I was lucky enough to be in New Zealand two nights ago, sitting on the halfway line, watching history unfold.
Regardless of the result, the tournament would be seen a successful one. Kiwi’s are fine hospitable folk and any who had made trip to the country had experienced that on a truly national scale (with the possible exception of Quade Cooper)
I sat worried and with baited breath, on the edge of my seat as one of the tightest games of rugby union I have ever witnessed played out in front of me.
It has been 24 years since New Zealand has held the world title in the sport we care the most about.
Growing up the cup has seemed within fingers reach many times, but always eluded us.
It was fantastic to watch the citizens of an elated country, my country, rightly proud of a team that represents so many great values, share a moment in history and celebrate. It absolutely feels great to be world champions.
Jared Bradon has captured Sunday night’s emotion in a way that my words simply cannot. It’s well worth the three and a half minutes and shows just how powerful video can be as a medium in transporting you to a different time and place. It’s been up 21 hours and picked up 38.7 thousand views.
It’s easy to forget the powerful role sport plays in uniting nations, and in a year where tragedy has seemed just too close for my liking in regards to my homeland, it was a great feeling to be able to share something positive.
Seems like everyone these days wants to do a tie up with an artist to breathe some life into their brands and create something that captures a little emotion and a lot of attention. Sometimes this can result in executions that seemingly add no value to the brand and don’t really deliver much in the way of attention.
I like the Roca video above that tells the story of the creation of a sculpture for the Roca Madrid Gallery/Brandspace. It doesn’t push product of brand down your throat by being a literal extension of the brand, and it makes me kind of want to go and visit the gallery.
The media environment is in the midst of a shift as significant as the mass adoption of television during the fifties and sixties. The Internet has transformed the way people in developed economies live their lives, and pickup amongst the developing countries is astonishing. The world logs on each day to connect, consume and create in ways that would have seemed impossible ten years ago.
The emergence of social channels has given weight to the voice of the individual. We can argue about the value and longevity of individual platforms like facebook, fourquare and twitter but they are part of a wider trend in media that delivers choice and control into the hands of the user. Content rarely now exists without a subtext of relevance and relationship, however tenuous.
Channel proliferation has come to the internet as well. Like television before it, attention now often goes to those who best curate what is available. Audiences converge in niches and throwaway in-jokes vault to become global trends.
I believe the commonality across all these channels, both new and traditional, is the power of stories.
Stories captivate, entertain and amaze. They inform and evolve, morphing to take on the character of the person relaying them. The single biggest difference between the new media and the old is that lifespan of a story is increased. It seems almost that virtual immortality of message is just around the corner.
All agencies, across the marketing mix, are engaged in a bitter fight for supremacy. For the first time in fifty years or more the leadership of the creative advertising agency looks vulnerable. The fortress of the media buyers shows evidence of cracks. The scent of change, and blood, weighs heavy on the wind.
In light of these changes, I wanted to articulate exactly what in the traditional PR arsenal gives us an advantage in the fight for the attention of consumers everywhere, and the growing war for share of wallet with the other agency disciplines.
Understanding tribal anthropologies
It seems more and more that the world is made up of tribes of influence.
The abundance of choice available to folks these days has not created a new world of amazingly self-actualised and distinct individuals. Quite the opposite, in fact. The human tendency for pattern recognition is amplified as the tyranny of place is not just broken, but smashed to flaming bits. Global trends are established in days, as consumers seek out and establish connections with products and the ideas or people behind them.
Influence is a fickle glue, sometimes lasting seconds, but in the right circumstances it can seem eternal.
While it can be difficult to measure and even harder to predict, influence can most definitely be played with.
One of the pieces of equipment in the PR arsenal that helps makes sense of this landscape is Stakeholder Mapping. This PR101 process is all about trying to understand all of the voices that have an interest and influence in the communications environment. Most of the time, you can map these voices out on two +\- axis of influence and sentiment: How great will the effect of the voice be, and is it likely to be with or agin us?
When I was in China, working on the 42 Below brand, I learnt a lot from Geoff Ross about the value of creating outrage in the type of person you do not want to join your tribe, and the affinity that it instills in those who you do. Positive voices too, can be harnessed to carry a story further and to greater effect, or to provide a most effective defense in a time of crisis.
This approach is about more than understanding audience, it is about examining context and trying to harness all of it for a desired outcome.
Gaining permission to speak
Anyone who has come up through the ranks of PR will, at some point, have been asked to pitch in a story. It is the bain of many young professionals lives as they learn about making an impact, capturing interest and dealing with rejection, often in 15 seconds or less.
There is a real goldmine for us here. Because of this shared experience, our communications thinking most often begins with the thought of gaining permission. What is it that we can say or do that will gain fast acceptance in our target audience and deliver us enough of a pause to actually tell a story?
It might be a statement, delivered over the phone, crafted for a individual journalist. It might be sending a toy in a box instead of an invitation to a special audience for a special event. It might be video content, hyper-targetted and delivered with a humorous flourish.
Beginning with an expectation that permission must be gained is one of the reasons PR thinking can work across a much broader spectrum of the media environment. Permission has become the expectation of connected consumers, that plethora of choice they have demands it.
I like to think about this permission model behaving like a cycle. I believe this informs a pattern of thinking that lends itself to a new environment where brands can aggregate an audience themselves on a channel, rather than being forced to buy an audience on someone else’s. Screwups and misunderstanding can bust the cycle at any point, so the onus is on communicators and brands to be active an focus on a longer term.
Crafting stories that survive transmission
There is a market perception that Public Relations writes the news, and while it might be great for us and our clients if that were the case, journalists and editors are effective filters separating newsworthy fact from brand spun fiction.
As a result of this filter, PR professionals have become adept at crafting stories that survive transmission through the filter and deliver coverage and a connection for the brand in the media.
As the nature of media changes, the skill of crafting stories that survive not only one but multiple transmissions, with the key messages intact is an area of real value that we can take to our clients. The extension of this is crafting stories both good enough to retain their message, whilst allowing each person to take ownership of the story and tell it in their own words.
It is going to be a challenge taking this skillset and applying it to new mediums, but its power, particularly when planning integrated campaigns, seems very useful. While we might not be moving into the production of 30 second spots for TV, the day we start to bring a TV quality production capability inside our agency seems much closer than it did even a year ago.
Reacting in (near) real time
Timescales are massively compacted in this brave new world. Lengthy approval and revision processes must be confined to the planning stages, so the benefits of momentum can be reaped. The odd creative agency seems to have nailed this skill set as well, with W+K’s Old Spice work being the most notable example.
The most skilled of our practitioners are used as communications counsel in times of crisis. They are adept in assessing the nature and direction of communication on an ongoing basis as well as taking steps to control the situation and the way it evolves.
As anyone who has been watching the news channels of late, in the absence of clarity the media will move quickly on to conjecture. Offering contradicting opinions from thought leaders provides a story drama that many find difficult to ignore and as attention is the greatest commodity in any media environment, channel owners will always skew towards the fantastic to keep people glued.
Flipping this model to a proactive use can add weight to a campaign, by using each channel to its utmost at the best time. It certainly sits more in the realm of art than science, but honing it will be a key way the PR arsenal evolves to take a larger share of wallet at the marketing table.
I’m a massive fan of the concept of popup. Be it the restaurant we ran here in Sydney on behalf of our client, Positively Wellington Tourism, or one of my idea’s from running my own agency up in Shanghai (albeit, executed in London), the idea of surprising people in their everyday lives with something physical in an unexpected space is one that obviously connects.
I guess that’s whay I’ve been so impressed by my friend, Jason Chan, and his involvement with one of the most ambitious popup executions I have seen, Greenhouse by Joost.
The Greenhouse started life two years ago, in Melbourne, with a large temporary gallery space nestled into the sharp and hard lines of the then new Federation Square. The project had at its core the concept of sustainability, from materials used in construction, to the re-appropriated jam jars from which you sipped your coffee.
Last year, this time in Perth, Joost once again used a combination of found and sustainable construction materials to build a slightly more compact Greenhouse, with a stronger focus on food and beverage and locally sourced ingredients to match the construction.
Now in the third iteration, Greenhouse once again is providing Joost with a playground for his ideas on sustainable construction living buildings. This time though, the project is not a bespoke build for a single unique location, this time the Greenhouse can travel.
Three shipping containers provide the core of the structure, housing kitchen, convenience and storage. The framing of the two level restaurant and bar fits into these containers as it makes the trek from location to location. Plywood cladding and the plants that literally cover the structure will be sourced locally as the experience unpacks in Milan, Budapest, London and a long list of other prospective locations. The striking herringbone floor of the Sydney expression recently functioned as a set of factory conveyor belts, now cut down to rectangular tiles.
Food wise, local ingredients rule. Flour is milled and bread is made daily on site, using a wood fired oven. Milk arrives farm fresh in a bucket to be processed into cheese and yoghurt. Kegged mineral water forms the basis of house made lemonade and tonic. Cut down brown bottles serve the beer, jam jars the wine and cocktails.
Oil from the deep fryers powers the onsite generator. Local straw bales line the walls as insulators. The furniture all is made from something else, billboard canvas covers the tables. Some folk are calling this the greenest structure on the planet right now.
What all this adds up to, is something very special. It is this unique story that has given them access to the fantastic site on Sydney’s foreshore, with views of both the Opera House and the Bridge. It’s a multi million dollar site that if you were simply flogging a product, it would be near on impossible to secure and would eat up the budget. So unique is the offer from JAson and Joost, Sydney’s Harbour Foreshore Authority has come to the party with funds not fees. London is offering Trafalgar Square, it is quite simply amazing.
How do you build out and idea for a client that gets this type of support? Is it even possible to do?
That’s what will be ticking over in my head for the next week and year.
The Sydney visit of the Greenhouse by Joost last for six weeks, get down there and enjoy it.
The pick up of advertising agencies using proven PR techniques continues with Old Spice guy getting a release to coincide with the single biggest global focusing event. This is a time like no other, a time when people seek out and watch ads purely for their creative merit.
It appears as though the Spice guy is set to leverage the attention create both on and offline by the game, without actually paying the hefty cost of admission for a spot during the game itself. Couple that with the use of Superfan language of the spots released in association with ShakeandBakeGuy last week, plus the gift of superbowl tickets and the longer running spots with Ray Lewis and Old Spice have used earned media to strongly connect their campaign to the world’s greatest paid media asset.
The monopoly of content is well and truly over, and this is very much further proof.
Also, just in case you came here looking for ads that have been aired at the game, I like Audi Best:
And Groupon least, as if Shane Warne wasn’t enough of a low point for Liz Hurley:
I know the game isn’t over and there might be better yet to come, but I’ll let you know if there’s anything else that tickles my fancy. Let me know your take on the ads in the comments, and if you think the Old Spice spot did the trick. Just so you know, it did get played on Today, the highest rated morning news show in Australia this morning.
Last week I was invited to talk about brand management in China to a crowd in Auckland.
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It was great to recount some of the lessons I learned in my 5 years up in Shanghai, but I was astonished with how many of the audience who seemed to believe that paying their way into a high value sales channel was going to both guarantee success and protect them from imitators and new market entrants.
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Going to China is simply not enough, you need to tell a compelling story, connect with a viable audience and give them the tools to take your message further. That’s not a simple solution, but if there was one wouldn’t every company, product or brand be doing exactly the same thing?
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If any of you are interested, I’ve uploaded my slides on Slideshare, and embedded them below:
Our most recent project answered a challenge from our client, Positively Wellington Tourism, to bring to life the culinary offer in the minds of food mad Sydney-sider’s.
Our re-imagining of the pop up concept meant packing up the best of Wellington; produce, wines and four top chefs to run an exclusive restaurant in an iconic and currently unused location on this side of the Tasman.
To truly bring the experience to life, the waitstaff for the restaurant were also flown over, making interactions in the pop-up just as they would have been in New Zealand.
Up until there, this was a top notch experiential activation. The thing that makes Hill & Knowlton special though, is the ability to integrate great communications amplification and really spread the news far and wide.
We partnered with TimeOut Sudney to get their engaged audience of food lovers on board and the ticket allocation sold out in 4 hours. We entertained foodie writers from traditional media outlets and the blogosphere alike, as well as picking up the conversation online using the social channels.
It was a great piece of work that really bought the destination to life. Can’t wait to see the visitor numbers so we know the real life business result too.
I saw that my old client and employer, 42 Below vodka from New Zealand, had just launched their own type of Augmented Reality experience. It seems like the AR concept is still soup du jour for many in the marcomms fraternity around the world, with more than daily releases, some new, some not so. (Check out http://twitter.com/AugmentedAdvert if you’d like to drink from this gushing hose of digital development.)
The big issue with many of these AR concepts is that they are served to a user sitting in front of a laptop or PC, often miles from a point of purchase, or at the very least a not so small number of clicks. The thing I really like about this 42 Below activation is that it takes this technology right to the point of decision, and about ten steps from a place where a transaction can take place.
Some of you might be asking yourselves why I’m even writing about this digi-kiosk in the first place. I believe this is an example of earned media. Bottle stores are message dense environments where brands uses colour and size of signage to grab attention and make a sale. The channel owner, the store, will charge a brand for floorspace and promotion either in cash or rebates.
By bringing this fancy piece of kit to the floor, 42 Below articulates a different kind of value proposition, one that sells their products and gives customer a point of discussion to mention the store and increase the amount of traffic. At some point when the market floods with these things, earned will transition back to paid, but for now, i reckon it’s a winner.
It’s Lions time again and once more the PR section of the awards has been dominated by the advertising industry. I thought it might be valuable to share some insights on what had won with my team here at H&K, and now with the rest of you out there in everywhere land.
The big simialrities between the ones that did well were:
ROI from a comms perspective, reach or AVE’s mostly.
An engaged audience, who can be contacted again.
A strong insight led strategy, that flows through all the elements.
A demonstrable link to the client’s bottom line, making a difference for the client.
An end to end idea, that created a platform for earned media amplification.
An innovative execution of the idea, showcasing something that hadn’t been done before.
Channel neutral planning, letting the strategy guide channel selection happily including media partners to help grow a story and make it attractive enough to earn media around the world.
Well then, that doesn’t sound to hard. I’ll be sure to wave at you all from the stage next June.
Joviality aside, I thought it was great to see a shift in the awards criteria to reflect the need for great comms to have a demonstrable effect from a business perspective. The qualitative wankiness has been rightly dialed down as advertising’s panacea has lost its ability to close every deal. It’s all about the integrated mix these days, with a result for your client at the end of it.
While most of the worlds attention has been turned toward Cannes and the festival of advertising there♣, the faceless men and women of the PR industry have been busy trying to work out standard measurements to track and value what it is we do.
5 measurement companies, two hundred delegates from PR and the aforementioned measurement companies flew into Barcelona to nut out the specifics. It was the second time the global group had come together and while i’m not aware of what they came up with last time, the outcome of this meeting wasn’t a standardised measure. They did however come up with seven nifty principles that they could all agree with.
Measurement and goal setting are fundamental for any PR programmes
Media measurement requires quantity and quality – clip cuts are generally meaningless
AVEs do not measure the value of PR and do not inform future activity; they measure the cost of media space
Social media can and should be measured
Measuring outcomes is preferred to measuring media results
Business results can and should be measured where possible
Transparency and replicability are paramount to sound measurement
The over all shift that these principles describe are an increasing desire to dissociate the world of PR from the world of advertising. The value of media has fallen sharply this year, right around the world, so I’d agree that AVE’s (Advertising Value Equivalents) doesn’t make much sense. Also, allowing for some measure of quality of coverage, and quality of effect seems like a great direction to be headed in.
I’m a little disappointed that the group felt that social media was unique enough to single out for a principle. Any interaction online has almost infinite measurability when compared to some of the traditional media platforms. The continuing exclusion of digital at the highest levels of the industry seems unbelievably out of place to me. We could learn a lot from the media planners and their language of channel neutrality. There is a tendency to chuckle it up at ad agencies who leap into the production process of a 30 second spot, while we think nothing at all of reusing the coverage target slide from the latest presentation on the server. All agencies need to play a part of moving PR thinking towards true online/offline integration. Its worth it for our clients and the job enjoyment of our staff.
Digital rant over, measurement means being able to crow our success and learn from our failures. It’s about delivering a considered and comprehensive ROI to the client, one that hopefully starts by communicating effort, perhaps through quality and reach. Quality and reach probably don’t represent return in many business, and when we make the jump from Comms Manager to CEO, that bottom line looms large. Demonstrating effect on sales, and the development of an engaged and re-contactable audience are key.
Interestingly, the winners at Cannes in the PR Lions section exhibited this type of breadth. Many of them fell back on AVE’s to communicate quality and reach, but since most were ad agencies that is hardly surprising. Secondly, they subscribed a group of advocates who drove their campaigns transmedia. Finally, they all could document (or at least suppose) a significant change in consumer behaviour, the most successful in increases of sales.
Media buyers have been weighting channels on their influence and value for years. By developing a channel neutral weighting system we could potentailly have one system across both new and old forms. It might be as simple as reach (potential reach/actual reach) x quality (the value of the channel itself) x influence (the likelihood of a channel generating news, content or action). Then again, it might not.
This wasn’t meant to be an attempt to define the measures for the industry. I believe that the PR industry has a tremendous advantage in our existing skill sets in building campaigns that earn media. We have, for some time now, told stories that capture the minds of influencer’s and get retold in their voices. I believe that the changes in terms of social media have massively increased the number of people who can act as an influencer, and I’ll accept that just because everyone can, doesn’t mean everyone does.
In developing a system of measurement for the industry, let’s not lose sight of the things we do extremely well, and try to find a way to measure those.
♣ Well, ok. It was probably only me watching Cannes.
I am the Creative Director at Hill & Knowlton in Sydney.
I've worked in a few different parts of the agency world and ran my own shop in Shanghai for a while, launching super premium products into the world's largest marketplace.
I am fascinated by what's coming next, how new networks offer a company like H&K the opportunity to flex our earned media muscle and deliver great work for the clients we work with and the brands they breathe life into.
I write about campaigns that work and some that don't, from Australia and around the world. Sometimes the world of social media will hold me in its sway and occasionally I'll just post something that inspires me and hopefully you as well.
Please comment, I'll respond to as many as I physically can.
