It’s not online or offline – it’s life
I’ve been reading many articles of late where online bashes offline and vice-versa. Be it paper based periodicals espousing the benefits of the press ad experience over the web, or internet media peeps squeaking on about the death of TV (again). I just want to say ‘Stop that and put your teddies down!’
Whilst I understand the temptation in these dark times of shrinking budgets, a knee jerk reaction may be to retrench, declare your stand and lob insults at your supposed ‘opposition’. But this thinking won’t get us, the client or the industry anywhere.
Now (particularly now) in these doom-riddled days, we should be offering value to our clients – suggesting holistic campaigns built around our audience to make every penny go further. Added value, with thinking recognising that people don’t see on or offline or know the meaning of ‘media channel’ but simply have a life.
By drawing together the threads of peoples lives, we stand a better chance of identifying new ways to engage and begin a conversation. It’s all about real people after all – people who enjoy meaningful conversations, be that on the phone, on the ‘net or in the pub. That’s conversations, con as in from the latin for ‘with’ and that means talking ‘with’, not ‘at’ people.
This calls for a change of model. We should eject anyone who justifies a brief with the words ‘Well that’s what we did last year’. Now is the time to make changes – evaluate the business requirements that kick-started the brief and look to a bigger picture on how to solve it. This not only has a good chance of making you and the client stand out from the crowd but may help your budget stretch a bit further. In cash-strapped times it is only innovative thinking that will get us out – and isn’t that what we’re paid for? Agencies and brands that are brave in these times will be leaps and bounds ahead when the country finally staggers to it’s feet.
Our thinking has to be people first, channel and media second – using each channel for precisely what they’re good at (so no mis-placed budgets or wasted pennies) and altering the message appropriately. We’ve all heard how it’s ‘all about the people’ now, most assume this means the end of ‘push’ media – but (as the song goes) that ain’t necessarily so. If we understand the differences and benefits of say, reading a paper and encountering an ad or receiving an email from a trusted company or a friendly face giving you freebies on the street – and deploy them according to the needs of the brief then all media has it’s place in the journey. Some may not be as relevant to the particular people we are speaking to at this time, others may be more and so spend can be thus divided. The point being it’s built around the people and our best opportunities to ask them to think and then do something connected with our brands. Then we’re really talking engagement – and not just from a brand to audience perspective but also how exciting it would be to have a brand that’s alive and fed by the people who are involved with it. Helping to guide and shape it - even to new product developments. Now we’re really getting engaging!
The key take-out is whilst the ways of talking have become many and varied, it’s still people we’re talking with. Put them at the heart of your brief and your choice of channels becomes clearer and your messages may begin to resonate more loudly – pushed ever onward by a group of truly engaged people.
Becky McOwen-Wilson
Creative Director
Geronimo
Web traffic : Eaon in Brand Republic this week
I wrote this for Brand Republic ages ago and had forgotten about it, it just appeared today. In case you can’t log in to BR (Ithink you need to be a subscriber, not sure?) I’ve re posted it here.
As an aside, i think i’ve been sub-edited as I’m fairly certain that the liberal sprinkling of the c-word (consumer)was not my doing. I’ve amended it for republication here.
“How to generate traffic to your website:
Conventional marketing usually involves investing a lot of time, effort and money trying to interrupt people who are busy doing something else and probably don’t care about your products or services — and it’s usually through advertising.
About 5 years ago I could expect to encounter around 1,000 marketing messages per day as I go about my business. Today with more fragmented media channels, it’s closer to 5,000.
The bad news for brands is that I am now better equipped for ignoring their messages than ever before.
The good news for brands is that they have assets to affect this that are massively underused and undervalued, which come in the form of the customers they already have.
More importantly, there’s the core group of those customers who are strong brand ambassadors.
Brands need to work out who these people are, get their permission, build a relationship and dialogue, and then ask!
The big question is, can brands handle the fact that no-one actually cares much about them?
People care about their own passions and the groups and communities that they are part of — even those that are extremely brand loyal only care because their chosen brands make it easy for them to do what they want to do (not vice versa).
We need to give our customers the tools to make their brand experience personal and relevant.
Build the affiliations — syndicate the content using RSS and embed codes.
Attract visitors by sending them away — link out to the individuals and groups that are talking about the same stuff.
The nature of the web is not as a communication channel, it’s a connection channel.
Amazon.com is of course the great example of this empowerment of the customer: A friend of mine produces a podcast on Buddhism.
He has a core community of around 200,000 listeners via his blog and i-tunes. Amazon’s affiliate shops allow him to create his own “shop” within Amazon via a widget embedded in the blog where listeners can easily purchase further reading material to aid their practice.
Brands need to think about their site: “Is the content compelling? Is it worth talking about? Have I set in place the mechanisms to allow my best customers to personalise their experience, adapt and share the message? Does my site serve the needs and desires of my customers, not just the brand message? Do I have the systems in place to be able to listen and quickly respond - with a human voice - to comments and queries?”
And finally, brands need to ensure that their products, services and customer service is so good, actually forget good, so great that their core group of influential fans have something to shout about.”