14 11 / 2012
Raising money for charity by legalising crack…sort of
If you legalise drugs there’s an argument that you change who gets paid- the government- not the dealers, and that this has a large effect on behaviour and price- decreases crime used to fund the habit etc etc.
Well, I don’t know enough to comment on drugs, but I think ‘celebrity gossip’ should be treated the same way.
If you can’t change the end consumer behaviour- taking drugs or endlessly scrolling through the Daily Mail on-line to find out what Pippa Middletons been up to then at least change who gets paid. Legalising drugs nets government the profits, but for something as vacuous banal and popular as celeb gossip I believe that charity should be the beneficiary.
There would need to be new website and app in a pretty standard format- but the business model would be radically different. Whenever, a story or a picture featuring a celebrity appeared, a charity chosen by them would receive a percentage of the ad revenue generated by the adverts on the page.
Its easy enough to do technology wise- tagging and tracking. Customer acquisition would be harder but this is a $3 billion dollar industry and we have a product that with the charity aspect is something that celebs and consumers would feel obliged to care about and share.
The key is the celebrity, both as the ‘content’ and their ability to influence- spread the news and act as a ‘detonator’ to the whole project.
From their point of view this solves a problem. Their image is getting exploited for OK magazines gain and their privacy is getting invade by some grubby paparazzi.
By becoming partners with the celebrity, we’re giving them a personal cause that benefits from their image. And if I’m Russell Brand or any celebrity that doesn’t like the paparazzi I might choose to try and cut them out of the process, i might take pictures myself or call only paparazzi that deal with our site- I know its going to a good cause and know I have an option I can stop the other paparazzi and magazines profiting from me. And then to ensure my ‘fans’ know, I might tweet about the incident to my 5 million followers.
From the websites point of view, if we offer unique content with the backing of ‘influencers’ bringing in traffic we will gain a loyal fan base and be able to raise revenues by advertising. But if people know why we’re doing it and we become a brand in our right then the corresponding possibilities and direct ‘cost per click’ advertisement prices increase greatly.
If I’m the consumer, I still get my fix, but I may be able to see pictures that I cant see anywhere else- unique content is king. And the best bit, by involving charity it takes away my guilt- I know all this gossip is a waste of time but now, the more I look and the more people send the link to, the more money is raised for charity- the Groupon of gossip.
Without the net, without social media, and without the required tagging and tracking technology this would’t have been possible 5 years ago, but with it all, I can’t see why we shouldn’t do it tomorrow?
14 11 / 2012
What do Sir Alex Ferguson and William Hill have in common?
Every now and then you’re listening to the radio and you hear ‘…and it was a bad day for the bookies at Cheltenham as one lucky punter won an 8 race accumulator and won £20,000. And you think, great, a little victory for the little man. I think, victory for William Hill, they just got a free advert of their ‘get rich quick’ message broadcast nationally- for free.
Sir Alex Ferguson uses this same media tactic but he’s even better at it. Here’s how.
I watch/listen to a lot of man united games and I estimate that probably about once a week I hear ‘Alex Ferguson is looking at his watch checking the stoppage time’. This comes from trusted commentator or pundit and depending on match events may get repeated or added to later ‘…and man utd scored in stoppage time again’ or ‘fergie time again for manchester united’. Whether it’s opposition fans, newspaper columnists, utd supporters or opposition managers the same message gets spread far and wide. The result is a perception that ‘sir alex ferguson want the game to go on as long as possible, because if it does he thinks man utd will win’.
This is one the greatest marketing/mid games campaign ever run in sport. What does this message do to man utd players and what does it do to the opposition?
Man utd- we never give up, we must keep playing because the longer we do the more likely we are to win, the manager believes we’re the better team and has confidence we’re going to win.
Opposition- please let it be over.
Its the effect on the opposition that really interests me, in a zero sum game any ‘waiting for the end’, ‘being beaten before you’ve turned up’ or even the slightest unwillingness to fight ‘for that inch’ means your more likely to lose. Sir Alex Ferguson communicates that by showing you believe yourself to be superior to the opposition you can make it to be true, if you can make them believe it to.
The best bit is that he gets the whole of the press and public to discuss/moan/celebrate his ‘tactic’ about injury time and completely miss his ‘strategy’ of making Manchester united feel/be superior to every other team. Fergie’s watch is about the first 90 minutes just as much as the time after it.
14 11 / 2012
The best kept secret in business are…………hairdressers
Think marketing, distribution, retail and product development. Hairdressers can help you with everything, and how potentially valuable they are can be deemed by asking a number of questions.
In the ‘attention economy’ how often do you spend a minimum of 20 minutes listening to someone? Someone you have a relationship with, based on trust (not cutting my ear off) but still based on monetary exchange?
How often do you come across consumers who have proved that their willing to buy on a regular basis, and target them by segments- average spend, age, gender, income, style and location?
How often does the advocate for your brand not only have the opportunity to influence by talking from a position of power but also a position to sell, and deliver products there and then? Hygiene and fashion are complimentary goods
How often can you leverage existing ‘social networks’ (barber shops and salons) on a local level but also use existing branded chains to scale your business on a national and international level?
How often do you have creative, social people with huge incentives to create and design and who are only scratching the surface of their potential of self expression? Means and motive
Hairdressers are always going to be around because I cant import my haircut from china, but theyre not fufilling their potential- they should be at the center of b2c social commerce.
14 11 / 2012
A market for stakeholders, not just shareholders
I have a big problem at the moment- I don’t own any shares in businesses, even though businesses have a significant impact on my life. Banks for example, with the financial crisis, borrowing, mortgages- this all effects me- but I have no say, like 85% of the population who don’t own shares either but are still ‘stakeholders’ I am completely disenfranchised. Most people, understandably are pretty angry.
In my opinion, there’s one thing that I indisputably deserve my say on, and that’s information that companies are already making public. If you say something you should be accountable for it, this is the case with ‘shareholders’ but not with ‘stakeholders’. This is because we don’t want to read the annual report, and even if we did we’d struggle to understand the information in the way it’s presented, and even if we could, we haven’t got the money or expertise to buy share, so we cant have a vote- so what’s the point?
I want to give people a vote so I propose a market for ‘stakeholders’, and not just ‘shareholders’. It will be an on-line rating system that looks like a Facebook feed, and has a company’s information that is being posted ‘one topic’ at a time. Then, because I’ve got a Facebook account with my real name I can vote on both how relevant the information is to me, and how easy it is to understand and contribute to a real-time opinion poll about how transparent the company is.
The public finally have a say on what business are saying, it is only a small step but from this, both business and ‘stakeholders’ have an opportunity to engage with each other and try and understand each other’s position a bit more. This scheme must be voluntary on everyone’s part but it gives all parties an incentive- businesses to be seen as transparent and socially responsible, and consumers to express an opinion that will be listened to because it’s from a measurable and credible source.
The dream would be that we see all internal company information that isn’t commercially sensitive being produced in a timely manner, and having it presented in a way that is easy to understand (e.g. mint.com) to the people it effects. This is a long way away but if it were to happen the economy and the financial markets in particular will benefit from a slight decrease in speculation and an increase in confidence, that the information we receive accurately reflects the the actual situation.
Case Study
HSBC are the world locals bank but do you know anything that your ‘local’ branch of HSBC does?
I had a business bank account at HSBC and I had no idea, because they didn’t tell me.
This idea is perfect for HSBC and indeed any business with a local presence.
Initially, HSBC would make a post about a topic that is close to my heart - small business loans- maybe its straight out of their annual report, e.g. We gave 18,000 small business loans.
Ok, great but not really relevant to me, I don’t care about nationally, I care about people under 25 and I care about loans given in my local Altrincham branch. So I mark the information poorly for ‘relative’ value.
Now it’s up to HSBC at this point, I’ve voted and they now know that this information is clearly not what I want. By voting I’ve said im open to being engaged, so it’s up to HSBC.
If I’m HSBC I know have an engaged customer who wants to be talked to- it isn’t a case of cold calling someone at an inconvenient time. On this system, I can message the voter and ask how I can improve the service (the info they receive).
If in HSBC I want to be seen as someone who cares about my customers- maybe even gain a competitive advantage over my competitors in this way. So, I give me the info that I actually already have, there were 54 loans given to small businesses at the HSBC Altrincham branch and 4 we’re to those under 25. This would actually help me and make me want to improve my rating for the relevancy of the ‘post’. And in doing so, I’m more likely to share the information across my social networks and become an on-line advocate for my banks local good work.
If I could follow information about HSBC and business information in my local area I would, but just by interacting with HSBC this time they would have gone a bit further in pricing that they are the worlds local bank.
Publicly available company information is probably the only thing that we can achieve a consensus that everyone deserves a say on, but it’s just the base, something to start from so we have the opportunity to do a lot more.
14 11 / 2012
The biggest missed opportunity in advertising is Kit Kat
The biggest missed opportunity in advertising is Kit Kat
There are not many brands who have the chance to be part of a growing ‘global’ issue and still increase sales. Kit Kat has this chance.
‘Have a break, Have a Kit Kat’ is a world famous tagline, probably one of the best ever. This campaign will just be called ‘Have a break’.
Having a break has never been more important or relevant. There’s a strong feeling that the ‘always on’ culture is a potential health risk- I know I’m addicted to the various feeds of information, the flashing red light on the blackberry and the refresh mail button on the iPhone. The effects of twitter, Facebook and mass smartphone usage are only at the very beginning of being realised. However, doing something about it is hard, there’s a reason why we rely on things and its not going to be easy to go back.
Heres a couple of summaries problems as referenced in Jon Steel’s book ‘The perfect pitch ‘-
1) everyone will gain an advantage on me if I switch off
2) I must be control everything because only I can save the world/send that email.
Its pretty hard to engage people with a message of non- engagement but I have a potential solutions to both;
1) The campaign is about taking a break not stopping, but have you ever tried to tell someone with this issue to take a break- you can’t, you have to make them. However, instead of stopping an addictive behaviour we’re going to substitute it with one. The device everyone is on is the smart-phone, that has to be the channel- if it’s something else then people will just convert their behaviour onto their free smart-phone- we have to occupy that device (while still being aware that this is a campaign of non-engagement).
2) By letting you keep the smartphone we will hopefully have mitigated against this, your still able to send the email if you need to. But also if we can make our particular smartphone behaviour popular with the people around you, then, in the top trumps of psychology that will be more powerful than your ‘control’ behaviour. Kit Kit has over 9.5m fans- with careful targeting and the right content it would be possible to to develop a trend.
The creative idea I have at the moment would be done through a ‘Have a break’ app- At a point during the day- mid morning, lunch time or mid afternoon the app will prompt you to take a break and crucially, take a picture of where you do it. This will be uploaded through the app and indexed with #haveabreak. This gives you a task (substitute motivation), an incentive (social sharing of creative expression) and is the low form of engagement- i.e. taking a photo is not too taxing a behaviour and is almost closer to recording a current one rather than participating in a new one (as non- engaging as possible). The app will use social proof to convince people that having a break is popular and will bring in new consumers from outside current channels, e.g. twitter# and other social media. However, the app will also hopefully become a product by making it easier to take a break- if we geotag the submitted photos we can create a ‘map’ of ‘where people are having a break’- this gives the app more longevity by solving a problem of where do you go to find somewhere quiet if you’ve never been outside the office.
If I was the kit kat marketing director I’d still want to know how this is going to sell more kit kats though. My response would be thus:
1. Brand awareness- You get your tagline promoted every time someone uses the app, looks at the photos (v subtle branding), and soon taking a break will bring to mind kit kat more than it ever has. An idea like this will be particularly engaging to the ‘always on’, it will at least prompt discussion in media and will spread quickly through the effected peoples very developed social networks- Kit Kat will have it’s tag line repeated over and over, every time this happens.
2. Brand association- Kit Kat has a chance to be associated with an issue that will receive more and more attention in the coming years. They will get credit for even trying to offer a solution, and highlight the issue even if the creative idea doesn’t work. Nestle cannot afford to associate itself with many global issues given previous history but this is one that is so tightly aligned with brand message they should only receive bad press if they don’t try and do it.
3. Action- In the particular creative idea I have outlined, the consumer will have to both go outside and complete a task, and in all likelihood do some exercise.This is great as its part of taking a break, but it also gives them a feeling that they deserve a reward for doing it/ the exercise relieves the guilt of buying a chocolate bar, and by being outside they have the opportunity to actually buy a chocolate bar. With the brand awareness and positive brand association recently in mind consumers will be more likely to choose kit kat out of reciprocity in exchange for giving them a break.
