A simple nudge. Sometimes that’s all its takes to transform people’s behaviour on a grand scale. In past blogs I’ve shown how everyone is getting in on the game – from the Cabinet Office to Minnesotan tax collectors and even good old Mr Obama. Now it’s the environmentalists’ turn.
Too often we hear about our negative impact on the planet – and, quite rightly too. But sadly, clobbering people over the head with their ‘badness’ is not always the best way to inspire them into action. It also provides fodder for the Clarksons of the world to cry ‘Nanny State’. Anyway, this week’s Time Magazinehttp://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2108015,00.html is shouting about ’10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life’. One of these bright thoughts is ‘Handprints’, and the argument goes like this, ‘…environmental footprints are only half the picture. The other half is just coming into view. It’s called a handprint, and it measures the positive impacts we can make, simply by changing the way we do things, at home, and at work.’
It’s the brainchild of Gregory Norris, a lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health. He was dismayed by the way that current ‘footprint maths’ was telling his students that, after calculating their life-cycle assessment, the world would have been better off if they hadn’t been born. Maybe true, but unremittingly depressing and far from inspiring!
Norris has created a beta website, www.handprinter.org, and apps to show your, ‘…handprint’s ripple effect as it spreads across the globe through social connections’. Okay, it might just be semantics. A glib rephrasing of what we should all be doing anyway. However, the current messaging simply isn’t getting through. If you overplay the negative message, people just descend into bleak acceptance. So why shouldn’t we use a positive approach to inspire positive action? Nudging the world back from the brink.
Lloydspharmacy is launching an assertive campaign to highlight the fact that many people with asthma are living with symptoms that could easily be kept under control.
The aim is to position the brand as an expert in asthma care for both adults and children, and drive footfall. Creatively, the campaign takes a ‘whistle-blower’ stance, exposing statistics surrounding the condition.
TDA is the lead agency on the campaign and has developed audience-specific display ads driving people to a dedicated microsite, GP activity such as waiting room posters, direct mail and in-store materials.
This will be integrated with infomercials linked to ITV’s ‘Daybreak’, devised by Carat and running from April. Charity Asthma UK is endorsing and supporting the activity.
Audiences are encouraged to visit a Lloydspharmacy store or the microsite for a free asthma check-up. The full in-pharmacy check-up includes an asthma control test, an inhaler technique check and a consideration of whether a full Medicine Use Review is required.
It is the first time that the brand has offered an asthma service to children as well as adults.
For the duration of the campaign relevant over the counter products, such as allergy remedies, will be on special offer.
The longer-term goal of the activity is to demonstrate that Lloydspharmacy can play an important role in minimising the impact of asthma on people’s quality of life.
“Around 1 million children aged 5 to 12 and 4.3 million adults in the UK have asthma”, says Peter Wilton, Head of Brand and Marketing at Lloydspharmacy.
“Many of these people believe that day-to-day symptoms are an inevitable part of the condition. But with effective, well-managed treatment this doesn’t have to be the case.”
He adds, “On a more sombre note, three people die from asthma every day in the UK, and 90 per cent of those deaths could be avoided. We have the expertise and resources to play a proactive role in helping people with asthma take control of their condition.”
We all know that data is everything. But not if it’s a week out of date – especially in the wonderful world of digital. It’s virtually worthless. A nice little history lesson, but only of use for the next campaign. Nowadays we demand the ability to tweak our campaigns in real-time; engage in the ongoing conversation with our customers and go where they’re going. So it’s perhaps surprising that social media goliath Facebook has been left wanting with its own feedback.
In fact, one cheeky website actually logs how long the Insight lag is, in real-time, of course…
WhyIsFacebookInsightsNotWorking.com and gives you the chance to share it (not via Facebook though). So, how fast are the updates? Well, you’re now looking at every 5 to 10 minutes rather than weeks. Of course, with better analytics, you’ll now be more tempted to buy from Facebook’s latest ad formats and test Timeline for Brand.
But, and here’s the key point, faster data is only valuable if you use it! How many brands run all kinds of analytics but are simply too scared to act on the data? And, if they do, the moment has often passed and the bandwagon has left town. With superfast Facebook feedback the onus will now be on us marketers. It’s all about acting quickly – moving posts around, changing posts, removing posts. This could be the real-time brand/customer conversation we dreamed of. Are you ready for it?
A report issued by the CIM at the end of 2011 advised companies to merge their sales and marketing functions. Otherwise, it claimed, they would risk damaging bottom line growth.
The report sparked some hot debate. Most people would agree that better integration and reduced conflict between sales and marketing departments would be a good thing. But merging the two into one? It’s a step too far.
You only need to look at the issues facing many ‘medium’ sized SMEs. Typically these companies allocate marketing responsibility to a senior salesperson: a ‘sales and marketing director’. The problem is that in most cases the person is a salesperson, and not a marketer. Sales and marketing need to be aligned, but they are not the same thing. They require different skillsets and – often – fundamentally different approaches.
It’s my belief that many SME sales and marketing directors are in a pretty lonely position. They know in their hearts that they don’t really ‘get’ marketing, yet it is an intrinsic part of their job description.
That isn’t so bad if the board is enlightened enough to realise that marketing is a strategic discipline. In this case the ‘marketing’ part of the job description can be outsourced and managed by the sales and marketing director. He or she can attend board meetings armed with jargon-free key performance indicators to communicate progress.
But if everyone thinks that marketing begins and ends with the company brochure, growth will be stunted at best.
Marketing needs to be treated as an interdependent function. It needs to be accountable across other functions (like sales) at a board level, and deliver demonstrable return on investment. This is true of the largest corporations and SMEs alike.
Businesses that recognise this and establish or appoint a dedicated marketing team – then put pressure on them to deliver results – will be best placed to thrive in this ongoing economic uncertainty.
“The last six pitches we did were for clients that complained of terrible service elsewhere.”
This comment from UM London’s head honcho in last week’s Campaign should get agencies everywhere sitting up and taking notice.
It’s an indicator of where the industry could be heading if we don’t reassess the value of good old fashioned client servicing.
Some might argue that good service is a hygiene factor, something that clients should be able to take as a given. And most agency-selection criteria focus on strategic insight and creative calibre. Not how well relationships are managed and nurtured. But the reality is that relationships are the oil that greases the wheels of great marketing. When they break down, everything is at risk of grinding to a halt.
The problem is partly down to procurement’s ongoing commoditisation of marketing. Customer service is often side-lined and undervalued. So some agencies, in a bid to drive down costs, might see it as an obvious cut-back. Why invest in something that is not valued by procurers and potential clients?
But in the end, scrimping on customer service is a false economy. Especially if the client ditches you after six months because it’s so difficult to work with you.
Perhaps there is a misconception that these skills should come naturally to employees – but effective client handling is an art that needs to be refined and perfected. Simply training and advising client-facing staff on how to develop relationships and find ways to keep their clients happy is a good starting point. It might be as simple as finding out the best time of day to contact them on the phone. Or perhaps asking when they’re planning to take a summer holiday, so you don’t bombard them with a deluge of very important approvals on the day they’re clearing their desk and yearning for a lounger in the sun.
Good servicing doesn’t have to involve bending over backwards for clients – not all the time anyway. But it is about establishing a partnership, and proactively seeking ways to make working relationships less stressful and more enjoyable. And it can go further than that – if I was a client, I’d be far more likely to sign off that braver, breakthrough proposition if it came from an agency that I liked, trusted and enjoyed working with.
A simple nudge. Sometimes that’s all its takes to transform people’s behaviour on a grand scale. In past blogs I’ve shown how everyone is getting in on the game – from the Cabinet Office to Minnesotan tax collectors and even good old Mr Obama. Now it’s the environmentalists’ turn.
Too often we hear about our negative impact on the planet and, quite rightly too. But sadly, clobbering people over the head with their ‘badness’ is not always the best way to inspire them into action. It also provides fodder for the Clarksons of the world to cry ‘Nanny State’. Anyway, this week’s Time Magazine is shouting about ‘10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life‘.
One of these bright thoughts is ‘Handprints’, and the argument goes like this, ‘…environmental footprints are only half the picture. The other half is just coming into view. It’s called a handprint, and it measures the positive impacts we can make, simply by changing the way we do things, at home, and at work.’
It’s the brainchild of Gregory Norris, a lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health. He was dismayed by the way that current ‘footprint maths’ was telling his students that, after calculating their life-cycle assessment, the world would have been better off if they hadn’t been born. Maybe true, but unremittingly depressing and far from inspiring!
Norris has created a beta website, www.handprinter.org, and apps to show your, ‘…handprint’s ripple effect as it spreads across the globe through social connections’. Okay, it might just be semantics. A glib rephrasing of what we should all be doing anyway. However, the current messaging simply isn’t getting through. If you overplay the negative message, people just descend into bleak acceptance. So why shouldn’t we use a positive approach to inspire positive action? Nudging the world back from the brink.
The direct marketing industry lost one of its biggest stars this week.
Sadly, Professor Derek Holder, co-founder of the IDM and all-round champion of direct
marketing, passed away on 14 February.
Anyone who knew Derek will agree that he was big in every sense of the word. He was a
powerful and influential man who believed passionately in the importance of ongoing training
and learning for all people, at all levels of the industry.
If I had to choose one word to describe Derek, it would be ‘tireless’. Nothing ever got in his
way as he proceeded on his mission to enhance and improve the direct marketing industry
through education. Continual professional development is taken for granted these days.
When Derek co-founded the IDM almost 25 years ago it was a breakthrough notion, and the
industry was fortunate to have such an advocate of learning in its midst.
An announcement from the IDM talks about his influence on the careers of ‘many, many
individual practitioners’. I would take this one step further and say that each of us owes an
immense debt of gratitude to Derek. His attitude and foresight played a significant role in
developing the industry and making it the vibrant, dynamic profession it is today.
Perhaps Derek’s greatest talent was the way he connected with people. You couldn’t help
but warm to him. And that is how he persuaded so many senior practitioners to make the
time to share their experiences and insights with junior marketers. He was also a great
believer in peer-group learning and hosted many dinners for industry heads to get together
and share experiences.
Derek’s legacy to the industry is the IDM’s raft of training and events. But each of us should
remember him, and take the time to continue what he started by giving something back,
helping new marketers as they progress through the industry.
Derek’s death will be felt deeply by many of us. He will be greatly missed.
Pester power was turned on its head when Sainsbury’s renamed its tiger bread ‘giraffe
bread’ following a social media furore (view the full story here).
For anyone who missed it, the whole thing was sparked by a letter written to Sainsbury’s by
three-and-a-half-year-old Lily Robinson asking why tiger bread was called such when it looks
more like a giraffe. Customer services manager Chris King (aged 27-and-a-half) took the
time to respond to her in person, agreeing that giraffe bread would be a better name. The
two letters were posted on Facebook, it went viral and the rest is history.
Brands large and small can learn two great lessons from this. Firstly, it is the simplest things
that can make the biggest difference to customer experience. And secondly, the values,
attitudes and personalities of the people who interact with your customers can either bring
your brand to life or bring it to its knees. Happily for Sainsbury’s, Chris King’s letter and
the resultant decision to rename the bread has earned heaps of goodwill, positive press
coverage and a glowing social media buzz.
The irony of this lovely little story is that surely, where the Sainsbury’s brand reputation is
concerned, Chris King is the personification of ‘Every Little Helps’.
Marky P’s review of Waitrose was featured in MMC’s Valentine’s Day feature on the brands
we love:
Waitrose
Who would have thought that a supermarket could represent an oasis of calm, a retreat from
the hectic world of agency life? Yet this is exactly how I have come to see Waitrose. I have a
branch on my doorstep at work and it’s all the little things that make me love it. The spacious
aisles, the refined ambience and the way the staff never seem to have a bad day.
I like that when I want to make a certain celebrity chef’s recipes and I need Brazilian fennel
and Tuscan truffle seeds, it’s always Waitrose that actually has them in stock.
If the sirens went off to herald the end of the world I think I’d head for Waitrose to seek
refuge in the last vestige of civilisation.
The launch activity – and the idea – for the Waitrose Essentials range was inspired. It was
suitably austere and functional whilst remaining true to the core brand. Imbued with quality,
Waitrose proved that budget ranges don’t have to be soulless or tasteless.
For me, the icing on the cake of the Waitrose experience is the innovative token scheme
allowing shoppers to vote for a local good cause to receive a donation from the store. When
I leave, it’s just one more way I feel good about my visit.
When we talk about currency, the first thing most people think of is money. But actually the definition of a currency is ‘something that is used as a medium of exchange’.
Clearly that ‘something’ needs to have some sort of value to each party involved in the equation. But it doesn’t have to be financial. In fact, in today’s world, where we increasingly feel like we’re working all hours simply to spend less time doing the things we love with the people we love, there are far more valuable currencies that brands can draw on to connect emotionally and rationally with people.
Take time. This is perhaps the most quantifiable of the four new currencies of engagement. It is a precious resource that we all have too little of. Brands which can find ways to offer people more time, or more quality time, have the raw materials for a powerful proposition. The Co-operative’s 2011 campaign encouraging people to do away with a mammoth weekly shop and spend the time doing better things captures the essence of this currency well (take a look here).
And what about relevance? So many people today feel trapped in an almost Orwellian world where their individuality is compromised by the routine nature of their lives. But brands can offer a lifeline. By conveying relevant messages that strike a chord with target audiences, we can say ‘we know who you are, we know how you feel’. Get it right, and people will choose and use your brand as a means to feel more connected to their sense of self.
That might sound far-fetched, but it really doesn’t have to be.
Consider the beautiful John Lewis Christmas ad that has received so much attention recently (you can watch it here). A simple idea, perfectly executed. It is relevant to virtually every family the length and breadth of the UK – whose children aren’t plagued by excitement and impatience in the run-up to Christmas? And of course, there isn’t a dry eye in the house when the young lad presents his mum and dad with their clumsily wrapped gift.
But it is the flawless interweaving of the sense of time with relevance that I think gives this ad its magic. It reminds us what a special and important time Christmas is to families, how differently time is experienced by children and by adults, and how quickly childhood really passes. It encourages us to make the most of our time, and subtly leads us to associate the brand with the precious time we spend with people we love. As the ad ends, we believe that John Lewis really understands who we are and what it means to be a family.
TV ads have the advantage of being able to communicate propositions implicitly and explicitly through words, music and images. But TV isn’t the only medium that can evoke the new currencies of engagement.