Dazzle Ships

Cheats never prosper

 

We all know how powerful peer recommendations are. The recommendation and opinion of others consistently ranks at the top of the list as the most powerful influencer within the purchase path for a whole host of products and markets. A quick trip through our Influence Pathway research will confirm this for you, and the Net Promoter Score research shows just how powerful it can be.

Positive recommendation is gold dust. We want to find ways to nurture it, to propagate it and to let it flow all around the brands and products we work with.

If only we could synthesise it. Make it from scratch. That would be nice.

It would also be rather foolish. Something that the technology company Belkin have just found out to their cost when they were busted for paying people to write positive reviews of their products on Amazon. Not only that, they were paid to slam genuine, negative reviews too.

In a world where information on the internet is powerful, free, widespread, wideranging and easily accessed, companies need to play by the rules. If you cheat, you will be discovered. And once discovered you will be quickly punished through the very currency you were trying to use to your advantage. There are examples of this that precede this one, for example Sony's faux pas with PSP a little while back.

However, I've not come across one of late that was quite so blatant as Belkin's. I mean, actually advertising the job of creating these fake reviews on the internet? Within a site owned by Amazon? Not exactly gold standard in subterfuge, is it?

-- Alex

'Titanic Sinks. Aberdeen Man Lost At Sea'

According to legend, this was the headline of the Aberdeen Press & Journal on 16th April 1912.

Actually, it wasn't.  But it's still quite funny.

For some reason, this headline on Brand Republic made me think of it. 

 

Not sure why.

-- Toby

Do what's right, not what's easy

 

You're the new owner of a mediocre brand in a cluttered but lucrative market.  There are a few clear market leaders, jostling for top slot, and a couple of challenger brands coming up on the outside.  Then a longer 'tail' of pretty ordinary brands who few people, outside of a core group of loyals, really care about.  This is where you sit and you've got significant money to spend.

What do you do?

It seems you have a choice.  You can improve the product.  Or you can up your spend on marketing.  Of course, the marketing one is easier.  A big gesture that grabs attention. Don't need to think about it too much.  You don't need to spend a load of time re-engineering product and process to compete with the big players.  No need for a real hard look at what you're good at and what you're bad at, and then what the incremental steps you need to take to start putting things right.  No need to listen to your customers to work out what fundamentals you need to fix.  You just need a big pot of money and a brainstorm.

Of course, it's not quite that simple.  Just as the internet is creating what economists call a 'perfect market' in many different categories, as people are increasingly comparing notes on different products online, the market you're in is about as close to a perfect market as is possible.  Because a 'league table' of all the different brands is published every week.  So everyone knows how good you're product actually is.

So, what would you do?

Think about this.  And then read this remarkable article from the BBC.  I would particularly draw your attention to this quote, from a self-styled 'maketing expert':

"Kaka alone was not going to make City a top-four team, but his signing would have taken the club to a whole new level in terms of media exposure"

Yeah.  But probably not in the way you hoped.

Consumers are clever people.  Online has given them control over the information they need to make decisions.

It's very simple.  Marketing will not cover up the deficiencies of a rubbish product.  It might be easier to fix, but it won't bring you the results you're after

--  Toby

The last one (I promise...)

Best Inauguration ad so far (sorry for the wonky picture....)

 

-- Toby

Dream jobs (again...)

A follow up from Stephen's post earlier this week.

Nice one the Rimmel team here for the terrific 'Rimmel Student' campaign that broke yesterday.  A great idea, well-executed and already generating loads of interest.

In these tougher times, the 'dream job' angle really seems to be working...

Top work.

-- Toby

More marketing Obamania

      

So, as history was made on Capitol Hill yesterday, a new sense of 'Hope' and 'Change' seemed to flood through the marketing community. (Ahem.)

Airtime in the Inauguration was selling at Superbowl prices.  Web-streaming services were seeing records tumbling - by 3.30 yesterday afternoon (EST), CNN.com had served a staggering 21.3 million live video streams. And they weren't alone.

There was Obamania everywhere.  In addition to the stuff on Amazon Alex talked about, my own personal favourites were those bastions of Americana,Dunkin' Donuts and Krispy Kreme who got in on the act after a pretty half-hearted facebook campaign (probably sounded like a great idea in the meeting though...).

So, Dunkin' Donuts had a 'limited edition' Inauguration doughnut, emblazoned with the stars and stripes.  Krispy Kreme went one better, giving away a free 'Americano' coffee (see what they did there?) to anyone who came in and said 'Yes, we can!'.  They even put his face on it in chocolate spirinkles, as pictured.  More details here.

I also liked the Hennessy Limited Edition '44' cognac.  Pretty bling.  And already going for $60 on Ebay.

Obama will be waking up this morning as the new leader of the free world, with a global financial meltdown, two disastrous and seemingly intractable wars, and a bloodbath in Gaza on his list of things to fix.  He must now realise he is also carrying the hopes and dreams of marketers across the world.

Surely too much of a burden for one man?

-- Toby

What about these then...

 

 

Brands having fun and joining the party.

Stephen

Political packaging

Well, today is the day that we get a new leader of the free world. And obviously, everything Obama-related is getting a big push. I think it was the Telegraph I saw this morning starting an offer on his two books.

Another one just popped into my inbox that, while not exactly rocket science, I rather liked. It's from Amazon, promoting a range of stuff in some way related to politics. So there's series like the West Wing on DVD, Obama's books (of course), documentaries and movies. Each and every one has a nice big discount attached.

As we all know, Amazon is a master at merchandising back catalogue, as any of our 'recommendations' pages stand testament to. I think this idea is nice as it successfully collects some fairly disparate content and makes it sit together in a really topical wrapper. It provides consumers with a reason to consider a broad range of stuff that, in all likelihood, they wouldn't have naturally made a link to today (apart from the Obama books of course).

Right, I'm off to watch JFK and a couple of West Wings.

-- Alex

Best in show

Right here goes with our quick review of the best stuff of 2008. We came up with around 30 great ideas, ads and trends pretty quickly which shows what a year it was. There are bound to be some great ones we missed so suggestions please...

Media: iPlayer and  Hulu in the US (soon to come to the UK?) brought TV over the internet to a wide audience. All the hype around Twitter (blogging and social networking in less than 144 text characters) in 2007 saw it being realised in 2008 - and brands started using it too - either in their marketing or through bloggers in their company. Mag Cloud allowed us to create our own magazines (Toby blogged on it here) and we loved Penguin's We tell stories (where they experiemented with technology and prose). Elsewhere in media CitySense (where using GPS technology users could spot the population density of streets in San Francisco)and lots of cool iPhone applications and Google's Android open source operating system (and phones) gave us a clue that mobile had finally lived up to years of hype and Nokia's LifeVine looks like it'll be a hit in 2009.

Ideas: First some work from OMD UK: Vodafone's LiveGuy created a treasure hunt to try to find him in action blogging in a city near you - if you caught him you won his notebook, The SingUp! campaign got radio stations around the country to help inspire schools to start singing - the chance to win a singing slot for your school on-air on their local radio station being one of the incentives - it brought out the true strengths of local radio - making great local content - we even got a short-list at Cannes for this one. We got the nation making ads with Doritos'  You Make It We Play It and helping out Walkers' npd department with Do us a flavour initiative (With over a million entries there's no wonder my caviar and truffle idea didn't make the 6 shortlisted flavours). Elsewhere Sam and I were big fans of Whopper Freakout, ColaLife which uses its vast distribution network to help distribute much needed medicines to hard to get places in developing countries and Alex was lucky enough to see The Killers  at the MTV Europe Awards, where they brought spectacle to a tired and often immitated format.

Best virals included Tiger Wood's Jesus shot the Tiny people viral for the Samsung Omnia (i900), The return of Wassup , Transport for London's Awareness test and that Diesel viral

Strategy & Thinking: Russell came in to present to us and told us that brand's need to be Blurry, Interesting, Useful & Always in Beta  and Toby came back from OMD's Vegas conference the best bit being the 3 boxes.

Books: Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody which Toby blogged about here.  Nudge which looks a current ideas on how people make decisions - it was even on David Cameron's recommended summer reading list for Tory MPs. Predictably Irrational was probably the best book that wasn't a huge hit - it took us through a number of research studies to show just how true the book title is in describing human behaviour. Our favourite chapter was on Free (Remember that Free Guns and Gas promo? - genius!). The Brand Bubble introduced us to the looming crisis that brands are facing, as factors such as trust have been decreasing since around 2001 and as markets become more commoditised (fuelled by factors such as better quality own label brands). It also highlights those few brands that stand-out form this crisis and helps to explain why (the key is that they are different and keep on being different).

And Misc stuff included: Obama's election campaign which led to him becoming Adage's Marketer of the year,  and Google's Streetview which is coming to the UK in 2009 and Cesc Fabregas losing his cool.

I'm sure we missed some other gems and they along with these 30 or so favourites show that I guess a lot happens in a year in marketing these days...

Stephen

From our chums at McKinsey's

 

A quick one to give you some weekend reading (and viewing).

First, a look at how structural changes in media, combined with the economic slowdown, mean that marketers (and, presumably, their agencies) need to approach this recession differently from previous ones.  The essential take-out - don't retreat into 'tried and tested'.  Bravo.

Second, a great interview with Judy Estrin, a veteran of Silicon Valley, on how comapnies can structure to deliver innovation, and how this will lead to success.  She also warns that companies are failing to invest in the basic research needed to keep innovating into the future.

 Subscriptions are needed, but it's free.  And well worth it.

-- Toby