Category Archives: Planning

Mar 04 2014
Leave a comment
Advertising, Insight, Planning

Anatomy of An Insight: Edeka Supergeil

I was having a holiday last week and almost missed the best advertisement thus far this year. Great example that retail advertising does not need to be boring:

Insight #1: When in doubt, steal.
If you are not interesting brand, you should tap into other interesting content. The band called Der Tourist originally did the song in the ad and Friedrich Liechtenstein sang it as well. It was ok viral hit, with over million views. Not overplayed like Gangnam style, but well known enough to build the momentum around.

Insight #2: Interesting is controversial.
Geil meant originally horny in German, but has recently in slang started to mean cool. The whole video and lyrics are filled with sexual innuendo and double entendre (read here the full translation). When you are competing with all the content circulating in Internet, you have to spark the interest immediately. Ad version is actually weirder than the original video. Usually brands start diluting interesting memes and doing politically correct versions of them. That is the recipe for disaster. If you want to be random, you have to be truly random.

Insight #3: Show the product.
I love ads, which put product blatantly to the center but in relevant way. The amount of Edeka products is mind-boggling in the ad. Friedrich is smoking Edeka sausages and bathing in milk and pouring muesli on himself, for god´s sake. If the main premise is right, you can add the product layer easily to your content. Even testing that the house brand toilet paper is plush enough:
Supergeil

Insight #4: Context is the king.
Weird is normal in Internet. That is why the original song was a minor hit. Weird in context of supermarket advertising is abnormal in Internet. That is the reason why Edeka ad has become viral hit. People have the assumption about how retail advertising is. When something like this comes and fights totally the assumption, it is refreshing, surprising and works like hell.

Awesome job from Jung v. Matt.

Tagged , , , , ,
Feb 04 2014
Leave a comment
Digital Strategy, Planning

Forgotify: Exploring The Far Far End of The Long-Tail

There are over 4 million songs in Spotify that have never been listened. That is 20% of all the songs in Spotify.

That number is good demonstration of Internet market dynamics. It used to be (and still is) hard to get your song on the radio. If you were able get on the playlist, you were quite sure to get certain amount of listens. Nowadays, it is easy to get on Spotify, but to be actually heard requires active promotion. Especially, if you are not Daft Punk.

Forgotify aims to change that (or at least get a couple of these unheard songs on rotation). It is a discovery website, which enables you to randomly listen to those unheard “gems” from Spotify. The songs were not necessarily that horrible. I find some classical music, Hebrew folk songs, chansons and Christian punk*. No one just knows that these songs are there to find and listen. And no one cares enough to promote them.
Forgotify
*“Scaterd Few was a Christian punk band from Burbank. CCM magazine described their music as “pure punk for dread people,” stating that it was a cross between Janes Addiction and Charlie Mingus.

Tagged , , , ,
Jan 29 2014
Leave a comment
Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning

Anatomy of An Insight: Sorry, Coke & Pepsi.

The SodaStream ad for Super Bowl is quite vapid creatively. As a guy, I naturally do not complain having Scarlett Johansson on it but I have seen her in way more interesting settings. The beauty of this ad is that it is already banned:

The reason for the ban is the line in the end: “Sorry Coke & Pepsi”. Apparently Fox was afraid that it would upset those big advertisers and we will not see this 30 s clip in Super Bowl. That hardly does matter as the ad has already been seen over 2 million times. Daniel Birnbaum, the CEO of SodaStream acts furious, but is probably laughing all the way to the bank:

‘“What are they afraid of? Which advertiser in America doesn’t mention a competitor? This is the kind of stuff that happens in China. I’m disappointed as an American”

Insight: If you are challenger brand, you have to aggressively confront the bigger competitors. People love underdogs. This ad further solidifies SodaStream challenger position while making competitor look as evil giants. When your ad is banned, it actually gives extra credibility to your message. Although Coke or Pepsi might not have anything to do with the ad ban, this raises speculation about conspiracy.

Too often brands do not act as challengers or market leaders, but fell in the middle ground. As a brand you are either David or Goliath, there is no middle ground.

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
Jan 24 2014
Leave a comment
Advertising, Business, Digital Strategy, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Social Media, Strategy

How To Approach Your Social Media Strategy in 2014?

Year 2014 will be turbulent for both brands and agencies working with social media channels. Because of the recent IPO´s (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), the previous rebels have started to resemble more established media houses. It is a double-edged sword. Many agencies are not as stressed out as the social media ecosystem is more predictable (and none of the innovation labs is making money anyway). On the other hand, the activities have been and increasingly will be quite dull and unimaginative.

Beginning of the year is the time to think your social media strategy. For majority of the brands, year 2014 should be year of revolution instead of just evolution:

1.Facebook is the channel for reach.
Majority of your social media paid media investments should happen in Facebook to maximize the reach. In terms of sheer amount of users, it is dominant. However, the recent developments have been really worrying for brand (and other) pages as well. Certain pages have seen dips as low as 88% in organic reach. Even Facebook itself is not talking anymore about free organic reach, but instead brand pages as a way to increase the reach of the paid media. This is natural advancement and should not surprise everyone familiar with market economy. So I believe that Facebook will get bigger media share in 2014, but actually less focus in terms of engagement. I would invest more in those terms with Twitter (customer service, real-time marketing) and to visual platforms (content creation).

2.Use Twitter as the channel for real-time and customer service.
I am not saying that every brand should necessarily be in Twitter, but if you want to jump on the real-time marketing bandwagon, Twitter is the place to be. I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter throughout the years, but despite all the shortcomings the service has proven its worth. It does certain things really well (like customer service), and provides more natural ways to engage with audience than Facebook. Here is example of random interaction with Warby Parker, after I shared their innovative annual report:
Warby Parker Tweet

3.Invest heavily on visual social media channels.
Whereas online media money is going to Facebook, I would concentrate majority of the production and engagement investments to visual social platforms. No one has time to read text anymore, unless you are able to condense it to 140 characters or say it in photo.
Online video has been the fastest growing online ad format for couple of years. Naturally the pre-roll is the TVC of the new generation, but creation of good content provides great reach & engagement opportunities for brands. Video is a great tool for customer service as well:

Besides video, the photos are naturally huge and I expect the short-form video content to rise rapidly (Instagram video, Vine). Especially tutorials are naturally fit to for shorter video content (Check: #lowesfixinsix).
Many companies should actually rethink their community manager talent pool. In 2014 if you cannot take great photo or shoot a great video, you should not probably be community manager.  Social media used to be more verbal, but now it is increasingly more visual.

4. Embrace the renaissance of anonymous randomness.
Contrary to what Facebook says, many people want to remain anonymous while online. 6% of all adults on Internet use Reddit. People engage way more on Tumblr blogs nowadays than on Facebook brand pages. One reason is that not all the people want to attach their Internet personality to real-life. In Internet you can be that backpacker hiphop-dude you really are and do not need even remotely to try to sound smart. It actually reminds me of the original promise of MySpace. You did not need to use it with your real name. You could make a site for your cat if you fancied. Anonymity can naturally bring some problems, such as hate-speech, crime and stuff but it also enables refreshing randomness that is currently missing from Facebook. Many people are more interesting talking about things they are interested and not about themselves (assuming they are not completely narcissistic). So do not underestimate the power of “anonymous” social media channels. Maybe Yahoo was on to something when it bought Tumblr.

5.Experiment with the new upcoming channels.
I have written before about how you should approach your social media strategy like investor. The landscape in terms of the hot newcomers changes really rapidly. Global brands should nowadays be more tuned into what is happening on local level. Experimenting with various social media channels goes hand in hand with that. For example if you had done tests with Path, it would be easier to utilize the learnings in Indonesia (which is the third-biggest Path user country). The innovation in social media sphere is also not limited only to Silicon Valley anymore so cutting-edge firms should empower their local teams to experiment with local social media channels as well. For example WeChat is way more advanced than WhatsApp. Competitive advantage can come from everywhere. The trick is to identify it, experiment with it and scale it.

There will interesting year ahead. In 2014 companies need to dramatically update and revamp the social media strategies. Which is great. Whenever there is turmoil and crisis, there is always an opportunity.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Jan 23 2014
Leave a comment
Advertising, Digital Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Planning

Booking.com and Party in Bangkok

Right after Thailand declared a state of emergency and the unrest in Bangkok increases, I received this mailer from Booking.com yesterday:
Booking.com
Did it caught my attention?
Yes.
Did it make me want to book flights or hotel to Bangkok.
No, not really.
I have partied before in Bangkok, but the current party is not really something I would consider right now.

Lesson for the marketer: Targeting your message is not enough, you have to remember the timing of the message as well.

Tagged , , , ,
Jan 22 2014
Leave a comment
Advertising, Insight, Planning, Social Media

Sharing is A Selfish Act

Why people share things?

Honestly, sometimes I really do not know. For example this clip below has gotten over 1M views:

Many times, it is easier to say why they are not sharing your content. Often the reason is that your content just sucks. And while it sucks, it does not suck enough to commemorate ironic share (like the video above).

While you may theorize the psychology of sharing until the end of the day, I find it relatively easy. You share either useful or funny content. Being useful is more multi-dimensional, as it might mean that the content is useful to either the sharer or the expected receivers. This is the reason why the world´s most uncreative people share all these creativity links and quotes on Facebook.
Stop it. You are not fooling anyone.
We attribute sharing to our individual image, but it is quite seldom even a slightest reflection of who we really are. When people are anonymous (discussion forums, Reddit, 9GAG, etc.) in Internet the content that is share is completely different. In real social media, what is truly shared is anti-social content. Anonymous comment is much more authentic representation of human spirit than airy-fairy “we-are-the-world”-share from the self-help guy in newsfeed near you.

It is gross misunderstanding that this age of oversharing is increasing openness to our culture. Facebook is just homogenizing what we share and has people showing their polished desired images. My feed is overpopulated with engagement announcements and baby photos. It is not even statistically possible that there is so much mating going on in my network every single day. You feel forced to like and comment those photos, which creates vicious cycle of boring content to my newsfeed. This is the reason I have decided to like every negative status update from now on to show my support to reality and attitude in 2014. Sadly, I have not been able to walk the walk and my own personal status updates are nowadays only about my sport accomplishments. Facebook has become a commodity, which has made it commercially interesting but same time really boring on an individual level.

We said in our book “Digital Fooprint” in 2010, that in digital age everyone is personal brand. Unfortunately we were right and the social media is full of overtly self-conscious personal branders optimizing every like and comment.

Tagged , , , ,
Jan 21 2014
1 Comment
Advertising, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning

Anatomy of An Insight: Denham Psycho

Although making fun of “hipsters” starts to be quite passé, this video still gets a pass. This brilliant piece showcases one hipster doing his best Christian Bale impersonation while having product integrally in the film as well:

Insight: If you do branded content, it has to be interesting content first and foremost. Brand comes later. If you are paying homage one of the nihilistic and violent movies of our generation, you have to be violent as well. Denham is not competing against other jeans brands in YouTube. It is competing against all the content out there. The quality criteria of our target audience has gone up and we either match it or become obsolete.

Denham Psycho is not everyone´s cup of tea. This is not a concept getting lukewarm reception in meeting room. You either love it or hate it. And that is how it should be. Advertising should be discriminating. Your marketing communications should make a clear distinction between them and us. Messaging strategy is not only about thinking to whom we are talking to. It is also about deciding, who you will leave out of your party. If you do not get popular culture reference to cult movie, maybe you are not Denham target audience to begin with.

When creating branded content, it is balance act between brand relevancy and brand controversy. As a jeans brand, Denham is in in the lucky position to dial up the tone to the latter spectrum.

Tagged , , ,
Jan 02 2014
Leave a comment
Insight, Planning

100th Post: Year 2013 in Review

This is my 100th post on this blog.   Tennis clap. Or even Nolia clap, if you are really excited about the fact.   If you want to read my point-of-view about this year´s digital trends, I recommend reading these predictions.   I started this blog for one simple reason: I wanted some channel where to express myself verbally about (marketing) subjects that tickle my interest. I used to blog in Finnish to the biggest marketing & advertising magazine, but stopped it immediately when I moved to Singapore in 2012. It would have felt odd to blog in Finnish weekly when you are living abroad. So it was also naturally to switch the language to my second one, English.

This year I was asked to write a regular column (once every third month) in the biggest business daily in Finland. It has been great to write in Finnish again and surprisingly I also always get feedback from those columns, although they are only published in offline format. Maybe print is not dead after all. In terms of written output, I am still more of a digital guy, so I regard this as my main channel for verbal expression. Also because I can write here as often or seldom as I want. Also there are no size restrictions and I can have as long-winding introductions as I want (which might be a bad thing as well).

I do not stress too much about writing these posts. Sometimes I write daily, sometimes there is even a month break. Last year I wrote 52 posts: exactly on steady weekly pace. I do not worry that much about views or comments either. Blogging for me is one method of working and thinking. When you have to condense certain topic (like Google Search Algorithm changes) to blog format it automatically sharpens your thinking. Planning is not only research, but more about finding and presenting insights influenced by research. This blog is one tool to do the research, find and present different insights and opinions. Hopefully also in a format which is interesting for readers.

Luckily I am not the only who is reading this blog and the most popular posts have gotten thousands of views last year:
The Most Read Blog Posts
Read them below:
1. Rethinking the Advertising Agency Team Structure
2. #Lufthansafail: Why You Cannot Separate Customer Service and Social Media?
3. The Seven Characteristics of a Great Concept
4. Craft Your Presentation like FBI Interrogation
5. Psycho Marketing 101

Expect for the Lufthansa-post, the top five list comprises of timeless content (three of them actually written in 2012) and some of them are my own favorites as well. It is interesting to analyze what kind of post strikes a chord with your readers. For example, I do not know why FBI interrogation techniques and marketing of Psycho movie are more popular than critical analysis of selfies. I liked the latter way more, but eventually the audience decides the value of every post. The most popular post was not a surprise though. I have talked about the subject and that particular post with many people from our industry, and it feels that I have been onto something with it. Not yet entirely sure what.

This year I will continue to write when I feel like it and about the things I feel passionate about. Thanks for everyone who has read these rants thus far. There will be plenty more. Stay tuned and Happy New Year to everyone!

Tagged , , ,
Dec 13 2013
Leave a comment
Business, Digital Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Social Media

Social Media Trends 2014: The Truth According to Me

Good folks at Kurio Digital Marketing Think Thank asked me (again) and 21 other Finnish digital dudes & dudettes some views of social media trends in 2014.

In many ways the social media scene has matured and the shifts are not as radical as they were few years back. Many of my answers from last year would not be out of place this year (last year trends can be read here). As majority of the readers of my blog cannot read Finnish, I have translated my predictions below. If you can understand Finnish, the report is highly recommended read.

Before going to my answers, it is important to make the distinction between a fad, a trend and a commodity. Every new thing starts out as a fad (i.e. Snapchat is in that phase). Majority just stay as fads (Chatroulette), but certain things evolve to trends (i.e. brands building their Facebook pages few years back). Only very few make their route to become commodities (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube at the moment). Trends do not pay the bills, so usually only when something is commoditized it starts to make safe business sense. In that way you should approach your social media marketing efforts like investor:

70% of investments to commodities (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube)
25% to trends (Taking selfies)
5% to fads (Snapchat, Vine)

This is naturally subject to your risk tolerance and your business majority. If you are start-up with nothing to lose, it might sense to flip it other around. And do not get me wrong, my view is that brands should try to ride the trends and fads more proactively. It is just important to realize their business role (such as learning, gaining the opinion leadership, creating the future competitive advantage). Riding on the fads seldom is the way to reach masses.

So with that caveat my social media trends (with couple of commodities and fads thrown in as well):

 1.Biggest Social Media Trends in 2014: Monetization & Mobile-First
There is two big paradigm shifts which are not really trends, but changes which have already happened but keep
a) Money (Show it)
Twitter did the IPO this year, which will affect the user experience. I doubt that the success will not be as good as with Facebook. Mass social media channels are increasingly more bought media than earned media. Therefore community manager or social media director without also access to bought media budget is a position without any real power. In many ways the advancements in bought media (i.e. programmatic buying) have also been way more interesting in recent years than say in, content marketing.
b) Mobile (First)
The switch to mobile is not a trend, it is a change which has already happened.  Consumers  switch wildly between different channels, platforms, devices and even use them at the same time! This puts extra pressure to understanding the consumer journeys. You cannot really understand those journeys without constant testing, measuring and optimizing. Secret to crack the mobile-first challenge is to think holistically consumer-first.

 2. Social Media platform to look out for in 2014: Anything related to visual storytelling
I have talked about selfies before in this blog and they will not go anywhere next year (hopefully twerking will not disappear either). All the applications, which help you to modify and enhance will be hot items next year. China will show the way in this trend. Also, we have to also remember that selfie is a communication vehicle as itself. Combining IM and visual storytelling will be a big thing. Instagram has actually addressed this already with its Direct offering.

3. Biggest challenges in doing social media marketing in 2014: Processes block the real-time success 
Old processes stand in the way of the really great real-time executions. Year 2013 was disappointment in terms of real-time marketing. There were couple of nice stunts, but we should be able to do better than just dunk in the dark (Oreo is still pretty much the only proper case study example). The briefing process that is suitable for traditional big brand campaign just does not fit faster requirements of real-time marketing. My personal New Year promise is to concentrate even more in creating and executing more streamlined, collaborative and more agile way to make real-time success stories next year.

4. Social Media Buzzword, which hopefully disappears in 2014: The whole talk of the social media
If you are still in 2014 talking about social media as a separate unit, you are more old-school than the person still using FourSquare. Consumers switch smoothly between devices and platforms and between virtual and real-life like it ain´t no big thing. What is actually the difference between digital and real-life nowadays? How can your firm address the needs and the behaviors of these consumers in every relevant touchpoints? To separate social media from other digital activities or other activities is just laziness and shutting your eyes of the reality. Digital scene is more fragmented than every before. Therefore it is more crucial than ever to create a big picture of those fragments. We do not need any more social media specialists (or digital specialists for that matter). We need 100% digital people who live and breath like their consumers and have the understanding and empathy to connect with them (and also means to be in the right touchpoints).

 5. Biggest social media hope for the next year?
I do not hope, I just do. And measure, optimize and do it again.

Predicting the future is too much work, I rather create history.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Dec 12 2013
Leave a comment
Business, Digital Strategy, Insight, Planning

Anatomy of An Insight: Burger King Anti-Pre-Roll

Accidentally I stumbled upon two Burger King campaigns this week which were on totally opposite side of the spectrum. Whopper Sellout was a disaster, but this pre-roll campaign is great:

Insight: People hate pre-roll videos. Ironically, you probably have to watch one to see the case study above. There is nothing more annoying than seeing boring ads, when you just want to see Japanese diarrhea dance. I pretty much always skip the pre-roll, expect if it really captures my attention immediately. Kobe & Messi Selfie Shootout was probably one of the latest pre-rolls I watched from beginning to end. But what if you tailor your pre-roll message to the content your audience is going to watch?

Really simple and effective idea also tied to promotional message. It would be interesting to see some stats from the campaign as well and to compare the finishing rates to regular Burger King promotional pre-roll.  My hunch is that this execution did quite well. This is also a great example that nowadays you really cannot separate creative and channel planning. They go hand in hand.

 Content is king, but context is king kong. 

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