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Is persuasion psychology the key to growth?

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:01:35 GMT

A Wall Street analyst recently lamented that “flat” is the new normal. And it’s not just analysts who note it will take a minimum of three years of growth in GDP like that of Q4 ‘09 to even get us back to where we were in production and employment years ago. Consumers know it too. As a result, they’ve adopted a set of new behaviors of which spending is not one of them.

But since growth is the objective of every CEO and shareholder, finding a way to grow is critical for every marketer who wants to hold on to their job. That’s why so many are searching for new insights and methods on how to persuade consumers to open their wallets. It’s not easy in an economy where consumers are less interested in acquiring things for money than acquiring, for free, a social network full of friends who can provide interesting conversation and life rich with ideas.

Ahhh, ideas. As David Brooks wisely noted in a December 2009 column: “When the economy was about stuff, economics resembled physics. Now that it is about ideas, economics resembles psychology.” That is why brands like Coke, McDonald’s, Apple, Amazon, Benjamin Moore and Kayak, are growing their top lines by tapping into the persuasion psychology that’s evolved for our more digital, social and mobile world.

This brand of psychology leverages both explicit and implicit consumer data and analyzes it through the frameworks of predictive modeling, behavioral economics, and social science. By revealing the motivations, products, incentives, words, design, and touchpoints that jumpstart the behaviors a marketer wants, it hints at ideas that increase engagement, response rates and click throughs, sales, repeat sales, retention, the acquisition of customers with greater value, a higher NetPromoter score, and growth in the top and bottom line.

But this brand of persuasion psychology is only for marketers ready to give up most of what they thought they knew. For as Richard Thaler, professor of behavioral sciences and economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business says: (Wall Street Journal Sept. 14, 2009) “Taking a behavioral approach completely changes the way you view the consumer.” And as Dan Ariely, behavioral economist with joint appointments at Duke and MIT explains, that’s because it moves you from chronicling consumer intent and rational alibis to uncovering the often irrational and subconscious but very real drivers of buying behavior.

The prediction and testing of behavioral insights, then psychologically inspiring and tracking the resulting behaviors is the key to growth for a marketer. And it comes none too soon, as marketers now face a threat as big if not bigger than a lagging economy: Irrelevance. Today’s marketer faces a world where consumer to consumer marketing is real, real time and more trusted; where consumers willingly share data on their own behaviors with friends, family, strangers. Where members of a social network can know more than marketers about each others’ behaviors and desires.

And we’re only in the early stages of understanding the psychological impact of consumer to consumer sharing of brand preferences, product performance rankings, geo-locational data. What kind of behavioral change will come when peers share data on energy usage, weight loss, health data, athletic performance, test scores and more? With Internet usage in many parts of the world still in its infancy, and with technology improving its reach and speed, there is dramatically more data sharing to come, and come more quickly.

With so much behavioral data about to be shared, some see a potential for powerful behavioral insights. Others predict (with no small amount of concern) a cultural revolution. Others argue that the abundance of behavioral data, shared, will force the ultimate in consumer centric marketing, spawning a renaissance for any marketer who knows the latest in persuasion psychology, and uses it responsibly.

What do you think?
ML

Passive is Massive

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:13:23 GMT

The United Nation’s International Labor Board calculates that workers in the United States put in more working hours than any industrialized country. Bully for us. We also watch the most television per week. Is there a correlation?

Just for a second imagine that you’re a welder, or a waitress, or the guy who runs the whey machine at the cheese factory and you just got off work and walked in the door of your house. You grab a beer, sit down on the sofa and do what? Grab your computer and check your mutual fund? Check Wikipedia for an obscure fact that you heard earlier in the day? Check on the price of Kruggerands? Nope. Chances are you turn on the tube. Why? Because it’s what I’ll call passive entertainment. Meaning the most arduous thing you have to do is pick up the remote, surf the channels and let the entertainment hit your eyeballs.

Maybe this is why Nielsen statistics indicate that television viewership has increased to an average of 151 hours a month or about five hours a day. Folks out there are busier, more stressed and more tired at the end of the day and mostly just ready to not have to work at anything too hard.

This doesn’t mean they aren’t also checking their email, logging onto “I can Has Cheezburger” or checking out the latest YouTube video that Aunt Nellie sent them. In fact, they spend 2.5 hours a month surfing the Internet and watching television simultaneously.

The Internet, however, is active entertainment. In other words, you have to do something to get it. You have to search for it. You have to move your mouse. You have to think just a little, tiny bit. This is where television has an advantage. No thinking involved. It may not be exactly what you want to watch, but it flows to you and the only muscle you have to move is the little one that connects your thumb to the remote and the occasional blink of the eyelid.

Like I said, passive.

As the pace of life and the intensity of our worklife accelerates, it becomes more and more important to have times when we do nothing.

Of course, the Internet will catch up at some point and deliver the option of entertainment that is customized to our tastes and then collected, collated and streamed to us. Five and half hours of bloopers on metacafe.com? If that’s what turns your crank, bring it on. But it will be passive. People just don’t have anything left at the end of a long day.

Okay, I’m done for the day. Think I’ll watch a little South Park, then maybe some football and oh yeah, around halftime I can switch to Modern Family, then back to the game then maybe a little of that Chef Ramsay guy. He’s crazy. It’s going to be a relaxing night.

BW

How to communicate in the Conversation Economy

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:11:34 GMT

The following article was originally published on AdAge.com on October 27, 2009.
AF

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY FOR A CONVERSATION ECONOMY
By Marsha Lindsay, CEO, Lindsay, Stone & Briggs

What does the worldwide, technologically enabled drive for conversations mean for marketers? It means you’re no longer marketing products or services; you’re marketing conversations. It means marketing communication planning should be driven by a conversation strategy.

The right conversation strategy answers two big questions: What meaningful content will attract sufficient conversations with the right people? And, how will you jumpstart conversations and keep them alive?

When people are starved for time and already engaged in many conversations, jumpstarting new and meaningful conversations is THE big challenge of marketing today. Just building a website, writing a blog or posting videos on YouTube doesn’t mean sufficient numbers to impact ROI will find them organically, much less take the time and energy to converse with you. By definition a conversation requires others to be present and participate. Otherwise you’re talking to yourself. Perhaps therapeutic, but no way to make a living.

Even if people know there’s an opportunity to have a conversation with you – on Twitter or your blog, for instance - you can’t expect them to engage given all the other demands on their time. You’ll need a strategy that both gets them to know you exist and care so much that you exist, they’ll become intrigued about conversing with you. This requires a strategy that integrates search optimization, media, message and contributions of content from consumers.

STRATEGY FOR SCALEABLE, PLATFORMABLE MULTI-MEDIA CONVERSATIONS

The right strategy begins with the end in mind: What message can work across multiple platforms and be scaled so quickly and broadly it can drive sufficient revenues to support a business model?

Very few companies have the luxury to let conversations build slowly over time. And no business can afford to risk a high-waste and low-impact effort. More often than not, high impact campaigns with reasonable returns don’t materialize solely from online ads and social media. Traditional media must be a major component of the mix.

Stefan Olander, Nike’s Global Director of Brand Connections, noted at Lindsay, Stone & Briggs’ Brandworks University 2009 that many of Nike’s online campaigns received overwhelming response at launch. Colleagues at Nike were excited about the prospect of dropping expensive traditional media campaigns in favor of these successful digital campaigns. Olander reminded them that, despite how well known the Nike brand is, to optimize online conversations they still must jumpstart initiatives with traditional media.

That’s because traditional media can do what social media cannot: Aggressively interject messages into people’s lives in a socially acceptable way. Research conducted by the Advertising Research Foundation indicates that messages delivered by TV may, in fact, be the fastest and most cost efficient means to jumpstart productive conversations in the digital and real worlds.

Experts at the World Advertising Research Center have also studied what it takes to optimize engagement in a conversation economy. They recommend (online Feb. 2009) this media priority:

Mainstream media.
Open networks such as blogs and websites.
Closed networks such as Facebook and MySpace.

A multimedia mix framed to spark conversations requires a compelling message concept that can work across a multimedia platform. Its foundation has to be far more than a one-time promotion or product attribute; it must be a message strategy that connects brand meaning with search habits, and accommodates ongoing contributions that can range from casual conversations to consumer-generated content.

This is a tall order, but not impossible. That’s because the solution can be found in the motivations of the conversationalists themselves. Some psychologists say that people subconsciously come to a conversation with a desire to be changed by them. This makes sense. Conversation is mankind’s natural search engine.

What are we searching for? Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, identified 12 universal human motivations, called archetypes. Messages that speak to one of these discrete motivations naturally engage consumers and fuel conversations for many reasons:

Associating with any one of these motivations gives a brand relevance and innate appeal.
These motivations are behind our search for change and meaning, and words related to them will find their way into consumers’ natural online search habits.
They are timeless and universal. Messages based on them will be relevant across cultures and age groups.

HOW TO KEEP THE CONVERSATION ONGOING

You’ll constantly be competing with other conversations for your target’s time and attention. So, spark and fuel conversations with surveys, forums, contests and invitations for contributions that pertain to the change your brand’s products and services can help people achieve. Keeping ongoing conversations fresh is where contextual ads, blogs, websites, videos and social media shine.

Content themed to your target’s daily passions, routines or rituals are great for habituating conversations. And, habituated conversations have the greatest opportunity to generate ongoing revenue and almost unbreakable customer loyalty.

For marketers who get their brand’s meaning and conversation strategy right, consumers will take over the conversation for you, making your marketing more proficient, and making you a genius in your new role of Chief Conversation Officer.

# # #

Marsha Lindsay is CEO of advertising agency Lindsay, Stone & Briggs, whose leading edge practice of marketing strategy and communications includes Brandworks University®, the MBA-level conference that is a Mecca for the nation's leading marketers. LSB specializes in jumpstarting brands by uncovering deep-seated motivations and leveraging them in traditional and digital media. Marketers from the Fortune 100 to strong regional brands hire LSB to tackle their toughest challenges because of the agency’s cutting-edge approach and effective solutions.

LSB is a member of the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the CBX Worldwide Partnership.

New insight-driven creative for Monroe Clinic. Check it out.

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:59:35 GMT

Hey, check out LSB's new work for Monroe Clinic, a healthcare provider just south of us. Using our archetypal approach, we discovered that Monroe Clinic was a "sage" brand and that what really set them apart was that they really understood the unique health needs of their rural population as opposed to providers in nearby metro areas. In short, "They know the territory."

How to jumpstart conversations in a world of conversational clutter

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:00:46 GMT

During LSB’s 2009 Brandworks University®, we asked attendees how they would jumpstart conversations despite a world of conversational clutter. Below are some of the most broadly applicable answers that attendees shared. Enjoy and be sure to add your own tips for jumpstarting conversations in the comments section.

“Conversations can be jumpstarted by empowering people to help make our good products great…asking for help along the good-to-great theme,” Sargento Foods.

“Be humble. It’s not about you [the marketer], it’s about them [consumers],” Neutrogena.

“Timing is everything—deliver the message during a relevant occasion that ties to your brand experience,” Brown-Forman.

“Give a face to your brand or company that represents your values and allow them to converse in the digital space in a way people can respond and relate,” Sunny Delight Beverages Company.

“Be human. Engage existing participants of a conversation and ask permission to feature that conversation on a brand site. Value conversation and elevate it with permission,” Clif Bar & Company.

“Be simple and direct; make it about something else that reframes your brand or category in consumers’ minds to make an emotional connection. Create the love,” Kimberly-Clark.

“Be transparent: Represent your brand in the community as the Brand. Motivate the Community: Incentivize and reward “brand ambassadors” for passing along brand communications and offers. Be relevant to the community,” Rayovac.

“Focus on the key words or attributes that consumers use in association with your brand and drive your activity around them,” Culligan International.

“All relationships are built one by one. In a world of conversational clutter—slow down. Invest in a relationship to have it be real,” Chazen Museum of Art.

“Be active and persistent and join the conversation every day. Aristotle said excellence is a habit,” Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce.

“Develop a multi-faceted communication program utilizing both traditional media and truly interactive social media channels, where listening and acting upon your human being’s wants is KING,” Marshfield Clinic.

“Start from within—have employees or current customers start communicating and expressing your brand experience,” Wisconsin School of Business.

“Regardless of media you must be authentic and relevant and have fun!” Rayovac.

“Reach out, amplify and go to where consumers are—don’t depend on them to come to us,” Sargento.

“Focus on a niche topic or conversation and provide focused, relevant insight, tips and information,” Drs. Foster & Smith.

“Give your customers a reason to engage with you, commit to frequent communication and don’t be afraid to let go, experiment and be nimble in your acts,” Advanstar Communications.

“Have a product or offer a product that is so good and so unique and so “in-demand” that it is worth talking about,” Gilda’s Club.

“Be honest and accountable—you can be a brand advocate and still acknowledge other points of view,” Compass Point.

“It’s like an online dinner party. You share, listen and interact. Some leave happy, some complain about the chicken. Most importantly, you were there. Be a good host and a good guest,” Secura Insurance.

Getting your target to spend more

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:26:56 GMT

Many experts agree that while the economy may have bottomed out it’s going to take a while for consumers to start spending again. Which makes the topic of LSB’s 20th annual Brandworks University (May 24 – 26, mark your calendars now!) all the more compelling and timely.

The 2010 Brandworks will focus on getting folks to open their wallets and spend more using the latest insights and techniques from behavioral economics and consumer psychology.

This is how Marhsa Lindsay sums it up, “In an effort to get their target to spend again and again, many marketers see computer-enhanced statistical analyses and predictive modeling as their ‘Holy Grail.’ Others argue that consumers are better persuaded with new insights from behavioral economics and social psychology; recent discoveries on the cognitive and emotional factors that drive decision making. Which approach produces better ROI? Why must you master both? How are some of the smartest marketers marrying the two approaches? And how are they best applied given that technology has now made the promise of one-to-one marketing real?” For additional detail, check out our Brandworks 2010 Web page.

We’d love your feedback. What do you think of the topic? Will you attend? Any speakers you’d like to suggest on this platform? We’re all ears.

Oh, and detailed program information including speaker line-up and registration information will be available later this fall.

It's the positioning, stupid. Now, pass the beer.

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:45:37 GMT

While in Boston recently I saw some Michelob transit ads that got me thinking. The campaign had headlines that went something like this: “Think Rooftop Garden vs. Fire Escape. And, “Think Courtside vs. Nosebleed. I would characterize this as competent advertising. Not overly clever, but well executed and well strategized.

But what really got me thinking is that in this world where everyone is going just a little crazy over social networking and wringing their collective hands over what to do next, maybe it’s time to return to some basic advertising principles. And that’s what’s interesting about this campaign.

First of all, it’s for beer. One of those products that, while many have tried to create a “point-of-difference” few have succeeded. Consider the Coors “We’re colder” campaign running right now. Really? Isn’t the temperature up to me? It’s trying to invent a point-of-difference where one doesn’t’ exist. It may be relevant to people, but it’s not differentiating. Any beer that comes out of my fridge is cold. Mnemonic campaigns like this one rely on repetition to hammer the message into people’s heads and take a lot of media dollars to be successful. I’d rather be smarter.

So where is the sweet spot with a product like beer? Let’s go back to one of the very simple tenets of our business: Positioning.

The Michelob campaign does a nice job of positioning the product. And there are other beer campaigns that use this as well. The Miller campaign where the guy takes the beer away from the “high-falutin’” people is another excellent example.

The interesting thing about this advertising is it’s for a product category that, for the most part, is parity. In blind taste tests people can’t even tell their favorite beer (go ahead and argue, but try it sometime). And yet, these products have found a way to differentiate by using one of the oldest tricks in the book. Positioning.

But wait, it gets better. You can’t simply position a product with demographics, or even by narrow psychographics. You have to take a broader cut at it. What these campaigns have going for them is they all use archetypes. Michelob is positioning itself as a Ruler brand and Miller is a Regular Guy.

Archetypes are the most powerful and useful tool out there because they position and differentiate in broad context. Consumers aren’t good at nuance. Sorry to break it to you but they simply aren’t looking at your advertising that closely. Most consumers could play these beer’s positions back to you pretty succinctly. Miller, the beer for regular people. Or Michelob, the beer for achievers.

So, if you’re panicking about what to do in this new world of social network marketing, or any marketing for that matter, the first step is to figure out what archetype your brand can use most effectively. If your advertising can’t answer the question for consumers: My product is for people who _____________. You’re not there yet. The next step is to communicate that position as clearly and succinctly as possible.

Charlene Li: Tips for Conversational Success

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:40:25 GMT

Brandworks University® 2009

In this 4th installment of summaries of LSB's Brandworks University 2009, we introduce Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell, formerly of Forrester Research. Li offers tips and strategies for leveraging and measuring the conversation economy to jumpstart results in your organization.

AR

Profile of the Conversationalists
Success Strategies for Tapping into Conversations and Transforming Your Company’s Marketing
Charlene Li, Co-author, Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies

If you think social networking media like Twitter, Facebook or YouTube are all about the technology, you’re asking the wrong kind of question, says Charlene Li who co-authored of the best selling book “Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies” while she was at Forrester Research. “I don’t believe in chasing the latest technology. I call it the shiny object syndrome.”

Rather, Li argues that social media have the power to transform not just marketing, but whole companies. “It is going to mean tremendous change in your organization. Social media marketing will challenge existing preconceptions and ways of doing business. So, if you’re going to do it, you had better be focused on something the CEO really cares about. You need to associate it with the most important corporate goals.”

This is not about you selling products and services. This is about starting a conversation, Li told the 2009 LSB Brandworks University audience. The conversation might be about marketing, but it also might be about customer service, technical support, new product development or other corporate functions that don’t normally fall under marketing.

“In the future everyone is going to be a marketer. Everyone will be in a position to have a dialog with the customer. Anyone inside or outside the company can be a brand ambassador, representing your brand. The reality is they’re doing it now.”

She recommended three important steps to successfully embracing social media conversations:

First, get the right people on the bus. The customer’s driving the bus. You want to find the revolutionaries in your company who are both realistic and well connected and have them develop your program. Social media will break down silos in your organization. Work is a process. It’s messy. It doesn’t happen in silos. You need collaboration tools that reflect how work really gets done.

Second, measure the right things. Use the same metrics as your existing marketing goals so you can see if social media are helping you reach those goals. You might want to track a net promoter score: how often do people recommend your brand? Or your metrics might focus on increasing net lifetime value of customers. The surest route to failure is engaging in social media without knowing why you’re doing it.

Third, the hardest thing is loss of control over your message, your communication process and your relationship with customers. You may have a sense that you’re in control today, but the reality is that if you don’t start participating in the conversation, you will not be in control.

Creating value with User Contribution Systems

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:22:39 GMT

Brandworks University® 2009

In this third installment of summaries from Brandworks 2009 presentations, Scott Cook of Intuit takes on the value of what he calls "user contribution systems" (UCS) and how successful companies are leverageing UCS to jumpstart their brands performance.

For more on Brandworks 2009, view previous entries from this blog or check out the whitepaper.

AR

How to Tap Into and Leverage Conversations Your Employees and Customers are Already Having
Scott Cook, Founder, Intuit

At Brandworks University 2009, Scott Cook, Founder of Intuit, helped us learn why volunteerism is not just for charity. Cook introduced us to the phenomenon of what he calls “User Contribution Systems” (UCS) and how they are “fueling some of the world’s fastest growing and most competitively advantaged organizations,” according to Cook’s Harvard Business Review article.

As defined by Cook, contribution systems are, “Software, social systems and conversations that directly solve problems for other people by collecting and leveraging people’s contributions, behaviors or data.”

Admittedly, Cook was initially incredibly skeptical that people would volunteer their own time or knowledge to contribute to this type of model, and even if they did, he wondered who would trust the advice of a stranger over that of a documented expert.

The answer is: a lot of people. Cook went on to study the success of sites like Amazon, Wikipedia, and Skype that have experienced unprecedented success by leveraging user contributions to create value for the companies. It turns out that people are more than willing to offer up their own goods, services, or advice in order to help solve problems for other people.

It is this willingness that makes User Contribution Systems a wise choice for companies who want to present value to consumers at a low cost. The key take-away of Cook’s speech was that it’s OK to fail, to experiment, and to try again to find a way to integrate user contributions and conversations into your business model. Of course, not everyone will be the next Amazon, but utilizing user contributions can help reduce costs, entertain consumers, forge relationships, provide personal recommendations and, “create a community around an important topic that will help promote engagement with the brand,” said Cook.

Cook urged all in attendance to begin experimenting with a UCS model, because “if you’re not conducting an exercise like that at your organization, you risk missing the boat on a sea of change that’s transforming business.”

How Nike is Jumpstarting Conversations: Just Do It.

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:02:27 GMT

Brandworks University® 2009

In the second in a series of blog posts recapping presentations from LSB’s Brandworks University 2009, we review how Nike’s Global Director of Brand Connections, Stefan Olander is jumpstarting conversations with brand fanatics worldwide.
AR

How to Inspire Customers to Jumpstart Conversations on Your Behalf

Make no mistake. Stefan Olander, Nike’s Global Director, Brand Connections, loves the Nike brand and thinks the shoes are marvels of technology. But even he admits that “In the past, the product was the end point of the customer experience, now it is just the beginning.”

Thanks to social networking media, Nike has had to learn to turn over responsibility for the Just Do It brand statement and brand conversations to Nike’s athlete-customers. “The responsibility we have because we have a brand statement like this is to enable people to Just Do It. We’re just scratching the surface of everything we can empower as a brand.”

One way Nike is empowering consumers is with Nike Plus, an application developed in partnership with Apple. Nike Plus lets runners use their iPods to keep and view a graphic history of their routes, running times and pace; get real-time voice reports on their times, distance and calories burned during a run; and even play a “power song” at the push of a button when they need an extra energy boost. Hundreds of thousands of runners from 160 countries now upload their running data to nikeplus.com.

But a funny thing happened once runners could see a graphic display of their times and their friends’ times shared on the website. It started to function like a social networking site.

“Runners are competitive people,” he explained. “They want to challenge others to beat their time. So your friend pings you by email and challenges you, and now, after every run, you plug in and you see who’s ahead. We established a dialog we never had before.”

Nike took the conversation to a higher level by creating the Human Race 10K, a worldwide running event held August 31, 2008. On that day, 800,000 runners all around the world ran in a coordinated event. “What was great was the connectivity,” Olander said. “Wherever you were in the world, you knew there was someone else running.”

Empowering athletes to create their own social networks is all fine, Olander said, but the question is always asked, “are we selling any more shoes?”

“At the end of the day, we are about selling shoes and Apple is about selling iPods. We can’t just cash in at the end of the day, but if you’re coming to our website three times per week to interact with our brand, eventually you’re going to try our shoes. If you enable someone to get better at what they’re doing, it’s going to benefit your brand.”

Incidentally, Nike’s sales are up 6-8 percent since the introduction of Nike Plus.

Be a Chief Conversation Officer

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:02:47 GMT

Brandworks Bits

One of the amazing things about working at LSB is the opportunity each year to attend Brandworks University and learn from some of the best minds in marketing. The 2009 conference in June of this year was no exception. The conference focused on jumpstarting sales and ROI in the Conversation Economy. While there is no replacement for being at the conference itself, we will endeavor to share some of the learnings with you via this blog over the next few weeks as we do our best to summarize the remarks of the faculty. In addition, a detailed whitepaper from the conference will be available shortly.

We’re looking forward to your comments, thoughts and input on the topic. And be sure to mark you calendar for Lindsay, Stone & Briggs’ Brandworks University 2010, the 20^th Anniversary of the conference, May 25-26.

Insights and Aspirations of a Chief Conversation Officer

John Hayes, CMO, American Express

John Hayes, Chief Marketing Officer of American Express understands why marketers find the rise of social networking media scary. He told participants at LSB Brandworks University 2009 that his associates tell him they now work “in an environment where they don’t control the conversation, but they’re still 100 percent responsible for the outcome.”

Consumer-directed conversations via Twitter, Facebook and other social media present both a threat and an opportunity for marketers, Hayes admitted, but it’s important to face our fear of letting go of control over the message and the metrics.

“It’s human nature to overvalue the things we can measure and undervalue what we can’t,” Hayes said. “Yes, there are elements of the new media conversation that are not yet measurable. But we still need to value them.

“Think about a relationship you’re in. Before you got into that relationship, how did you know it was going to work?”

Hayes offered three principles for making social networking part of your marketing strategy.

Listen: “Listening may be your best selling device,” he said. Listening is more than hearing. “In a corporation, listening means hearing what is said and changing what we do in response. Listening means doing something different because of what someone said.”
Operationalize the conversation: “Establish listening posts throughout the organization,” he said. Engaging in a conversation with customers isn’t a task that only resides in marketing. You also need to engage the people in sales, product development, customer service and every other point of customer contact in the organization. You have to change the culture and make it a listening culture that wants to understand the world outside. Your job is to help guide conversation that’s already happening.
Experiment: Experimenting is the most important thing we can do, and failure is part of experimenting. American Express spends between 10 and 20 percent of its marketing budget on social media experiments. But Hayes cautioned that you must have a process in place to help you understand how and why you succeeded or failed and what you would do differently next time. “If you’re not learning, you’re making a big mistake.”

Marketers are living in a rapidly changing world, Hayes said. Conversation and collaboration will be at the heart of the new culture. In the new world, marketers will have to learn to be collaborators not authorities.

Given this new role for marketers, what activities do you think should be included in the job description for a “Chief Conversation Officer”?

Get Lost in the Creative Forest

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:06:37 GMT

Why getting lost in the creative forest is a good thing

When asked where they got an idea, most creative people will think for a minute and say, “It just came to me.” Which is exactly what happened, right after they’d spent some serious time lost in what I’ll call “The Creative Forest.”

Great creative follows a process but it isn’t and never will be a linear process. Why? Because the very definition of creativity is taking two unrelated things and putting them together in an unexpected way. Truth be told, for most creatives the process probably started several years before when their brain was cataloging experiences, making observations and developing a curiosity of the world.

The creative brief is a heroic attempt to put something linear in the process and to an extent, it works. And here at LSB we have a concepting process called the Naked 8 to help jumpstart the creative process. (It’s also a good way to add a bit of ISO 9000 to the process.) But then, like a guy in a car answering text messages, creativity weaves, misses the corner and then goes totally off the road. And just to keep this metaphor going, if it doesn’t hit a tree first, it careens into the Creative Forest (please read these last two words in a Rod Serling voice).

We normally think of careening as a bad thing. But actually this is the ideal situation because when you careen you don’t really know where the entry point is, and you don’t really know where you’re going to end up. Being a little out-of-control opens up possibilities that you can’t see when the process is linear. Don’t think straight lines here, think squiggly. Think random doodles. Think of the scribble that happens when you try to get a ball point pen to work. After all, if you’re looking for an unexpected solution, you need a process that looks unconventional.

Okay, so, now we’re in the Creative Forest. What is it? This is the place where creative people just have to stumble around, get lost, digress, follow dead-ends, and generally be purposely lost. It’s chaotic, it’s wonderful–and when you’re trying to attach two unrelated things, one of them being the product you’re selling–completely necessary.

As a creative person, great things happen and awful things happen. You’ll find a wonderful idea only to discover it was in Archive magazine last year. You’ll find ideas that look good until you discover they have nothing to do with the product or the consumer insight you are working with. You’ll stare at your partner for several hours without saying anything. You’ll laugh. You’ll wonder if there actually IS a solution. There are digressions and uncertainty. And, on occasion, the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz (or maybe that’s just my experience).

In any case, the only ticket out is a great idea. But, when you find that idea, the only way to describe it is “It just came to us.”

So next time you see a creative team staring out the window, call it “process.” And, if they appear to be diligently typing? They’re probably just screwing around.
BW

Critics and Creators

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:43:57 GMT

There’s been a lot of hoopla lately around Wisconsin with the introduction of a new tagline for the State. The tagline, Live Like You Mean It, has met with the kind of reception usually reserved for people coming from Illinois in Hummers. In the interest of full disclosure, we didn’t create this tagline.

The interesting thing about the hoopla isn’t the grumbling and pessimism around it. I expect that from almost any tagline. After all, how many of us in this business have presented a tagline to a client only to have it die a fiery death? The thing is, those corporate taglines are shot down by a handful of people and then never see the light of day. This poor Wisconsin tagline was shown to the whole world. It didn’t have a chance. So, no, the pessimism wasn’t that surprising or interesting. What was interesting was how the Web and traditional media, like radio, conspired into the perfect storm. Disc jockeys threw the first pebble and then it turned into a good Old Testament stoning.

Web sites and blogs have popped up all over just piling on. The whole thing has exposed a part of human nature that is really ugly. The part where we’re like pack animals that turn immediately to attack when we sense weakness.

Why is this? Because it’s so much easier to be a critic than a creator. Creation means you put something out in the world for everyone to see. Creation is a building process and by its nature is open to critique. Critique is often a destructive process and like all destruction requires much less effort.

Less effort to be the critic with the snarky, brash and oh-so-rude comments. And the online world has created a place where it’s just a click away. No letters to write, no stamp to lick. No counting to ten before you flame something. In fact, it’s become quite fashionable to act this way. The anonymous nature of it means you can say things that you would never say face-to-face.

But let’s stop a second. After reading all the blogs, all the vituperous, venomous critique, did anyone offer a viable alternative? The answer is no. We’ve had Drink like you mean it. Eat cheese like you mean it. Plus 101 variations of _____________like you mean it. But nothing really helpful or frankly even cogent.

The fact is, you can count really great taglines on your fingers. Just Do It was a head-scratcher when it first came out. “Just Do What?” people asked. People needed to see the advertising that explained it before they even understood it. Think different (from Apple) was roundly criticized for being ungrammatical by people who missed the point that it was meant to be ungrammatical, that was the different part. Duh! Once again, it was made clear by the advertising that defined it and ultimately transformed it from an ungrammatical command to a corporate mantra.

Like those iconic taglines, I suspect that Live Like You Mean It will begin to resonate and take hold once there is an advertising campaign that defines what it means.

Tied to the Tube

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:41:01 GMT

TV viewership at an all-time high

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of television’s death have been greatly exaggerated. The Nielsen Company reports that American television viewers have hit an all time high of 151 hours a month watching TV.

Those who watched online videos added another three hours a month and those with video-equipped mobile devices watched almost four hours of video each month that way.

The numbers were part of Nielsen’s 3-screen report and covered the last quarter of 2008. According to the report, this is actually part of a long-term trend they’ve been seeing. Last year’s figures for the same quarter showed viewership at 145 hours per month.

What does this mean for marketers? It seems that, as we move into newer and newer technologies and ways to reach our target, we shouldn’t necessarily discount some of the more “traditional” vehicles. For some targets, TV may be the medium of choice. Also, TV may be an ideal medium for jumpstarting online buzz.

Now about that DVR….

Nielsen and others offered several thoughts as to why TV watching is increasing, below are a few. We’d love to know what you think. Why the uptick in viewership?

* More TVs per household
* More relevant programming due to the vast array of niche cable channels
* DVRs make TV viewing more convenient
* The economy has led to more and more people seeking cheap entertainment

Should advertising be

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 23:28:19 GMT

Ever notice those stores at the mall that are "Just Socks" or "Just Calendars" and low and behold, you go in there and it is really just socks or just calendars? While that might be a great strategy for kiosks at a mall, the advertising world also seems to be going this way. There's "Just Interactive," "Just Social Media" and "Just Guerilla."

This all works if there's someone watching over the whole thing, but somehow campaigns that are created piecemeal often are missing an overall idea. You can't work in this business effectively anymore without seeing the big picture. Interactive has to include social media and to jumpstart the whole thing you still may need a print campaign or a television spot. Buying all this piecemeal is popular, but for how long? Not only is it a lot of organizational work for clients, but it's very hard to get everything to fit together.

What this means for all of us is that we have to be big picture people. Sure, we all have specialties when it gets down to production, but at the beginning of a project we need bigger ideas and then we literally have to ask the idea what it needs. Is this an idea that needs awareness quickly? Is the sale made at the point of purchase or is the decision made over a long period of time? What is the purchase cycle? Etc…

These are all questions that have been around long before web 2.0 or web 3.0 and will still be around when web 6.25 comes around. But now, more than ever we need thinking that encompasses a broader scope of ideation. People have to be experts at something narrow but have to be able to work conceptually in an increasingly broader range. So while specialization is getting narrower, the need for big thinking is getting broader. We, and our specialized partners (yes, there are some narrow specialties needed) have to be big-picture people.

So, I believe the age of narrow specialization, the "Just Socks" model, while attractive to some clients, is counter to great branding and advertising. That's because the socks have to go with the outfit. And it helps if you wear some shoes too. Agencies have to take the role of the personal shopper who figures out what clothing the brand has to wear and then finds the pieces that match.

Technology is a tool, not a talisman.

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:23:39 GMT

It’s easy to get excited about all the new technology available. I wish I could count the number of times I’ve heard “WOW, we can do that?” And the new analytics! Who knew? But, too often what gets lost in the techno thrill is … people.

When we start with technology it’s like starting with a hammer – everything looks like a nail. We need to begin with people and with what we want to have happen. So, before we jump into monitoring thousands of blogs, forums, videos and Tweets we need to ask, why? That is, what attitudes and behaviors would we as marketers like to inspire people to take with regard to our brand and how does this info inform us to achieve that, or tell us how we’re doing in accomplishing our goals? Without this strategic context, how will we distinguish between information and insights? Technology is a tool, not a talisman.

The Knowledge Economy has morphed into the Conversation Economy.

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:54:09 GMT

If you are Best Buy your internet is connecting your retail staff across the country to share what consumers are asking for and possible new products and services. If you're Intuit you're ‘staffing' your ‘help line' with few paid employees and mostly letting users answer each other's questions. If you are a sophisticated email or Web marketer you inspire your recipients to pass along offers, news and entertainment to their friends. A Web site shouldn't be built today that doesn't include social bookmarking, the attraction of consumer generated content or the habitution of conversations via applications like podcasts, blogs, widgets and more. Even highly competitive scientists are sharing discoveries on social networking sites to speed up learning and discovery. Technology has enabled rampant conversations of all sizes and kinds. Meaning is even being found in millions of ‘tweets' from around the world. Where will it end? It's only just beginning so its hard to say. But if we thought we had overwhelming info, choice and clutter before, we ‘ain't seen nothing yet.'

Get ready for the reckoning: Web 3.0.

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:53:36 GMT

Not so long ago Web sites were heralded as magic vehicles to communicate with prospects and customers. Marketers and agencies were happy to dabble in banner ads, search, pay per click campaigns, search marketing and email blasts. But these tactics were rightfully termed Web 1.0 because of their very elemental ability to only do push marketing. Today, all is pull.

All is pull because technology has advanced to such a degree that consumers do on a huge scale what is innate within us all: Turn to each other (communities of the like-minded) and not marketers for gossip, info, recommendations, rankings, content, help and cause creation. In this generation of digital technology called Web 2.0 , conversations aren't just two-way and more interactive, they're happening between consumers without marketers at all. Empowered with blogs, podcasts, You Tube and more, consumers are disintermediating marketers from their traditional role as purveyors of product info, endorsements and entertainment. The secret behind even the most successful commercial Web sites (such as Amazon) is that so much of their content is consumer generated. To be successful in the world of Web 2.0, a marketer has to figure out how to be invited into the conversations of their consumer. That requires 3 things:

Nailing, in the eyes of the target, what about their brand is seen to deserve a role in their lives.
Jumpstarting a conversation about it.
And filling the pipeline with news, apps and events that keep the conversation going, ideally habituating it.

For marketers still thinking in Web 1.0 terms, Web 2.0 can seem like a foreign land. And that's a pity because Web 3.0 is already emerging in practice. If Web 1.0 is "push" and Web 2.0 is "pull," Web 3.0 is what we call "pay to say." That means it's the ability to not just assess the sentiment of the myriad number of digital conversations going on out there about your brand and competitors, it's knowing how to harness the positive sentiments to your advantage. One way this works is paying your brand's fans to post on their Facebook or LinkedIn page an endorsement of your brand (an ad, a recommendation, a self created demo).

In other words, to compete in a world of Web 1.0 the brands that were successful pushed their messages with cool design, great videos and sensational news and commentary. In the world of Web 2.0, successful brands most often get invited into conversations by hosting them: creating a comfortable, convenient democracy where people can converse about the category or the motivation/need driving them to it. But the world of Web 3.0 will be the ultimate reckoning: The brands that survive will have figured out two things: the meaning that gets them invited into conversations and the means to monetize the time and effort the consumer spends in positive conversations about them. Web 3.0 is where both the marketer and the consumer generate an ROI from their chatter.

How smart is your dashboard?

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:52:33 GMT

Twenty years ago, it was all the rage to measure activities and behaviors in service to process improvement. Today, the ability to measure more marketing activities more quickly is actually inhibiting clarity, insight and optimization. This, when there are really only six areas (below) you need to measure on your dashboard. And every item you can measure should be sorted and prioritized in service to a clear, succinct analysis of each of these:

What your target does (behavioral engagement such as involvement, interaction, intimacy and influence)
The leading indicators of these behaviors (well known to be awareness and sentiment)
How efficiently the process driving the above is performing (things like the return from the marketing mix, stickiness on one's Web site, Net Promoter Score)
The sales, margin and share outcomes of the above
From the above, who are your most profitable customers in each of two camps: share of wallet and share of mouth
How you compare in all the above to your competition (hard to determine but gold if you can find it)

Buzz is not a big idea.

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:51:44 GMT

How often have you heard someone say "our strategy is to generate buzz" or "our idea is to do something viral"? How sad. Like sales, buzz and pass along most certainly aren't themselves a strategy but the result of a big idea. So to be clear: Buzz is not an idea, nor are executions such as banner ads, a Web site or press tour. A big idea has a meaning so compelling that when it's cleverly messaged it measureably changes attitudes and behaviors. It is born of a consumer insight that the competition doesn't know or has yet to harness. And given that the worlds of commerce, culture and communication have all converged, that means that big and transformative ideas required of brand marketers are more and more likely to be "killer apps" (such as those of the iPhone or Nike +), branded entertainment and gathering places where ever-narrower niches of self interest can feel at home, networked and listened to (social networks).

Evolving from CMO to CDO

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:50:55 GMT

A survey of CMOs from top brands (recently conducted by the American Association of Advertising Agencies) finds them compelled to completely transform themselves into Chief Digital Officers. This is to be expected. With digitization, marketing's 4P's have converged just as culture, commerce and communications have converged. To survive, every brand must become a media platform and all brands are in the business of e-commerce - either to sell or gather data comparable to what their competitors have. This reality is making CMOs very nervous. Most don't feel expert enough to leverage digitization to drive or measure results at a time they desperately need to. One CMO reportedly believes "If we don't get digital right we'll cease to exist as a company." To all who panic, we at LSB are here to reassure you based on our years of experience. Digitization will unleash what's always been in you trying to get out: A means to leverage the voice of the customer and easily jumpstart engagement, creating brand fanatics and inspiring word of mouth. It will make agency selection and management easier too, as you find that there's no such thing as the world of "traditional" agencies and media vis a vis the world of "new" media and interactive agencies. There is only one world and one type of agency-the one fluent in digital. All other agencies are, or are soon to be, out of business.