Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Finally, an (almost) antidote to the seemy, hipster, post-ironic offensiveness that plays out across many a comment string right across the internet.

Vice Magazine caters to tragic youth across the world, serving up snarky fashion commentary, adventure journalism, creative profiling and at least for today, cuddly snow leopards. It used to be cool, but is rapidly becoming not so, thanks largely to my knowing about it and now putting down a form of words.

The comment streams under articles and their legendary Do’s & Don’t’s (caution, not always SFW) used to be a fine example of the internet at its callous, bigoted best. As users trolled each other for a reaction it almost always got offensive.

In the last few days, Vice has implemented a plugin that requires users to authenticate before they post a comment using facebook or another third party account.

A few interesting things have happened since then. Interaction seems down, and as such offensiveness seems to plateau much earlier than it did before.

Chalk one up for accountability and its mitigating effects of social norming.

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.

Our World Champion All Blacks! from Jared Brandon Productions on Vimeo.

Sometimes, I look at the weird, human analogue robots trying to walk up stairs and think that no-one will will ever manage to make one that is both cheap and universally useful.

Then I see something like this that restores my faith in humans and their ability to mash up the tools that are available to them and create something that does an elegant job, enormously effectively. I for one have had countless occasions where I’ve been holding a rubiks cube and just wanting to get it solved, and now there is the perfect solution.

How do you encourage the creativity of your audience once your product is in their hands?

This just out from mapquest today, suburbs ordered by social fit. A new way to browse local services based on what you do at home.

If you’re in the US, it’s probably worth having  a play with.

Read more here.

Humans throughout eternity have yearned for the horizon, been fascinated at the inner workings of the tiniest motes or simply striven to to articulate a better, more elaborate or possibly more simple story to convey their experience of the world unfolding around them.

Books, maps and the written word gave this movement for more much. The ability to share, learn and build on the ideas of others became possible and then prevalent.

Technology has continued to play a driving role, allowing humans to delve ever deeper into the world around them.

What does all this mean for strategic communications? I hear all who have waded through the florid sentences above protest.

Immense technology is now in the hands of the individual in all developed markets and many developing ones. In this brave new world considered thought or intellectual prowess are no longer the tickets of admission, it seems now that the whole world is embarked on a new age of discovery, one where it is no longer enough to discover. Many individuals display behaviours around the acquisition of social capital, a new form of value ripped from finding the best, the newest, the most authentic and sharing it with your circle(s).

As brands, how are you making your story discoverable? It’s no longer enough to buy your way in front of an audience, the value of finding a story is diminished if it feels like it has been placed there, and how do you encourage sharing and make it as easy as possible, without it seeming as though it was built to be that way.

These are the questions that keep me up at night.

I always used to think that the way Macaulay Culkin’s character in the Home alone movies came up with madcap ideas to foil the hapless bandits trying to do him ill were, well, Hollywood fantasy.

I stumbled across the article below however, and it appears that the thinking might not have been so far fetched. The research is old by today’s standards, published in Inc in 2003. It points to a stronger result from individuals than groups in the formation of ideas.

The prime stalking ground for the perfect brainstorm can be found at the University of Texas at Arlington’s Group Creativity Lab. That’s where, for the past 14 years, psychologist Paul Paulus has delved into the science behind eurekas, staging more than 1,000 brainstorming sessions, varying the conditions, and measuring the results. Want to know whether it’s better to write ideas down or say them out loud during a session? Paulus has tested it, and knows the answer. (Write it down.) How many breaks should the ideal brainstorm entail? (Plenty.) Do the best ideas come at the beginning of a brainstorm or at the end? (The end.)

An Army of One

Paulus’s first piece of advice will strike most as surprising, if not heretical: The group is not God. Group brainstorming, used day in and day out by countless business owners, really doesn’t work that well, according to Paulus. You’re almost always better off directing your employees to brainstorm individually. In one recent study, conducted at a Texas energy company looking for ways to be more innovative, Paulus found that groups with four members generated about half as many ideas as four individuals brainstorming alone. Back in the lab, the results were the same, whether it was students investigating new uses for the paper clip or university staffers looking to cut costs.

The problem is that the simple act of being in a group creates a set of distractions that is difficult to overcome, explains Steven M. Smith, a cognitive psychologist who studies the creative process at Texas A&M in College Station. While in a group, individuals are forced to deal with subconscious urges to conform to what others are saying, anxieties about pleasing the boss, and their own social inhibitions. In the midst of all that, who can concentrate on having an idea?

What’s more, research shows that groups often harbor illusions of their own effectiveness. Paulus will often interrupt a brainstorming session and ask the group to rate its effectiveness. In almost all cases, groups award themselves higher scores than do individuals–even though groups generate far fewer ideas. This means that groups are more likely than an individual to throw in the towel early. (Hey, that’s a great idea. Let’s stop. Where’s that beer?)

Read the rest of the article here.

Obviously, when Macaulay hooked up with his party crowd, the quantity and quality of his ideas went down, resulting in the somewhat striking photo that leads this post.

Personally, I have found success in the brainstorming environment when large groups are split into smaller teams, ideally three or four. Ideas are generated quickly, often by a lead individual and then strengthened by the team. It also seems to overcome the fear that some participants have over the quality of their ideas and their own willingness to share their thoughts in front of the group when ownership is shared across the group.

The 6-3-5 technique also harnesses some individual brilliance while also opening up some of the benefits of a collaborative session too.

I often think I am blessed to have been born in New Zealand. 

It is a place of great beauty and wonderful character, and while it’s history may be young in comparisonwith much of the globe, both the indigenous people of New Zealand and those who have come after have developed rich traditions of storytelling and ways of expressing themselves.

There is one concept in particular that I have been thinking about in particular of late, a concept encapsulated in the Maori word, Tūrangawaewae.

Tūrangawaewae means a place to stand. It’s history begins with the Maori King movement, but has evolved to be a concept understood by many in New Zealand, communicating a sense of connection and empowerment to a place, a person’s home in perhaps the truest sense of all.

From a brand communications perspective, I think it is often easy to ignore a brand’s tūrangawaewae  in telling stories and executing campaigns in the wild. This disconnection saps much of the power of the message, disconnecting it from its most powerful foundations and often robbing it of purpose.

So how can you avoid this disconnect?

Think of fans as your extended family.

Fans of a brand do not pop up over night. They are born out of experience more often than advertising, although great work will always make a difference. Fans investigate your history and will often play a role in its chronicle.

They become an integral part of a brand’s story because of their knowledge and also their passion for retelling your tales to others. Harness this behaviour. Like a family reunion provides an opportunity for sharing stories, filling in gaps and collective dreaming about the future, try to imbue the outreach to your fans with the same type of feeling. Be happy to see them. Listen with respect. Reply with sincerity.

Fans will feel a connection to the brands home as well, when done well, your sense of place will become a part of theirs. Actions, intended or otherwise, that break the connection with a brands sense of place will often be met with hostility, or worse.

Don’t just have a brand position, have a point of view.

I lose track of the number of documets that come across my desk, articulating a brands position at an intersection of social trends, consumer needs or technological visions.

I’d agree that the exercise of establishing a position is an important step in articulating what your brand will become, but for many the process ends there. It seems like many companies these days misunderstand their stated desire to acquire brand love like an Apple. Talking about yourself constantly and unerringly, however eloquent, is a carryover from the days when TV advertising guaranteed an empty warehouse, a full bank account and Old Fashioned cocktails at a mid-morning meeting.

Articulating a point of view makes more sense in a world where social and informal media channels form an ever more valauble part of the mix. A point of view allows a brand to take part in the zietgiest, wrapping product and brand messaging in the relevancy of the now.

If your point of view is rooted in your brands sense of place, this activity will avoid its biggest risk factor, coming across as trite and opportunist.

Make the pilgramage back to your roots.

Many brands have discovered the value in returning to their roots. Be it a repackaging in the livery of yesteryear, or rolling out a spoke/person/muppet/cartoon/character of old, there is commercial benefit in harking back to another time.

The great thing with having an articulated sense of place is that you can travel away from it, visit new places and make new friends.

The key to longevity as a brand is the ability to reatin the sense of connection to it and keep the route back to your place open. Bringing back stories of travel, intrigue and drama will excite the base and give the fans you’ve dragged back a point of connection with your existing audience.

It seems like every other show being released around the world these days is a reality based concept where people are challeneged to complete big tasks in short amounts of time with the possibility of one of them taking home a large and exciting prize, possibly life changing to boot.

I have been briefed by media agencies across the board, explaning that younger mums are the bullseye for this show format. That they are engaged by characters that they can relate to, doubled down with subject matter that relates to love, cooking or home improvement.

Australian television seems full of reality shows, from Masterchef cooking challenges to renovate this place, they all seem to blend into one extremely similiar mass. It got me thinking, what can be learned by this rush into content by the braodcasters in Australia that we can learn from in creating new content for any platform.

Adding drama to reality makes it less real.

A ubiquitous cliffhanger at each ad break quickly becomes not a element of anticipation, but a cue to get up and finish the dishes.

Formulas make it much easier to make TV. An idea becomes a saleable franchise that can be produced by anyone. Results become repeatable and in evry essence, you get a show, something to tune into that delivers a relaible result week after week. It’s a programming maxim that has survived since the formats inception. People like the reliability of loving Lucy.

I think that the problem occurs when you start to notice the formula more than the content itself. When repitition frames an ad break it’s a good sign that editing for drama has superceded reality.

Context is key in content

When the drama of the show supercedes the content, it becomes less interesting to your core committed audience of fans.

When any correlation of attention in the media begins, it is led by a group of the most interested. They might be foodies, home handymen, seasoned travellers or even just like arguing about stuff. These folk are the committed core that not only talk about their topic of interst themsleves, they see it as their mission to convert their friends and families to become fans to. These guys explain the history, educate and editorialise, they’re a valuable asset to any person trying to grow an audience for an idea.

While it’s true that this pointy end of the audience tends to be the first to leave, moving inexorably on to find the next big thing to introduce to their friends and acquire social capital around, the writers and producers of many relaity shows don’t seem to understand that by moving the focus of the story away from the content topic to amplify drama alienates these fans. Sure, they might spend a couple of seasons trolling from the sidelines that the show does not now contain much of the subject it started out with, but the mass audience you’ll be left with once they’re gone are no where near as passionate about talking about things.

Saturation is not effective, it’s boring.

A slightly different take on what is currently playing on the other channel might seem like a sound strategic move, but which is likely to draw more attention and eyeballs: something similar but possibly better (or worse) or something completely different? If I am watching a show about home renovations,

The difficulty we seem to continually face up to as humans a desire to recreate things that have been successful before. If we copy something that is successful, innovative and attracts all important attention, then we seem justifiably entitled to believe that we will get a similiar result.

Flashmobs are a great example of this effect. The first t-mobile flashmobs to break out big online where great to watch. They showed that everyday life can throw up the unexpected and reasonably laddered to the brand benefit of t-mobile is a great way to share the everyday amazements with the people you care about. Unfortunately, everyone else thought they could get the same type of result. See for yourself where this type of thinking takes you.

As an adopted Australian, I was captivated last night by the TV coverage of the Tour de Fance and the procession that carried Cadel Evans towards Paris and the winner’s podium.

Australians love a winner, and it sometimes seems like golden celebrations are a bit of a national pastime here. Cadel’s win, and the way he has behaved in the minutes and day afterward shjwoed something a touch more unique. The sense of achievement tempered with no small amout of disbelief was written on his face for all to see.

It was a graceful, authentic victory that just seemed a joy watch and feel a small part of.

I can’t wait to see how the cycling movement in Australia uses this moment to galavnise a future.

Result.

Seems like these days most brands have a social media strategy that follows one of two directions. Some beat the drum of content while others preach from the gospel according to process. Like married men and women everywhere, it turns out they’re both wrong.

Beating the Drum.

Content strategies play out in two ways. Either I’ll build something so cool that you won’t be able to rip your eyes away and will share it with all your friends to bask in the contents reflected glory, or I’ll inspire you with a stick or a carrot to build content that features you and you’ll share with all your friends.

From an agency perspective, content strategies often begin with a client request to make a viral video. Herein lies the first rub, people make content go viral, not content producers. The conversation might also start with a discussion on how to make a brand page compelling on facebook, or in building a game to catch attention and perhaps tap into that latent competitive streak so many folk seem to share. It could be a website, or a song, or a story; the possibilities are as endless as imagination.

The key danger is building it and them not coming.

Punters are surprisingly reluctant to spend their days and nights spreading branded messages. Much of what is carried viral has no brand affinity whatsoever, so it is always a challenge convincing a client that an ad is probably not going to be carried far and wide

The Gospel of Process.

In the beginning, there was nothing, then Al Gore created the Internet and saw that it was good. Soon after, social media expert gurus began to wander around the internet muttering words like engagement, authority and influence.

Process focussed strategies grow the audience incrementally by asking questions that prompt answers and game the logic of media feeds on platforms like facebook and twitter.

The key danger is in being a fundamentalist.

There is a lot of truth in the Gospel, and if you allow some room to interpret it, your life (and campaigns) will be filled with largely positive, affirming experiences. Put it into play in too literal a sense and you’ll lose all connection to the personality of your brand and be posting “happy Wednesday” posts in no time. Asking what people are having for dinner is great if you’re Masterchef, less so if you sell technology products.

Getting to the Church & Sealing the deal.

It turns out, like in most marriages, while they’re both wrong in isolation they make a winning team if they’ll work together.

I believe that people want the brands they invite into their social media environments to bring with them two core behaviours, personality and purpose.

You need to speak in a tone that engages your audience. Note that well, your audience is probably not everyone who is on facebook, nor should it be. Speak in the code of your tribe, share in jokes and snicker wildly with your audience at everyone else who just can’t understand. If a Barbara Streisand takes offence, revel in the additional attention her remonstrations bring.

Personality is something that can be defined and live over the long term, it doesn’t change just because the person handling the account logins does.

You also need to have a purpose. Hopefully, your purpose will be one that in some way connects to the role and purpose your brand has out there in the real world. At the very least, some alignment would be good.

Try to ensure that content aligns with purpose. Your brand probably does not have a manifesto that says we want to get the most amount of attention. It probably says we want to make the best X, or we’ll deliver faster than anyone, or we make super smart technology. If your online content shares your offline purpose, let me assure you, the attention social media promises has a much better chance of following.

Marriages are forever (hopefully). While a pole dancer in Vegas will raise a few eyebrows today, reliability is attractive over the longer term. While everyone likes a surprise once in a while, split personalities are just plain scary.