Campaign: Volkswagen: Surrealism

A brand I used to work for - VW, my two favourite artists - Dali & Magritte (I know, it is very coincidental) and these great print ads demonstrating the new VW Polo Blue Motion's 'Absurdly low consumption' have caught my eye this week.

Blurring the line between art and advertising, the Polo's 'Surreal' gas mileage has been really cleverly visualised by DDB Germany creating drama and depth to the ads inspired by the 'Persistence of Memory' (Dali) and 'The Son of Man' (Magritte).

Dali’s melting time piece, from The Persistence of Memory, becomes Volkswagen’s melting fuel meter and bad news for the oil industry. Magritte’s Man in the Bowler Hat becomes a service station attendant, with a game of chess showing the Green Trees defeating the Oil Industry.

What do you think of it?

The Death of the Destination Website?

I recently uploaded a comment to Bruno’s ‘The First Dumpling’ blog (posted 28-11-08). Following on from this I’ve expanded my thinking around the debate we had about 'The Death of the Destination Website', which I’d like to share with you…

The original debate was sparked by the fact that more and more internet users are pulling content of interest from sites via RSS feeds, widgets, podcasts and the likes so reducing the need to visit specific websites. Such tools are in effect acting as filters. In addition we also have more and more people subscribing to the curated behaviour, views and opinions of other people – in effect trusted ‘tribe’ leaders. So it’s not just tools that are acting as filters but also people themselves.

So let’s get back to the debating point about destination websites. Do brands need them? Or is it better to focus marketing spend and efforts on being in the flow of consumer conversation thereby negating the need for a website presence – or at the very least a ‘front-of-house’ version of this?

If portable content enables brands to meaningfully engage consumers without ‘forcing’ them to visit a destination website, perhaps it’s more profitable for brands to invest more of their marketing £££s on ‘fishing where the fish’ are.

However there are still many people who prefer, want or need the total brand experience (perhaps akin to say the different consumer shopping experience of buying the latest iPod product from Curry’s versus the Apple store).

So what if the construction of a brand’s website became truly ‘modular’ beyond the current RSS et al capabilities? Within this concept all content would still exist holistically within the website (giving the full brand experience) but it would also thin-slice into a variety of consumer driven content typologies that exist outside of the website. In addition, this portable content could have intelligence built into it (semantic web apps) to help anticipate and meet peoples’ needs in being really interesting, relevant or useful. This could be further strengthened through brands adopting an ‘open’ philosophy of encouraging consumer content collaboration and making it easy for them to pass on to others.

Take for example someone that exhibits search and browse behaviour particular to booking a holiday. Just think of the possible benefit to both consumer and brand if British Airways could serve an ad within the browsing site that gives this person the choice, in situ, to either purchase tickets; request further specific details; set up a mobile phone price alert; IM friends with the details; as well as visit the website for fuller information.

So to end, I believe it is both simplistic and folly to sound the death knell of the destination website. Instead it is better to suggest that the concept of the monolithic website is dying out. Perhaps this will lead in the not too distant future to the evolvement of the modular website – where consumers engage with content in its assembled or disassembled states according to their individual needs.

Importantly with the above scenario it’s not really a question of website content versus portable content; but one of developing ubiquitous content that co-exists independently or interdependently to a brand’s website.

Engaging with baby boomers

I came across a recent report from eMarketer stating that baby boomers make up the largest US generation, both online and offline.

They are also big communicators, while trusting recommendations they hear in conversation. A year-long survey found that WOM is a strong influence to buying decisions among boomer women. Some 68% of boomer women rated information they heard in conversations as credible; 56% passed along the information to others; 39% sought additional information; and 55% said they made purchases based on their conversations.

However what really got my attention, was the fact this group are less brand-loyal than younger people. Some 61% agreed that “in today’s marketplace, it doesn’t pay to be loyal to one brand,” according to a 2008 AARP/Focalyst survey.

You’d think WOM media would be an ideal opportunity to engage with and influence these people. However the problem is they aren’t as enthralled with the internet in the same way as younger people who view it as an intrinsic part of their everyday lifestyle. Instead boomers are more likely to see the web as a functional tool to ‘get things done’. So when it comes to social media, many boomers do not see the point. Writing blogs and participating in social networks lead the list of Internet activities that do not interest boomers. Instead, respondents were most interested in e-mail, staying in touch with family and friends, reading articles and researching PR.

So how can loyalty be cultivated amongst this large and important economic group online group?

As all good marketers know, effective marketing begins with the gathering and application of insights across their target audience base. On the back of this, any mass market brand should develop a multi-targeting approach that reflects the diversity of user needs and behaviour across the entirety of this spectrum. Of course in considering this we must ensure the likely payback > the required effort in generating a positive ROI (where I = investment and/or involvement).

At a practical level brands need to become more ‘open’ and less ‘closed’ in terms of their communication points of entry and inclusiveness in seeking to engage with consumers (and facilitating chatter amongst fellow consumers). This starts by respectfully allowing consumers to choose how they wish to interact as an ‘entry point’ (such as RSS, blogs, widgets, email etc) rather than forcing them down the brands preferred route.

To help illustrate the above point…given it takes at least two people to start a dialogue (schizophrenia excepted) then for brands to increase the opportunity of starting a conversation with consumers requires them being at the same party and in the same room. No matter how interesting a brand may be, talking to an empty room won’t get the conversation very far.

Subsequently having achieved a consumer’s initial attention it is then imperative to actively listen and involve consumers to understand their needs in order to deliver ongoing relevance & utility. Sticking with the party scenario, brands ignore this at their peril. After all, nothing vacates a room quicker than a self-serving party bore!

Coming back to baby boomers, by getting the above right brands can not only enrich their relationship with these consumers but may possibly also help evolve over time the nature & level of their digital interactions. Getting back to the party scenario – I’ll drink to that!

Facebook Connect - the death of facebook acquaintance?

This slideshare on Facebook Connect got us talking about what this means for Facebook...is this some great new functionality which means we are going to become even more reliant on facebook? Not just for our social events, rekindling old friendships and general nosiness; but for deciding what to buy/listen to/visit?

We have all become increasingly reliant on reading other's reviews and ratings before buying products. For me, what has always been missing is knowledge of who these people are. Just because Bob in London likes this restaurant, will I? Does he like the same food as me? Or is his ideal of a good restaurant KFC?


It got me thinking about my feelings towards whether I would like to read the opinions of my 'friends'; knowing, as I do a little more about this person. I'm sure the majority of us have friends that constantly invite us to add the latest vampire application, or attend an event that sounds like your worst nightmare. Or is that just me? I couldn't help but think that Facebook Connect could spell the end of these friends. Do I really want to know what these people think of this product/holiday destination/song?

Will this mean a 'cull' of those friendships , as you cut back your 300/400 friends to just a core group of those people that you genuinely rely on and who's opinions you truly value. Or, will it mean that there will be a tier system within Facebook itself?

• 'Only show me these people's opinions'

Or, do we adjust our settings so that we are shown opinions of different people according to category:

• 'Show me this persons opinion on music'

This could have real impacts in terms of how brands target consumers. Immediately they would be able to target the real opnion formers, which could have real implications for product development, research and targeting.

The Death and Re-Birth of Tangible Media

One of the most interesting bits of working in a fast changing business such as new media is the number of births and dead that we witness. Last week's target was Tangible Media and according to Steve Rubel its death is apparently in sight.

Steve's argument is that all forms of tangible media - newspapers, magazines, books, DVDs, boxed software and video games – soon will either be in sharp decline or completely extinct. His view is that "We're moving fast toward becoming a society that consumes media entirely in digital format. Part of it is environmental, but a lot of it is because of broadband and connected devices." Follow the link to see the full post.

Although he presents an overall compelling argument, with regards to Print Media (newspaper and magazines) it's flawed. It's flawed because it lies on the assumption that readers prefer digital formats over the "tangible", offline support that paper is. That is neither substantiated nor true. The reason why we are witnessing a growth of digital readers is because at the moment digital formats are the only ones who seem to allow for personalization, for filtering or for the ability to "learn" from past reading behaviour and understand my preferences.

Is this the death of Print Media then? No, it's the birth of a new, reinvented Print Media. The new Print Media will be as much tangible as it is today but also as personalized as digital media. It's Tangible Media with a digital twist. So long The Economist, hello Bruno's Economist – my very own bespoke reading material with the articles I want to read.

In fact the digitisation of Print Media is already taking place with the creation of personalized in-flight magazines by HSBC and emergence of services such as Tabbloid which converts RSS feeds into a printer-ready PDF document. Further examples of this "personalized made to Print" trend include the always up-to-date Offbeat's travel guides.

Taking this trend one step further Blurb and BobBooks are facilitating not only the creation but also commercialization of anyone's books. The first one to be widely announced in the media, Our Messages for Obama is already available. In a similar fashion to what happen with web pages and blogs, anyone will all be able to publish its own newspaper to be printed either by a professional (paid-service) or at home (for free) by however wants to read it.

How far are we from a personalized consumer generated newspaper? It only depends on you. If you syndicate (RSS) your feeds from CNN iReports and convert them with Tabbloid into a PDF format you can have your very own peer-made newspaper today.

The consequences of this shift are far reaching. Large publishing houses will have to compete with individuals for readers; readers will be able to choose not between magazines but between articles (or authors, or subjects) and advertising in this new Print Media will possibly become as targeted as in an online environment. All on a newsstand or a printer near you.

Thoughts?

The First Dumpling

Ok, let me set the tone (or maybe not).

This week I've had the chance to see this really interesting show on BBC about Richard Serra. Of all the interesting ideas showcased and discussed there was one that really struck me – this idea of his sculptures as creators of space. In a nutshell the sculptures are not objects, the object is the space created by the sculpture. This also means that, as Serra puts it, "each viewer creates the sculpture by being within it". This extraordinary interactive view on sculpture made me wonder how we could apply that idea of a sculpture being the creator of space in an online environment.

On the Internet web pages are the main objects. They are still pretty much self-contained objects with their own content and own URL address. On the other hand the space is the vast amount of data / information, continually created and 'floating' around on the Internet. In my mind I envision a "Serra-esque" web page in which all the relevant content is "pulled" from the space and where the web page is defined not by its content but by the way the data is structured (the way the data is displayed, the format in which is displayed, the sources and so forth). I envision a sort of extreme iGoogle or Yahoo Pipes where the only purpose of the web page is to define the filter and display mode of the data and not to display proprietary content. It’s not cloud computing but pretty close. Further, the filters and display of web pages would change depending on the user navigation which means that the website would be created by the interaction of the user within it.

I wonder if a brand could apply such solution for a corporate website and/or whether this concept is too revolutionary or just a brand tailored search engine. Thoughts?