likely to feel, what emotions are going through their head, and what will they take away from the experience?
It doesn’t matter what we think and feel, we need to keep our audience front-of-mind and think about what else is going on in their world.
And if we create a seating area, it needs to be pretty damn comfortable

Stanislavski’s Method

Constantin Stanislavski is widely believed to be the founding father of realistic acting.
His system, known widely as ‘method acting’, has influenced the work of legendary performers such as Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino.
The key to Stanslavski’s System was to encourage actors to ‘live the part’ – tapping into their own experiences to elevate the believability of their performances.
At Jack Morton we often receive briefs that ask us to ‘create a great experience’, but that passion for experiences seldom figures in the brief itself.
So it was a genuine honour to be invited by the British Army to tour the barracks as part of the briefing process.
We, and the other agencies being briefed, got to meet officers and enlisted men. We saw where they lived and trained, we heard their combat stories, and we got a real feel for life in the military.
This kind of first-hand experience is invaluable when taking a brief.
We need to visit the factory, the shop floor, the sales desk, meet the people in front and behind the scenes.
Even use the products.
Can’t wait for the Rolls Royce pitch to come in!
See, there’s always method to my madness.

Dropping The Balls

How many love songs have you heard on Magic FM (don’t deny it – you know you listen) that sing about people never loving because they’re afraid of having their hearts broken?
I know it’s a stuffy old cliché, but there’s truth in it.
After all, as I’ve said before, success usually comes out of failure. If you’re afraid to fail, you limit your chances of ever winning.
I don’t think that enough people understand that, as human beings we have to make mistakes in order to learn.
Marshall McLuhan is the Canadian media guru (I've mentioned him before) who first coined the phrase ‘less is more’.
He once stated that we don't really understand through learning, we understand through experience.
This obviously has specific resonance to anyone who works in experiential marketing, since it validates our whole methodology, but it also has a wider application to anyone who aims to achieve something.
Take juggling for instance. It’s an accepted fact that you cannot learn to juggle without dropping a few balls. You have to learn through the mistakes you make, and apply the knowledge you acquire next time round.
Unfortunately, in times of recession, people become more terrified than ever of making a mistake.
I say, this is the best time to start.

Good All The Way To The Core

I guess you all know the first marketing commandment?
When thou giveth any speech or presentation, thou shalt mention Apple.
One I’ve used a couple of times during speaking engagements on the subject of experiences (call for booking details) is a simple one.
Back in 2001 Steve Jobs was unperturbed by the naysayers who predicted failure for the Apple retail store concept. .
So when its first stores opened, he wanted to do something bold, so Apple hired hundreds of people to help out.
They weren’t trained. They couldn’t sell. Most of them didn’t even get inside the store.
They were hired to crowd outside the store and clap. And cheer, and yell and generally make a fuss of every customer who left with a shiny new purchase.
It added nothing directly to the bottom line, but it brought to life, in an instant, how Apple felt about its customers. And as each one of them emerged into the street, they felt like a hero.
A winner.
Is it any wonder so many people go so far as to have the Apple logo tattooed onto their skin?
So the next time someone comes to you with an idea that makes no business sense, stop being so cerebral.
Listen to your heart instead; you might be surprised at the outcome.

What’s Your Centre Of Gravity?

There’s nothing quite so rewarding as being able to stretch your capabilities and diversify.
Our clients come to us for solutions, and it’s all too easy to assume the channel or platform is a given. In actual fact, part of what we should be offering is a willingness to think beyond what we’re known for. If an idea is a good one, it should work irrespective of the channel.
We’re in the communications business, not the events business – so let’s focus on the best way to communicate.
We’re lucky to be in this position – to have the flexibility and agility to think around a problem and take our talents in a new direction.
Many people work in industries where their skills or service offering are rigidly compartmentalised.
Sure, our centre of gravity might be experiential.
But having seen the world through that prism, there’s a lot more we can do beyond the creation of an experience.

Let's Get Naked

Hard as this may be to believe, but I wasn’t always a hit with the ladies.
In fact, when I was 15, I struggled to make an impression with the girls.
On reflection, I think part of the problem was my outspoken views about transparency and honesty. Never one for games and routines, I was keen to get to the point.
Unfortunately, I always expressed that as desire to get naked, to get to a position of essential honesty, that didn’t really work for my audience.
Many years later (no prizes for guessing how many years ), I’m a little more successful, but my opinions haven’t changed. I think 15 year-old me had a point.
It’s all too easy to hide behind artifice and insincerity, when what people really want is something real.
A real connection, a real experience, a real relationship.
That’s what we as agencies should be giving our clients. Let’s not forget that ultimately, people buy people. So the more real we are, the more likely it is that clients will opt to work with us over our competition.
If we’re true to ourselves, they’ll know exactly what they’re getting. And chances are, they’ll like it.
So let’s get naked. Strip away the facade and show ourselves for what we really are.
Who’s with me?