Great marketers aren't....(the power of simplicity)

Today I had the privilege of meeting George McDonald, founder of The Doe Fund.  Anyone who lives in New York knows The Doe Fund, www.doe.org, - you see their guys in blue jumpsuits out cleaning our streets all over the city.  It is a fantastically impressive organization that empowers thousands and thousands of homeless, disadvantaged and ignored men by employing them (and supporting them) to do work that all the rest of us lucky, privileged, spoiled folks get to benefit directly from.

I'd never met George before, he was amazing.  And the life-story of his organization is even more amazing.  And within that story I was especially struck by hearing about what turned out to be a seminal turning-point for The Doe Fund: a moment at which future success rose phoenix-like from the fire of near-extinction.  This is their description of that moment, per their website: previous to this time, the organization had survived by receiving City contracts to employ homeless men to do meaningful, fair-paying work doing up derelict housing stock.....
 "In 1995, the City changed its mayor and its philosophy about city-owned, low-income housing; The Doe Fund's work contract was slashed by more than 60 percent. There was not enough money to pay the trainees or the staff salaries. The McDonalds were faced with the possibility of returning the men who had worked so hard to rebuild their lives to the streets. Unwilling to even consider it, George came up with a plan.

 

He and Harriet live on East 84th Street, not far from East 86th, which used to be one of the filthiest stretches on the Upper East Side. "This is what we're going to do," he said. "We're going to take the money we have left and we're going to buy really nice uniforms and we're going to put the guys on 86th Street and they're going to clean it up every day and the community is going to want to support us." And that's exactly what happened. "

George recounts that everyone thought he was mad but he went ahead anyway.  And the growth of The Doe Fund took off from that moment and continues to this day.  People living in the city just saw those guys in their blue uniforms, cleaning and sweeping the streets where they lived - and they asked who they were, where they were from - and then they heard their stories, and they were inspired to support The Doe Fund.

What struck me is that this is marketing genius.  By someone who is not a marketer, has had no marketing training, would not even think of themselves as a marketer.  Lots of the professional marketers I get to work with never come up with marketing ideas this good.  It is an idea that is lateral and fresh and practical.  It made The Doe Fund's work and mission instantly noticeable, high-profile, empathetic and compelling.  It neutralized any cynical suspicions that homeless people are irresponsible and/or work-shy; it made The Doe Fund's previously invisible work tangible and literally impossible to ignore - if you lived in certain areas of the city you would actually bump into them; and it transformed the donor-recipient relationship into a mutually-reinforcing win-win (donor gets clean living environment, recipient gets work/empowerment.)

But most of all, I'm struck by how simple the idea was.  And I think this might be its core genius.  Maybe that's the quality missing from so many attempts at marketing in business today: a brutally clear, focused and uncomplicated core idea about how to solve a problem.  An idea that may be extremely complex to execute and sustain, but which at its heart is sharp and clean and un-muddled.  Almost all the great marketing ideas I've admired over the years -  Nike+/DeBeers' Right Hand Rings/The Tap Project/the invention of the Mr Clean Magic Eraser (and don't knock it before you've tried it:  the magic eraser is genius.  Truly.  The name is accurate - it is magic....) etc etc - all of them, are fundamentally simple in concept.

I remember years ago, during a particularly tough period of BBH New York's life, Nigel Bogle being in the office hearing our tales of challenge and stress.  In response, he bestowed lots of encouragement and advice, but he concluded with what he said was - in his experience - the most important thing to remember when circumstances are difficult:  'keep it simple'.  His point was (and I paraphrase) "The more complicated the situation, the more confusing the issues, the more you need to make things simple.  Simplify.  Focus on what really matters and don't get distracted by anything else."

I think at the root of the power of simplicity is a fundamental human truth:  the desire for ease and convenience, the constant human desire to find a path of least effort, least complexity.   We like simple.  Simple demands little of us and leaves time for other stuff.  So whether you're a potential buyer of a product, or a client buying an agency's services: the power of simple can be compelling.  I'm going to try to improve my marketing contribution in 2012 by making it simpler.

 

Writing from 9/11

Like everyone else, I spent much of today remembering events in New York 10 years ago.  I was lucky enough not to have close friends or relatives impacted, but Cantor Fitzgerald was one of BBH's clients so the impact of the day came very close.  Ironically we were due to launch a new campaign for Cantor just eight days later:  we had every billboard in and around the World Trade Center bought as our primary medium, and a BBH team was due to present final materials that very morning, at 9am on the 105th Floor.  The work was late, we'd fallen behind, the BBH team had postponed the night before: never a luckier call.

In my musing, I remembered the two written pieces I'd found particularly moving and insightful at the time - and still do.  Both attest to the astonishing ability of great writers powerfully to describe the indescribable; the ability not only to express some of what you yourself are thinking, but to help you understand your own feelings better.

The first is by my favorite novelist, Ian McEwan, writing in The Guardian four days later and conjuring up not just the eternal defiant strength of human love, but the extraordinary power of modern technology to share this strength immediately and publicly.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/15/september11.politicsphilosophyandsociety2

And, perhaps more surprisingly, the second piece is from The Onion.  They didn't publish initially for a couple of weeks after 9/11 - I guess they felt no humor was possible so immediately after - but then their first issue back in print contained what to me was a masterful piece:  God's appearance on Earth to re-clarify his stance on killing.   Astonishingly, the humor is so finely measured and so carefully wrought that it actually adds to the pathos - and the arc of the piece as God moves into ever greater despair and then finally gives in to his sorrow is, I think, just truly exceptional prose.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/god-angrily-clarifies-dont-kill-rule,222/

Emma Cookson
Chairman
BBH New York

+ 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013
emma.cookson@bbh-usa.com
( +1 212 812 6603
www.bartleboglehegarty.com

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Eeyores cannot be planners

A casual conversation I had a few months ago prompted me to reassess my view of the most important success factor for anyone working in the advertising industry today. Jim Carroll’s great post on BBH Labs a couple of weeks ago touched on a similar theme and reminded me to write down my thoughts ( http://bbh-labs.com/is-that-all-there-is).

Net net, I’ve started to believe that the quality of Positivity is more important and influential in this business than any other skill or capability. And as usual, John Bartle got there way before me - in his awe-inspiring retirement speech a decade ago he warned that “The opposite of creativity is cynicism”.

My conversation was with a BBH-er called Bryan Smith. For many years, Bryan had been one of our most talented and inspirational Account Planners – but recently he’d made the unusual (and unusually successful) move into the creative department so I asked him to share the perspective that his new role afforded: “Could you do a session with all our BBH NY strategists and tell them what you now know as a creative and wish you’d known when you were still a planner?”

Bryan’s immediate, spontaneous response floored me. It was roughly - “Sure. Although obviously there’s only really one thing to say”. I found myself panickily trying – and failing – to determine what this one ‘obvious’ thing must be. As I attempted to convey nonchalant comprehension, I assumed Bryan must be referring to some aspect of original strategic thinking: the need for planners/strategists to provide provocative strategic thinking that acts as a ‘springboard’ to original creative work.

But Bryan didn’t mean that at all. In his eventual learning session for the BBH strategy department he did encourage original, provocative strategic thinking – and lots of other skills as well – but he clarified his original comment roughly as follows: “As a creative now, I think that the main contribution any strategic planner can make is to create a climate of positivity. To project enthusiasm and optimism. To convey confidence and conviction that the solution we will all come up with as a team is going to be great. Because that conviction, that positivity, that enthusiasm – it doesn’t just make you feel better as a creative, it literally makes you better. It makes you better at your job, it makes you able to do better work [my italics]. And when you encounter the opposite – the planner (or any other team member) who is fearful or mistrusting or just plain bored - then the effect is enervating. You don’t just feel miserable, you can feel your ability sort of seeping away

I think Bryan’s point is a profound one that goes to the heart of managing any creative business. Creative professionals, by which I mean anyone who has to come up with fresh, original ideas to make a living (ideas of all types, obviously, not just ‘ads’ and not just ‘executions’) – are dependent on a sense of their capability in order to be able to operate. Without personal confidence and positive conviction, they actually lose the ability to be creative. As Colin Martindale (“Biological Bases of Creativity”, 2003) puts it:-
“A number of studies….and creativity tests…have demonstrated that stress reliably produces decreases in originality”

Fear and discomfort might be able to power certain types of performance, but they do not power creativity. And as essentially herd animals – creatures of social grouping and social dynamics (as Mark Earls has written about at length), despite our many professed assertions of independence and autonomy – we humans are often dependent on friends and peers in order to sustain this critical positive sense of capability and self-worth. Just ask anyone who has a creative professional as a partner or close friend (my own husband is a fiction writer) about the crushing effect of them encountering negative feedback: none of us enjoy criticism, all of us are buoyed up by positivity and support – but creative people are more intensely and fundamentally undermined by unenthusiastic response to their work than other folks.

This, in my experience, is the defining quality of great clients too: the few clients who I’ve had the privilege to work with who manage to get dramatically successful results out of their agencies are almost always those who not only desperately want truly bold work, but also passionately believe that their agency partner is going to deliver it. They don’t give us an easy time by any means, but they do convey the conviction that a great outcome is on the horizon. It’s a bizarre self-fulfilling prophecy: pretty much every time I’ve worked with a client who profoundly believes in my agency’s ability, then we’ve delivered a great output – but the odds have been much lower in circumstances of client cynicism.

So this then is my new resolution. To try to bring positive energy and enthusiasm to every aspect of my work. Not to be vapidly cheerful or to dodge giving critical feedback – empty compliments are hopeless – but to work always to sustain the sense that a great outcome is possible, thrilling and coming our way.

Emma Cookson
Chairman
BBH New York

+ 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013
* emma.cookson@bbh-usa.com
( +1 212 812 6603
www.bartleboglehegarty.com

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Analog interactivity

Some of BBH’s recent work for Google has reminded me of the power of creative work that brings the principles and approach of interactive communication to ‘non-interactive’ analog channels. 

 

These executions aren’t ‘literally’ interactive – their format doesn't allow you to engage directly with them or get involved with them like a traditional online banner or interactive video does.  But this is work which is interactive in spirit and effect, because it is structured to trigger an active viewer interaction in order to work.  These are creative ideas which necessitate that you take part in them mentally, even though you can’t take part in them physically.   Your brain interacts with the work, it doesn't just observe:  the ideas demand that you take part in them – essentially by ‘working out’ and completing them.  And they’re all the more powerful for that, because they bestow a satisfaction and delight in ‘getting it’.  And I’m sure they’re probably more memorable and compelling as a result as well – the active processing probably cements impressions more clearly in our minds.

 

A couple of examples:  some great OOH from BBH London,........

 

Screen_shot_2011-07-15_at_10
Screen_shot_2011-07-15_at_10
Screen_shot_2011-07-15_at_10

.........and one of BBH NY’s ‘Browse as fast as you think’ films.

A couple of years ago we deployed a similar principle to launch a new shower gel from AXE.  Here the idea was originally a literally interactive one:  digital formats were the inspiration for the work, and banners and online films worked by setting the viewer a memory challenge then giving him the opportunity to click through to give his answer.  (The promise of the AXE product was mental alertness:  we were literally testing consumers’ mental alertness and prompting them to improve it).  When we moved into TV commercials, we kept the interactive spirit of the idea even though the functional interactivity was gone – and again, I believe the quality and success of the work was enhanced as a result.

 

 

An end to '360 degree' communication please

Why do clients keep asking their agencies for “ 360° “ communication solutions.? I would like to ban the phrase. It is used casually and regularly, with little push-back, yet it fuels intense time-wasting, and enables lax strategic thinking.

I have just come out of yet another creative presentation in which a great communication idea was brought to life in a near-infinite spread of ‘360 degree’ expressions ranging from cinema commercials to subway tickets, online game to interactive kiosks, rich media banners to tweet-stream, and so on and so forth. There is absolutely no possibility that even 20% of these formats will actually be deployed in market: there isn’t the budget, the time or the client volition.

Yet this sort of full-spectrum set of executions increasingly seems to be the expectation and the norm: clients say they want to see the proof that the communication idea they are buying from their agency is really ‘a 360 degree idea’, ‘channel neutral’ or ‘media-flexible’ or whatever, and too often the agency response is to splurge out executions in a vast spread of forms in order to prove their delivery. We all know that the choice of vehicles and channels for our ideas is infinitely larger nowadays – and we all know that any idea which is tailored for success only in the more traditional paid-media channels is unlikely to be the most effective one – but why do we sometimes leap from there into the assumption that we need to present our ideas in almost every channel we can think of?

In reality, almost no client assignment needs or justifies “360 degree communication”. Few clients could ever even afford such breadth of vehicles, and rarely is it responsible or appropriate to the task to recommend more than a handful. Isn’t this just obvious, just common sense – I can’t imagine many people would disagree – but yet the ‘360 degree’ phrase endures, and continues to fuel bad behavior.

We need more 36 degree marketing, even 3.6 degree marketing: the smart, incisive identification of those channels, platforms and environments that are most perfectly appropriate for the task and idea in hand. This requires informed, innovative and committed strategic planning – both agency-side and client-side: it is strategic planners’ responsibility to specify exactly what tasks are best met by exactly which channels/vehicles, and to do so before the poor creative teams have completed executions in five times that number of forms.

Emma Cookson
Chairman
BBH New York

+ 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013
* emma.cookson@bbh-usa.com
( +1 212 812 6603
www.bartleboglehegarty.com

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SOCIAL MEDIA ANONYMITY - THE GOOD SIDE

I was very lucky to be invited to a small event last night at which Wael Ghonim spoke: one of TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2011, a man without whom the Egyptian revolution arguably may not have occurred. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2066367_2066369_2066437,00.html

Aside from the obvious inspiration of the subject matter, I also found myself thinking again about Malcolm Gladwell's famous, controversial and, I would say, glib - criticism of social media environments as an enabler of important social change. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell Of course vast amounts have already been written about the flaws of Gladwell's argument, which basically contends that social media is a good way to foster weak ties and low-effort, low-risk mass action, but no good for corralling the deeply-committed serious action required to galvanize social revolution - and even Gladwell concedes social media's powerful organizational capabilities. But Wael's talk made think especially about the revolutionary power of social media platforms due to their combination of the qualities of CONFIDENTIALITY and SOCIABILITY.

In the much more trivial context of my closeted Western middle-class life I've often found myself railing against the anonymity that the online environment provides, and the way in which this can enable people's most cowardly and mean-spirited traits: there are sites I now simply refuse to visit because they countenance the posting of personally vicious, near-slanderous criticism of individuals under the cloak of anonymity. But of course the context of a totally repressive, fear-infused society run by a cruel and vindictive dictator, changes the perspective on that situation altogether. There, publicly stating your criticism could be life-threatening, but failing to do so removed the potential for everyone else fully to realize and capitalize on wide-scale dissent. Wael's comment was along the lines of: "the critical role the internet played in this revolution, especially social media platforms like Facebook, was that it enabled people who wanted to say bad things about the regime to say so. People could be braver on a screen'. In earlier ages, revolutionary material could of course be anonymously created and widely broadcast via pamphlets and such like, but previously there was not public access to tools that enabled everyone both to express what they themselves thought to a large public - and also to spread inflammatory material to others in large numbers - and to do both with the feeling of confidentiality. I've always been aware of the downsides of this, less appreciative of the upsides. I guess people in Egypt could be - and were - sometimes identified via their online and cellphone accounts, with sometimes tragic outcomes, but presumably Wael's observation means that the fear and reality of being 'tracked down' were both significantly reduced by the social media landscape.

Meanwhile, a few other random Wael quotes that I enjoyed.
"The 2011 Egyptian revolution was like Wikipedia, that's why I call it revolution 2.0. Everyone contributed, everyone played a part, but no-one was getting credit"
"The best marketing campaign ever run in Egypt was the events of 14th-25th January, mobilizing everyone to protest"
"The Egyptians woke up and they are not going to go back to sleep again"
"The taxi driver who told me he's now breathing freedom, he's not going to accept losing that again"
"I remember the Muslim man in Tahir square who said to me 'I can't believe I just hugged a Christian. Never in my life could I imagine I would hug a Christian' "
"Oh I love Justin Bieber by the way. And Miley Cyrus"
"I did meet Mark Zuckerberg. And I forgot to say thank you to him. I can't believe I didn't say thank you. I told him 'you're not as bad as in The Social Network' "

Emma Cookson
Chairman
BBH New York

+ 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013
* emma.cookson@bbh-usa.com
( +1 212 812 6603
www.bartleboglehegarty.com

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STOP DIGGING FOR INSIGHTS

I am fed up with digging for consumer insights. More precisely, I am fed up with the assumption that one can dig for consumer insights. I found myself today being asked yet again how I personally go about ‘uncovering’ consumer insights for deployment in advertising development and I tried to explain, again, that – actually - I don’t ever ‘uncover’, ‘find’ or ‘dig for’ them at all. And that I think it’d be helpful if everyone else stopped trying to do so as well.

To explain. I am not denying that great consumer insights (by which I mean fresh, thought-provoking and true observations on the nature of human thought, feeling or behavior) are sometimes the springboard for excellent marketing and advertising. It seems to me for example – to cite just one great recent case - that W+K’s great ‘Proud Sponsor of Moms’ campaign for P&G’s Olympic sponsorship program was triggered by the simple but powerful consumer insight that there’s only one person in this world prouder than an Olympic gold medalist – and that’s the gold medalist’s mom. Closer to home at BBH, it was a great and universal consumer insight that drove the long-running success of our global Johnnie Walker campaign: in that instance, the insight that men nowadays define personal success as a constant journey of progress, not a complacent ‘made it’ achievement of arrival and completion.

So yes, consumer insights – if truly insightful – are hugely valuable. But it’s the verbs that typically accompany description of their pursuit that are so problematic. Verbs of discovery. Usually discovery via excavation. We talk about ‘digging for insights’, ‘finding consumer insights’, ‘uncovering consumer insights’. With the implied assumption that insights are sitting around, lurking hidden from sight as if under a rock, just waiting for some persistent young marketer or researcher to come along and ‘find’ them. For years, the exhortation has been that we should all be better at ‘digging’ for insights. And nowadays I notice that the call is for insight mining. (Perhaps the futile digging is recognized not to have worked, so a determination to delve deeper – to mine down into lower strata - has now been committed to. But what’s really required is a totally different attitude.)

Here’s the thing. Great consumer insights are not – in my experience – discovered. They are thought of. Conceived in the mind of some smart, informed person. They are not found, they are intuited. They are not mined, they are identified and hypothesized.

Someone with a deep understanding of the relevant group of people (the ‘target’ – dread word) uses their intuitive knowledge of that target, along with their creative thinking skill, to articulate a fresh, fascinating and provocative new brand perspective on the target. ‘It’s funny isn’t it”, they say, ‘that our brand promises to clean clothes effectively, yet actually most moms know that it’s healthy for kids to get dirty as they play and explore’ (the Unilever laundry ‘Dirt is good’ consumer insight ). Or, ‘isn’t it interesting”, they say, “that the people who wear our sneakers are mostly very unathletic, their activity is in the bar not on the field” (Puma – ‘For the after hours athlete”). Or “have you noticed how when you get really hungry, your whole personality changes” (Snickers ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry”).

If coming up with great insights was a matter of discovery, then everyone could do it. And would. Whereas in reality, we all work with brand /comms strategists (client- and agency- side) who go through their entire career never identifying a true insight.

In reality, identifying an insight is less about finding some new piece of information (who doesn’t already know that moms are proud of their sons’ and daughters’ achievements? Who needs a piece of research to point this out? ) and much more about realizing how information or knowledge can be freshly used and applied. We all already know that some people aren’t athletic, we all know we get grumpy and distracted when we’re hungry, we all know kids learn by experimental play – but we don’t all spot what to do with that knowledge. We don’t all have the INSIGHT to see how to apply it.

And then, sure, consumer and research can play a valuable role. We can use research to confirm whether an insight is indeed valid, and to hone or qualify it, and to finesse how to express it in the most motivating way. But we need to all stop thinking we can skip off into a new research project, stopping to pick up insights happily along the way.

Emma Cookson
Chairman
BBH New York

+ 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013
* emma.cookson@bbh-usa.com
( +1 212 812 6603
www.bartleboglehegarty.com

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BRAND LEARNINGS FROM THE PHILANTHRO-CAPITALISTS?

Twenty years ago, as a junior Account Planner still working in the UK, I was lucky enough to participate in a meeting with the management team of the pioneering environmentally-friendly household cleaning products brand Ecover. With what I now realize was extraordinary prescience, they referred to themselves as a ‘pressure company’. This was my first experience of a corporation consciously blending commercial and philanthropic agendas.

Then just a few weeks ago, I heard Blake Mycoskie, founder and CEO of the awesome Toms Shoes, speak at this year’s SXSW convention, urging the capitalist world to embrace a philanthropic agenda in order to enhance their financial performance. “Doing good is good for business”, Mycoskie proclaimed – citing fantastic sales results for his one-for-one model as proof of this assertion.

Both these companies are instances of a strong trend in business today: the move towards a merging of commercial and philanthropic agendas. ‘Philanthro-capitalism’ as it’s sometimes labeled. Not CSR or corporate good will, but the establishment of business models with philanthropic goals at their very core, as an anticipated driver of the company’s commercial success. I’m sure the trend will continue to grow and I applaud it wholeheartedly.

One thing that has troubled me though is how – or indeed ‘if’ – existing companies and brands can embrace a similarly effective perspective and agenda that actually boosts their business but does good at the same time. If you’re a long-established, traditional financial services provider or consumer packaged-goods producer that’s been in market for decades and does not have a philanthropic perspective actually built into the core of your operating model, what – if anything - can you do to exploit this trend beyond the continuance of more superficial (although often highly laudable) CSR initiatives? In particular, what philanthropic initiatives can you undertake which don’t only satisfy ethical standards but also aggressively boost commercial success? There are many great instances of corporations’ philanthropic initiatives which are applauded by consumers– but do these really maximize the potential to simultaneously boost profit and social good?

Listening to a talk last week by Morten Albaek, Group SVP of wind energy company Vestas Windsystems, made me think that maybe I just hadn’t thought sufficiently radically and boldly about this challenge. Maybe there are many more ways for established capitalist entities to embrace the learnings of the philanthro-capitalists, but only by thinking on a bigger, bolder scale than is normally the case.

First, Albaek shared data proving that consumers trust and ‘like’ NGOs more than almost any other type of major institution, but went on to observe that most powerful resources in the world – both financial and talent – however reside in capitalist entities not NGOs. He then recounted seeing a press ad announcing Lufthansa’s support of Save the Children, and casually mused: “Given the discrepancy of resource-allocation, shouldn’t a commercial company not just support a worthwhile NGO, why don’t they instead create one? Instead of donating to Save the Children, should Lufthansa start and fund the next Save the Children?” And sure, of course you’d need strong operating principles to restrict operational bias/influence from the commercial parent – and external auditing to guarantee objectivity – but otherwise, this seemed a simple but radically bold suggestion. Something as potentially dramatic for an established brand to do as the establishment of an entire philanthro-capitalist endeavor.

Second, Albaek shared the fact that his company has now created a new trustmark WindMade. Like the recycling logo before it, or the Fairtrade one, theirWindMade logo signals an important ethical/environmental commitment by the manufacturer to consumers. In this case, the fact that the product or service labeled has an environmentally-friendly production process (as opposed to other similar labels that tend to signal some sort of ingredient characteristics eg not tested on animals, no CFCs….). But I find it interesting and significant that unlike those previous symbols, this one was created by a commercial entity – and then ‘set free’ for universal use. And a partnership with LEGO is apparently sorted, so that should help build market momentum and critical mass for the WindMade mark. Another very bold, radical idea that seems to have the potential to move a commercial entity out of the realm of CSR donation/support, and into a more deep-set philanthro-capitalist approach. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/152/tilting-at-windmills.html

So net net, I guess I’m just starting to think that maybe a more fundamental philanthro-capitalist fusion perspective can be retrospectively applied to a pure-commerce company or brand, as well as being the foundation for new ones. But only if dramatic and radical applications are undertaken, rather than just small-scale and familiar activities. And it’s my hunch that ideas like these two might have a more fundamental positive commercial impact just because of their scale and attention-commanding radicalism.

Emma Cookson
Chairman
BBH New York

+ 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013
* emma.cookson@bbh-usa.com
( +1 212 812 6603
www.bartleboglehegarty.com

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Windtunnel Advertising

Various BBH-ers have posted recently on the topic of Windtunnel Marketing, most notably Jim Carroll (Chairman, BBH London) and Charles Wigley (Chairman, BBH Asia Pacific). http://bbh-labs.com/tag/wind-tunnel-marketing . Our contention is that advertisers and marketers today are regularly failing to prioritize the pursuit of difference and distinctiveness, instead succumbing to a 'windtunnel' effect of similarity and blandness.

The presentation here is simply my personal re-working of the same theme and much of the same material - but with added emphasis on the phenomenon that additionally concerns me. Namely, the way it seems that brands are increasingly replicating this failing as they move budgets and activity into more digital channels and platforms. Digital communication experts quite regularly, and rightly, point out the many limitations and liabilities of certain 'traditional' advertising practises (the one-way communication, imprecise ROI, lack of full engagement, high production budgets etc), but they don't seem to be succeeding in avoiding their own windtunnel of sameness. Unoriginal, brand-interchangeable Twitter streams and YouTube channels and OLA and appeals for UGC seem to me to be the norm rather than the exception - a state of affairs that I think is dangerous and lamentable.

(See attached file: WindtunnelInternationalistFinalshrunk.ppt)

Emma Cookson
Chairman
BBH New York

+ 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013
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