The Product Dilemma

BERRAND Values

Rob Campbell in his early days
(Blogosphere in-joke)

As an avid follower of a variety of different genres of music, I've been a regular reader of Kerrang for about 10 years. It's always been a reasonable barometer of what is interesting and exciting in the world of rock, metal and alternative music, but with a good sense of history, remembering the greats of the past and how they influence the present.

The thing that struck me this weekend though, is how inconsistent the values of Kerrang appear to be when moved into other media, and how balancing mass appeal with loyalty to your core values is a tricky thing.

On the way 'Dahn Sowf', we drove through Brimingham, and we tuned into Kerrang Radio to see if would play decent music during the day (as opposed to the trite enforced retro blandness of most local radio).

What I heard confused the hell out of me. I listened for about 8 songs, which included The Kooks, The Police, Blur and Coldplay. Fucking Coldplay. On Kerrang.

Never in a million years would Kerrang even consider writing about Coldplay (unless they have taken an unexpected death metal turn on the next album). Yet here it was being played out attached to the Kerrang brand. One of the trailers then said 'we don't play the same pop as everyone else, we play rock'. Not on this listen you didn't.

I'm not expecting them to go all out: "You're listening to the Kerrang morning show, coming up we have Slayer, Cannibal Corpse, and Cradle of Filth." But under any appropriation of the Kerrang brand the stuff they were playing just does not fit.

The Kerrang TV channel has always been somewhere in the middle. Playing decent stuff in the early hours, but suffering from an obsession for soft rock at all other times. I used to switch off because there was only so many Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Foo Fighters and sodding Nickleback tracks I could take.

It's a brand that in print has always felt like it had a solid set of values and yet in TV and radio it always feels like it is compromising those values in the name of a bigger audience. I wish Kerrang TV and radio would decide what they are, and either change their content or change their branding.

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.

I Don't Speak Italian

I love Alfa Romeo cars. I don't drive and I still want a Brera, or an 8C, or even a MiTo. So I am a little disappointed to see the latest ad leave me scratching my head when behind it there is clearly lots of potential.

The new ad for the Giulietta, just what in the name of Fiat does "I am such stuff that dreams are made on" mean?! Well, I can guess what it means, but it just does not read properly. It feels like bad translation done at a bargain price.

The Giuletta is one stunning looking car, and Uma Thurman isn't bad either; but the line is SO clunky and SO distracting that you miss the rest of the ad in the confusion.

I like the other line. Frankly "Without heart we would be mere machines" is a perfect encapsulation of what Alfa Romeo is and stands for. You buy an Alfa because of the way it looks and feels, not for any rational product benefit, except... it follows an ad talking about rational features... *sigh*.

WHACK. Ohhh. It's Shakespeare. Yep, after a day or two when you realise the line comes from the overrated* Bard, it helps. The ad makes more sense, it stops feeling like a bad translation. Yet I wonder just how many people will get the reference... though I imagine Alfa buyers would be most likely to, so maybe it's fine.

Personally though. Alfa could run a 90 second ad showing their MD counting his money as long as they continue to look and feel the way they do. Be. You. Tiful.

Giulietta Ad

*Don't get me started on this...

I Don't Speak French

I know it's a couple of weeks old now (hey, I've been busy!) but the new Renault Megane campaign is easily the best thing the brand has done since the days of Papa and Nicole.

The TV ad sets up the scenario, and the full video and site that await online are excellent.

It draws you in, taking elements of Borat and fusing it with both boring English culture and our perceptions of French culture. A funny, engaging, story that you can get absorbed in for the entire 12 minutes. The casting is perfect, the setting is perfect, the setups are well done at all times: "Menton has lots of seafood restaurants, Gisburn has one fish van, and only on Thursdays."

Let's face it, in an age where we are lucky to get a minute of someone's time. To get 12 is asking a lot, but this ad will get it from many people. It was so good I put it on for most of our agency at a creative showcase; they loved it.

You Are Only As Good As Your Client...

It's an old topic, but one I was asked to write about by a blog follower... so here goes!

You Are Only As Good As Your Client...

One of the key problems with advertising is that the reasons your brands hire marketing managers are not always the same as the reasons we would. Take that money vs creativity conflict that account folk have and ramp it up even more...

It doesn't matter who you are, be you Juan Cabral, Dave Trott, or Pete Smith the DM copywriter; if a client doesn't buy it, it doesn't get made. Good clients will get good work, bad clients will get bad.

Having great account people and planners can help you cheat this limitation. Using their knowledge of client business, customers, communications and the market; they can help sell in strategies, briefs and work that weaker staff could not. Most clients are more than good enough to get great work if you sell it correctly.

Sadly though, there are a small number of clients that just grind creativity to a halt. I have heard stories of all of these from various agencies and friends, though happily I have yet to experience them:

• You spend months in creative development working to an agreed brief, making amends and adjustments. It is finally ready, a perfect fit to the brief; and they decide to go with a safe dull sales heavy idea instead


• The client struggles to make any decisions, so nothing ever gets made


• You create a brilliant, groundbreaking new idea, and the client sits on it so long someone else gets there first


• You go to make a great ad, but the client insists on changing every line and every shot til all the original idea has gone


• Plus the good old - client refuses to have a brief with any hope of creativity

A good personal example of the twists in a client relationship for me was working on a TV and press campaign for a growing brand. The client would go through every detail with a microscope, justifying every word of copy and every mm of layout. It was difficult to sell in work, and a long long process to get the final work. But we were able to make really good work because he fundamentally understood creativity, branding, the use of white space, where to sell and where not to, etc. He turned out to be a very good client.

You only have to look at most great campaigns to see how having a good client is vital. Would a bad aftershave client have spent a big budget making videos to talk to people on twitter and you tube? Would a bad insurance client have bought a campaign about a rich mongoose breating your customers?

Then look at some bad campaigns from good agencies over the years. What are the odds that they did better but couldn't sell it in... A bad client is like a flat tire. It doesn't matter how big your engine is, how good your suspension, how beautiful the body work... you ain't going nowhere.

I guess the thing to remember is that like every industry, there are good people, and there are bad. We should take time to appreciate the good and try and help the bad!

Good Work Headlines...

Here's a round up of the exciting pieces of work I have seen this week:

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Gillette in Good Work Shocker!

It's been a while, a very long while. But finally I get to say something nice about a Gillette piece of work!

Of course it's fake, but it says far more about both the brand and the use of sporting stars as spokespeople than any amount of sales driven tv work. Please please look at how interested people are in this video and realise that the work of the last few years is easy to let go, you've found a good path now, don't lose it.




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Give it Some Soul Kia

This is crazy work. It makes no sense whatsoever untill the endline hits you smack bang in the head. Hard to know if its the right strategy for this type of car, but the execution nails it.



via http://t4w.blogs.com/spinningaround/

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Big Up to Carlton

Their best work since the famous Big Ad. This long but nicely made piece hits bang on those slightly dodgy moments that men all know about. Plus the endline is one of my favourites of all time.



via http://realmenwritelongcopy.blogspot.com/

Is This Crowdsourcing??

Lots of talk going on today about the new 'crowdsourced' Peperami ad for Unilever. It's the usual stuff for the brand, decent if not amazing, but for me the biggest news is how it was created.

Unilever keep stating it was 'crowdsourced' to save on paying the retainer costs of an ad agency, an idea put out to the general public, and the best ad was made and will be shown.

Except.

The character, the campaign idea and the strapline already existed. Created for by a paid, retained ad agency team and tried and tested over a long period of time. The only part of this ad that was actually put out to the public was the script for this execution.

Now let's add to this the fact that the winning team was a pair of ad execs shall we? Open up the general public to submit their ideas, and in the end the best one came from two ad folk... hardly suggests a response worth publicising does it? It ends up looking like a piece of tight budget cutting instead of a real attempt to let people take control of your brand.

[Update - As Charles mentions in the comments, it's definitely a case of a PR brief . However the fact it was won by an ad team using an agencies' campaign idea makes me think the PR isn't actually that great.]

Why did they (seemingly) not look at finding a smaller agency that could offer a lower cost without losing the planning and creative skill sets from the brand? How about one of the many talented non-London agencies, with no Central London rent costs? It annoys me that none of this appears to have been considered, an apparrent case of 'Big London agency or nothing', even when they are openly trying to reduce costs.

I suspect it's for the same reasons that the ad wasn't truly crowdsourced... it would have needed risk taking to change the campaign. But smaller/cheaper/non-london agencies (Like the one I work in) would love to work on a brand like Peperami; we would all work like crazy to make great work and would be much much lower risk than real crowdsourcing of a new campaign.

I have nothing against the idea of crowdsourcing, and absolutely nothing against Unilever or Peperami, I just want accuracy. If we are going to talk about crowdsourcing, can we not do so when we really just mean 'hiring freelancers' please.

Random Advertising Lessons No.1

Getting into advertising is bloody hard work. Having spoken to lots of placement students this year, I stressed to them the need to be active and dedicated towards finding an opportunity.

This led me to thinking about random advertising lessons, and where I learnt them. This first one was from watching Nigel Mansell in Formula 1.

Sadly it wasn't a lesson in the artistry of moustache care, but that cliche of all cliche's... Never Give Up.

My first overiding memory of Formula 1 was the last race of the 1986 season, when he needed to finish third to win the World Championship. He was in third until about three quarters of the way through the race, his tyre exploded spectacularly and he finished runner up; probably saving his own life with some incredible car control. Mansell always seemed to suffer from horrific luck, I remember him running out of fuel on the last lap of a race.

He was a fast and fearless driver who won races but could never quite manage to win the title. But he kept on racing, never gave up, and kept on driving at his very best (see this clip, one of the greatest overtakes ever, and the first overtake in this one) until 1992, when he finally achieved the championship title in style, winning the first five races and dominating the season.

I learnt a valuable lesson from watching F1, if you keep at it, if you put the effort in, it will pay off in the end.

See also: Johnny Herbert winning his first ever victory at the British GP after nearly losing his legs in a huge crash.

SupNorth II nears

It's nearly time for SupNorth II. The usual informal gathering of advertising, marketing, design, digital, PR (etc) peeps for a beverage or two.

This time it will be on Friday 20th August, at The Northern Pub, Tib St, Manchester. Officially starting at 7pm though some of us may arrive before then.

For more info view the event on Facebook: SupNorth II