I got married this September. It was done semi-secretly, so my friends in Singapore did not have opportunity to organize a bachelor party. I thought I was off the hook, but learned to my surprise that you can apparently have a bachelor party although you are already married. I was kidnapped from my morning run to a flight to Saigon. And the rest was history. Luckily all the kidneys are intact, no tigers were in hotel room and no one got a tattoo to a face.
In addition to a heightened appreciation for the great friends I have, this weekend reminded me of the power of surprise.
Surprise is one of the greatest emotions in the world that brands can tap into. There has been a flood of surprise & delight campaigns, but still good campaign always works. Surprise also comes with a range of different emotions. Sometimes the brand does not flex to be funny or really sentimental, but almost every brand can surprise (hopefully in a positive way). As long as the surprise is meaningful and/or really outrageous, the surprise & delight will work.
Many of the surprise and delight campaigns have been one-off stunts but the best brands have made it as a part of their brand behavior. KLM is a prime example of this and their latest “Cover greetings” just gets the job done:
Mastercard has also done great job by building a surprise platform with their Priceless Surprises:
One of my all-time favorite “surprise & delight” campaigns has been this Coke campaign for overseas Filipino workers. If this does not get you emotional, I don´t know what will:
These examples show that, it is not necessarily about the budget or the most overboard surprise, it is about the meaning of the surprise for the recipient. If you can spark a genuine human emotion, the surprise works.
There are naturally quite a lot of lackluster surprises. Especially this is true with one sub-category of surprise campaigns: prankvertising. Humor is always delicate matter and one man´s prank is other man´s insult. To every awesome Pepsi Max Stunt (or Uncle Drew anyone), there is always the raining bus stop –stunts, which just makes you question quite hard the future of our industry.
To put the flood of surprise campaigns in proper perspective, this “surprise video” really cracked me up:
Tom of Finland is one of the most internationally well-known Finnish (hence the name) artists. He has not necessarily been that celebrated in Finland despite his international influence. Maybe it is because he specialized on quite niche art form. Tom of Finland was the most influential creator of gay pornographic images. I think it awesome that traditional Finnish textile manufacturer Finlayson has collaborated with Tom of Finland Foundation to bring some manly towels and other textile products to the people:
Some bigots might oppose this collaboration. Let them. The main challenge for brands is not that they upset people, but that no one cares about them. Brands get shaky when there is backlash, but seldom the people protesting are even using the products. Great brands do not try to appeal to everyone, but have tightly defined target audience. Great marketing strategy is not about expanding too broad, but about excluding to those, who matter. In addition to the upcoming “Tom of Finland” product range, Finlayson has another strong partner with their Moomin products: another crown jewel from Finland.
Gay audien ce is a lucrative target group, so it makes perfect sense for small Finnish player like Finlayson to focus on it. Also it would be quite narrow to think that Tom of Finland appeals only to gay audience. His macho men are part of popular culture and something every Finn should be proud of. The reaction from my peer group was overtly positive for the collaboration (both straight & gay). There will be also upcoming movie about him, so there is definitely momentum for Finlayson to build on.
Unfortunately in conjunction of release of “Tom of Finland”-products, the legal committee of Finnish parliament voted against same-sex marriage. That is a disgrace to Finland and keeps the country still firmly in Stone Age when it comes to equality. Finland is the only Nordic country without gender-neutral marriage. Shame on you, my beloved home country. Hopefully Finnish parliament will come to senses this autumn when they vote about it. Judging by the idiots voted there, I would not get my hopes too high.
To support international efforts of classic Finnish company, I definitely want to buy some of these new Finlayson products. I wonder does Finlayson ship to Singapore as well? And if it does, will the bed sheets able go through the customs in here?
“A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it.”
-Aldous Huxley
I always find a slot in my calendar to go out and eat a proper lunch. That is something you should never skip, even how busy you think you are. It is not that much about physical need of energy, the lunch break is a really one of the only opportunities to recharge your batteries during workday.
“Even when I am writing I usually take a break around lunchtime and go for a little walk to clear out my head.” Patricia Cornwell
Here are four ways on how I make my lunch break a sacred moment every weekday:
1. Lunch should never be eaten at your desk.
First, take-away food is disgrace to the chef. Food should to be eaten where it is made. Also walking to restaurant and back is a good exercise in the middle of the day.
If you spend majority of your time by your desk, you will eventually end up crazy like William Foster (great Michael Douglas) in Falling Down. He snapped already during breakfast time. It is also an illusion that eating your lunch at your desk is that much more effective. On worst case, you might spill something on your keyboard.
2. Lunch should always last minimum of 30 minutes
It is not called break without reason.
Brain is a muscle; you have to give it a rest once in a while so you can keep on pushing throughout the day. Usually people who do exceptionally long hours are the people who are not really using their brains that much. They disguise their lack of real work in meetings, planning meetings, meetings about meetings and meetings about meetings where you are planning meetings.
It is impossible come up with good ideas, if you are not giving your brain a rest. We spend already too much of our life captured to our uninspiring offices. Lunch break is our only opportunity to gather some outside stimulus to do a better job. I have never gotten a good idea in a formal meeting. I have gotten thousands of great ideas during the lunch break.
30 minutes is an absolute minimum, Three Martini lunch can last until dinnertime and beyond.
3. Lunch is the time for the banter
Working lunch is a contradiction in terms. It does not really work at all. They make actual work less effective and lunch less enjoyable. Lunch is great opportunity to get to know your colleagues and to talk about everything else than work. That might give new perspective to the actual work as well. I also try to meet people outside the agency to keep lunch conversations lively. If I happen to eat alone, I read a book. Regardless of with who I am (colleague, friend, wife or remote Paul Auster), I always get some new viewpoints during my lunch.
4. Try to test something new every week
People love routines and they make us dull persons. Trying new lunch joint is a great opportunity to take risks, go to the discomfort zone and have new experience in controlled setting. The worst thing that can happen is that you had a bad lunch. It is definitely safer way to bring some excitement to your life than wrestling with tigers.
So today when you think that you are too busy to have a proper lunch, think again. It might save your life.
“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” Douglas Adams
There are currently so many good TV shows, that you should get a time off from work to catch up with all of them. Canal Digital Norway taps into this insight with this brilliant ad:
Insight: One of the biggest fears of modern man is the fear of missing out.
If you have not seen Breaking Bad, Ray Donovan, Mad Men or whatever happens to be currently the hot show, you will be left out of the conversation. In this film, Canal Digital has dramatized the hell out of this strong insight and captures perfectly the moment when you don´t know what other people are talking. One of the great glimpses of insight in the ad is in 21s mark, when the poor protagonist tries to use the TV show reference but applies it in wrong context. So been there, done that.
The Nordic Humor shines through the clip and it does not miss a beat. Where some other client might have ruined the clip by having happy ending or some other sentimental bullshit, this clip just goes from bad to worse. Ignore the pop culture references at your own peril, or you end up as an one-legged miserable dude. This is absolutely brilliant work from Try/Apt.
Someone opposed an idea, because it was “already” proposed three years ago.
Three years?
Are you kidding me?
Maybe three days, three months but three years!
Normally during three years in advertising, all of your clients and colleagues have already changed completely. How anyone can even remember what happened three years ago? I generally believe that if you have a good idea, you sell it as long until someone buys it. Or you are bored with it, which might indicate that it was not good idea to begin with.
Three years is a lifetime.
Digital years are like dog years. Things change and age faster. To get matters in perspective, here are collection of things that has happened during last three years:
Facebook had less total users, than mobile users now (950m) or daily users.
I had to just write these as a reminder, so I can guide people here when they say something as stupid as that to me again.
Just because something has been done or proposed before, does not mean it cannot be done. Just do it better. Sometimes the proposed idea was right, but the time was just wrong.
“[People] can still listen to my music if they get it on iTunes. I’m always up for trying something. And I tried it and I didn’t like the way it felt. I think there should be an inherent value placed on art. I didn’t see that happening, perception-wise, when I put my music on Spotify. Everybody’s complaining about how music sales are shrinking, but nobody’s changing the way they’re doing things. They keep running towards streaming, which is, for the most part, what has been shrinking the numbers of paid album sales”
Taylor Swift´s comment is just a hypocrite sugarcoating of a smart business move and a great marketing stunt. She is still able make a platinum-selling album (the only one this year for that matter), so she concentrated on maximizing the physical sales. She would have left her albums in Spotify, if they had paid her more through premium service. She is smart businesswoman, so she definitely did the right thing for herself (proven by those platinum sales). It is not clear though, would she make even more money if she would have left her album in Spotify?
The last point of the quote is however just pure stupidity. Paid album sales have been shrinking way before no one had ever imagined music streaming. Streaming services kill downloads (both legal & illegal), because downloads are inferior format. Music streaming has been a truly a blessing for music industry. I might listen the new Taylor Swift album once on Spotify because all the publicity. She would get something out of that listening, but more than from me not listening that album or using BitTorrent. I would not buy or even illegally download that album in any case, because I am not that interested. Big stars benefit more from lurker listeners than smaller artists.
Essentially there is only one important thing to really understand about current music industry:
This is called progress and you cannot stop it. Taylor Swift is an outlier with her platinum sales. Increase of vinyl record sales is just a too well covered hipster activity. You have to be a total moron to think that vinyl sales could help even slightly the struggling music industry. The real question is: are people willing to pay for streaming services? They are the last resort to make any money from the actual songs. Currently it seems positive and with the launch YouTube Music Key, there is enough competition to keep it interesting for the near future.
Avicii’s release “Wake Me Up!” that I co-wrote and sing, for example, was the most streamed song in Spotify history and the 13th most played song on Pandora since its release in 2013, with more than 168 million streams in the US. And yet, that yielded only $12,359 in Pandora domestic royalties— which were then split among three songwriters and our publishers. In return for co-writing a major hit song, I’ve earned less than $4,000 domestically from the largest digital music service.
But what is truly the alternative?
Iggy Pop makes his money from advertisements. He could not do those without being a musician first. Although he remains fit, I doubt it is from starving.
I appreciate Aloe Blacc tremendously. I have been supporting him by buying physical records made by him from the start of his career with indie group Emanon. Is Aloe Blacc better off now or when he was pressing and self-publishing his records? Although the revenue share from “Outside Looking In” was probably more favorable than the terms and conditions of Spotify, he is now more successful by every account. “Wake Me Up!” would not be as big song without Spotify and the exposure of that song has benefitted Aloe Blacc way more than the petty 4000$ from the streaming royalties. The sad fact just is that the individual hit song will not necessarily make you money anymore. That song is more of advertising. Is it right or wrong is a philosophical question, but does not change the shifted dynamics of music business.
Spotify has paid more than two billion dollars to labels, publishers and collecting societies for distribution to songwriters and recording artists…that’s two billion dollars’ worth of listening that would have happened with zero or little compensation to artists and songwriters through piracy or practically equivalent services if there was no Spotify.
“Wake Me Up!” has been estimated to generate almost million in Spotify royalties. Someone is getting paid (and there might be a master plan behind it). The history of music has not really been a financial success story of artists. Record labels, shady managers and other Svengalis have exploited the creative work of musicians. So either the artist are afraid, smart or just increasingly naïve by pointing the finger to Spotify instead of their employers, record labels with whom they have signed their contracts.
You can still make money out of music, especially if you are strong brand, innovative or just really good. Dave Grohl (from one-of-the best live bands in the world) sums it up nicely on Reddit discussion:
Me personally? I don’t f*cking care. That’s just me, because I’m playing two nights at Wembley next summer. I want people to hear our music, I don’t care if you pay $1 or f*cking $20 for it, just listen to the f*cking song. But I can understand how other people would object to that.You want people to f*cking listen to your music? Give them your music. And then go play a show. They like hearing your music? They’ll go see a show.
Our debates are more like one person saying “I like tomatoes” and someone else says “I don’t like tomatoes, I prefer avocados.”
To continue with avocadoes and tomatoes, there are two types of arguments in advertising context:
1. Arguments about preference
I like avocadoes and you like tomatoes. When asked the question which one tastes the better, we are both right. Then we should evaluate does our view reflect target audience at all. This is something people tend to forget: you are almost never part of target audience. It´s nice that you like avocadoes, but that does not say anything If it comes to a fight, it usually ends up that the one with loudest voice or biggest title wins. You are essentially arguing about what feels right.
2. Arguments about facts
Sometimes the selection should not be subjective, but can actually be objective and based on facts. If we need to select the item having more fiber, we should select avocado (7g vs. 1.2g in 100g). There is no question about that. If we are asking which one of them is healthier, the question is trickier. If we agree on variables we compare, we can come to a conclusion with that question based on facts. I.e. if we agree that fat and calories are bad, we should select tomatoes. If we emphasize magnesium and vitamin A, we should go with avocado. If it comes to a fight, facts should win. You are essentially arguing about what is true.
Both of these argument types are ok and I always enjoy debating and fighting about ideas. The frustration comes when you argue about facts, but your opponent still bases her view on preference (and fails to see that). Disturbingly often people dismiss the obvious facts because of their past experience or shaky anecdotal evidence. That is fine if you are arguing about the taste of avocadoes and tomatoes. But if we want to select the healthier fruit*, you cannot base your decision on the “fact” that you don´t like the color “green”.
Sometimes it is not also about choosing between avocadoes and tomatoes. You can also try making guacamole.
*Which brings us to another debate: are tomatoes fruits or vegetables (I hope that no one has that argument with avocadoes)? The answer depends on from angle you are approaching it. Scientifically both avocadoes and tomatoes are fruits. Naturally they are used as vegetables in cooking. In US Supreme Court the latter view won, based on the ways tomatoes are used and the popular perception about them. Good reminder that you have to always reflect the facts to your target audience´s perception of them.
During my three years in Singapore, majority of things have improved.
Trying to get taxis and travelling with them is however becoming more frustrating every day. I mostly use public transport. Both bus and MRT lines work perfectly (at least in my routes). Usually when I select taxi, the selection is based on urgency instead of convenience. Quite often the service experience is not really pleasant.
The rise of the taxi apps has been double-edged sword. On the other hand they have enabled you to get taxis to areas where you could not really wave a cab before. On the other hand every taxi driver is now just circling areas and waiting for pre-booking fees from the apps. Also apparently some taxi companies try to force their drivers not to use the best app (Grabtaxi) and to use only their own apps.
Singapore would be a perfect place to test self-driving taxis: small area which is mostly documented in GPS, not many cyclists, predictable traffic, predictable weather, good roads, etc.
Here are six reasons why I would select robot over human driver any time:
1. No mistakes
Google´s self-driving cars have crashed twice. First time a human was driving the car. Next time a human rear-ended Google´s car. I would feel much safer with robot driving my taxi, than have my human driver watching Korean drama from his iPad and fixing his smartphone while speeding on highway (real story). Airplanes are majorly automatically flown nowadays which has reduced the accidents. Majority of the flight crashes are caused by human error. Comparing the
2. No explaining routes “PIE or ECP*?” was my crash course to Singaporean acronyms. I thought that the driver was referring to some part drugs. Taxi driver should better equipped as a professional to select the right expressway. Especially compared to me, as I am still occasionally thinking that traffic goes to wrong direction.
The point of taxi service is that client needs to only know where he wants to go. Driver should know how to get there. Quite seldom that is the case. I have realized that I am actually checking the routes before hopping into taxi to instruct the drivers. This is waste of my time. For some odd reason majority of taxi drivers do not use GPS maps in Singapore.
Getting from point A to B is not rocket science. Google Maps gets you quite far. Waze gets you even further (both owned by Google though). Robot-driving car would utilize these tools with ease.
3. No shift changes or general laziness
Nothing frustrates more than seeing green cabs refusing to take you where you want to go because it is not on the right direction for the driver. Taxi should be a service business.
There is something fundamentally wrong with incentive system for cab drivers in Singapore. Drivers can just cherry-pick easy drives and even stop driving if they feel like it.
Robot driver does not need sleep, go to toilet or have any of other hindrances human drivers have. It would just keep on driving. Self-driving car would not discriminate depending on where you are going. Or throw tantrums at you because you just happen to live close to the airport.
4. No hiding in the rain
Whenever it starts to rain, taxis disappear. Based on the studies many taxis don´t pick up passengers during rain. They are afraid of accidents, because taxi companies will deduct them 1000 SGD immediately after accident. You will get it back, if you are not to blame of the accident. Again that is fault of the system, but eventually consumers will suffer. You usually need taxis more when it rains and not the vice versa.
Driving in rain, even heavy rain is not even that difficult. People are driving in snowstorms and icy roads all the time in Nordic countries. Robot drivers would not have extra jinx because of the conditions and could automatically adjust their driving style to any weather.
5. No annoying bantering during your trip
From planner perspective talking to taxi drivers is always beneficial.
You get answers and firm POV on about everything you could even think of. I can also understand that quite many people do not necessarily want to hear driver´s view on air pollution, politics or prostitutes in Geylang. Instead you could tune your favorite playlist in Spotify and enjoy a smooth ride from place A to B.
6. No obstacle to card payment
Paying with card in Taxis is a troublesome experience. Despite the card stickers on windows, majority of the drivers try to avoid card payment by any means.
Therefore you try to always pay with cash. Even then you are scolded by paying with too big notes (usually 50 dollars, which just happens to be the standard note from ATMs). Automatic cars could just take your card without complaints and no worries when they will receive the money to their bank account.
Don´t get me wrong. There have been awesome taxi drivers who have saved me multiple times by getting me on time to the airport. Still I am firm advocate of constant development. Currently the service level you get from human drivers would easily be matched and improved by self-driving taxis. I am definitely the first one testing the driverless car.
Banners are not as effective as search marketing. And when we rave about social media and mobile, display advertising is seldom part of that equation (although they are present in both).
Display ads are more of an afterthought. Sausage factory agencies churn mediocre banners out to keep junior designers busy.
Main reason is laziness. Lazy marketers substitute lack of great idea by producing mediocre or lackluster display advertising to just fill the media space. Lazy agencies do not put any creative thinking behind banners and just do the bare minimum standard static formats.
In last couple of years there has been plenty of innovation within online display advertising. Unfortunately many still live in 90´s banner advertising and have not really recognized the opportunities banners have. NEWSFLASH: banners can and should still play a role in your online advertising. Here are three reasons why:
1. Banners can be more relevant & effective
Thanks to real-time bidding and retargeting, we are able to catch the user based on their behavior. Within right amount of video, search, social media and display advertising we can have relevant message to our audience at the right time throughout their whole digital journey. Banners are not anymore random colorful announcements to buy Viagra, but can truly add value to the consumers based on their online usage.
There are naturally still some growing pains within some shady ad networks and disturbing retargeting, but mainly the future of online display looks more optimized and effective.
It used to be pain-in-ass to do really kick-ass rich media banners. They cost a lot and needed extra work and multiple rounds with media outlets. You had to mess with Flash and eventually they would not work in mobile devices. Nowadays you have highly innovative ad units straight off the shelves, which work in any device. You do not need to limit yourselves only standard formats anymore. You can innovate more, while still being able to use the reach of ad network.
3. Banners are now more innovative
At the end of the day, it is the creativity you put onto the table, which separates the great brands from mediocre ones.
I agree that banners are the print ads of the digital.
Good creative print ad still works. It gets noticed. It sparks emotion. It makes you think.
That is the first goal for banner as well. With digital you can take it to the next level. You can surprise, delight and interact with the consumer in a way that static ad never can. Just because majority of banner ads are done really badly does not mean they could not be done well. For passionate creative display ads provide great opportunity to flex creative muscle. Just look at this example connecting banners to real-time:
I also recommend watching this “behind-the-scenes” clip about creating the above Nike Phenomenal Shot. Important quote is that you can create “app-like experiences within the ad”. Quite seldom that is the way we approach display advertising, although we probably should.
Online advertising is not a zero-sum game and wise marketers use multiple channels to get results. Brands need to be digital-first and comparing different formats in isolation is not really beneficial. It is about how they work together.
For example, it is not surprising in the studies that pre-rolls work better than traditional display. Pre-rolls are highly forced one-way interruption and also cost more than display (in terms of media and production). How can you compare interactive display ad unit with high engagement rate to just forcing your TVC as a non-skippable pre-roll? Well, you can´t. Pre-rolls play a role in digital marketing mix. And so do banners. And as long we spending shitloads of money to do and show them, could we make them count?
Digital-savvy brands have first and foremost strong creative ideas to catch the attention and interest of their audience. These brands are also fast to adapt and optimize their online media mix to make every dollar count.
“The worst gift I was given is when I got out of rehab that Christmas; a bottle of wine. It was delicious.”
-Craig Ferguson
While John Lewis and Coke do the sentimental sugarcoated Christmas ads, it is Mulberry who does the most authentic and snarky Christmas ad. It is done by adam&eve, who have also done the John Lewis ads. This is a great manifestation that great agencies are not just one-trick ponies (or unicorns):
Insight: Christmas is a material holiday.
Yes, there is some religious aspect to it for those who are into those things.
Yes, it is nice to spend time with your family
Yes, it is awesome to eat all those weird Christmas foods you would not eat any other time of the year.
But, at the end of the day, the Christmas is about presents. It is unadulterated celebration of capitalism and consumption. Forget all “the thought behind the gift is what counts” –bullshit, the greatest gifts are well-known brands with good resale value. Actually based on the studies people appreciate more presents they have asked for instead of surprises. Like my good friend summarized it couple of Christmas ago:
“This year we should buy some proper presents and not any of those self-made ones”
I have once bought Mulberry bag as a present and I have probably never gotten such a good response for a gift. Not even when I tried to top it up next year with unicorn.
Stand-Up Strategy 