Design Week Article

Here is an article I had published in Design Week. It came about after CPB's PR guy, and myself, wrote a letter about testing pack designs. There was, for Design Week, quite a flood of responses, one of them quite virulent. The initial letter was about bad research on some bread packaging, but the response was about not embracing consumer input! Anyway, I was sufficiently worked up to write a considered response, which was too much for the letters page but became an article instead.

The strange thing was that the sub-editor, or whoever writes the synposis (or 'standfirst' as it is correctly called), wrote a very misrepresentative couple of sentences.

They titled the piece "It's new, it's exciting, but it's not clever" and the standfirst was "crowdsourcing and co-creation are the buzz words of the day but Christian Barnett argues for more traditional methods of idea generation".

Anyway, here is the article:

"In recent weeks there has been the start of a useful discussion about the role of research and other consumer ‘input’ into the design process. Though the subject of research in of itself may be a bit of a hoary old chestnut, the impact of ‘new media’, co-creation, and the ability to crowd-source have meant that consumer input has taken on a much broader meaning over the last few years. As such there may be some value in opening up the debate for 2010.

Of course it is a good idea to have consumers involved in the development of work. The best strategies and creative work have some genuine consumer insight baked in. But the best ‘input’ or research is not generally done to decide between different creative expressions of a strategy.

That is a beauty parade and is riddled with problems.

i. It is not possible to make a realistic test of effectiveness in a ‘laboratory’ situation in advance of real-life exposure. We need to be very wary of how we treat results from this type of ‘input’. This is not to say that ‘pre-testing’ is always a bad thing; it isn’t. But it isn’t always a good thing either, and if done, we ought be careful about how we do it, and what agency and client folk take from it.

ii. We need to remind ourselves that consumers are not party to the brief or what we are trying to achieve with any particular piece of creative work. Consumers may not be using the same criteria to judge creative work as the agency/clients are.

iii. Consumers generally like things they familiar with. They tend to stick with what they know. This is ok for some briefs. But for more innovative, break-through or radical briefs that demand that consumers see a particular brand in a new light, you can see how, very quickly, ’ ‘beauty parade’ ‘input’ can get quite tricky. Consumers readily back away from change.

And we also need to remember that assessing creative work on-line means that we are not capturing a whole stack of data points, and arguably the more emotional ones that are crucial when assessing creative work that is intended to elicit some kind of emotional response. Data such as body language, tone of voice, ‘how’ people speak about the stimulus material are all important when looking at creative work. They provide tell tales clues to how people are feeling about the creative work. On-line research may work terrifically well when all that is required is rational recording of data but it is less reliable when addressing creative work that probably merits a more sensitive form of inquiry, and analysis.

The best research is used to inform the brief, to work out what the task is, and give illumination and clues as to how to move forward. This ‘early’ or exploratory research can give us insight into the market and our brand’s position in it, why people are attracted, or not, to our brand. It takes place at a strategic level, has a greater impact on the creative process than the ‘beauty parade’ research, and often helps with how we set the criteria for success when we are in market. It is the most overlooked type of research, in part because the output is some kind of brief which most people are typically less interested in than the tangible creative deliverable.

‘Testing to Destruction’ by Alan Hedges is the classic text on this subject, and though written 40 years ago and primarily about advertising research its lessons still hold good. It should be read by anyone who has a stake or interest in the subject. It is out of print but an updated version is available on the APG website.

Under the heading of consumer ‘input’ comes research, which I have addressed above, and also ‘co-creation’ or ‘crowd-sourcing’. Although inevitably, there is some overlap between the two, for this letter, ‘research’ is more about understanding our consumer better and getting feedback from them whilst ‘co-creation’ invites the consumer to be an active participant in the generation of creative ideas. With co-creation, we are not looking for ‘consumer truths’ or ‘insight’. We are looking for ideas, solutions. It is a very different type of ‘input’. Our increasing familiarity with social networking and digital media allows this type of idea generation to be done quickly, imaginatively and cheaply. The Moving Brands pitch for the London identity was a great example of co-opting consumers – in this case Londoners – to participate in idea generation.

However, though this type of input is exciting, new, and seductive my suspicion is that the best ideas still consistently come out of the best agencies with the best talent that give most of their waking hours to the generation and execution of ideas. And to my mind it would be a tragedy (not to say a serious indictment of our industry) if it was any other way. "

Advertising Works Article

I was honoured to be invited to write an introductory chapter for Volume 19 of Advertising Works, here. The title isn't one I would have chosen and I thought I should really play it a little safe with it. The resulting article is steady if unspectacular. Good enough to print but hardly the stuff to cause a tidal wave in advertising thinking. Though if a couple of people in the next recession look it up and have a read, then I'll be pleased.

It's a shame I can't lift the article directly from the book, as it looks way more impressive in a £130 500+ page hard cover book, especially with a photo of me in!


Chapter 2

Learnings for the next recession

By Christian Barnett

Planning Director, Coley Porter Bell

It’s a bit tough being asked to think about learnings for the next recession, in part because we’re not completely clear of this one yet – double dip and all that – but also because no two recessions are quite the same. They have different causes, different effects and different remedies. My current favourite fact is that, on average, people had more disposable income in 2009 than 2008, which seems at first sight, a little counter-intuitive.

However, it is fair to assume in the next economic downturn marketing budgets will be put under more pressure, that demonstrating return on investment will be even more important, and that creativity, channel selection and mix, and targeting –be it demographic, attitudinal or behavioural – will all be under increased scrutiny.

And, in a rather perverse way, perhaps the brand and communications industries should look forward to it. Recessions put us on our mettle, force us to look at, and justify, the value of what we do all the more keenly and force us to be more innovative. Tough economic conditions should, in theory, expose the lazy and wasteful and reward the skilful and brave.

There is already some excellent literature around about advertising during a downturn.* The main theme is that of the crucial important of the relationship between share of voice and share of market. In practical terms this meant bolstering advertising expenditure in times where the natural inclination is to cut it and realizing that recessions are great times to buy share of voice, and thus market share, because competitors retreat and media rates fall.

However, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of reviewing creative strategies, so I thought it might be useful to look at the different approaches taken in this recession to draw some generalised rules for the future, and use some of this year’s winning papers to provide examples.

*‘Advertising during a recession’ Alex Biel and Stephen King, Chapter 9 in Advalue, IPA, 2003, and Advertising in a Downturn, IPA, 2008, ‘How share of voice builds market share’, IPA 2009 and ‘The link between creativity and effectiveness’ IPA 2010 for example.


The big emotional idea

When brands are under pricing pressure, reinforcing the emotional bond with the consumer is a time-honoured way of maintaining value in the brand. It sounds easy, but requires a real appreciation of how the brand fits into the emotional landscape of its audience.

The Heinz paper, ‘Maintaining leadership in uncertain times’ does just this, showing a deft understanding of the brand and its role in British life to rejuvenate emotional affinity and purchase. The ‘It has to be Heinz’ campaign drove a strong emotional response that helped rebuild core equity, and due to the renewed loyalty rebuilt the sales and share that had been in decline due to Heinz loyalists drifting away from the brand.

In contrast, the Cadbury Dairy Milk paper doesn’t seek to show how the brand is integrated deftly into our lives. Instead it carves out confidently a whopping big emotional territory, a far cry from the previous ‘persuasive’ Dairy Milk advertising model. The big leap was to make people feel the same joy as they might get from a bar of Dairy Milk rather than tell people. In essence Cadbury Dairy Milk stopped being a ‘manufacturer of chocolate and became a producer of joy’. Though not a recession-specific paper it certainly gives us lessons in one way to respond to an economic downturn. The campaign has increased key measures of ‘love’ (involvement) and ‘fame’ (salience) and improved price elasticity, with less reliance on price promotions, and a greater return on investment.

Leveraging brand heritage

In tough times we look to brands we trust. Drawing upon a brand’s heritage is one way to remind us of the brand as a rock. Indeed, there was a spate of ‘heritage’ campaigns that aired in late 2008/early 2009. Guinness, Colgate, Milky Bar, Persil and Lego all rebroadcast old ads, Walker’s relaunched Monster Munch, Mars repackaged Starburst as Opal Fruits and, in an act that combined the old and the new, Cadbury reintroduced the defunct Wispa brand after a campaign on Facebook calling for its return. A limited edition turned into a permanent relaunch which in its first week was the best-selling chocolate bar in the UK, and managed to sustain its success as online engagement grew. The paper shows a glorious mash-up of a heritage brand reborn and sustained by the power of today’s social media.

Two other award winners stand out in this area. Firstly, Virgin Atlantic, that celebrated its 25th anniversary in style by going back to the 1980s with a big TV ad. In an industry that took a significant hit due to the recession, Virgin Atlantic, not for the first time, zigged whilst other zagged, and instead of slugging it out in the gutter on price took to the skies with a big brand piece which drove top-line revenue.

Secondly, Hovis, with its epic TV ad ‘As good today as it’s ever been’ depicting a young lad running home with a loaf of Hovis through various scenes from the last 122 years, is perhaps the most obvious example of a brand drawing upon its heritage. Not only did the film take us on a journey through the times that brand has been with us, but did so with the atmosphere, style and equities that evoked the brand’s most famous past moments. Though not created directly in response to the recession, its timing couldn’t have been better – it launched just as the downturn hit – so much so, that it didn’t just tap into the prevailing zeitgeist but helped define it.


Innovative thinking and value

Recessions put significant pressure on premium brands andit takes skill and dexterity to walk the tightrope of demonstrating value without compromising hard- earned brand values. The retail sector provides us with two excellent examples of how smart innovative thinking can relieve the pressure from mid-market and discount predators looking to lure the more value-driven shoppers away from the premium stores.

Waitrose took the opportunity to create a coherent own label range, ‘Essential Waitrose’ by bringing its disparate offering together under one new sub-brand. The range itself was simple and elegant, in keeping with the Waitrose style, and the communications effort was underpinned by the line: ‘Quality you’d expect at prices you wouldn’t.’ The ‘Essentials’ rebrand helped prevent shoppers from switching out of the brand, built loyalty amongst Waitrose shoppers and delivered a considerable return on investment.

Sainsbury’s was fearful that the good work done in 2007 with the ‘Try something new today’ campaign, would be undone in 2008 as the credit crunch took hold, food inflation gathered pace and Sainsbury’s could be perceived as too expensive. ‘Feed your family for a fiver’ was an idea that offered Sainsbury’s quality for great value in difficult times. The price point was delivered by standard prices and not special offers or discounts. It produced the best recognition score for any Jamie Oliver TV ad tracked to date, was recalled as well as Tesco’s longer-standing ‘Every little helps’, and delivered over £500m in sales in two years.

The ‘baddies’ do their bit

This is a tricky area, and probably worth a more detailed analysis elsewhere, but it seems to me that brands, like celebrities, who bury their head in the sand on difficult matters that directly concern them generally don’t enhance their reputations. Some sort of communication (ideally with corrective action) is necessary and it seems to be the only way to try to find some redemption. Whether it succeeds is another matter. So it is interesting to find a number of financial papers in this year’s awards. The two most pertinent are the Lloyds TSB’s ‘For the journey’ and the Barclays’s ‘Take one small step’ as they directly address the recession. Both take the line of offering a helping hand. Lloyds TSB, which had to face considerable public anger over pay and bonuses after the government bail-out and saw an accompanying dip in consideration, avoided any temptation to change campaign and saw the value of sticking with the ‘For the journey’ theme.A new ‘How we’re helping’ message reminded customers that the heart of the business was in the High Streets of the country and not the Square Mile. Consideration started to rise again.

Barclays too, offered some practical help, with their ‘Take one small step’ campaign. In a climate where customers were feeling powerless, the intent was to help them manage their money better and feel in control of their finances again. This was done by encouraging people to adopt relatively small but achievable behaviours. The campaign took a series of needs and matched it with a Barclays product or service. It successfully shifted attributes like ‘offers helpful products and services’ and ‘helps me manage my money better’ and delivered a hefty return on investment.


Behavioural economics

Perhaps the most interesting of the approaches, as it is a relatively new area of thought, is that of the application of behavioural economics. It seems to be ideally suited to how brands and communications respond to recessions. The notion of many ‘small’ choices and decisions having a bearing upon eventual outcomes seems well-adapted to a marketing environment – with huge permutations of touchpoints; consumer journeys that are no longer predictable nor sequential; increasing emphasis on targeted digital engagement; and demanding greater accountability.

The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) paper, ‘Best in class: how influencing behaviour with a new media strategy helped nudge teacher recruitment to record levels’ is a superb exposition of this new type of thinking.

The issue was the shrinking pool of quality applicants entering teacher training and in particular, the number of ‘career switchers’ was declining faster than applications in general. For someone already in a career, switching to become a teacher is a big decision. In addition, progress towards becoming a teacher for career switchers wasn’t linear or mechanical. Instead their behaviour was full of stops and starts, emotional and logical, decisive and uncertain. The communications strategy is best described as a pinball machine, keeping the applicant ‘in play’, and nudging them towards an application.

It may not be that all decision processes are this complex or long-winded. For example, deciding on which brand of bread to pick off the shelf may not require the same thought process as changing careers. Yet, there will be broad lessons and principles of thinking that apply to any scenario where communication is trying to overcome a behaviour barrier, or set of them. Understanding the interplay between triggers, barriers, decisions (and non-decisions), message and media helps us construct communications in a way that should lead to better and more effective outcomes.

The one thing I found disappointing was that there wasn’t more thinking like the Teacher Recruitment paper. There were other submissions that borrowed some of the language of behavioural economics, and certainly demonstrated how they have used communications to shift behaviour. But this paper really got under the skin of how messaging and media could help nudge people. Given that some of the big discussions in the industry over the last decade – fragmentation of media, digital communication and now behavioural economics – all seem to intersect at a point that would have proved very useful in recessionary times, I am surprised that this type of approach was not used more. Perhaps by the next recession we will have learnt how to better apply all this good stuff we have been talking about for a while.

I don’t pretend these themes are exhaustive, or that they are exclusively for recessions. But judging by what has worked over the last couple of years, the papers and themes outlined above might be a reasonable place to start some thinking the next time around.

We are fortunate that we have fantastic resources such as the IPA Databank, www.ipa.idol.co.uk and other specific IPA papers, to draw upon in difficult times. Recessions are tough for many industries, including ours, and the wealth of data we have available helps us to strengthen and prove our case for investment in harder times, and in so helping our own business through helping our clients.

Account Planning Group Article

Another article I tracked down. This one is from 2002 and appears on the Account Planning Group's website.

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Media-neutral planning - what is it?

Christian Barnett, Board Account Planner, Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R
This paper focuses on three key areas for discussion: firstly, what an agency delivers to ensure a media-neutral campaign, secondly, what the optimum agency-client structure to make integrated campaigns a reality, and thirdly the implications for the agency team composition.

What the Agency delivers

It is important to deliver more than just the written definition of the 'creative idea', and the advertising campaign. There needs to be an entire 'brand language' which includes definition of the idea in a conceptual, linguistic (literally examples of headlines and copy) and a visual way. The last is particularly important as many integrated campaigns rely on a visual synergy to hold them together, especially in media such as packaging, trade merchandising, and other in-store design.

The best approach to developing a 'brand language' is by means of a specifically tailored 'style guide'. This ensures that an integrated solution can be implemented not just sold. The style guide contains examples of how the campaign is intended to work in various media (TV, outdoor, print, on-line, trade, in-store, etc.). The idea, the visual look, the language and other executional elements are dissected and explained so that they can be easily reproduced.

The skill lies in being able to produce an integrated campaign that has an idea and a look. An idea with no look is difficult to replicate in many of the static media. A look with no idea becomes hard to execute in a dynamic media such as TV.

As a result, a clear distinction is made between the integrated campaign style guide and a traditional graphic designer's brand book. The latter may establish a visual look but can be very difficult to create advertising to.

What is the optimum Agency-Client 'Structure'

Some agency-client structures are more helpful than others at facilitating media-neutral campaigns. The least helpful scenario is that where a client keeps its agencies in separate 'silos'. The different agency disciplines are kept at arm's length, thereby stacking the odds against integrated thinking and solutions.

On the agency side, the least helpful scenario is one in which the agency develops an idea, shows how it works in advertising and hands the execution back over to the client. It is then up to the client to make it work in other media. Often the idea will not have been rigorously road-tested inside the agency and collapses as soon as it is taken to another media, either through insufficient skill in the transportation or because another agency has its own ideas and scuppers the 360 solution. A more typical scenario is when the client selects a number of specialist agencies. This way of working enables the client to pick 'best of breed' agencies, but it is reliant on the different agencies working closely together, something which at best requires considerable managing. In addition, best of breed agencies with their own client contract will want to impress so it is only natural that conflicts arise. This form of client-agency structure can have huge pluses; genuine integration from best of breed, but can easily go off the rails.

Another favourable scenario is the client who wants a genuine one-stop agency solution. A good example of this at RKCR/Y&R is the LEGO account. The LEGO Company had too many agency relationships around the world and saw a one stop global agency as a way to create totally integrated campaigns coming from one brand. Their brief included an integral role for media planning as part of the central creative function even though they already had regional media planning in place. They recognised that to speak with one brand voice throughout the world a one-team solution was the best way forward.

To get truly integrated ideas it is preferable to have all the disciplines under one agency roof, all working for the same agency team and pulling together. This ultimately means creative teams from different disciplines being briefed and working side by side, inputting ideas into each other's discipline in campaign development.

This thinking carries over to media planning: account planners and media planners work side by side to produce creative briefs and media shapes and then work together with creative teams to develop the best creative route.

Ironically, this structure is like a return to a full service agency, as it works better when all key parties are in the same building. The LEGO account pitch saw the RKCR/Y&R team working with the interactive specialists (2.1), the communications planning team (TME 360), and so on. All the constituent parts of the team were literally a stone's throw from each other so it was easy to 'roll' ideas on in real time rather than have lots of lumbering set piece meetings which can confuse and impede progress.

Implications for composition of agency team

Inevitably, the above has implications for the agency team composition. Creative teams need to be open to other creative teams, from different disciplines, working with them. Media planning needs to be brought into the process earlier as a 'guide' for the media shape. Non-traditional, non-silo thinking is essential and can be generated by including non-traditional, non-silo people. There is likely to be a big visual component, so significant art direction /design is required. But above very clear strategic and creative direction is required to keep the creative development process on the rails!

The Wall Street Journal Superbowl 2007

Another one of those "if I don't keep this here, I might not keep it anywhere" posts. I was interviewd, with Jill Applebaum, for the Wall Street Journal coverage of the 2007 Superbowl. The game itself is on a Sunday, but we were shown the ads and interviewed on the Saturday at the WSJ offices in downtown Manhattan. I remember it being very cold and very windy

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Advertising Super Bowl Advertisers Play It for Laughs --- Anheuser-Busch, Nationwide Seen as Hits With Humor; A Big Fumble by Flomax
By Suzanne Vranica 1,809 words 5 February 2007 The Wall Street Journal B1 English (Copyright (c) 2007, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

Slap-happy men, a celebrity bad boy and a feel-good Coke ad won the game within the game during Super Bowl XLI, impressing ad-industry pros and consumers, and showing once again that humor is the best way to grab viewers' attention during the gridiron classic.
Anheuser-Busch Cos., in particular, produced a series of ads that resonated among a group of ad executives and consumers who talked with The Wall Street Journal after seeing the Super Bowl ads. Among the most popular was a Bud Light spot, crafted by Omnicom Group Inc.'s DDB, showing a string of men slapping each other. The ad was "one of the favorites of the game," says Greg Yeadon, a 28-year-old student at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Ill., who was watching the game with a group of 36 students and faculty.

"It is something I can imagine catching on like other Bud ads have in the past, like the 'Whassup' stuff," says Kristi Bridges, creative director at the Sawtooth Group ad agency in New Jersey, referring to the popular Budweiser ads that ran in 2000.

Despite the standouts, this year's Super Bowl ads overall didn't live up to the hype surrounding them. Even a surprise CBS Corp. promo managed to outshine some of the big-spending advertisers. The spot showed Indianapolis native David Letterman, wearing a Colts jersey, and Chicago resident Oprah Winfrey, sporting a Bears jersey -- snuggling on a couch. "It is one of the best things I've seen so far," says Christopher Celeste, a 41-year-old who works at a technology startup in Cleveland.

About 90 million viewers in the U.S. were expected to watch the game on CBS, an audience far bigger than any other television broadcast attracts. Advertisers paid as much as $2.6 million for 30-second spots, confident that viewers would pay special attention to the commercial breaks. More than half of U.S. adults who watch the Super Bowl do so as much or more for the commercials as for the game itself, according to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive Inc. for Hanon McKendry/The Brand Consultants.

While Anheuser-Busch is an old hand at producing winning Super Bowl ads, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. catapulted into that territory for the first time with an ad starring Kevin Federline
-- wannabe rapper and singer Britney Spears's soon-to-be ex-husband -- as a worker in a fast-food joint. The idea: Be prepared with an annuity if life throws you a surprise blow. "I loved it. Insurance and pop culture together -- now that's an accomplishment," says Jon Bond, cochairman, Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners. Interpublic Group's TM Advertising created the ad.
Successfully tying into the country's obsession with celebrity, Nationwide's ad managed to generate millions in free publicity over the past three weeks.

Early polling on WSJ.com had Coke ads and Bud Light's classroom spot leading the pack.
Coca-Cola Co., returning to the Super Bowl after an eight-year hiatus, was the clear winner of a much-anticipated matchup with its archrival and prolific big game advertiser PepsiCo Inc., ad executives said. "Coke was brilliantly done --superb," raves Christian Barnett, an ad executive at Brand Buzz, a unit of WPP Group's Young & Rubicam.

Even though Coke's ads have aired in recent weeks on Fox's "American Idol," and lacked the advantage of surprise, they still captured the attention of advertising experts and viewers last night -- good news for Coke, which has struggled with lackluster advertising in recent years. One, made to look like a videogame, showed an ominous looking do-gooder character passing out Coke to the people he meets while the other whimsical spot reveals what happens inside a Coca-Cola vending machine. "It made me feel good," says Steve Archer, a 52-year-old vice president at a financial firm in St. Louis, Mo. Both spots were crafted by Wieden + Kennedy.

In contrast, PepsiCo's ads promoting Sierra Mist brand were seen as generally missing the humor mark, though one, featuring a man with a freaky-looking beard comb-over, did leave some chuckling. Pepsi sponsored the half-time show.

User-generated ads -- those created by consumers, rather than ad agencies --created a buzz. Maybe the biggest winner of the night was 21-year-old Dale Backus, an amateur filmmaker who won Doritos' contest for a member of the public to produce a Super Bowl commercial. Doritos are made by Pepsico's Frito-Lay.

In the latest example of how the user-generated content trend has swept Madison Avenue, Doritos revealed the winner publicly only when the ad aired. The high quality of the spot, featuring a guy getting into a car accident, had some on Madison Avenue a bit nervous. "It's kind of scary that a consumer can come up with stuff that good," says Simeon Roane, executive creative director at the New York office of Publicis USA, a unit of Publicis Groupe.
Doritos seemed to agree. Yesterday, the company announced that the top five finalists in the contest would run on national television through March. The company also decided at the last moment to air the runner-up in the contest -- a funny ad showing a supermarket checkout girl
- during the Super Bowl broadcast. Also tapping into the user-generated phenomenon was General Motors Corp.'s Chevrolet, whose ad originated with an idea proposed by Katie Crabb -- a freshman at University of Wisconsin. But the spot was a bit more polished than that of Doritos, because Chevy's ad firm helped to produce it. The commercial featured a group of girls in a Chevy HHR, a retro-style miniwagon, enjoying watching their car being washed by a group of half-naked men who can't seem to take their hands off the car.

All Super Bowl advertisers, though, had a tough task trying to drown out Anheuser-Busch, which aired a total of nine ads for Budweiser, Bud Light and Bud Select. The brewer's Super Bowl ads are routinely among the most popular with viewers and this year was no exception among the group of advertising executives. Among the spots generating a positive reaction was one heartfelt spot featuring a dog making his dreams come true and another funny ad showing a game of rock-paper-scissors. Another spot showing Latino comic Carlos Mencia teaching English to a room of immigrants was a particular crowd-pleaser.

"I love the spot, it was hysterical," says Holly Ross, a 39-year-old who was watching the game in Cincinnati.

One spot that is likely to generate much water-cooler discussion today is Mars Inc.'s ad for Snickers, featuring two mechanics sharing the candy bar -- in what is a somewhat bizarre spin on the famous scene from "Lady and the Tramp," where two dogs simultaneously eat the same strand of spaghetti.

"Its very funny but also disturbing on so many levels," says Mark DiMassimo, CEO of DiMassimo Goldstein in New York.

General Motors won the battle of the automotive titans. Its ad, via Interpublic's Deutsch, featuring a robot that dreams about losing his job, got high marks from advertising executives for using a different approach to the typical car ad that shows cars speeding around curvy roads. Many said the ad was "epic" but some predicted the spot would rub certain viewers the wrong way. "How many folks in Detroit were put out of work because of robots?" asks Rob Feakins, president and chief creative officer of the New York office of Publicis USA.

The hype surrounding Super Bowl ads has raised expectations of viewers about what they will see -- making it difficult to please audiences. And overall, this year's crop of ads fell a bit short. "The game is better than the ads for a change," says Michigan State University advertising professor Bruce Vanden Bergh. Ad folks blame the lackluster output on the larger number of marketers who jumped into the game late in the process and either ran ads that had been seen before or ran new ads that weren't designed specifically for the Super Bowl. "If you are going to pay that price tag, you better go big," Mr. DiMassimo added.

Honda Motor Co., for instance, ran two ads that have aired before. Revlon Inc. jumped into the game only in recent weeks, producing a new spot starring singer Sheryl Crow -- but one that wasn't designed specifically for the Super Bowl. Some ad executives gave the company credit for entering the male-dominated arena --its ad promoted a new women's hair-coloring product.
Also disappointing were several advertisers that have previously scored big in the Super Bowl, including FedEx Corp., Careerbuilder.com and E*Trade Financial.

FedEx, which scored strongly last year with an ad set in the Stone Age, this year went for a moon setting. But the ad, created by Omnicom Group Inc.'s BBDO, didn't measure up. "It was a big ad but it doesn't pay off," says Brand Buzz's Mr. Barnett. "Last year's dinosaur ad was so much better." Still, the package-delivery giant didn't entirely flame out.

Another ad that exaggerated the saying "it's not what it seems" managed to get some points. The spot was "amusing and fun," says Jeff Kling, executive creative director of the New York office of Havas SA's Euro RSCG.

Also drawing some grumbling this year was Careerbuilder.com, the online job site jointly owned by the newspaper publishers Gannett Co., McClatchy Co. and Tribune Co. It has pleased viewers in recent years with Super Bowl spots showing offices where monkeys sat working at desks, but this year the company left its monkeys behind in favor of such spots as one showing office workers fighting hand-to-hand over a promotion. "Where are the chimps?" says Mr. Roane.
But the biggest fumble of the night come from Flomax, the prostate drug from Boehringer Ingelheim Corp. The spot, which described the drug's side effects as including a "decrease in semen," showed men competing in a bike race. Ad executives questioned whether such ads should run during the Super Bowl. "Call me a prude but there are kids watching the game," says Mr. Feakins.

The company is required to list the drug's side effects in ads. The drug maker recognizes the personal subject matter in the spot and told The Wall Street Journal last week that it elected to run the commercial late in the game to avoid younger audiences.

Article In Design Week On Blogs

Excuse a little bit of self-indulgence. The truth of it is, if I don't put it here I don't think I will have a record of it in a few months time!

Design Week
Blogs rule, but watch the rules
09th July 2009 By Christian Barnett

Blogs are a great way to promote your consultancy. Christian Barnett offers some advice on setting one up.

A good blog can inspire its readers and galvanise a community around it. And though it is possible to get one up and running in the time it takes to read this article, having recently launched our ‘Making brands beautiful’ blog I wouldn’t recommend it.

The most important thing is to work out the purpose of the blog. Many blogs fail because they are rudderless, leading to a never-ending series of ‘what we/I did today’ posts. State your blog’s objectives _ consider things like ‘to give the “outside” world a sense of what it is like to be “inside”’ (check out http///wklondon. typepad.com/), or ‘to give the chief executive a platform for his/her views’ (http:// designthinking.ideo.com/) or ‘to showcase great work’ (www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog).

It may be worth having someone on the project team quickly set up their own blog. The best way to do this is to go to one of the free blog-hosting sites, like Blogger, Wordpress or Typepad, and just set one up. It takes five minutes. Get used to the mechanics of posting - try posting a picture or a short film, and think about how you generate content. Spend some time exploring competitor blogs - what are they doing? Is it arresting or interesting content?

You will also need to work out how your blog will be organised. If it isn’t easy to navigate around, people will not stay. Think about the type of categories you may have, how much of each post will be displayed on the main blog page, what widgets you may have, and so on. The blog also has to be designed - think about things such as width of copy, choice of colour palette, font and type of imagery. The question of the blog’s relationship to the website needs to be given some thought, too. It is also at this point that you may need a little bit of help from experts to host your blog. They can help tailor the navigation and design to your specifications.

Finding compelling content time after time is a challenge. Of course, the blog’s objective will guide the content, which is another reason to get the objective clear and empowering. The best blogs seem to have a fairly conversational, rather than corporate, tone - they don’t waste time, and they are prepared to stick their neck out a little in terms of stating a point of view or making interesting connections.

Giving posting rights, especially in a group with more than 50 people, requires a little thought. It could result in chaos to give all company members posting rights in one go. We learned that the best way to get people posting is not based on hierarchy, but on ‘bloggers vs non-bloggers’.
Put simply, some of the older ‘digital immigrants’ in the consultancy were not as blog-savvy as the younger ‘digital natives’. The lesson is to find your natural bloggers and let them lead the way.

We also put a short training session together so everyone in the consultancy was able to do some posting. It meant we were able to spread out the enthusiasm to post - having a glut of posts all at the same time is almost as bad as having no posts, so the ideal is to have a steady stream.
It is worth going live internally first, to give the blog a test run and see if you are able to generate the right content sufficiently often.

You are then ready to launch externally. By now, people should know the type of content, how frequently they need to post, how to tag it to get it up the search engine results, and such like.
The level of ‘ta dah’ surrounding any blog launch is up to you. It could provide a nice platform for some marketing activity, or you could let it grow organically as people find it through searches, online word-of-mouth and the like. It is cheap, though time-consuming, to market a blog in the blogosphere using links, commenting in other’s blogs places, building an online presence via Facebook and Twitter, and so on.

Don’t forget to set up an analytics programme to measure blog activity. Google analytics never cease to amaze me with the depth of information. You can find out which posts get the most visits, from which geographies, the percentage of new versus returning users, and so on. It is a really valuable, and free, feedback loop.Allow a couple of months for the entire process. Unlike the five minutes it takes to set up the one-person blog, you need time to get everyone on board. But a good blog is worth it. It gives a real insight of what your consultancy is all about.
We found that it was a great way of showing where we found beauty in all its nuances to reflect our consultancy philosophy.

Good luck.

Posting notes:
Have an objective for your blog
Don’t ‘police’ content - it should be fluid and conversational
Get your blog right internally before you share it with the outside world
Try to enjoy posting, so it doesn’t become a consultancy chore

Real Time Strategy

This is a piece I wrote in 2007 whilst at Y&R in New York. It appeared in February on Y&R's in-house thought leadership space online 'Spark'. Interestingly, Alastair Campbell seemed to fulfill the role of a real-time strategist in the work he did for Tony Blair. See here for a post on Campbells Diaries of the time.

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The last few years have seen a downturn in management consulting revenues. Has “strategy” had its day? Perhaps. For instance, Michael Eckstut, a former partner at strategy firm Booz Allen Hamilton, says flatly, “The pure-strategy, big-picture stuff is over.” Maybe client companies are getting wise to the ruses of the strategic consultants peddling business transformation.

My own view is that strategy is a vital as ever. But it is the way we do strategy and the type of strategy that we do that is causing a bit of a re-think.

Traditionally, strategy has been about the future. In the communications industry, where the strategists are called ‘planners’ the title even more clearly signals a function that is thinking about the future. But that title was coined in the late 1960s when things ran at the speed of a tortoise compared to the hare-like pace of today.

In the intervening years two big things have happened. Firstly, the world of business has speeded, and secondly, the ‘planning for the future’ mindset has replaced by an ‘action today’ mindset.

Perhaps strategic planning in communications agencies should drop the ‘planning’ title altogether. The act of planning years or even months out seems an increasingly futile notion to me as we see day to day changes in markets. The idea of planning communications campaigns for launches that will occur in 12 months time seems positively Victorian in today’s world.
However, more than ever clients need strategic counsel. They need an objective pair of eyes that can understand the strategic implications of decision-making on a day by day basis. This isn’t the strategy of sitting in a room with data and deep thoughts; it is the strategy of on the spot decision-making. I would call it ‘real-time strategy’. It is not planning for the future - which is going to be different from our prediction anyway – is planning for the NOW!

Of course, the old skills of a good strategist are the bedrock of the ‘real-time strategist’; the understanding of markets, insights into the consumer, how the business model works, etc. etc. Only in ‘real-time’ strategy, the strategist is the go to trusted advisor, the colleague whose opinions are sourced in brief and informal phone calls, a casual conversation by the water-cooler.
‘Real-time strategy’ is an ongoing strategic view of the day to day. Not a set piece, choreographed power point pitch. It is difficult to cost out but is incredibly valuable. It is without pomp or circumstance or ego or status. It shifts repeatedly and it recognizes that the right way today may not be the right way tomorrow. Above all it is intensely pragmatic but it is not devoid or rigor or thought.

The grand generals of business strategy, like their military counterparts that they are so fond of quoting, have to accept that asymetical warfare and guerilla tactics are the new norms in business, as well as military, warfare.

Strategists everywhere need to step up to the challenge. It is strategy on the front foot. Perhaps this shift is why the grand masters of traditional and process-centric strategy, the Big Three management consultants, may be having problems in today’s ever-changing business environment. In contrast we say “bring it on”.