Brand Voices vs Brand Conversations

It’s easy to confuse the power of voice, when discussing ‘brand voice.’

(Don’t bother Gogling it, as there are some 441 million results, some of it with the predictable talk about signage etc.)

The Voice of the Brand belongs to two groups, depending on whom you speak to:

(a) The people who define the brand, and “know” what it stands for, and articulate it in their channels. This is really what I would call Brand Talk. Sometimes I cynically call it Bland Talk.

(b) The folks to buy it or use it, and talk it up in their own communities, and sometimes on the brand-owned channels. These are, arguably, more authentic Brand Voices. They tell you why people are using the product or paying attention.

But let’s cut through all this and look at brand conversations, to figure out what are the most valuable conversations? These are what social media helps us unearth: those incomplete, poorly phrased sentences, the angst-ridden, or cult-like exchanges in a forum, or comments section. Those self-appointed ambassadors and know-it-alls…

Sadly, brand managers are not always up to snuff on handling the latter; this sort of anarchy; of data-mining conversations; of engaging with those the bosses instinctively want to block or ban those outside voices from the website.

ONE OF THE FEW AD-MEN who bucks the trend and critiques one-way Brand Talk, calls for true brand conversations.

Nimal Gunewardena, CEO of Bates Strategic Alliance, happens to be moderating a round table discussion I will be part of, when I launch my book, Chat Republic, in Sri Lanka in a few weeks.

His screed about Brand Conversations, called for an abandonment of ‘sales talk’ and the 30-second-commercial mindset. It seemed akin to 1st century monks arguing against using calligraphy.

“It’s time to start thinking beyond that 30 second commercial. It’s time to combine the power of TV with the connectivity and engagement power of digital and social media. It’s time to explore new formats. Two-way conversations, rather than one-way broadcasts. It’s time to talk to communities who have common interests.

To which one person commented:

“oh how our vocabularies have changed recently! We are all part of a social media revolution and it’s simply not possible to have our heads deep in the sand any more.”

It’s so easy to provide knee-jerk responses to the role of conversations: To engage, to discuss, to share etc. I try to pry these apart in Chat Republic, and encourage readers to think of conversations as the ‘operating system’ for their community (OK, maybe the brand) they manage.

We cannot bury our brand-saturated heads in the bland.

 

Augmented reality at point of purchase. Will it change the way brands ‘talk’ to customers?

When I first covered this thing called Augmented Reality’ people gave me a few blank stares. After all, in 2010, smart phones penetration in the US was 25 % of all mobile users, and was just picking up speed.

Today, smart phones account for 50.4 of mobile phones. The comfort level people show with using apps, and engaging with tools such as QR Codes and Augmented Reality is making those who work in Marcom rethink what they do.

• Should they stop writing ‘copy’ and start writing story ideas that work in these personal, mobile spaces?
• Is it time to retire headlines and tag lines, and think of ‘swipe lines’ — inspired by the fast growing habits of new touch interfaces
• Should we stop thinking of ‘chunks’ of brand-laden text, and start thinking instead of scenarios for different moments during the point of purchase?

Take a look at this communication between the label of a bottle of ketchup and someone in the grocery story diving into content that hide behind the label. The content is no longer on the label, but somewhere in the cloud. With a small touch that information (a recipe, ingredients, a promotion etc) could be transmitted to the shopper’s smart phone.

It’s getting better! See how a Dutch magazine, Veronica, uses the same idea to make print come alive.

It blows my mind to think of the possibilities for print advertisers who could turn the reading experience into a point of (online) purchase.

 

Time to teach ‘media literacy’ to kids

I have two rules in the about TV for my daughter. (1) No watching TV from Monday through Thursday. (2) No turning to watch commercials when someone else is watching a program.

I’ve imposed rule #2 in spite of –perhaps because of– the fact that I once worked in advertising. I appreciate the fact that it is the commercial material that pays for the content in the media. But since Media Buying and its cousin Media Planning  is quite a science, with a wicked –often desperate — streak parents need to be vigilant. It is not accidental that advertisers deliberately place family unfriendly message in family programs. Few know that such a thing as product placement (and such things as ‘adver-games‘) exist to “regain the attention of consumers who can avoid advertising (by) using digital video recorders” etc.

I cannot begin to count how many parents have told me how they have had to do something about preventing their pre-teen son or daughter seeing trailers of movies that have a rating of PG-17 or higher. Because my wife and I are in education, we are constantly asked about how to deal with the problem. But while we rail against TV, let’s not forget the Internet could also be an equally bad influence when children use it unsupervised.

My first response is usually a question: “Do you have a TV in the bedroom?” If the answer is yes, then there is no rule on earth (no filter good enough) that could reduce the impact of the problem. A recent study in Britain found that nearly 8 out of 10 children watch TV by themselves for two hours a day.

My second question is related to  how many hours of TV or internet. The typical answer is “Oh, about 2 hours a day…” Two hours of passive entertainment may seem benign, but it is really two hours of training a young brain to accept information with no critical perspective, no time to reflect on what is presented. Worse, it trains young children to not use alternative sources of information, entertainment, relaxation.(Libraries, trees, sleep!).

But in the end, rules and timers will not be enough. What we need to do is teach our children some basic Media Literacy. Not in some academic way about theories of Marshall McLuhan or Neil Postman (Amusing ourselves to death). What’s needed is a way for parents to be able to tell their children that much of what they see and hear on television was designed to not make them think; that game shows and reality shows are far removed from reality –life simulated on studio sets. And that the emotions displayed in very realistic programs are planned, edited, and the people have been screened and coached.

Sadly, in the British study cited above, 66% of parents didn’t even know the characters or story lines of the shows their kids are watching. Experts who say TV for kids is not so bad recommend ‘co-viewing,’ but in that study 20 percent of parents who co-view approximately “sit in silence with their children.” Other studies have linked television watching to behavioral health problems.

Indeed Media Literacy  is hard, especially when it is easy to turn on the videos in the back seat of the SUV and keep the kids quiet and have an undisturbed chat on your bluetooth. 

Take a cue from the American Academy of Pediatrics which says media education for children could counter the negative effectsof watching violent TV.  Pediatricians have linked food marketing and obesity –an increase of 12 percent with one hour, increasing by 4 to 5 percent for each additional hour.  (May 2011 report).

A rudimentary lesson on media literacy would be a good start for children 4 and up. But it needs to be updated every six months. Later on, when the children grown up and you are fighting the deeper problems of over-sharing on social media, and sexting, you will be thankful you did!

 

Your audience will forget your bullet points –just stick to one

I’ve been wrestling with how much information is just enough when presenting, and how much is too much. Over-communicating, like over-sharing, is a present-day malady, influenced by our penchant to provide too much details even to our close networks.

In business presentations and training sessions, some speakers have this tendency to add so many sidebars to the main thing that you often catch them saying “now where was I before I went off on that tangent..?”

Bullet points are one solution when one is prone to over-communicate. Short sentences. Rich metaphors. But even bullet points could be overdone. I have caught myself veering off the ledge hitting the bullet point icon too hard, when I should have hit the delete key instead.

So instead of saying this

• I end up saying
• things like this
• hoping the idea
• will stand out!
• Wrong!

So here’s a revolutionary idea. When you have five  things to say, don’t, let four drop to the cutting floor. No one will miss them, I promise.

As in this simple video for Jet Blue, you could communicate one idea well.

 

Crowd-sourcing is fine, until you bump into control freaks

I ran into a great post on Crowd-sourcing,by Sid Roy, at an ad agency blog, PO Box. I was very impressed because this is the kind of topic that agency types who –at least the traditional ones — used to be very suspicious of: outsiders invading their turf.

The gist of the post is that is that co-creation, collaboration and open sourcing are here. And that marketing models that worked fabulously well in a world of scarcity would be ‘severely challenged to work in a world of abundance.’

Challenged is an understatement, isn’t it, Sid?

(You probably wanted to say ‘crushed!’)

I pointed out that while it’s taken awhile for crowd sourcing to catch on (Surowiecki’s book on The Wisdom of The Crowds, notwithstanding). There might be three reasons for this:

1. The ‘NIH’ syndrome. The team or department is often threatened by ideas that are ‘Not Invented Here’

2. Intellectual Property lawyers. Very recently Boeing and Apple rejected ideas from outsiders because they have been advised to not solicit or welcome ideas form people who might later sue them if the idea (or some flavour of it) is used.

3. Crowd-sourcing is somewhat anarchic. It’s not easy to manage the crowd in the traditional sense, since they don’t have roles, titles, proper compensation structures etc.

I can see why an ad/marcom agency might be reluctant to solicit and execute a campaign that came from a ‘bazaar’

Or why a school might not want to publish a text book based on knowledge sourced via Wiki platform

Those who control the distribution, creative and knowledge portals, and wear these hats aren’t ready to let the crowds run the show.

Full Disclosure: I used to work for Phoenix Ogilvy and Mather, publishers of the blog

 

Anti-commercial on library throws ‘Spice’ on dry subject

Who would want to make a commercial to promote a library? Videos of city centers and golf courses have built-in stories that are easy to tap into. But a library? They end up being like this! Or, for heaven’s sake, this –with slogans and beauty shots devoid of a story line!

So this commercial, which borrows heavily from the effects we have come to expect in Old Spice genre, is a lot of fun. OK, maybe they could have not been so liberal about stealing the copy approach ( “look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man…”) but I guess that’s what genius is, sometimes,”standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Shameless rip-off, or brilliant homage to a meme before it burns out?

Not everything this group does is that way, though. Take a look at this video on Roman citizenship, that is another way of spicing up a dry subject, even with with the standard Professor talking head.

 

Quotes for the week ending 3 Oct, 2009

“There’s nothing quite as insecure as a television anchorman.”

Kent Dana, the news anchor for Channel 5 (KPHO) in Phoenix, and previously anchor of Channel 12 (KPHX), retiring after a 30-years work in the news business.

“This is the biggest investment we’ve made in a national launch … “This is not your grandmother’s instant coffee.”“

Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, on the launch of Via, the instant brew

“rather than submitting their images and videos to mainstream media organisations, they post them online on Facebook, Twitpic, or wherever their friends are likely to see them.”

Robin Hamman, visiting journalism fellow at City University, London, commenting on the social media use during disaster and tragedy.

“This whole things has been quite scary.”

David Letterman, admitting he had had an affair with an employee.

“It is a whole other universe of risk.”

State Rep Steve Farley of Tucson, on texting and driving, as Arizona considers a bill to ban it.

“… Which is another reason why news operations don’t publish all the good news we hear about. There would be no room for the rest.”

E.J. Montini, commenting on All the Good News Fit To Print.

“But you have to remember if you have a conversation on the wall, you could be opening up the entire conversation to the public.”

Robyn Itule, an account manager with Armstrong Troyky, a PR and Ad agency in Phoenix

‘Then out of nowhere this big wave, as tall as the sky, hit.”

A 21-year old woman in the Pacific Island of Samoa, on the devastating tsunami that hit the area, followed by an earthquake in Sumatra.

“There’s always truth in snark.”

Chris Brogan, during his presentation at New Media Atlanta, commenting on the back-channel tool, BackNoise, saying “always confront the thing you are fear most head-on.”

 

Your Tweet on a T-shirt

There’s so much news about Twitter each day that I’m surprised someone hasn’t created a Daily Show about the 140-character revolution.

The news that Threadless, the crowdsourcing T-shirt company has launched Twitter T-shirt contest. Check it out at twitter.threadless.com.

It’s an interesting phenomenon. First because it takes what’s essentially an online phenomenon and moves it into the analog space.

Check out the others, here,  and vote here

 

How do we present a ‘black lung?’

Excuse the horrible metaphor, but I had two amazing conversations today that made me think a lot more deeply about what we communicators do for a living.

We do not perform complicated surgical procedures, we do not step outside the space shuttle to fix a broken rudder, we do not stand atop a Humvee in Fallujah ducking sniper fire. All we appear to do is generate content and try to get some buy-in.

OK, I know we have ambitious strategic plans, and wear business development hats, sit at board meetings and what nots. But still…

When it comes to presenting something, especially something that’s somewhat complicated, slightly controversial, icky, we  summon the best best tools from digital cameras to–as they say in the military– human assets. But we tend to lean heavily on  ‘push’ tactics.

Speaking to these two senior communicators, I realized that 95% of their time appears to be devoted to understanding the audience, and 5% into the messaging. Without naming names, one is the director of an organization with multiple audiences, another the head of an outreach effort that involves a web site, with as many audiences as there are dots on the world map. Let’s leave it at that.

• The Comms Director was someone who’s  finely attuned to considering what the audience was interested, using the web and as a listening post, as much as a publishing platform.  “We appreciate your views in helping us grow,” he mentioned. I was not in his orbit, not geographically, or professionally close to anything that his outreach program was all about. And yet…
• The Corporate Director was someone who thought a lot about–some would say overly sensitive to — information overload, and losing the audience. “We shouldn’t come across as far too complex. We sound like we are trying to cure every form off cancer, when in reality, we may be just experts in lung cancer.”

I asked if she meant pruning down the content? More than that, she said. “How do we present the black lung?” The what? She  remembered way back when smoking was being attacked on all fronts with logos, warning signs, ad campaigns etc, how one simple presentation in school made an impression. It was a canister with a black lung, and next to it a unsullied one. It was not the slick PSA copy in the campaign that made her decide she would not smoke. It was the black lung!

Which brings this to us.  We tend to pack our communication tool kit with everything we’ve got, when all it takes is one memorable take-away. Not to say we need to drop everything. But perhaps we unintentionally clog up (pun intended) our message.

So I am formulating this black-lung theory. We all have this black lung problem. We present way too many bronchioles, blood vessels and pulmonary side shows as a stand-in for a real solution.  In other words, sometimes it’s time to cut down that presentation deck from 35 slides to 5. Or … zero?

There are other ways to keep the black lung front and center.

• Use more visuals, less words.
• Speak for 35 minutes and leave 25 minutes for questions.
• Better still, start with questions and end with a presentation, counter-intuitive as this might seem
• Listen to the blogosphere, twittersphere, whateversphere
• Analyze leads, study your audience, use Google analytics
• I bet there are dozens more

If you have some great presentation examples (or even horror stories) I’d like to know. And so will my two unnamed sources.

 

Twitterhawk could kill golden goose

If you like Twitter (and wonder why it was not overrun by spammers) prepare for this killjoy. I was alerted to it by an IABC colleague –through what else? Twitter– of a tool that could kill the golden goose.

This crappy service, Twitterhawk is a way to turn it into a marketing machine. One look at what it promises and I can see the end times.  The company is brash enough to say that “We have many measures in place to reduce the liklihood (sic) of your posts being seen as SPAM, but instead look much more natural and real.”

Meaning: we can help you smile, and be a devil.

I can’t wait to see what the Amway / Quixstar types might do once they take hold of this! (Don’t kid yourself, they a lready use social media –chec this!) I don’t think it is the only robotic service out there, but if Twitter does not officially respond to this, we know where micro-blogging is gonna end up.