Category Archives: Insight

Dec 11 2014
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Advertising, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning

Curse Marketing: When It Is Ok for Brands To Give A F*ck

The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.
– George Washington

Well, merry f*cking Christmas to you George as well.

I´ve been accused of vulgarity. I say that´s bullshit
– Mel Brooks

Using profanity is part of your verbal excellence. Swearing isn´t bad language. Swearing is essential language. Right curse word at the right time can amplify your point and elevate your message. Of course you have to be selective when you use those filthy words. Just like too much salt can ruin your meal, too much profanity makes your message harder to swallow. If your dropping F-Bombs all the time, they start to resemble more aerial shells and don´t really explode. NWA was able to shock the world by their explicit language, but f-words in popular songs are just white noise.

Obscenity is a notable enhancer of life and is suppressed at grave peril to the arts
– Brendan Gill

I try to use curse words sparingly, only occasionally to illustrate and underline my message. The only expectation is sports, when my language resembles a pirate, who has just lost his peg leg. My only saving grace is my weird native language, so majority of people do not know what I am shouting in Finnish in basketball court. It has actually been studied that swearing has positive health consequences and helps to relieve pain.

Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of life.
– Cyril Connolly

Brands have also experimented with profanity and obscene language. Sometimes it does not work, but below are certain examples when it makes total commercial sense as well:

1. Thug Kitchen´s use of profanity is a smart strategic decision. When talking about healthy eating and especially vegan diet, you might start to think about hippies, flower power and softness. The image might prevent especially male audience in turning to healthier diet. For some reason steaks are more masculine than quinoa crops. By the choice of strong language, Thug Kitchen illustrates that there is nothing weak in eating healthy and cooking healthy food. Their mission statement gives a good lowdown on what they believe with only slight bit of profanity to spice things up:

This site is here to help your narrow dietary mind explore some goddamn options so that you can look and feel like a fucking champ. We hope readers reconsider what kind of behaviors they attribute to people who try to eat healthy. Everyone deserves to feel a part of our push toward a healthier diet, not just people with disposable incomes who speak a certain way. So we’re here to help cut through the bullshit. Promoting accessibility and community are important as fuck here at Thug Kitchen. We’ve got a big table and everyone is welcome to it.

What I´m saying might be profane, but it´s also profound.
-Richard Pryor

2. FCKH8.com sells t-shirts to fight for pro-LGBT equality and against racism and sexism. To promote their pro-feminism line, they had girls cursing against sexism. There is naturally the shock factor, but again using profanity has a clear purpose in this ad. For some reason cursing is more accepted for male than female. That is one small demonstration of the double standards existing in our society. By using strong language the brand turns the focus to real problems in our society:


Potty-Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs for Feminism by FCKH8.com from FCKH8.com on Vimeo.

Censorship feeds the dirty mind more than the four-letter word itself
– Dick Cavett

3. The above examples are from less traditional brands, using profanity is not only limited to underdog brands. If using of profanity helps you to illustrate your point more vividly, almost every brand can use it. If you are family brand or your target audience consists of prudes, I would advise not to use profanity, though. On the other hand, if toothpaste brand can get away with it probably your brand can as well. The latest Oral-B ad uses cursing (with bleeps, but it does not left anything to imagination) as a way to demonstrate the Christmas stress we all are experiencing this time a year:

Sometimes the best way to demonstrate that you give a damn is to actually say damn. Or even something stronger.

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Dec 10 2014
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Advertising, Insight, Planning

Anatomy of An Insight: The Hoop

Mulberry has done the best Christmas ad as it strikes just the right chord with its take on the Christmas materialism. More on a tearjerker side, this ad really made me emotional. Either it is because of my eternal love of basketball, reminiscing my grandfather building me a basketball backboard or thinking about my goddaughter getting older; this ad from Dick´s Sporting Goods really lifted my holiday spirit.

Insight: Best gifts might change your life, both for the giver and receiver.

I remember when I got my first proper running shoes (Nike, of course), Snoop´s first album, first great dinner in proper fine-dining restaurant or a 10-time card for hot yoga. These gifts nudged me to certain direction in life and also strengthened the passion I have for the best things in life (sports, hiphop, food). I am eternally grateful for those gifts. They are also great demonstration on how things make you happy. If they don´t, you just are not getting the right things.

In this ad, the hoop serves as a metaphor for the relationship of father and daughter and how basketball is the glue between them. Right gift at the right time can help to retain the relationship and also elevate it to the next level.

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Dec 05 2014
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Advertising, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Social Media

Honesty

Sure, we´re tossing out fluff, but tell me, where does anyone deal in words with substance? C´mon now, there´s no honest work anywhere. Just like there´s no honest breathing or honest pissing.
-Haruki Murakami: A Wild Sheep Chase

Brands often mistake the total lack of attention and interest to their products from consumers to stupidity. Consumers are not stupid, nor they are simple. They basically just don´t care about your boring products. They block their brains deliberately when they see your ad, because they know that you are lying to them. Or not lying per se, but sugarcoating the reality to such a ridiculous extend, that it does not feel honest or genuine anymore. Advertising is mostly meaningless hyperbole, so when some brand appears at least slightly more honest it will break the clutter.

Some of the Finland´s finest creatives did this great film to promote Finnish advertising agencies during Eurobest festival. I heartily endorse this message and have a firm belief that Finnish agencies breed the best world-class talent. Especially in planning. If you want to win, hire a Finn has been the mantra of all the progressive agencies for while. Nevertheless, this ad raises the important point that every brand could have a little bit more honesty in their work:

Honesty – Invented in Finland from Darlings on Vimeo.

The “I Hate Thailand” –ad I wrote about earlier was a prime example of an ad which starts from more honest standpoint although is not purely genuine. One-eyed man is king in the land of the blind. Same way a brand with even a hint of honesty will rule amongst the dull and predictable ones. Honesty from a brand is always surprising, and surprise is the most powerful emotion a brand can trigger.

This Arbys apology to Pepsi has gathered over 1 million views and the only ingredient that breaks it from the norm is the honesty. Yes, we forget to put Pepsi in one of our ads, now you get Pepsi and nothing else. Pure product ad for 30 seconds, but coming straight from the heart:

Was it really a mistake or just a clever funny stunt? Jury is still out on that one, but it does not really matter. If it feels honest, it is way more honest than the rest of the ads out there.

Speaking frankly and speaking the truth are two different things entirely. Honesty is to truth as prow is to stern. Honesty appears first and truth appears last. The interval between varies in direct proportion to the size of the ship. With anything of size, truth takes a long time coming. Sometimes it only manifests itself posthumously. Therefore, should I impart you with no truth at this juncture, that is through no fault of mine. Nor yours.
-Haruki Murakami: A Wild Sheep Chase

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Dec 03 2014
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Advertising, Insight, Planning, Social Media

Anatomy of An Insight: I Hate Thailand

Although this spot is a little bit long-winded and the protagonist probably deserved to be robbed, it is still quite refreshing travel ad from Thailand ´s Tourism Authority:

Insight: Setbacks can happen on your holiday, but that is part of the whole charm of travelling. By starting to build up this spot from the negative experience, it gives more authentic point-of-view than traditional destination advertising. Thailand has had bad year in tourism due to numerous reasons so overtly positive advertising would have felt totally out of place.

Brands do not generally understand that consumers actually love honesty instead of sugarcoated fantasy. Their cellphones have been snatched by ladyboy, they have gotten violent diarrhea from raw sesame chocolate balls or been tricked by taxi uncle. When brand addresses upfront that something bad might happen if you are unlucky, drunk or both, it can actually concentrate on your positive message.

Some people have actually mistaken this to be a real thing and not an ad. I think it is obvious that it is ad (no one would make this cheesy of a story) and if you had mistaken it for real thing, I recommend courses in media literacy. The ad has been success with the audience as well, clocking almost 2 million views.

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Dec 02 2014
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Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy

The Art (or Lack) of Selling

I got a call yesterday from one of my banks in Singapore (the whole banking system and credit card craze should be a topic for another post). As I see that persuasion and selling is close to my craft I will always listen the sales pitch. This time it was not that helpful:

Salesman: Hi, I am from your bank, would you have a moment of time?

Me: Yes, I actually have.

Salesman: As you have an account here with us, would you be interested in personal loans?

Me: No

Salesman: Ok, have a nice day.

Me: Bye.

I was tempted to start lecturing the caller about selling. The lack of persuasion made me almost angrier than too aggressive salesman. What a missed opportunity!

No one likes to forceful salesman, but don´t be such a pushover either! I had already indicated that I am interested (as I had time, otherwise I would just hang up on you), so surely you have something to sell besides those loans? Right? Getting personal contact with your bank customer on in this day and age is a luxury that you should not waste. I try to avoid that personal connection as much as possible. The salesman blew an opportunity. I might have been interested in investment products, new credit cards (as I don´t already have them too much) or whatever else bank could offer.

Probably the caller was only tasked to sell those loans, so I don´t fault him on keeping the eye on his prize. I think bank is to blame in here. It seems quite ineffective way to try to sell me anything, if I get an individual contact from every single product department. Actually today I was contacted about some dental insurance from the same bank. I was not interested either, so the discussion went following the same pattern as stated above. Probably by the time they have something that interests me, I am already totally pissed of their constant bombarding that I have deleted my account.

Although manpower is cheap in call centers and ROI might look nice on paper, no one ever calculates the harm what they also do to brands. I have to say I don´t really have any brand love for my bank to begin with and terrorizing me over the phone with sloppy sales lines does not help the matter at all.

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Nov 28 2014
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Advertising, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Strategy

Anatomy of An Insight: Crib In My Pants

I have been playing this on rewind throughout the whole day:

Business insight: Beards have been all the rage last couple of years thanks to hipsters and Zach Galifianakis. Because of that the shavers and razor blades have not been that much in demand. That has forced shaving brands to move more to trimming and also expand from shaving to overall manscaping territory. This ad is for styling razor and what is also notable is that the main male protagonist sports stubble. Sometimes you need to find additional usage for your product if it loses the relevance.

Human truth: Guys do not really care about personal care. They would not use deodorant, shave or shower without women. They are either forced to use the products, they are using them in hope of becoming more attractive or they are just using whatever is available. These basic insights have been the goldmine of pretty much all the great personal care advertisements. You use Axe, because you want to get laid. Old Spice knows that it is your wife, who is buying your products. You should use Dove Men, because you are so lazy that you are using your wife´s shampoo.

The formula for this ad is great. First you seed doubt with the female testimonials and make guys insecure about their “crib´s” condition. Then you lighten mood with the humorous song with witty lyrics. Finish it off with the main benefit and product shot. Marvelous!

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Nov 25 2014
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Business, Insight, Planning

Why Smartphone Batteries Are Always Dead?

During recent years our smartphones have taken huge leaps.

Still even though we have fingerprint scanners, high-end cameras, all the bells and quite a lot of whistles, one question still boggles every smartphone user´s mind:

Why does not my damn battery last any longer?

 The reason is simple. Smartphones in general follow Moore´s Law, meaning that processing power will double for every two years. Batteries are expectation to this, because they are chemical products converting chemical energy to electrical energy. Batteries do not follow Moore´s Law as their “technology” has already been optimized.

When you are desperately trying to find a place to charge your phone, here are couple of things to consider:

Team is only as long as its weakest link
Life is like working out in gym. As tempting it would be to only do bench press and skip all the more difficult exercises, it will eventually backlash. Smartphone manufacturers have been obsessed with new additional features and bringing more power. What they have neglected is the battery. At some point, the drained battery might be the Achilles heel of the whole smartphone industry if it is not taken care of.

People learn new habits when they are forced to
When we still used feature phones, it would have been totally unheard of to charge your phone even on every day. Nowadays you charge your phone whenever there is an opportunity and you are accustomed to everyday charging. People also routinely disable different features to maximize the battery life. Would people be more effective if they could use all the smartphone functions without the fear of battery drainage? One way to increase the battery life is not to use data, but that pretty much defies the idea of smartphone, not?

The solution will come from somewhere, we just don´t know the angle
It might even be that our batteries will never be able to last as long as during feature phone era. The toll our new features put on smartphones is just too much. There will be improvements in battery technology, but it will take time. There are couple quick wins to be had, such as smarter antennas that could double your battery life. The answer might not also be to increase the durability of the battery, but to make recharging faster. If you could recharge your phone fully in 30 seconds (or even 2 minutes), that would be the potential game changer.

Batteries are not a trivial matter, as certain studies say that people appreciate it more than brand, speed or camera quality. That might be an opportunity for some newcomer brand to disrupt the marketplace?

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Nov 20 2014
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Business, Insight, Planning

Never Skip Your Lunch Break

“Ask not what you can do for you country. Ask what´s for lunch.”
-Orson Welles

I have only few principles I live by: never say sorry, listen to Wu-Tang regularly, exercise every weekday morning and never attribute your own behavior to apply to the target audience. One of the most important principles is however the following one:

Always have a lunch break.

“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

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Nov 19 2014
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Advertising, Insight, Planning

Anatomy of An Insight: Canal Digital Silver Hand

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.

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Nov 17 2014
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Business, Digital Strategy, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning

Streaming Services Are The Last Hope of Music Industry

Last week Taylor Swift has been applauded as a crusader of music rights as she withdraw her album from Spotify:

“[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:

People will not be paying for physical music anymore. Period.

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.

It is naturally disheartening to read about that Iggy Pop cannot live with his music or how little Aloe Blacc gets royalties from writing one of the biggest songs of the year:

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.

I agree that 4000$ looks shameful for making one the biggest songs in the universe, but life is not fair. People do not want to pay for physical music anymore, expect for old luddites like me, who still get excitement from the special box sets. Actually I am more worried about the viability of Spotify´s business model. They are currently handling over 70% of their revenues to different rights holders according to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek:

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.

They are not profitable yet, either.

“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.

Amen to that.

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