FRANKthoughts

Apologies for the blog inactivity… it has been a busy week for FRANk with the move, pitch, projects, etc.

So a tiny post today to keep things interesting!

Diesel is celebrating their 30th aniversary with a big XXX party running parallel across 17 countries (not Australia unfortunately!).  It will be featuring stars such as Soulwax, N.E.R.D., Pete Doherty, Ed Bangers, etc.  Check it out Diesel XXX.

To promote the event, check out this viral video inspired by Safe for Work Porno work!  Diesel has taken images from 70s porno films, replacing “private” parts with well-thought out designs:

The Bill & Jerry thing is a bit weird. It is certainly not what we thought it will be - which is a good thing. We are so used to “shove it up your throat” ads that we don’t know what to think when someone, instead of shouting “buy my keyboard”, is giving us free entertainment.

When Seinfeld started most of us didn’t get it. People asked “Why would you watch a show about nothing?” and thought that “this guy Seinfeld isn’t funny”. A few episodes later, when you get used to the humor, the characters and the nothingness, you realised you actually enjoy it.It became funny.

Here is the thing. I enjoyed watching the last episode. oops, is it an episode? I thought this should be an ad. There’s lies the beauty. This is not a regular ad. It isn’t what we used to get. Microsoft is breaking new ground. (I don’t get why Adrants actually want this to sell them stuff? do we actually like ads???) With a 300,000 million budget Microsoft dont need to try and sell me stuff. They just need to warm me up to the brand. What do you think?

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On Sunday 31.08.08 myself and a million other runners in 25 countries participated in a 10k run organised by NIKE+. NIKE+ started with a product - A small chip in your shoe that talks to your ipod nano, tracking your distance, time, pace and calories burned. The product led itself to a community of runners with NIKE offers support, tools and coaching.

Nike plus is a business/product/marketing solution that proves you can achieve great results with an holistic cross business approach. NIKE is so good at that, building an experience that extends marketing buzz words, leaving you searching for new ones to describe it. All elements work seamlessly together supporting one strong mantra: help the participants kick ass.

This is how I felt and my feelings, memories and experience were brought to me by NIKE. How strong is this bond? Wondering how this whole thing came to life (going back to some behind the scenes boardroom) I find it hard to believe it started from a strategy line like: “we want to sell more shoes”. I believe the single thought that started this project was more in the line of: “how can we make our users happy?”. Nike proves that putting your users in front of the bottom line will pay dividends.

Being part of the human race made me think again about the power of brands.

This time Nike pulled off the world’s biggest race. What will they just do next? Here is one answer:

A brand is my gut feeling about a product, a service or an entity. Branding is all about creating an emotional connection with people. This is important in every touch point with your users, especially when you’re talking. How do you think a customer feel about your brand after an unpleasant chat with your “customer care” person? (One of my good friends just had an unbelievably bad experience with Telstra and yes, he told all his friends about it).

Let’s take a quick side step to the world of robotics where robots are starting to connect with people on an emotional level - please check out “Heart Robot” to be blown away by some of these emotionally evolved robots. After watching this I was wondering what it’s going to be like having a robot as your customer service person.  On the positive side they can work 24 hours a day, never need coffee and never get cranky with a customer.  On the negative side they wont know when to bend the rules for a special client, exceed expectations or deal with a complaint.

Just a sec…when was the last time a customer care person slightly bent the rules for your sick mother, exceeded your expectations or calmed you down in a nice way? Unfortunately most customer service representatives are still trained to act like robots. How does this affect your brand emotional intelligence?

Thanks to MAKEmag for the Heart Robot post.

Alex Bogusky is arguably the Steve Jobs of ad land.  Agency Crispin Porder + Bogusky has won the much coveted $300 million Microsoft account.  The brief:  Make Microsoft Cool

Fast Company June cover story featured Alex Bogusky on it’s front cover with a detail article on the history of the Microsoft brand and challenges it faces.

In recent times, Microsoft has stood by quitely as Apple took a blatant approach to mock it’s largest rival.  Mac vs PC ads are now pop-cult fixtures.  Continual large and innovative ad campaign approaches by Microsoft are often off mark and swiftly dissembled by Mac advocates.  The rapid growth of Google and it’s cult following has also left Microsoft further behind it’s tech competitors.

So how can Microsoft, traditionally viewed as a highly corporate, arrogant, and a bully, be “cool” again?  As Andrew Keller, Crispin’s co-executive creative director says, “To try to be cool is to not be cool”.

Crispin’s award winning and historic work on Burger King, BMW Mini, VW, and Truth, will now stand the toughest test with their new Microsoft account.

The question remains to be seen, can Microsoft beat Apple and Google?

Isn’t it funny the reason people criticize because deep down, they really care. If they didn’t care, why would they bother?

The same applies to your Brand.

There will always be customers who complain that the service is too slow, staff are not friendly, it’s over priced, etc. They criticize because they believe your brand can be better.  They want you to succeed. They want you to be a better brand so they can engage with you.  Perhaps fostering a positive relationship.

So don’t dismiss critics and complainers. If you can listen to them and address their concerns, you may be able to switch them to powerful advocates for your brand. A great story for them to tell their friends.

The FRANk team is totally amazed by this superb work from The Hallway & Happy soldiers, Sydney based agencies for online travel goru Zuji. Starting with the concept: “We want people to take more holidays”, They decided that instead of just advertsing/shouting they can help people save for these extra holidays. Clever user centric idea, excellent execution and a brave client make this piece of work much more than advertising.

No more words are needed. just click play and enjoy:

 A thought of the day:

Influencers broadcast and advocate a brand or product to their friends and peers. It happens at home, it happens at work, and it happens online. They have an active role in influencing your customers in purchasing your product.

Influencers are typically hungry for information… more so than your average joe. They seek the latest news, to be first in the know, and consume information continuously. They also enjoy sharing this information… proudly in social gatherings, emails, blogs, among peers…. they are great story tellers of your brand or product.

So, there must be a need to feed the influencer’s hunger. Why not give them a story to tell through content (eg. blog or video) and experiences (eg. online and in-store). Help them share their stories with utilities and tools (eg. social media and mobile).

We had a recent debate internally about the role of Web2.0 (such as communities, social networks, blogs, etc) for clients. Who is doing it? Who is leading clients to do this? The media agency? The creative agency? The PR agency? The comms strategy agency? Each in itself is limited to effectively review, recommend, implement, and most importantly, maintain a Web2.0 strategy. A constant Beta evolving creature, it is often neglected because of it’s complexity. A well implemented Web2.0 strategy does not have an “end campaign life” and sometimes have slow initial build up (communities) which makes it tough to integrate into a standard campaign brief with traditional media.

A quick review of the 2007 Top 50 advertisers in Australia (a very rough snapshot and does not include all advertisers), we can see Interruption vs Web2.0 strategies at work. Adapting S&P’s Brand Presence Matrix, the Vertical is Traditional “Interruption” SOV and the Horizontal is Web2.0 “Conversational”.

About 90% of the Top 50 advertisers in Australia still play in creating large SOV through traditional interruption model. TVs, Radio, Outdoor, Banners, Press, etc. Jostling for the best spot approach. We called the top left quadrant Visible Brands. There also exist Invisible Brands such as Caltex and Toshiba who we are familiar with but are quiet in the advertising space. Perhaps the most desirable place to exist is in the Magnetic Brands space. Where big ad $$ are still being spent but they are also heavily active in the Conversational space. In Australia, we have seen limited use with more “novelty” approach of temporary communities that dissipate at the end of a campaign.

The most intriguing are Remarkable brands who spend little or no ad $$ but are active in communities. They command great brand advocates and hear of positive WOM from their users. Admittedly, I struggled to come up with local brands in Australia that play in this space… which is a pity and also demonstrates the market’s lack of ability to develop Web2.0 strategies. I believe the greatest reason is the lack of an acceptable model by agencies and marketers to adapt into existing ad “interruption” models. The increasing fragmentation, rising cost, and the trend of decreasing returns of traditional media will force a greater reliance on Web2.0 strategies.

After attending PubCamp Melbourne I was thinking about business models and how they will change. Yes, we always had advertising and subscription based models (These were covered at Pubcamp in length) but what else is out there? Well there is the “Pay what you like model” and the “invest in something model” or the “Micro payment model“.

Now here is a bit of a mystery. Carrotmob - something that started as a non-profit now has a business model. Watch the video to see what Carrotmob is about and see if you can guess how this can be monetised: