Sony Understand the Importance of Listening

I've said before that it is so very important to listen to customers. Not that brands should do everything they say, but they should understand their behaviour, their concerns, and their desires.

In addition, clarity is one of the most important parts of communication. A good message said clearly is better than a great message said unclearly.

Last night at E3 (Gaming expo) Sony demonstrated perfectly the art of listening to your customers, and responding with brilliant clarity.

The internet has been full of discussion over the horrible security and sharing restrictions on the forthcoming Xbox One console. (You would no longer own your games - but licence them, publishers can ban you trading in or buying second hand games, sharing games with friends would be awkward and restricted, Microsoft would be able to turn your games off at their discretion, you HAVE to go online every 24 hours to authorise games, etc).

Microsoft have been unclear and evasive, leading people to presume the worst - they cancelled their E3 PR conference and made no mention of the issue in their presentation. There are currently many gamers who will point blank refuse to buy Microsoft's console.

Sony had yet to announce their strategy for this area. People from all over the world have been asking Microsoft and Sony to keep things as they have been, and that change will actually damage the industry as well destroying the rights of customers.

A huge number were watching the E3 presentations last night to see how Sony would respond.

What they produced was a masterclass in clarity. No gamer could be left in any doubt whose side Sony are on, nor have any confusion over their rights on the Playstation 4. Just listen to the reaction of the crowd (Who at one point were chanting "Sony! Sony! Sony!") and hear the pre-orders and good publicity bursting out from the seams. Literally tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of people made their mind up what machine to buy at that precise moment.

The battle between the next generation of consoles is a multi billion pound war. Huge research and development costs, huge game development costs, huge marketing costs. Sony has taken a gigantic step toward winning it with two minutes and twenty seconds of clarity, driven by a little bit of listening.



If you take a look at the below diagram, it explains the confusion people have over what the policies of Xbox One mean for them playing and sharing games with friends, and how Sony have responded. (Original source of image unknown)

In addition, Sony produced this wonderful video which shows just how much simpler things are with the Playstation 4. (It's even better when you realise that the two people are Shu Yoshida, the head of Sony Entertainment Studios, and Adam Boyes, VP of Third Party Relations for Playstation) In the history of gaming, there have been few moments to rival what happened last night, when putting customers above all else paid off massively for Sony.

General Mills Live in the Real World

There has been a sad reminder this week that many people are still nowhere near as civilised as we might expect in 2013.

You may have seen the latest Cheerios ad from the US. It features a little girl asking her mum about the product. It's a little bit cheesy, but the ending is quite sweet.

It has however, managed to cause a huge amount of controversy on You Tube and other places for one simple reason, the mum is white and the dad is black.

Really?!

Now I know what you are thinking, You Tube comments are usually the lowest form of social commentary in the entire world. But the fallout from the argument has moved on into Reddit and other sites too. The replies being made were so bad that the company had to disable them from the ad.

There is no argument to be had. People of different ethnic backgrounds fall in love and marry, just as those of the same ethnic background do. I can't imagine that anyone at the agency nor General Mills even gave a second thought that the ethnic make up of the family might be an issue, and it would be incredibly sad if they had to.

I'm glad that General Mills live in the modern world. I really hope they stand by their campaign, and don't feel pressurised to have an all black or all white couple in the next ad. I know no company wants to lose sales, but I guarantee they would lose more sales by appeasing scummy racists than by reflecting the multi-cultural, open world most of us recognise.

Edit: Apparently General Mills have said they will refuse to withdraw the ad. Adding: "There are many kinds of families, and Cheerios just wants to celebrate them all.” Good work.

Obey Your Thirst

I am a strong believer that marketing and brands should be based on the truth. We no longer live in the age where you can lie to people and get away with it for long (unless you are a politician).

So I was very interested in the new reformulation of Sprite, probably my favourite fizzy drink. "The most refreshing taste ever" is the line they use, which certainly sounds appealing.

I went to the shop and picked up a bottle, took it back home, opened it and took a swig. Something wasn't quite right. It looked like Sprite, it tasted almost like Sprite, but it wasn't quite as good.

I had another sip, and it definitely wasn't as refreshing as before, let alone more so. Then the aftertaste hit. A slightly weird, not unpleasant, but certainly not nice aftertaste.

I checked the bottle to see that it now contains sweetener. Admittedly it's not the awful Aspartame or Asulphamame K chemicals, but it really isn't anywhere near as nice to drink now. I know sugar isn't great for you, but historically neither are sweeteners.

I want to know how they felt it was reasonable to declare that this new Sprite was "The most refreshing ever" because it certainly is not. I cannot believe that anyone would put the two side by side and pick the new formula as such.

One of the reasons I bought Sprite is expressly because it doesn't have the caffiene of Coke or Dr Pepper, and didn't have the sweeteners of Fanta or other drinks. Not only is that now not the case (although I believe the sweetener they use is non-artifical which isn't as bad), but it has ruined the taste.

I picked up a couple of bottles of the old formula this week, and it may be the last bottles of Sprite I buy for a very long time. The Sprite tagline used to say 'Obey Your Thirst', I will, I'll be buying 7up from now on.

Thinking Smarter

I read a story today that I thought was magnificent. An example of a business tackling a problem by using the problem as a bugbear for those who cause it.

If that makes no sense, let me show you the genius of Greenheart Games:

Their new title, Game Dev Tycoon, tasks you as a developer of software titles. You deal with all the usual problems of publishing, marketing, sales and piracy.

Of course, piracy. A problem that most publishers like to tackle by ruining or inconveniencing the game for those who actually pay for it (See EA's Sim City and Ubisoft DRM for but two examples). Greenheart Games on the other hand decided to be smart.

They created a modified, version of the game, and uploaded it themselves to the main pirate gaming websites, knowing that eventually it would end up there anyway.

They made one simple change: In the pirated version of the game, no matter what the player does, all of the titles they develop suffer from rampant software piracy. The longer they play the worse the problem becomes until it gets impossible to make a profit.

Brilliant.

The outcome, not only do Greenheart Games now know that almost 94% of initial players were using the pirated version of the game, but they inspired some brilliant real life irony. Players of the pirated version appeared online in game forums, asking how to beat the rampant piracy in the game, and asking whether there was a way of researching copy protection.

So, a bit of smart thinking and they turned a potential problem into a PR news story, successfully helped to tackle the problem, AND got a clear and impactful message about the effects of game piracy across to those that pirate games.

If only the big publishers thought that smartly.

In Extreme Bad Taste

Some ads are bad, some are very bad. Then there are those which are so misguided and wrong in every possible sense that the fact they ever get made is staggering.

Take the latest ad from Hyundai.

It (seriously) shows a man trying to commit suicide in his car, but the gag. Oh the gag. The gag is that he can't because the emissions have no carbon monoxide.

What the fuck Hyundai? Seriously. What the fuck were you thinking approving this?

This is the sort of thing that might appear in the Chip Shop Awards "Bad Taste" category, and even there it would be pushing it. I can't even bring myself to link it.

I don't care if it gets across the cleanliness of exhaust emissions, it's simply an unacceptable thing to put in an ad. For a start the whole concept is in the kind of bad taste that will seriously damage a brand, not to mention how showing suicide in this manner influences others who are thinking of taking their own lives.

You may have seen the open letter from an advertising copywriter who sadly lost her dad to this kind of suicide, while Hyundai might argue this is a relatively isolated case, there is absolutely no justifiable reason why they wouldn't have seen the hurt this ad might produce coming from a million miles away.

Hyundai and Innocean need to seriously reconsider their approval processes, because whilst I'm sure they meant no harm, their work has clearly caused at least one person a LOT of distress, and many many others to be horrified at what has appeared. I would like to think that they haven't done this deliberately as a means of getting publicity, but in the event they have, please just use nudity or violence like everyone else next time. Besides, all you've done is make the name Hyundai synonymous with uncaring, exactly the opposite of what you should be getting across with such environmentally friendly features.

Who approved the initial idea? Who let that idea go to the client? Who approved it? Who produced it? Who filmed it? All of these people should have spoken up and raised questions.

What I find even more astounding, are those people who responded to the above letter by saying that the author should 'get over it', or even insulting the person she lost. This kind of heartless bullshit has no place in modern society, and those who responded in such a way should be ashamed.

Hyundai and Innocean, you owe at least one person a HUGE apology, and you owe it to yourselves to never let this happen again. More work like this and you will destroy the reputation of your brand.

Beware The Bubble

Planning, and advertising in general, is filled with remarkably intelligent people from all over the world. As you would hope with creative agencies, we come with different backgrounds, points of view and ways of looking at problems.

So I was very disappointed to see a recruitment ad on Campaign's website today that implied only one place in the world is worth having experience in.

It was a small, independent agency looking for a planner. Excellent, always good to see small agencies appreciating the value of strategic planning.

Then however, it said this:

"You’ll have excellent planning experience gained in a London agency."
Oh dear.

So excellent planning experience gained at other great agencies in any other country or city in the world doesn't count? That planner with 10 years at CPB in Boulder, JWT New York or W+K Portland isn't good enough then? I do hope it was the recruiter that added this, not the agency.

There are so many brilliant, forward thinking people in London. But there are all over the country, and all over the world. If you want to get ahead, then why not bring in people who have experience of planning in other places? Why on earth would you restrict yourself to only wanting those with London experience?

Most agencies in London are good. They appreciate the value of experience wherever it comes from. But there are still a small number who seem stuck in a bubble that fail to see in a global world, being in one place doesn't matter like it used to.

The agency that is arguably the best in the country, and the best network in the world has probably the most varied recruitment policy of any agency I know of. If that doesn't show you the value in avoiding the bubble, I don't know what will.

I once had an interview at an agency in London, who basically said to me they would rather I had worked at a bad agency in London than a very good one in Manchester. How ridiculous. The market may be a little different, but the skills are the same. If you are a good planner, you are a good planner, regardless of location.

Most agencies are past such thinking now, but the ones who aren't need to change or be left behind.

"You’ll have excellent planning experience."

Simple as that.


[Edit: Interesting point made by Mark Hancock. It may mean "You WILL gain excellent experience at a London agency." Which is far better, but as we all know, clarity and context is everything. Hopefully in this case it's just a copy issue not a bad recruitment policy issue... There are still a few agencies for whom the message is valid anyway though!]

Linked In Need to Think More

It's much easier to sell and promote something good than it is something bad. You'd think that was obvious, but apparently Linked In have spent so much time trying to sell, they have forgotten to look at what it is they are actually pushing you towards.

Every time I go onto Linked In from my phone, I get directed to a page that asks me to install their app. Yesterday I clicked to download it and got taken to the app page, which shows an average review score of 1.5 stars and is full of reviews talking about how useless it is.

Now surely someone at Linked In might have noticed that reviews for the app have been consistently terrible, and set in motion a better app? Or at the very least realised that because the mobile website does everything the app does, they don't need to hassle us with the install option (which only then reminds us how crap their app offering actually is).

Pushing us a weaker product has all the hallmarks of basing the strategy around a business objective not the end user.

When One Little Thing Spoils Something Nice

I have enjoyed seeing Stella ads get back to being great over the last couple of years, after a while of being in the doldrums. But their latest work shows how one little thing can completely spoil otherwise high quality work.

The latest Stella Artois ad continues to hark back a little to the ideas of the Reassuringly Expensive campaigns with the idea of beauty. It takes a French art house style and uses it well to create something that you want to see through to the end.

However, there is one simple thing that completely spoils this ad for me. It breaks apart the style and just takes away the class from an otherwise lovely piece in one second.

At 54 seconds you see the girl's response to the whole point of the ad, but instead of fitting the tone it just stands out like a sore thumb. As if the whole French cinema theme is dropped in order to achieve a sight gag with her response. Imagine a version of the Guinness swimmer ad where the guy does a cheesy wink to camera halfway through. It just looks awful, doesn't work as a gag, and acts as a car crash to the otherwise well above average build up.

Maybe I'm reading a lot into one small shot, but if we are to spend hours and hours crafting strategies and creative ideas into campaigns, it seems a waste that we should then miss one simple little thing that removes the campaign from the world it inhabits. I couldn't help but cringe when I saw it for the first time.

All it needs is a replacement shot where she looks a little surprised and disappointed in keeping with the rest of the ad, and it will improved hugely.

So close. So very close.

Link provided as they have disabled embedding: Stella Artois Ad 2013

Some Thoughts on the Passing of Margaret Thatcher

Whilst I have very little positive to say about the things she did in power, or the changes she tried to make, I refuse to join in with the celebrations of Margaret Thatcher's death that are going on in some places. Everyone has family, and they don't deserve to see gloating of their pain.

With that in mind, here are the positive things that we as a nation should take from a very divisive politician who, for better or worse changed the country forever.

1. She proved that women are capable of doing any job as well as (or better) than men.
2. She proved that you don't have to be born into wealth and go to Eton to become Prime Minister.
3. She proved that with strong enough convictions, people really can change things.
4. Unlike modern day Tories, she actually believed that the poor were capable of achieving. The method may have been wrong, but we all need to have more faith in people to grow.
5. Without her, Spitting Image would never have been as good.

Retro Media Planning

I saw an old Kit Kat ad on tv this week (the panda one if you are interested), and it got me thinking about nostalgia in ads and how they affect our emotion. Then I thought. Why don't more campaigns and media buyers take advantage of this?

Ad agencies almost always want to do something new, and that's understandable. Running old ads is often seen as either a cheap cash-in for a well loved campaign, or the client trying to cut costs. But it doesn't have to be.

There are many channels devoted solely to retro programming, to repeats and shows designed specifically to reminisce and re-watch things from when the audience was younger.

So why don't more brands join in?

For example, Vintage TV. They show programmes based almost entirely around 60's, 70's and 80's music. So why not take some of your ads from those time periods and place them in the breaks? If people are feeling the warm glow of nostalgia, why not tap into that and join in instead of interrupting it?

This isn't mass running of an old campaign, this is selected targeting to show ads in a way that will enhance the positive emotions surrounding the brand.

If you're a 50 year old, watching a show about the 1970's, and in the ad break you see the Hovis bike ad and a PG Chimps ad, not only will they stand out, you'll be far more likely to pay attention and think of the brand in a positive way.

I can imagine some brands would worry about not following their current brand message, but really, in the right place, that doesn't matter. You are likely to get positive emotional response, more attention paid, and more recall of the brand. Besides, a truly great brand is comfortable both with what it is now, and what it was in the past.

Brands are not solely in the present, they have a past and a future, and most are much stronger for being in touch with the whole scope of their history.