My 20 minutes at the marriage ceremony

(thanks to kala h for the photo)

I’ve put up my presentation from the Polygamous Marriage conference at Slideshare.  This is the gist of what I talked about- we don’t need a new structure as much as we need a new blueprint.

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It’s clear that in an era of increased media fragmentation that media, planning and creative have to seamlessly work together in order to navigate all these possibilities and create an environment that best connects brands and people.  But I think simply creating a new structure is not the biggest issue we face; the bigger issue is thinking about what the product of this union should be. 
Despite the fact that we all say we see the obvious shortcomings of the hypodermic needle or magic bullet school of communications and all the ways of thinking it has created (eg AIDA) we still default to produce communication that have objectives of creating awareness or highlighting an attribute or building image.  There’s lots of evidence that these are ineffective objectives and this is perhaps the biggest singular reason why advertising today for the most part isn’t working, We instead need to think about a better outcome for the marriage, an outcome of creating energy around a brand.  This sense of momentum and forward motion, data from Y&R’s Brand Asset Valuator and Hall and Partners suggests, is perhaps the best leading indicator of changes in behavior and brand value, 

So, how can this marriage of media, planning and creative build  a sense of energy around a brand?  The rest of the presentation offered 6 thoughts about things we can do to create energy and showed some examples of brands that I feel are best grasping this new model of communication.

1.    Be enthusiastic
I’ve talked about this before as have Mark, John, et al but this is about the importance of brands today having a strong sense of belief and purpose that guides everything they do.  But this is not simply a purpose or belief constrained to themselves or their category, rather it’s about having a point of view on the world and using this enthusiasm to attract like-minded people.  Lots of obvious examples (Dove, Method, IKEA, etc.) so I talked most about Howies and their desire to make people think about the world around them.

2.    Be interesting or useful (or better still both)
The point here was communication and brands do not exist in their own little compartment in the world and people’s minds and guts.  Rather, as Jeffre Jackson has brilliantly pointed out, they live in the broader world of culture.  So communication based around -er (faster, quicker, cheaper) no longer seem to have the punch we perhaps once thought they had.  Our job has to be to give them an idea that makes them interesting and/or useful to people.  Talked about AOL UK’s internet bad/good stuff, the Bird’s Eyes pea blog (thank you Russell) and Tate Britain’s ways to view the gallery depending on your mood.

3.    Do stuff
This was what I talked about with the peacock and the bowerbird, and how actions are more important today than brand image.  Used this as the chance to get the obligatory Nike example in as well as the Chevron Energyville site.  I didn’t get a chance to play this video that shows the brilliance that was Fallon London’s Tate Tracks idea.

4.    Do more than one thing
All the stuff John Grant inspired with his notion of the brand molecule, brilliantly summed up I think by a quote in the latest Atlantic Monthly – “any idea is dangerous if it is a person’s only idea.”  George Will was talking about the American idea but he may as well have been talking about communications.  Took the chance here to ask everyone to stop using the word integration which I believe leads us to make really boring stuff and instead think about the interaction between the things a brand does and how people interact with what you do and produce.  Running out of time so I didn’t talk about the 5% thing and the fact that nowadays it’s really hard to predict what is going to work so doesn’t it make more sense to spread your bets.

5.    Get out of the distribution industry
Stop thinking that our job is to deliver messages by renting media space and instead think about changing the economic model to spend the majority of marketing money on making stuff people care about.

6.    Sweat the small stuff
The importance that small, inexpensive things have and how you can make a huge impact through spending some time focusing on things like getting the brand voice right.  Talked about Barclays in the UK, Do The Green Thing and brands that use web error messages brilliantly.

I guess I’ve spoken about a lot of this stuff before (as have others) at different times but it felt right for this event – to get people to stop obsessing over structure, working practices and org charts and instead think about what we should be producing as a result of this marriage.  Put simply, we need to get out of the message delivery business and in to the business of energy creation.

Anyone who was there (or not) and wants to get a conversation going around this please leave a comment below.

Comments

[Michael]

I loved your last two points. I can't believe that brands spend 90% of their budgets on marketing!! Just made me think about (red) and how most of those marketing budgets could have moved into donating straight to the causes. Also, made me think about Method and how they are striving to a marketing budget of zero. Imagine how great brands would be if they spent that 90% on creating stuff that provides utility and delights to people.

And I agree. Small things make a huge difference. That's why I love New Orleans. Yesterday, I was eating lunch with Josh and I looked out the window and saw a stop sign. Right underneath were the words, "hammer time". Ahhh, I love New Orleans!

[Rob @ Cynic]

Without this wishing to sound like some sort of love-in, these last few posts of yours have been stupendous.

Normally I try to stay away from conferences of this sort but [1] I love Trumpet so anything they have a hand in HAS to be good [2] I think you're tops so anything YOU have a hand in HAS to be good [3] these posts prove it WAS a conference not to be missed.

I know this is absolutely sycophantic but I don't care - I'm a tired old hack who has heard alot of posturing and posing in his time but this is the real deal and you can feel it! Hurrah!

[Steve Stokes]

Gareth, Great thinking! The UK's Battle of The Big Thinkers by the APG needs to go international - you would have walked it if you had presented this this year...

[Mark Earls]

Great stuff. Wish I'd been there, along for the ride!

PS Don't think you should apologise for talking about what others have already done. Each time one of us ties the strands together into a narrative, something new or as yet unnoticed springs into view.

Carry on!

[Rob Mortimer]

Excellent stuff.