Uncertain Times Don't Call For Uncertain Branding.

"Stay safe", "We're all in this together", "During these uncertain times...", "We're working hard to keep our customers and employees safe". I could go on, but if you want more, just turn on your TV or radio and wait for an ad break.

While these messages are important at a time like this, they're all a bit… same-ish. Take away the logos or slogans at the end of the ads and it's just 3-5 minutes of PSAs. Everybody seems to have forgotten that their brand has, or at least had, a unique personality and tone of voice. Worse still are the brands that come across as simply taking advantage. I heard a radio ad for an insurance company last week that tried to sell "certainty in uncertain times". I mean, if that doesn't leave a bad taste…

So what's the solution to all of this? We've never experienced anything like this before, ever. Honestly, your guess as to how to navigate this is as good as mine, but here's my guess anyway: remember the basics of your brand. You can still be responsible and tell your customers that you care, but try to do it in a way that only your brand can (and don't take advantage by selling!). If you call your friend for comforting advice, it's because you expect certain things from that friend–their personality, their sense of humour etc.–and brands are no different in this regard. At a time when there's more brand-focussed advertising than I've ever seen or heard, it just seems a missed opportunity that there's very little actual branding.

With extra time on my hands these days, I decided to mock up some examples to show how this might come to life. I've never claimed to be a designer, so please reserve any ridicule for the copywriting (which may also warrant it). Enjoy!

Stop Trying to be Everything to Everybody!

“She was at that time spending her last farthing on advertising, haughtily at first, of course. "A governess prepared to travel and will send terms on application," but, later on: "willing to do anything, to teach, to be a companion, to be a housekeeper, to wait on an invalid, plain sewing, and so on, and so on", the usual thing! Of course, all this was added to the advertisement a bit at a time and finally, when she was reduced to despair, it came to: "without salary in return for board." [...] I suddenly took up the Voice of the day and showed her an advertisement. "A young person, without friends and relations, seeks a situation as a governess to young children, preferably in the family of a middle-aged widower. Might be a comfort in the home." […] That's the way to advertise.”

This is an extract from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1876 short story The Meek One and I feel it contains a very valid point for today’s marketers and advertisers: don’t try to be everything to everybody.

I, of course, understand the temptation to hedge your bets when your business is at stake. Likewise, I know you want to get your money’s worth for what you’ve just forked out to be on air or in print in the first place. However, by partaking in practices such as adding more products and more messages to your advertising, you simply dilute your ad. Suddenly your products are competing against one another and the consumer can’t remember your ‘half price offer’ because you’re already onto your ‘10% off when you visit www.WebsiteNameThatIsTooLong.com’ offer. Clarity is key here as in all forms of communication and that’s exactly what advertising is – communication. So why then, do we treat it like it’s not?

The sooner brands see advertising as a form of communicating to (not at) consumers, the sooner they’ll discover the importance of targeting a specific audience and honing in on the people that want to listen. Advertising is like real life; if people don’t want to be your friend, it’s extremely difficult to change their mind. Moreover, nobody likes that person who’s desperate to be liked so don’t be that person. ‘Person’, by the way, is the key word here. Start looking at your brand as a person with personality traits, including the flaws. The most important thing is that you embrace your brand’s personality; be real and upfront, don’t over-compensate. Authenticity is extremely important here because, get this, consumers are people too, not just data on your ROI analytics spreadsheet and the thing about people is that they’re irrational and unpredictable. Be confident about your marketing approach but don’t bet the farm on it because the market is essentially unpredictable regardless of what the latest marketing ‘guru’ says. Trends are fleeting by nature.

So we’ve established that advertising is communication and consumers are people (simple, yes, but that’s why people take it for granted), but what’s the main element in communication between people? The answer is language, be it written, spoken or visual. The language used to convey your brand’s message can mean very different things to very different people. In some extreme cases, you can endear yourself to a certain demographic while actually insulting another. In other cases, you may as well be using a foreign language. So how do you say the right thing to the right people to achieve success for your brand? Simple – identify and get to know your target market. This may involve extensive research or you may already be au fait with your market as a result of being a member of it. In any case, even with all the data in the world to back up your decision to do so, never generalise your market. Concentrate on trends and behaviours, but don’t fall into the trap of lazy marketing assumptions such as “our target market are young professionals and therefore love to go clubbing on Fridays”. It’s simply not that clear cut. With more and more choice on the market, we’ve created more niches than ever. We’ve moved from ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ to ‘everything and anything goes’, with baking bikers and sockless CEOs not even turning heads anymore.

An old copywriter trick is to write a personal letter to a friend about the product or service you’re advertising and then remove the salutations before and after the body text, leaving you with an ad. This is a good way to avoid jargon and buzz words, but the trick is to make it personal to an ever-growing group of individual consumers. Basically, your company’s future depends on truly knowing your target market, but also on communicating with consumers (people) and not viewing the entire process as sterile selling to improve spreadsheet data. It sounds extremely simple, yet how often do you see or hear ads with numerous messages and even more products?

Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this topic.

The Chicken Or The Egg?

Should the design of an advertising campaign be led by media strategy or creative strategy?

An issue that keeps appearing when designing advertising campaigns is whether the design should be led by media or creative strategy. There are, of course, good reasons to choose both and I'll write about some of them here but please feel free to comment as I'd love to hear other opinions on this topic.

The case for a media-led strategy

One argument that marketers will make for a media-led campaign design is that it almost guarantees you stay within budget before you even hear ideas; the media space has been purchased and that's that. The creative agency will have to work around it.

The main argument, however, is that a media-led campaign is one which goes to the consumer. Media space is bought according to your target market, where they spend their time and when they're there. This makes sense. You create a campaign with a definite destination in mind. Unfortunately, this can be a little prescriptive and restrict the creative side of things...

The case for a creative-led strategy

The most prominent argument for designing an advertising campaign around the creative content is that there are no constraints; the best idea wins. With this strategy, an engaging idea is presented along with suggestions regarding the media to carry it. This is generally the case in pitch-type scenarios. However good the pitch-winning idea though, there's always a chance that the client's first request is to produce the idea for a certain medium. If it's the right medium to carry the idea to your target market, the idea will more than likely have been created with it in mind. In addition, having the creative concept allows the media agency to add an extra layer to their targeting strategy.

Implemented by marketers from the onset, this strategy means the best ideas can shine and don't have to be warped and adapted to fit certain criteria. Why book radio space just because it fits the budget when the concept is entirely visual in nature? Why prescript the medium when the idea could surpass it?

So...the chicken or the egg?

This, like many such topics, is completely subjective. In my (slightly biased) opinion, it comes down to finding and engaging your target audience versus compelling them to find and engage you.

As I've written before, sometimes creativity beats all the metrics in the world. You just have to ask: is it worth the risk?

When Enough Isn't Enough

Marketing today centres on being measurable; the terms ‘metrics’ and ‘ROI’ are a little too commonplace in marketing departments in my opinion. Overly-measured marketing can mean very specifically targeted messages at minimal over-spending. You tell just enough people about your product/service so you can meet your goals via the wrong metrics. Sometimes enough isn’t enough.

Often these metrics are not exactly wrong but simply the traditionally tried and trusted methods to calculate ROI. They don’t even necessarily match up with pre-campaign goals. Their main role is to appease the accountants and ensure similar marketing funds for the next campaign. If the campaign objective is to increase sales, why are you patting yourself on the back for getting 100,000 views on your video? Impressions and other similar results are a great way to measure how your brand image campiagn is being received. As has always been the case, you have to set your pre-campaign goals and judge success on meeting or not meeting these goals. Everything else is irrelevant. The brand’s success is your success and if you’re bluffing, your career and personal growth as a marketer will suffer.

AIDA: The case against inbound marketing

Sometimes you need to shout your message. Make people your target audience by being interesting to them; don’t just aim for sure things. AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire and action. This is an initialism that has done the rounds in advertising since the 1950s but I believe it’s still relevant. If you grab somebody’s attention, make them interested in what you’re selling and make them desire it, there’s a good chance they’ll carry out the action you want them to (your call to action). If you create attention-grabbing and interesting ads, you’ll have more success. I'm not saying inbound marketing doesn't work; in fact, it works extremely well for certain business types (and it's always measurable if that's what you're in to).

I do, however, disagree with the argument being put forward by today’s inbound evangelists against traditional advertising: that it is disruptive and annoys consumers, which is bad for your brand image. This is a good argument against bad advertising and I agree with it completely. However, if you create interesting ads this argument is nullified. If you disrupt people’s routine with something that will interest them, they’ll welcome it. The basic premise of inbound marketing is that we should create interesting content for people, allowing them to form a relationship with your brand. Why can’t this content be a TV advert? Would you say a gorilla playing the drums was an unwelcome disruption to your routine that put you off eating Cadbury chocolate?

Speaking of brands...

Invest in your brand. This investment may not be very measurable but it could be vital for success. Investing in your brand image can be an alternative route to creating content as it helps customers form long-term relationships with your company in a similar manner. A brand is a company’s most valuable asset; it accounts for approximately more than half of its value. Your brand primes you for every move you will make in the future. Do you think people will sleep outside waiting for the new Huawei phone? The answer is no, but ask yourself the same thing about Apple’s next iPhone.

Your brand allows you to create hype and set the prices you want to set. People can be lifelong fans of a brand and this means they’ll possibly be fans of each and every major product released under that brand name. This means less risk in the long run as you’re almost guaranteed a certain level of success if you stick to the qualities that made your brand lovable in the first place.

You have to spend money to make money (A cliché, I know but it still makes sense)

Get creative and shout your message from the rooftops. Use all means available to you within your budget. The truth is that traditional advertising works. It might not always be the most measurable but it works. Do you think Dollar Shave Club would have been such an instant success if they had provided useful tips on the best shaving techniques and the best razors via blogs? Here's what they did instead and at a relatively low cost. Sometimes you need to make a statement (and a big one at that).

All in all, traditional advertising is, believe it or not, a sure fire way to stand out amongst today’s measured, safe marketing campaigns if you do it well. While your competitors are reaching enough customers with enough media, why not do more?

Shedding Light On Alcohol Dark Markets

What Are Dark Markets?

When it comes to advertising alcohol, you have to be privy to your surroundings as the relevant laws change from country to country. Dark markets are those which have heavy restrictions on the advertising of certain products such as alcohol and tobacco. 

France, for example, has a total ban in place which prohibits the advertising of alcohol on TV and radio, as well as in newspapers. And although any sporting events sponsored by an alcohol product can be broadcast on TV, the placement of advertisements (hoarding etc.) cannot be shown on that broadcast to people watching at home. This categorises France as a dark market for alcohol advertising.

Where Are The Other Dark Markets?

In Europe, France is joined by Norway, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, and Poland when it comes to being a dark market. On a global scale, Malaysia, Thailand, UAE, and Singapore can be added to this list (among others).

There are, however, also some not-so-dark markets such as The Czech Republic where there are no heavy restrictions on advertising alcohol (at least none that are strictly enforced!). 

So These Markets Are a Waste of Time for Alcohol Brands?

Definitely not.

Dark Markets can actually return very high margins for alcohol brands. This is especially true for dominant brands in a market as competitors find it very difficult to play catch-up with no advertising. Dark markets can, in fact, help to make dominant brands more stable although they do, naturally, also limit the brand's potential for growth.

Additionally, there are ways to shine some light on these markets (excuse the pun!).

Take Sweden as an example; Sweden has banned all alcohol advertising on TV. However, Swedish people also have access to TV channels from abroad such as the BBC in Britain. This means that an alcohol brand could potentially target a Swedish audience by releasing an ad on the BBC that may appeal to a Swedish as well as a British audience.

Leaving comment: where there's a will, there's a way!