Category Archives: Business

Oct 23 2012
1 Comment
Advertising, Business, Planning, Strategy

Rethinking The Advertising Agency Team Structure

World is changing rapidly around us. Digital revolution has shaken up all the industries. Revolution brings opportunities, but only for those who are willing and able to change within the times.

Amidst all the change, advertising agencies have been surprisingly static in their way of work. The basic advertising team structure has remained pretty much the same in most of the agencies (certain expectation to that rule). Usually core team has just been extended with channel specialists, because core team does not get digital. This has been one of the reasons why advertising agencies have lost their role in current business environment. We have hammers to solve your problems, but those problems have altered from nails to screws.

That is why it is mandatory to rethink the agency teams, to achieve the following goals:

1) To expand agency offering beyond traditional campaigns.
2) To find new business models in addition and to replace traditional retainers and project fees.
3) To create environment, which creates tangible creative products faster and more agile.
4) To enable flexible way of working to reduce over bloated organizations and bureaucracy.

New advertising agency should consist of generalists, who are accompanied with network of designated specialists. As the channel & technology knowledge gets more and more specified, the need to have the big picture is more vital than ever.

All the work is based on consumer insights and everyone has the responsibility to start their work from insights. That is why there are no separate planners.

Everyone also has to come up with ideas. Agency is as creative as its least creative link. The unified mindset is to produce things. Everyone is a producer. You will be judged by the actual stuff you are able to produce. No more room for free-riders.

Also the media knowledge should be in-house. In this day and age, you cannot separate creative work from the actual channels.

CORE CLIENT TEAM
The core of the agency client teams is built around self-guided generalists, who are insight-driven and obsessed about creative output. Ideas are teamwork and have no ownership.

Strategist
Job Description: Dual responsibility on both external & internal strategy:
How we improve our client´s business? How we improve our own business?
From my viewpoint you cannot ever separate strategy from the billings. That is why the business & strategic responsibilities are combined.
Mash-Up: Account director/Planner
Responsibility: Strategy

Presenter
Job Description: To ensure that all the products that are done to the clients are as persuasive as possible. Verbal persuasion is not limited to traditional copywriting, but is extended to all channels and to internal level as well. As the lingua franca of business world is PowerPoint, agencies should be master of that vehicle as well. Good ideas have been ruined with bad presentations. That is unacceptable.
Mash-up: Copywriter/Screenwriter/Planner/
Responsibility: Persuasion

Visualist
Job description: To ensure that all the products that are done to the client are aesthetically as beautiful as they can be. As the world is getting more and more visual, this role is increasingly more important. If you do not look good, you do not exist. Or at least, lack the quality.
Mash-up: Art Director/Film Director/Planner
Responsibility: Beauty
As you can see, these two roles are closest to traditional copy/ad-couple. There are two reasons to that. Fist, I find that pairing still the most effective unit in agencies. In majority of cases, two heads are better than. Secondly, I believe that we still need visual & verbal thinkers, although on more broad term. Usually they are two separate persons, but with certain individuals these roles can be merged.

Consumer Experience Designer
Job Description: To map out consumer journeys and find the most effective places to interact, help and to affect the consumer. As you cannot sugarcoat bad customer experience with flashy marketing communications, the customer experience should be in core of all the client teams.
Mash-up: Digital/Engagement/Media Planner
Responsibility: Consumer Experience

Creative Producer
Job Description: To ensure that the actual products will be produced. Leading the specialist network. Heading the prototyping in the agency. Creative producer is the catalyst of the new agency and the main change agent in moving to the age of experiment.
Mash-Up: Creative/Producer
Responsibility: Creative products & prototypes

Client
Yes, you read right. Client should be an important team member. In order to reinvent agency model, we should also shift our working methods more towards collaboration instead of traditional buyer-subcontractor-model. To disrupt the usual brief-creative brief-creative execution-production-cycle, we should collaborate on earlier phase. Advertising agencies should strive to be the best advisers the client can have. That requires ability to tackle problems, which cannot be put on a single brief.It is also important to look beyond just challenges, agency should be also spotting opportunities on a constant notice. From my experience, with best client relationships this works and comes also quite naturally.

EXTENDED TEAM
The generalist core team is helped by a group of specialists. These are used on case-by-case-basis and majority of them are not necessarily on the agency´s payroll. There are also certain agency-wide specialist roles, which are helping all the agency. These roles are following:

Creative Social Anthropologist
Job Description: Creative anthropologist gives unfiltered view of human behavior for the core team and keeps the whole company up-to-date with emerging audience trends. Heads the consumer research that is based on actual human behavior. Works in close cooperation with data miner.
Responsibility: Human behavior

Data Miner
Job Description: Data miner finds human patterns in big data. Helps core team and especially consumer experience designer to find ways to improve client´s business. With creative social anthropologist is creating the trend studies for the whole agency.
Responsibility: Mastering the Big Data

Creative Technologist
Job Description: Creative technologist role is two-folded. When working with core team, she helps to solve client´s business problems with technology. The other role is educational. Creative technologist keeps the whole agency up-to-date with the technologic change. These technologies are also actively tested within the agency.
Responsibility: Technologic change

Creative Lawyer/Creative Financial Personnel
This might be sound far-fetched, but if we really want to find new revenue sources in agencies, this will be mandatory. We have to expand the creativity to traditionally “boring” functions as well. And when I am talking about creative financial, that does not mean Enron or anything like that. Instead of traditional cost-cutters or salespeople, these people are seeking creative ways to improve company´s bottom line with new billing and contract models. Certain examples of these which have been already tested are revenue-share models, leasing IP-rights and creating own properties. There is plenty of room for improvement in this category.
Responsibility: Find new business models and revenue sources. Improve the agency processes.

This new team model is not that science fiction, when you think it closely. When evaluating these roles, I have already met people with these capabilities in different agencies I have worked for. The problem has been that many of them have been struggling with the old-school legacy team structures. The capabilities are already there, now it is time to unleash those capabilities, maybe throw some dead weight from the way and to radically rethink the agency team structure. Because if we will not do it, we might as well be extinct.

What is your view on agency team restructuring?

Tagged , , , , ,
Oct 20 2012
Leave a comment
Business, Strategy

Treat Innovation like Investment

Think about measuring innovation as you would an investment portfolio, where you are concerned with the total return rather than individual stocks, bonds, or mutual funds.

The key is not to measure each project individually and then declare victory or defeat, but to measure total investment over a period of time compared to total output.

This pools high- and low-risk projects and encourages people to take canny chances.

– A.G. Lafley (former CEO of Procter & Gamble)

Source: Grant McCracken: Culturematic

Tagged , , , , ,
Oct 17 2012
Leave a comment
Advertising, Business, Marketing Strategy, Social Media, Strategy

Building a Successful Failing Company

Each year over 30,000 consumer products are launched. 95% of them fail.
The failure rate of TV shows is about the same 95%.
75% of advertising campaigns are failure.
(Probably the real rate 95%, but the years of crafting those Effie entries probably helped to shape that number down)

The conclusion is clear. We are doomed to fail. Or actually we have planned ourselves to failure.

Companies, who do not tolerate small failures, end up doing big ones. Perversely companies are obsessed of micromanaging the staff and punishing for minor mishaps, but eventually end up messing up themselves big time. There is too much strategy & planning, not enough doing (ironically coming from planner). The trick is to fail often and fast to avoid the big failures and to ensure big wins. Actually it is not about failing, but just doing things.

Four ways to encourage doing actual things and failing fast in your workplace:

1. Taking ownership of the ideas and making it a habit
The problem with the companies is not the lack of ideas. Not even good ones. The problem is that there is a lack of ownership of the ideas. Throwing ideas is worthless, planting and cultivating them priceless. That is why Orange idclic works. You do not just throw an idea around. You get the opportunity and responsibility to build that idea.

I remember time selling digital ideas, when clients only wanted TV ads. We always presented those ideas, even though client had not asked for them. First they were irritated, then amused, then interested and finally buying them.

Selling idea is about creativity, vision & perseverance. Mostly the latter.

If you make the habit of producing five presentable ideas to improve your business (or your client´s business) every month, you have presented 60 good ideas by the end of year. I recommend changing the client or the team, if you have not sold any of them.

2. Something Concrete/Month: Test & research with real audience
If after numerous focus groups, strategy workshops and numerous alternations to body copy you still end up messing the project, what is the real risk of just trying stuff out? Also company, which gets its Facebook status updates approved by ten different managers, cannot really be agile innovator.

Your website and social media channels give great opportunity to test things with real people before you commit millions of dollars behind certain idea. When you commit to test one of those ideas every month, you have done 12 prototypes a year. On a worst case you have 12 small failures. On the best case you have done couple of breakthrough successes.

3. Reaction fund: Show me the money to show that you care
World does not spin around your strategy. Your strategy spins around the world. And that world is changing rapidly.

“Ability is little account without opportunity”
-Napoleon Bonaparte

Every company should have reaction fund to react to current events. Something relevant happens in the real world, which opens the opportunity for your company. When the opportunity rises you should have budget to react to it. Whether you produce event, application, flashmob, social movement does not matter, reaction and taking the action is the key. The designated budget is also a proof that your company is serious about that agile innovation.

4. Skunk works Exchange program: Spreading the change to whole company
Big change starts with small movements. That is why it is crucial to start with task force, skunk works or lab, with progressive individuals who are hungry to change the company.

The challenge is to spread their impact to whole company. If people in skunk works are the only ones doing the cool stuff, it helps quite little the struggling company around. Thus every member of that skunk works should be member for only limited time. When revolutionizing the company for appropriate time in that small unit, they would be located all over the company in different units. This works also other way around, task forces giving new meaning to bored employees. Think of it as a work exchange, where you do not move geographically but mentally.

The future is uncertain and the failure is unavoidable. It is how we seize the opportunities and try out new things, which determines our success.

Tagged , , , ,
Oct 16 2012
Leave a comment
Advertising, Business, Digital Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Social Media

39.045 KM: The New High for Advertising

“Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you are.”

Felix Baumgartner not only made the world´s highest parachute jump. And he not only did the record height manned balloon flight or had the greatest free fall velocity.

He is also the future of advertising. Or actually, Red Bull is.

Red Bull made the jump possible with their Stratos-project. Stratos is a textbook example of the new marketing gathering them millions worth of free publicity. When you only have your brand as the differentiator from the competition, you have to change the traditional rulebook. Also if the marketing is pretty much your only cost item, should you do something that stands out with all that money?

Why you should jump from 39 km to succeed in advertising in 2012?

From advertisements to acts.
Once upon a time, there used to be brand films. These long (at least longer than regular tv-spots) films were on top of every advertising creative wish list, because they let you capture the brand essence and flex your creative muscles. Some relics still mourn for the brand films.

The world´s highest parachute jump is the brand film of the next generation.

We cannot get back to the times of the brand film and the one-sided broadcasting era. If we, the advertising industry, cannot make the shift to do acts instead of ads, we will vanish. And deservedly so.

Many marketing managers and advertising executives throw the term “lifestyle brand” around too carelessly. Whether it is mobile phone, toothpaste, ice cream, jeans, hemorrhoid creams, you name it. The brutal truth is that the majority of brands are just products, which have merely functional value to audience. There are less truly inspirational brands than brand managers in the world. Red Bull is a lifestyle brand, build around extreme experiences. Can you really say that your brand is lifestyle brand compared to Red Bull?

The role of traditional advertising is totally miniscule for Red Bull. Judging from their cartoon TV ads, traditional advertising might even be counterproductive for their success. They have build their brand by events, strategic sponsorships and great content produced from those two. This content is mainly distributed digitally.

Before the death-defying jump, there was also a double-win on Sunday for Red Bull F1 team. Red Bull does not just stamp their logo to everywhere to fulfill their sponsorship duties. They use sponsorship as a strategic marketing weapon.

Great brand is media.
The key to successful content marketing is not producing content. The key is to produce interesting content. If your brand wants to really be part of your audience lives and be that “lifestyle” brand, you have to create content which is up to par (or as in Stratos, even over) with every other content your target audience consumes. Being OK in “advertising standards” is not enough, because people could not care a less whether you are brand or not. There is no handicap league for advertisers.

If you go visit Red Bull website, their content about extreme sports and music beats many major media sites. If you build a media, it takes longevity and it requires quality. You have to have clear picture about what your brand represents and act upon it. The parachute jump was totally on Red Bull brand. If your brand aspires to be media, you cannot only be content agregator and rely only on your partners. You have to be an active content creator as well.

Digital is natural part of the winner brands.
When you understand your target audience, the digital executions are not the challenge. You do not need social media expert to tell that you should broadcast the jump in YouTube. Or that you should have hashtag dedicated the event. Great brands master digital presence efforlessly, because they understand their audience.

Digital is air, you either breathe or die.

You might not be able to fund the world´s highest parachute jump. It might not be the right for our brand either. You should still find ways to become truly part of the lifestyle of your audience, instead of just being an interrupting nuisance for them.

Tagged , , , , , ,
Oct 09 2012
Leave a comment
Business, Strategy

How to Become a Thought Leader

Yesterday I wrote about the inflation of the term thought leadership. There is no magic potion for becoming a thought leader, but you can dissect three characteristics of a real thought leader.

Three characteristics (3C´s) of a Thought Leader

Credibility
Whether it is grounded on heritage (IBM, GE) or innovation (Zappos, 37Signals), you have to build your credibility on real actions. There is no shortcut for it. It requires hours of work and a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears.
You cannot sugarcoat business mediocrity with great writing or flashy marketing. Good (or actually rather bad) example of great marketing over not a lot of substance is BP´s Beyond Petroleum. That thought leadership campaign looked quite out-of-place with their 2010 oil spill in Mexico and continuous neglect of safety measures.

Challenge
There is no thought leadership, without radical thinking. Thought leaders dare to challenge status quo. If you aspire to be thought leader, you should not be afraid of confrontation and differentation from the mass. Leaders are not always right, but they have a clear point-of-view and direction where they are heading. Richard Branson is a thought leader, because he dares to go against the grain. The successes and failures of his ventures are secondary. He is thought leader because he is not afraid to try and rebel against traditional ways to do business.

Commitment
The thought leadership companies commit to every piece of their business passionately. The core of successful business lies in almost maniac drive to understand your customers better. This drive correlates highly with great marketing activities. Thought leadership initiatives fail because people are not committed to them. When you are forced to write a blog post, you resent the task and produce a bland sales pitch. If you are changing the world, you want to tell about it and then writing that blog post is more of an honor than a dull task.

It is wrong to say that it is now easier to become thought leader. It is always hard task and requires dedication and determination. No shortcuts.

That being said, the rotation of thought leaders is faster than it used to be. Thought leader today, gone tomorrow. Especially the technologic disruption opens up possibilities for the brands and individuals to become thought leaders in their business. Provided that they are committed to change the world and challenge the status quo.

Thought leadership brands gain credibility by challenging the norms and committing to their mission to change the world.

Tagged , , , ,
Oct 08 2012
Leave a comment
Business, Digital Strategy, Strategy

Read This Thought Leadership Piece

“Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms”
-Groucho Marx

Since when has a mundane B2B marketing effort become thought leadership marketing?

Blog post is not a thought leadership piece. On a worst case it does not really include any thinking in it, but is only a disguised and long-winded sales pitch for the company behind it. Just that you are sharing your thoughts does not make you a thought leader. Thought leadership is always judged by audience and not the marketer.

If you are a thought leader, whatever you do, it is thought leadership marketing. And the other way around, if you are not, no matter what you write, it is just another blog post, which no one wants to read. People should aspire to really be thought leaders and not just appear to be one.

Because we as a people are naturally lazy and trying to find shortcuts, it has not been surprise that marketing companies selling thought leadership marketing have found a lucrative market. Companies and individuals should concentrate more on doing things worth telling and doing some serious thinking worth sharing instead of buying some “thought leadership toolkit”. The actual methods to reach out to your audience come quite naturally if you have your real story in order. That story should be based on the actual truth.

Thought leadership marketing is just a contradiction in terms. Too often it lacks both the actual thinking and the real leadership.

Tagged , , , , ,
Jul 23 2012
Leave a comment
Advertising, Business, Digital Strategy, Planning

Digital is Air

It is quite sad that agencies are still strugling heavily with their digital output and integration. We are not really talking about new things here. Digital has already been around for quite a long and we have had time to adjust. While agencies have been lost with, real people have been happily and easily adopted the new digital tool.

Nowadays, digital is like air to them.

It is natural: Consumers have already adopted the digital channels. They have made the unconscious selection to live digital life. The digital excellence should come with same ease in the agencies. The people are not strugling with digital, companies are. If you have to think about digital all the time, you are really missing the point. It is already a habitual part of life. The same way it should be habitual part of agency.
It is necessarity: If you do not have air you will die. The same is the way with the companies. For majority of companies the digital strategy is totally same as their overall strategy. Therefore, it is insanity to separate these two. If your business is not yet in digital, there is a good opportunity for your company to do it.

Air also flows freely. That is why there should not be different silos in the agencies. Digital department should be every department. The steps for the future success are simple:

1. Break the silos.
2. Get digital natives on board. Get rid of the opposing old baggage if necessary.
3. Fully integrated or die.

“Digital should flow freely and be a habitual part of the agency”

Jul 04 2012
Leave a comment
Advertising, Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Strategy

Kicking the Habit: Five Tips to Capture the Habitual Shopper

“We knew that if we could identify them (pregnant women) in their second trimester, there’s a good chance we could capture them for years”
-Andrew Pole, statistician (Target)

One of the most thought-provoking articles I have read this year  was “How Companies Lean Your Secrets” by Charles Duhigg. Besides that it is quite unbelievable feat that you can actually track from data when your customer is in her second trimester, it had me also to think about power of habit and habitual purchases. When our conscious thinking and habits collide, usually the habit will win. Just ask anyone trying to stop smoking!

We, consumers, do not spend enourmous amount of brainpower to make everyday buying decisions. When we stroll in the aisles in our grocery store and pack our shopping carts, we usually think totally other things. We are guided by certain buying rules and only thing which might change our shopping behavior is that certain product is over. Especially when working with FMCG, the habitual buying processes are something which you cannot ignore when crafting your marketing strategy and tactics.

Five Tips to Capture the Habitual Shopper

1. Identify the habitual cues
Although consumer might shop in autopilot mode and does not really think about what he is buying, he is guided with certain habitual cues to make his selection. Certain people might make their selection based on price, others with brand and others just to minimize their walking in the store. Nielsen gives following examples of common Omega Rules:

“I always buy brand X …unless guests are coming!”
“I buy the cheapest brand on special, as long as it’s not X!”
“Brand X works for my family, but if Y is on special, I buy that!”

It is crucial to identify what is your product´s main habitual cues and rules of buying. Because if it is mainly price, even a slightest price increase might make your customer think other alternatives. And if it is not, you actually have a good opportunity to raise prices and customer will continue business as usual.

2. Avoid making the customer think during the autopilot phase.
Advertising might even be countereffective, when dealing with habitual shoppers. When customer starts to think actively about your category, he starts to also think about the competitors as well. To simplify things: if you are market leader in your category you should try to actively encourage the autopilot. If you are challenger you should try to disrupt the habitual buying process. Also advertising is crucial for the new products, because only way besides price-dumping is to get people to interested about it and buy it because of the buzz.

3. Identify the events when the habits change
Why Target is so interested about the state of pregnancy of their customers? Within certain life events, even the most permanent habits of people might change. For example these events can be the following (but not limited to): moving, having a child, changing job, getting married or divorced. Not surprisingly these are also the most stressing moments of your life. Although you have decided that you never change your morning cereal brand, when encountering above-mentioned changes, it might not be that big deal anymore.

4. Remember that customer is not always in autopilot
Consumer might be totally different shopper during weekdays compared to weekends. On weekdays we stroll like zombies trying to get our shopping done as fast as possible, but when saturday comes we might be actually seeking variety and inspiration within the same aisles. Some might also say that finding something new is also habitual behavior for humans. There are at least the following motivational segments when buying:

Bargain: You are looking for the best deal. (The weapon of choice: Discounts)
Buzz: You are excited to find certain product because of the recommendation, advertising, product placement or news mention. (The weapon of choice: In-store promotion to ensure that the first buzz does not die off)
Variety-seeking: You are actively looking for new experiences. (The weapon of choice: Trials in the store)

Important to notice is that people might shift through these different motivational ways. Also your product can be bought from many motivational standpoints. It is essential to find the main motivational cue for majority of your customers.

5. Customer satisfaction does not mean a thing for habitual purchases.
Average customer satisfaction is usually 75-85 on the scale of 100. Company might think that they are scoring well, but actually that result is just average. Other shocking statistic is that customer satisfaction explains only 8% of repurchase*. With mundane every day products, when conducting a customer satisfaction survey you actually trigger totally artificial thought process. Consumer starts to rationalize his habitual shopping behavior and basically just starts lying.

So habits are strong factor of our buying behavior. If you do not recognize that, you might do fatal mistakes as a marketer.

Recommended reading
Charles Duhigg: The Power Of Habit
Neale Martin: Habit: The 95% of Behavior Marketers Ignore*
Nielsen Deltaqual

“Recognize and leverage the power of habit and identify the opportunities to try to alter it”

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Jul 03 2012
Leave a comment
Business, Planning, Strategy

Craft Your Presentation like a FBI Interrogation

I first stumbled on to Reid interrogation technique in Jo Nesbø´s book Headhunters, which gave the impression that this method is also used in job interviews. The technique is originally used in interrogations and is widely applied in North America with different law-enforcement agencies, such as FBI. The technique caught my eye immediately and I have been toying with an idea to utilize it in sales presentations.

As the Reid technique is registered trademark and actually much more than just the nine-step interrogation technique and all I have learned about it is from the Norwegian detective novels (Nesbø actually mentioned it in one other of his novels as well), you should take the following nine steps with a pinch of salt. However I still think there are some valuable lessons to be used in your presentations and sales pitches:

Nine steps of persuading presentation

1. Start with the Direct Confrontation
When you start your presentaion, go straight to the point. Explain candidly the problems your potential clients are facing. Be straight and frank about it, do not sugarcoat it.
2. Symphatize with the Client
When you have gotten the attention by telling how screwed they are, soften your tone. Show that you understand the situation, address the challenges and express sympathy. You are there to help them out from the trouble.
3. Discourage Denying the Problems
In the Reid method, this step is ensuring that the suspect does not say many times “I don´t do it”, because more you say it more you start to believe it. So when presenting the problems there is only “bad cop”-mode in presentation.
4. Anticipate the Counterarguments
When presenting a bold choices, first reaction is usually denial and many counterarguments will follow. Be prepared to answer them. When you are answering the hardest counter-arguments before they get to even asked in your presentation, you are making the opponent armless.
5. Reinforce Sincerity
After this, it is again time to play good cop. Express sympathy for the situation and ensure that there is a way out of it.
6. Move the Discussion to Presenting the Alternatives
Usually at this point the audience will become quieter and listen. You have proved that you have done your homework. If you have been persuasive enough, they want to really know how can you help them out their mess. It it is time to present your solution.
7. Present Two Alternatives.
You present two choices, other one which is more socially acceptible. The potential client is likely to select that easier alternative.  The end-result is the same in both of them: you start your collaboration with the potential client. Of course the client has always the third option, which is not to to select you. Or in the interrogation that he is denying guilt. That third alternative is something which you try to actively make obsolete during your presentation.
8. Get Public Approval
If you have gone according the steps, you are almost closing the deal. Now you should aim to get public approval of your strategy and solution from the highest-ranking client in the room. This might be quite tricky in actual pitch presentation, but you should at least get certain points which are publicly approved. This will help the further negotiations and set the right tone in them.
9. Document the Approval Immediately
If you are ballsy enough, after getting the public approval, you should have the actual contract with you and hand it over to the potential clients and to get it signed. Good luck with that.

As a disclaimer, the Reid technique is prohibited in several European countries because it has said to produce too many false confessions. So try this at your own peril. Also if you try it to someone who knows it, there are certain ways to attack these steps as well.

Tagged , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →