Shezza put the Twat in Twitter

Oops, typo, meant to say put the Twit in Twitter (no, I didn’t). Shezza loves his tweets and I now see he’s trying to tout himself as some kind of expert in Social Media. I’m happy to call it Social Media, I’m even happy to call it Social Forum or Social Bollocks. As I keep pointing out, if you want to reach the true social opinion leaders, the people who can really change purchase decisions based on the respect their peers hold for their expertise, then talk to me. I don’t tweet or twat but I can take you down my local pub and introduce you to my mates who will put you right about which car to buy or phone upgrade to go for. They can even tell you the most effective insurance scams.

I’ve tried Twitter but I find this 140 characters thing a pain. If you’ve got something to say other than “@ anybody out there, I’ve had a really tough week, looking forward to the weekend, LOL” which seems to be the majority of the crap filling the airwaves, then you need a few paras. I’m sure you would agree that this post is of great value to mankind and I’m already up to 205 words.

Why doesn’t someone super size Twitter.  Keep all the easy to use bit (I will grant you Twitter is heaps better than Facebook if you are over 20 years old and acne free) but just allow up to 200 words. Less than blogging but more than 140 characters, so we get some decent ideas flowing. I’d go for that and then more of the world could benefit from my pearls of wisdom.

Up yours, Stame

Social Media or Social Forum?

I’ve written in the past that marketers made a telling mistake by calling digital and the internet – “New Media”. By doing so they associated it with traditional one-way media such as print/TV etc. The internet is essentially a multi-dimensional exchange and probably its least effective use is as a medium for banner ads. The same people, in my view, are making the same mistake by calling Twitter and Facebook “Social Media”.

Twitter is a social forum, a big on-line conversation involving 100 million people and 65 million tweets a day (and counting – the new generation of mobile devices with Twitter as a main page app is going to make this explode). Of these Tweets 91% are people (yes – people, NOT ‘consumers’ another word that gets us into the wrong mindset). The balance comes from brands and just a tiny percentage – 0.4% – from celebrities. Celebrities are people too but the key difference, apart from their desire to make themselves a profitable brand, is that they reach, on average 300,000 followers, which is 1000 times more than the rest of us.
I have got all these stats from an excellent report by 360i published on the equally excellent Brandchannel. Definitely worth a download. Another telling stat from the report (completed in March 2010 so fairly up to date) is that 92% of all tweets are public so this is an on-line forum brands can and should tune in to. But that’s the point – people use Twitter to converse and air their views. Only 12% of the Tweets mention brands and most of these brands are technology, entertainment or other social networks. The rest are things like cars, cameras, music, restaurants – in other words brands that are a part of their lifestyle and interests. Not a lot are about Persil or Coke. Only 1% are engaging in conversations with brands which is hardly surprising since only 12% of brand tweets are conversational. The brands are talking AT them, not with them, just like they do in other ‘media’.

Here is how I think marketers and brands should think about social forums or networks. Imagine you are Coca Cola or Persil and you were sitting at a table in a pub or restaurant and on the table next to you were a big group of friends, talking loud enough for you to hear.  You would listen and learn but you would not interrupt unless there was a socially acceptable opportunity. For example one person complains that they have a stain in their favourite shirt they just can’t shift and have had to throw it away. Or someone complains that they think the draft Coke they are drinking always tastes watered down. You would pick your moment and you might say something like this:-

“Excuse me, I hope you don’t think I’m being rude but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. I am actually Persil or Coke and I’m really sorry you’ve had a problem but I think I might be able to help you”.

If they had not mentioned anything to do with you but you have gathered from who they are (by the way, quite hard to do with Twitter other than by inference) that they are people you’d like to talk to, you would take a different approach.

“Hi guys, sorry to interrupt but I’m from Coke and I just wanted to let you know we’re having a party you might like to come along to (for ‘party’ read anything you are actually doing that could be of interest to this group). Let me tell you about it and you tell me what you think”

You see the point I’m making – treat it like the social discourse it is. Don’t barge in, don’t talk at them, talk with them, be helpful, be relevant, be interesting.

And recognize that most of the time, they do not want you involved in their conversation. There is no socially acceptable moment to interrupt them and introduce yourself. That said we have to be careful with percentages. Based on 360i’s figures I reckon that even if it is only 1% of the 12% of tweets that mention brands other than technology/entertainment etc this is still close to 100,000 conversations a day you may be interested in and where the participants may be interested in you. That’s 3 million a month. How many people do you talk to in focus groups? How many effective messages from your very expensive conventional media actually get through? But please, just remember to be sociable. As 360i say in their report – Twitter is not a megaphone.

If you don’t have the patience for all of this then get hold of a few celebrities and get them to plug you but try not to make it too obvious.

A Great Idea Goes Down The Toilet

I was taking a slash in a pub toilet in the West End last week, several actually – you know what it’s like after a few pints, once you break the seal you pee like a puppy. Anyway I spotted this promotion from Toshiba (advertising in toilets is called “ambient media” so I’m told) – I should be posting a photo but I didn’t want to get caught with my iPhone out in a public lav. Doesn’t matter, I can explain it easily enough. The deal was that if you bought a Toshiba PC in June they would refund the full price if England won the Soccer World Cup.

This must have seemed like a great idea to the witless brand manager, or his/her agency, who dreamt it up. On the one hand, capture a bit of World Cup vibe, get behind the lads and all that, on the other hand, not likely to be paying out. Well that’s the bloody point isn’t it? As soon as England got knocked out they needed to get these ambient posters down. Not only did England exit early on, losing to the old enemy, Germany, they played like one legged cripples in an arse kicking competition in all their games (4 in total). England fans are pissed off beyond belief – not only has their team embarrassed them, many feel literally robbed having forked out for new tele’s or even trips to the Rainbow Nation.

So how do they feel now, looking at Toshiba’s World Cup promotion? How warm do they feel towards the brand? Do they think, “Well done for getting behind the lads, getting in the spirit of things, you are definitely a brand I have a strong affinity for”?
Or do they instead think, “You slimey bastards, you knew f***** well we wouldn’t win didn’t you. You bet against our boys and you won – well f*** you. Toshiba – Japanese innit? Only Germany’s f**** allies during the war, weren’t they? etc etc etc”

Buy Toshiba – the foreign brand who knew all along that England have a shite team who never win anything.

I think advertising, “ambiently”, a truly crap promotion in a pub toilet is somewhat ironic.

Watch this space for more great case studies.

Up yours, Stame

Thursday’s Joke

A little polar bear goes up to his mum and asks her, “Am I real polar bear?”

“Of course you are” his mum replies. “I’m a polar bear, your dad’s a polar bear, so you’re a polar bear”.

“But are you sure I don’t have any brown bear or grizzly bear in me?” he asks.

“Listen, if you don’t believe me go ask your grand-dad”

So he goes and asks his grand-dad

“Grand-dad, are you sure I’m a polar bear. I don’t have brown bear or grizzly bear in me?”

His grand–dad looks down on him and smiles.

“Listen, my boy, I’m a polar bear, my mum and dad were polar bears, and your granny, she was a polar bear, so your dad is a polar bear and so is your mum and her mum and her dad and her grand parents. We’re all polar bears so you are a pure, 100% polar bear”

The little polar bear doesn’t look convinced so his grand-dad asks him’

“What’s worrying you?”

“Well” he replies, “If both mum and dad are polar bears and all my grannies and grand-dads are polar bears, and even their mums and dads were all polar bears, and there’s no trace of grizzly or brown bear in me……then why am I so fucking cold?”

Stick and Carrot Doesn’t Work

The excellent TED.com has served up another gem in this talk by Dan Pink. Using hard evidence from experiments around the world he makes the case that stick and carrot type incentives actually reduce performance in any task requiring a little creative thinking. As he points out that means pretty much everything businesses expect from their employees these days.

http://bubble-cast.com

The explanation is that an attractive financial incentive actually narrows our thinking. If the solution to the task is anything other than obvious this kind of ‘motivation’ causes us to focus on the task at the expense of a better solution that might lie at the periphery.

He suggests – he would say, proves – that autonomy, mastery and purpose are what drives motivation. The desire to have control over our lives, the ambition to get better at something and the need to feel we are serving a higher order purpose that we believe in. In this short talk he only gets to prove convincingly that stick and carrot does not work. He does not get much time to explore the more enlightened approach but it makes sense.

I’d add recognition to his list. A little public acknowledgement for our efforts goes a long way towards motivating people. It also allows everyone else to see what they should be seeking to emulate.

As Dan Pink argues, business is not applying what we know to be true – what we can prove – from science. I am with him. My comment above, that public acknowledgement allows others to copy desired behaviour is also based on social science.

Facilitating copying is the most powerful way fro ideas and actions to spread. We have long known that it is not necessary to first change people’s attitudes. We need to change behaviour and attitudes follow.

Dan is optimistic that business is prepared to look at radically different ways to manage and motivate. We have the “carrot” of organizations like Google who take a more results focused approach and give a great deal of autonomy, e.g. in NPD, to its team. We have the “stick” that old models of management, oversight and incentives have so spectacularly failed in financial institutions. Maybe, but I fear the change will be a long time coming for the big business behemoths. Inertia is the most powerful force and insecure greedy people will find it very hard to believe that fear & greed are not the best motivators.

Loosen Up

Regular readers (how are you both getting on?) will know about my interest in creativity. Like a lot of people I think I’ve always loved ideas – having them and hearing about them – but I can remember when I first started to take an interest in understanding creativity. I was lucky enough to be in a small group of people working on an innovation team at Unilever. JWT heard about this and offered to have Jeremy Bullmore, their Chairman, come along to talk to us about creativity. He told us the story behind the Eureka moment, he talked about creativity in scientific exploration and he explained the philosophy of creativity of JWT’s Creative VP in the 1920’s, James Webb Young (I still have his book ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas’ that Jeremy gave us).

This started a journey for me, one with no final destination I suspect, to understand creativity in all its aspects, but most especially in business. The difference between art and business is that in the latter creativity is applied, it has a commercial purpose. Or perhaps more accurately it has a commercial context so it is forced to have a commercial purpose. Artists create for the sake of creation irrespective of whether it has commercial value. They seek to evoke an enduring emotional response. In business we seek to want to get a commercial response.

There are commonalities. Creativity in ones’ endeavours is a disposition – it is not something that can be switched on and off or compartmentalized. You are creative because you think creatively and because you get excited by ideas.

“The difference between that which is constructed and that which is created is that the former is loved only after it is constructed, whereas the latter is loved before it ever exists” Chesterton

At the risk of compartmentalizing I see 3 kinds of creativity, whether in art or business:-

New connections – where different elements are brought together in fresh and original combinations to create a new idea.

Distillation – where the creativity takes us to the heart or essence of something, to some pure idea (like chipping away at a block of stone, removing all the unnecessary bits, to find the sculpture)

Inspirational – the idea just comes whether from divine intervention (unlikely) or some unconscious version of connectivity and distillation (more likely). The idea just comes like an epiphany. Another variation of this is spotting the idea – looking at what everyone looks at but seeing what they do not see – a penetrating and discerning insight.

I’ve always felt the first two can be facilitated. James Webb Young’s book talks of how he always kept notes of random thoughts and then used them like a roller deck when he tried to solve a creative advertising problem. He very deliberately collected eclectic stimulus to enable him to make fresh connections. Ideation workshop techniques make a lot of use of this – they force participants to free up their thinking and introduce lots of ways to reframe the problem and apply new stimulus to allow new ideas to be formed. We can use a variety of techniques to increase the chance of seeing the essence of an idea – we can immerse ourselves, we can experience and we can stand back and look from fresh angles.

But inspiration and the ability to spot and develop an idea seems to me to be an innate talent. However, you still need to give people the incentive and/or the permission to be inspired.

Perhaps the central point is that we can improve the environment for creativity. I enjoyed this blog from Neil Perkin. It talks about the need in business to create some space – some air is how I have also heard it described by my much missed friend Robyn Putter – for ideas to come. We have to loosen up and this can be a challenge in business. There is a tension – but is it a creative tension? – between managing the business efficiently, clear targets, clear roles and responsibilities, and yet being loose enough to allow ideas to surface. We need to organize everyone but, as Neil points out, we need to let diverse groups swarm on problems, to create fresh solutions.

Jeremy Bullmore has always identified the power of a tight brief to unlock creativity. We need to be clear about what problem we are solving and, importantly, by when, but loose about how we solve it. Maybe that is how we resolve the tension – we need to be serious about what we are trying to achieve but passionate about the creativity needed to achieve it.

But we cannot, must not, try to limit creative thinking to just product innovation, marketing, the ideation room, the 20% of your time you are allowed to work on ‘new projects’ or whatever. Creative thinking approaches everything creatively, all the time.

We have been talking a lot about this at Quirk recently and we have concluded that creativity in digital applies to everything:-

•    The strategy
•    The ideas
•    The creative use of technology
•    The creative application of all the tactics at our disposal
•    The aesthetics (because aesthetics or ‘eye-candy’ have a purpose – they demonstrate values, they engage and they are viral)

We have defined good creative – great creative – as being:-
•    Strategically relevant
•    Measurable (or else we don’t learn and if we don’t learn we don’t improve)
•    Able to generate response/action that far outweighs the cost – ROI

We recognize that this poses tough choices in terms of tight/loose management style but trust that a love of creativity balanced with a need for commercial growth will guide the choices.

I applaud and commend Quirk’s approach to being the best creative agency in their field. They have applied themselves to what this actually means and what it requires in terms of culture. Most agencies or businesses do not – they just pay it lip service or rely on inspiration.