APSotW feedback

First of all apologies for taking some time to get feedback up.  It's been a little crazy at work and I wanted to give all your hard work some focus.  Thank you to all of who who sent something in as I know it was a pretty tough brief and how much time these things take.

A recap - Mr Clean, the icon of home cleaning in the US, has been under attack by Method, and is at risk as Method begins to increase its distribution.  Your agency has the account and it is at risk.  You are being brought in as a fresh resource to the account team to develop a 15 minute presentation to give to the P&G CMO to show you have fresh thinking to revitalize the brand. 

The task - develop no more than ten slides for a 15 minute presentation that shows an approach to how Mr Clean can begin to not just defend share but actually grow volume share and profit over the next two years.

What follows are my thoughts, and mine alone.  Take them for what they are and hopefully you can find something useful/new to think about.   In general, a few things spring to mind:

1.  Think about how to create drama and tension at the start of your presentation.  Think about who you're presenting to: a client who believes your agency has been exhibiting tired thinking.  A provocative thought, assertion, etc. will be more likely to create interest as opposed to a sound, but frankly dull, slide talking about context, challenge, etc.
2.  Think about what the real problem is.  None of the submissions tried to re-frame the problem or define it better than the rather nebulous one I set in the brief.  More often than not, we can create real value to where we work by defining the problem better - more inspirationally and more accurately.  If it's about getting new people to buy, who are these people and why haven't they been buying it, etc.  More particularly to this, think about why method is being successful - it's green credentials, it's design, the fact that there are some kind of 'shared values' with Target, etc.  And use this to focus the competition rather than the dryer tool of the brand-by-brand competitive audit.
3.  Assertions and claims need evidence.  I know you don't have years of research data to hand, but observations and recommendations that challenge the status quo need some evidence or at least weight of argument to give them substance.  You'll be amazed what you can find online.
4.  Maybe the biggest observation is to do your ideas justice.  Powerpoint can be a constrictive medium but overall I didn't get much richness about your ideas which made them hard to feel like they could contribute real change.  It's a hard thing to do as planners as we are not natural producers of examples, but try and think of ways of making your ideas come to life more.
5.  This is probably the most boring but think about the logic of the argument.  It hasn't got to be expressed in a dull way but define the problem before offering an idea or recommending change, and make sure the idea flows from, and answers, the problem.

So, some specific feedback in no particular order:

Zelijco Kresic.  Zelijco's idea was focused on the fact that cleaning brands have focused on women and family when single households are in rapid growth. His idea was to launch a 'Mr Clean kit' for single people, male or female.  Like the observation, and you use evidence well to support it, and come to a sound conclusion but I don't get a real sense of what this kit would be.  So it feels less exciting.  I'm sure if it were a real meeting you would have mocked up some kind of real kit to bring up the excitement but it feels a little flat as powerpoint.  Also, and this is just my taste, it feels a little wordy and the template feels a hindrance rather than something that excites, teases or re-enforces the idea.

Roop is up next.  He proposes creating 'the art of living', a movement to help people lead a clean life.  And this will be done by Mr Clean Jr.  Couple of things spring to mind with this.  First, I applaud the desire to challenge the iconography of the brand (it would certainly make a CMO sit up) but there is little evidence why the brand should do this, and this would be a multi million dollar decision (think about all the packaging that would need to be changed).  And is simply creating a younger icon really going to change behavior?  Second, I don't really understand from this what the art of living would be.  And I certainly don't understand what the movement would be or why I'd want to join.  I think this would have been helped by some greater clarity of analysis/problem definition and explanation of recommendations, and some evidence to back up your assertions.

Next, from the country that brought us among others the All Blacks, Kevin Roberts and  Flight of The Conchords is hayley pardoe.  I thought this had some of the best thinking of any of the entries, but a lot of that was lost in a rather dry and wordy presentation style.  There were two good thoughts  - about the opportunity to be a brand of empowerment not fear, and the overall idea of uncomplicated cleaning (because Mr Clean has fewer single use products and more multi-purpose products)- that got lost among a deluge of words.  Great ideas need to stand out so think about how to do this in your presentation material - think about how the titles of each deck might tell a story, and what visuals you could use. And think about how you could better bring to life what uncomplicated cleaning might lead Mr. Clean to do.   But some good thinking so well done.  And some good analysis of the competition and the brand.

Next up is Brett Macfarlane.  There's something good at the beginning here that could have been blown out about there being no such thing as low interest categories, but only low interest brands (a great observation by Richard Huntington and one I was reminded of by Russell Davies when he talked to me about how Phil Knight told him that before Nike, trainers were pretty boring as a business).  That would have got my attention up front I think.  But the idea of owning the territory about cleaning being the last bastion of adult daydreaming was interesting, and well argued.  In fact, I think this was the best piece of thinking with Hayley.  And I like the fact, that like Hayley, you talk about what this could mean and what the brand could do.  My question would be - how do you close the argument that this is a stronger (or at least as strong as)  territory than Method's.

Time now for the self-titled Big Ideas or JSmith.  I like the way that here you turn Mr Clean into the challenger and identify the weaknesses of Method to attack - the need for more elbow grease and more product, it's quirky tone of voice.  And I like the question you pose of how niche is method (but I wonder if this runs against the mindset of the team you are presenting to who are concerned by the brand; yes, it is a relatively niche player and P&G know this but are concerned by its momentum).  I like the idea of brains not just brawn, but I wonder if positioning Mr Clean as the 'safe cleaning authority' is enough to stop Method's momentum - are green credentials the real reason for Method's success or is it something else?  I personally believe it's success comes from being more than green - it's sales data alone would suggest this.  But good job, and a very coherent, logical argument.

Last but not least is Jonathan_Nausner.  Visually I think this is the best presentation and kept my interest levels up - good way of showing competitive clutter, etc.  I like the implicit call for brand humility.  But here I had a real problem in understanding your recommendation - I see the issues you raise but don't get a sense of what the recommendation is.  What are the things you would recommend the brand to do? Just saying make better product is not the answer.  Some seeds here, but I would have loved to have seen the flower.

Hope that is of some use for all of you who took the time to enter.  And thank you for doing that, and I hope you found these comments useful in some way.  Keep an eye for where the next APSotW will be hosted - Russell I'm sure will announce it and I'll pass on the news.

UPDATE:  I completely forgot to name a winner.  I can't make my mind up between two entries so I'm going to name joint winners.  Congratulations to Brett and Hayley.  Drop me an email with your address and they'll be a small prize (following the trend of Arden books started by Northern Planner) of Paul Arden's It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be.   

Comments

[till]

it seems as if you havent received my contribution :(

still, thanks for your reviews, i have learned a lot from all the approaches and your critics. although i have already noticed a lot of weak points in my approach myself (no real target groups, lack of research, missing an unique strategic idea), would you mind to have a look on mine as well?

you might either check your spam folder if my mail went all wrong or download my presentation from here (remove the blanks)

http:// www . revealdesign . de / till_mrclean.pdf

thanks again! :)

[gareth]

Hi till
That didn't come through, and I made sure to check spam folders. Why not drop me an email with your email address and we'll have a chat?

[Roop]

Hi Gareth,
Thank you so much for the comments. Yes it did help me a lot and sorry for my incomplete solution. I was really tied with work and hardly had time to sit back and do a proper thinking on it, which ofcourse is no excuse for such bad work.

While I agree that changing the icon of Mr. Clean to Mr. Clean Jr will cost the company a bomb but I am sure it will draw attention of consumers. For years they have been seeing an old bald man standing with arms folded and just smiling. The idea was to make Mr. Clean look younger and secondly make him talk. What's the point in having an icon who doesn't help the brand move forward. So Mr. Clean Jr. can immediately become the talk of town without any doubt and it will also spark a a lot of talk in the era of Web 2.0. So the brand will manage to gain attention in the the most innovative manner. Art of Living is the second step towards higher order emotional benefits. Mr. Clean cannot restrict itself to only house cleaning (thats what the product delivers) but as a brand Mr. Clean can empower people of clean living - mind, body, soul.

Do I have the option of re-working the same and sending it to you?

[petar]

gareth,

is it possible to get some feedback on my entry. although as noted above the general thoughts are helpfull, I would like to know how I could have made my thinking better.

[np]

Really good feedback. For some of us non-students too I think (are yo always one?)

[Dino]

Really good, constructive comments Gareth. Really helped me out with something I was working on actually, so thank you :)