A Certain Ratio

Reading a great presentation by Griffin Farley yesterday, there was a little line that talked about the importance of Production values in the digital age. It strikes me as amazing that I haven't seen more written about this, and thought it was worth adding my comments to:

Production VS. Media (Draft 1!!)

Traditionally advertising weight has always been largely about media spend. A simple equation usually worked, the more people see your ad the more likely they are to remember the product and buy it/respond.

More spend = more exposure.

Except now, the power of sharing means production values are infinitely more important than ever before. Not necessarily that bigger means better, but the production has to fit in with the idea. Where there isn't budget, production should look unique or be stylised to create maximum effect, just like old cartoons used angles and styles to get round the lack of money for drawing and animating.

E.g.: Old Spice's Online Responses were low budget individually compared to the ads, but were right for the idea; whereas the actual ads were bigger budget to suit the ideas.

The production quality and relevance now plays a HUGE part in whether something gets shared or not... to the extent where the priority between media and production budget should really be shifting; where production and creative quality actually change the media schedule.

Think about it. If you spent £50k to make an ad cheaply in 1999, and ran it on a media budget of £500k; you got £500k of media. If you spent £50k to make an ad cheaply now, and £500k on media, you might get £500k of media plus a couple of £100k of online sharing media value. But if you made that ad with a £150k budget, great director and soundtrack, you still get your £400k media exposure, but are far more likely to get thousands or even millions of pounds of media value through online sharing and conversation.

Look at W+K with Honda, they made big budget ads but reduced media spend; end result was huge online viewing, sharing and publicity.

It won't work for everyone, online can be notoriously fickle. But in principle it seems to make sense to me.

I think this problem has been one of the main issues for some clients and agencies in adapting to the online world, often described as being a change from broadcast to interactive funnelling or any one of twenty different models; if you have always worked in an industry where spend + creative were key, and production was just part of getting the creative across...

Something like this:

Media Size Squared + Creative Quality + Production Quality = Resonance*

*Cultural impact, how much it is remembered, talked about, etc

(Huge Spend + Crap Ad + No Budget = Bludgeoned to submission ::: E.g.: Allied Carpet Sale!)

(Low Spend + Great Ad + Great Budget = Known only to D+AD Judges ::: E.g.: Lego Kipper)

... Then it's no wonder you have trouble adapting to the newer ways of doing things. People always talk about how sharing and creative has changed, but less so about media, and very rarely about production values. What we have now is I think closer to this:

Creative Quality + Production Quality = Initial Resonance

Initial resonance x Sharing + Paid Media Size = Total Media Size / Total Resonance

I may try and simplify those, but at the moment it's what I have!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject...

Will Social Media Save Television?

Another day is here, so there must be another 20 press releases on the importance of social media and the decline of traditional media.

Personally I am in both media camps. I am a big believer in the need for two way communication, in the power that social sites have when used in a strategic and well thought out way by a brand that understands its' own values and voice. I also think though, it is extremely naive and alarmist to talk about TV / Radio / Print as dying media.

If we want to see a sign of how well TV is doing, just look at social media. Look at the trending topics on Twitter at almost any point of any day, most of the top ten will be related to the programmes that are on TV at that very minute...

For example: Saturday evening, twitter is full of X Factor chat. Talking about the judges, the contestants, the good moments. During the world cup I watched most games alongside a twitter feed, I was tweeting as I watched the last England qualifying match.

How could this save TV? Well let's think about it for a minute...

TV is not interactive, the internet is; one reason why people keep expecting TV to decline, you can't get involved with it.

Except with mobile internet now a widespread commodity, you can. Every minute of every day, people are talking about the shows that are on our TV screens. TV has become indirectly conversational, indirectly interactive.

That flexibility in programming is available through online (you can view things whenever you want!!), but also through Sky Plus. Besides, what twitter has done is add lots of value in watching programmes at their allotted time. By watching on the dot you can partake in the discussion, react to events and news with others who are enjoying it. The Web 3.0 equivalent of the family sitting round Doctor Who. This is particularly the case with sporting events and contests where the result is full of contentious issues.

In essence, twitter and social sites are actually contributing to an increased relevance for TV. Adding value to an existing medium through a new medium. Funny how people often miss that.

So will Twitter save TV? No. Nothing is ever that simple. Funny how people often miss that too.

Now That's Meerkating!

As someone who has criticised some of their work in the past (Coke Zero where are you?!) I feel it is only fair that I take the time to applaud VCCP for creating one of the best campaigns of recent memory for a hard sell product.

I've held back because I hadn't seen results, and wasn't sure how they could sustain the joke... but they have.

Insurance is a meerkat with diabolical advertising. I mean truly Ocean Finance Injury Claim terrible. The sort of ads that scream "Ignore me! I'm a badly acted no budget piece of dross!"

Yet out of this has come a truly brilliant piece of work. Sure it's a little hard sell, but it hides it delightfully behind a silly premise which lets you get the message without it being rammed down your throat like a certain celebrity Dragon might do in another ad.

I'd like to think that someone did some brilliant planning to get this work out, I don't know if that is the case but I hope so. We know what insurance comparison sites are, we know they all save you money, we know they have a wide range of the country's top insu...zzzzzzzz

Sod that, let's just make people remember which of these endless sites to go to first; and give them some entertaining content to make it stick.

Simples. Brilliant.

Not only that but they have brilliantly utilised (")Social media(") to let people communicate with Aleksandr via twitter and facebook groups etc. Creating a pop culture ad icon in an amazingly short time.

1/2 million facebook fans, 20,000 twitter followers. 80% traffic increase.

Credit also to Compare the Market for going with this idea. In these meerkats its always tough to break out of the hard sell 'RAMMED IN YOUR GODDAMN FACE' messaging. To do so in such a way and allow the agency to run with it seems from my view to be intelligent and brave marketing management.

Chirpy Chirpy Tweet Tweet

It took me a while to get into twitter. It felt a little strange to be part of this tech community that kept telling us where they were having lunch.

Yet about the same time I got into it everyone started talking about like it was the second coming of communications christ. This world of celebrities and communities talking shit in 140 characters, how could this be so effective?

Well, the simple answer is this: The Internet has Changed Human Relationships Forever.

Just think about this logically, for thousands of years we have kept a small close social group of family and friends. People who we didn't talk to faded out into memory.

Then we got phones, and the number we kept in touch with increased a bit.

But now what we have is totally different. We are a generation group who theoretically now can keep in touch with everybody we have ever met. Human relationships have NEVER had that, not in all of mankind's existence have we been able to speak to and hear about everyone we know for the rest of our lives.

This change isn't just about our use of technology, our increased learning and input. This is a fundamental change in the nature of what it means to be human, to be a pack species.

Twitter and facebook are the current facilitators of this change. Taking the groups and communities we had with Myspace and Friends Reunited, crossing them with the conversation of chat rooms; and creating a stream of pack data. Our lives and our families and friends and favourite people and brands and colleagues fed in a constant stream accessible anytime we want.

I like to think that next time we hype up social networking, we remember that regardless of how we see it from a technological and popularity viewpoint; the very concept is part of a sea change in the nature of our species. And that is part frightening, and part exhilarating.

Social Media Theory No 1

State THEORY - Still thinking through it...

Social Media is not straight response, it is a creative world.

If you want to fuel social media, treat your ad/campaign as if it were a brief to creatives. Provide inspiration but don't be too rigid on where they can go.

Terms of Endearment

As an industry, advertising and marketing is far too full of bullshit terms. Whilst I understand the need to simplify things for ease of use, often we end up screwing around with what these terms actually mean, which in turn affects how clients and others see these things.

What marketing terms are you fed up of? What do you think we should replace them with?

Here are some of my hated ones, plus a few I've heard being discussed:

Brand/s - This is one of those where it makes sense to have a word that describes that essence of what a company/product stands for and does. At uni brand was the buzz word thrown everywhere, and that I believe is why people hate it. Indeed there was a conscious movement by many bloggers not long ago to stop using it for a month.

Consumers - No. People in all their diversity and difference are not simply a category of mindless purchasing zombies. Again, its a useful word in describing people, but really we can do better. It sounds like a big evil corporate mantra that anti-brand (heh) types would have a field day picking apart. We have to engage people, and if we treat them like sheep we are never going to do that except by luck. Why not just say: People.

Social Media - Not one of mine. I think it's a reasonable description. It could be improved sure, and it is getting overused... but it does its job.

Viral - Viral is not a thing. Viral is what it does. You cannot make a viral, you can make some content for your brand (heh), put it up on social media (heh heh) and hope. But if it doesn't work, it's not a viral. If no one likes it, it's not a viral. If all 30,000 views come from agency and client staff, it's not a viral. Why not just say: Content. If you must... Content that we want to go viral.

Regional Agency - Been over this one before. A patronising term that insults the work and staff of every decent agency outside the M25. And there are plenty thank you very much. Why not just say: Agency, UK Agency. If you must: Agencies outside London.