A Blog Of Brutal Simplicity

Social Media may be the biggest buzz in the business, but it’s proving a waste of time and money for most companies.

In spite of all the hype and the investment and the technology and the data, marketers are still struggling to master the medium. Everyone’s getting seduced by the concept, but failing to face the reality – and the facts are these:

1. The numbers are nonsense.

A recent study of Social Media carried out by Kevin Kelly, former editor of Wired magazine, found that “the number of users, active and actual, could be as small as one-third [of published numbers]. And nearly one-half of user accounts could be fake or contain no user profiles” that could be useful to marketers.

The analysis found that up to 36% of G+ users, for example, were merely ‘Ghosts’ – they had not even filled out a profile. And around 49% of Twitter followers were completely fake or spam.

In China it’s just as bad, if not worse. A recent report from the HP Labs ‘Social Computing Research Group’ found that an incredible 49 percent of all retweets on Sina Weibo come from fraudulent accounts. Incredibly, those automated fake users accounted for about 32 percent of Weibo’s total tweets.

2. Most of the posts on Social Media aren’t noticed by anybody.

Even if we were able to reach real people, the likelihood is that many wouldn’t notice.

Given the relentless rate of updates, most Facebook users only see somewhere between 10-35% of their personal feeds, according to recent research. That means that they never even notice something between a scary 65% or a terrifying 90% of their own – yes, their own – personal feeds.

What’s more, many of their feeds (if they ever notice them) come from people that they don’t even know. Recent estimates suggest that people don’t know 20% of their Facebook friends: they just accepted their friend requests to increase their friend numbers – or because they thought they looked cute.

3. Most brands make matters worse by being most active at times when consumers aren’t.

Most brands are choosing to communicate in Social Media on the days when users are less on-line, and at times when they’re less engaged.

Data shows that the majority of brands are most active during weekdays and afternoons, whereas Social Media Users are most active in peak evening hours (7pm-11pm) and weekends.

If you were trying to waste your time, effort and money you couldn’t do it much more effectively.

So it’s no surprise that – when it comes to actual advertising – 31% of Facebook ad impressions are never seen by anyone, according to research released by Comscore on January 18.

What kind of impression is that?

4. Even when we do connect with them – most consumers simply don’t want to have a relationship with brands on Social Media.

From every analysis I’ve ever seen, people don’t use social media to engage with brands – it’s a fact. They want to connect and engage with friends and family. They want to meet new people. They want to access news and entertainment. They want to explore and learn and be entertained. But they simply don’t go on Social Media to engage with brands.

And when they do choose to interact with brands, it’s for specific benefits – it’s nothing to do with any desire for brand engagement.

Last year’s IBM study (“From Social Media To Social CRM”) hilariously identifies the reasons why consumers say that they follow brands on social networks – and it contrasts these reasons with the reasons that corporations believe that consumers follow their brands. And the contrast is cruel, really cruel.

Businesses said that they believed consumers were following them on-line to learn about their new products, their exclusive information and – believe it or not – because they wanted to “Feel Connected” with their brand.

Whereas consumers were quite clear that they interacted with companies on social sites for two simple, single-minded, dominant reasons: Discounts and Purchases.

These same reasons – Discounts and Purchases – were the two things that the Corporations said they believed were right down at the bottom of the bottom of the list of consumer wants.

So there’s a huge disconnect here. Companies are employing Social Media to build brand engagement. But Consumers only really want deals, promotions and transactions – nothing else.

More recent research just released by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute reveals that only around 1% of fans of the biggest brands on Facebook are actually engaging with those brands. Last October, the Institute measured the percentage of ‘People Talking About This’ as a proportion of overall fans of the top 200 brands on Facebook, and found the ratio to be a miserable 1.3%. If you subtract new likes, and only included more engaged forms of interaction, the result was even more pathetic: 0.45%.

That’s not engagement – that’s lunacy.

5. Consumers don’t even trust the links they’re recommended by their friends – let alone the links they get from brands.

There are some amazing findings in a massive (and, I mean, massive!) research study among (believe it or not) 253 million people, that was carried out by Facebook in partnership with the University of Michigan and released (very quietly) in January.

One of the things they investigated was – how many people would click on a link that was recommended by a Friend. And the answer was quite unbelievable.

Of the entire 253 million, the percentage who said that they would click on a link which was recommended by a Facebook friend amounted to the massive amount of……0.019%.

6. So it’s no wonder that Consumers and Brands aren’t clicking.

The click-through rates on Social Media remain breathtakingly underwhelming.

According to a recent report by EdgeRank Checker, the click through rate for links posted to the news feed by the bigger Facebook Pages (Pages which have over 100,000 fans) is only 0.14%, which works out at only 1 click per 715 impressions. Pages receive merely 0.00093 clicks per fan, roughly 1 click per 1000 fans.

For all Pages with over 1,000 fans, including those with few fans, link posts only have a 0.35% CTR, just 1 click per 280 impressions. That’s 0.00236 clicks per fan, according to PBT Consulting.

You might as well wander out into the street and chat to people – it would probably be more effective, more pleasant and a lot more social.

Social Media is Serious Business.

All these statistics add up to one conclusion. Social Media needs to be taken seriously.

Too many marketers treat their Social Media activities as a test, a trial, an add-on to other activities – or as something that they simply ‘need to be seen doing’. It’s no surprise, therefore, that most end up disappointed with the results.

But serious marketers are achieving dramatic success.

Coke had almost 32 million Facebook fans at the end of 2011; Disney had almost 27 million; Red Bull had over 21 million. These are huge numbers, from brands that have got the formula right.

And over the last year there have been some amazing – and amazingly successful – Social Media campaigns.

We Are Social’s ‘flu-season’ campaign for Heinz UK was creatively inspired and drove extraordinary results. Crispin Porter’s “Small Business Saturday” campaign for American Express attracted almost 3 million fans and drove dramatic business growth into its retailers. Jung von Matt’s Facebook campaign for Obermutten Tourism was both brilliant and powerfully effective.

In Asia, brands like Air Asia are leading the way. Their Twitter campaign is the most effective of any airline in the world, and Ask Air Asia is a pioneering concept in the industry.

All these brands are treating Social Media as serious business. They are rigorous in the disciplines that they follow, relentless in campaign measurement and fully resourced to deliver and respond.

I will identify some of the most powerful and effective Social Media campaigns over the coming months, and describe the formulae that I believe are essential for Social Media success.

But we all need to continuously learn how to manage Social Media better – so please share with us examples of recent Social Media campaigns that you believe have been creatively brilliant and/or brilliantly successful.

Because it’s about time that every business began to take Social Media seriously.

In the meantime, you can follow Chris Jaques by clicking twitter.com/HEREcomesNOW

I’ve just seen the latest ranking of the world’s most successful viral videos in 2011, and the results are amazing.

What Is A Successful Viral Video?

The ranking was published by one of the world’s leading viral agencies, Unruly, and it counts the number of shares on Twitter, Facebook, and the blogosphere as opposed to the number of video views.

It therefore ranks the most important measurement in communications today: the volume of active pass-on, as opposed to the more passive metric of video consumption, which can be boosted by Promoted Videos and other forms of advertising.

In short, it measures “virality,” as opposed to eyeballs.

Which Were The Most Successful Viral Videos of 2011?

Number one, by far, was the brilliant, charming, hilarious Volkswagen mini Darth Vader ad: The Force.

It is now the most shared branded video of all time, and attracted an incredible 4.71 million social media shares and 46.05 million views in 2011.

Second was the spectacular, terrifying and occasionally disgusting video for DC Shoes: Ken Block’s Gymkhana 4.

T-Mobile came 3rd and 4th with its Live Angry Birds video, and the spectacular Royal Wedding spoof.

And 5th spot went to the ridiculous Soul Hamster video for Kia.

The list is long, ceaselessly enaging, endlessly entertaining – and full of lessons for anyone who is working in marketing today.

What Can We Learn?

I will be presenting more in-depth findings shortly that will provide much deeper insight and analysis, but three of the most obvious and profound conclusions are these:

1. Impact Is Everything

In the world of viral video, if it doesn’t get shared it’s wasted. So – unlike with traditional television or digital advertising – impact takes priority over everything.

This requires clients and agencies to think in completely new ways, to throw out their dusty old copies of Ogilvy On Advertising and start learning the new skills of Lady Gaga.

2. Brand Affinity Is More Important Than Advertising Strategy

None of these top 5 videos say almost anything specific about the brand or the product – they simply created brand affinity.

But brand affinity is about brand essence, not brand message – and each of these videos are brilliantly on-brand.

3. Extreme Emotions Create Extreme Results

A fantastic new study has just been released, which measures the most motivational ingredients behind the most shared viral videos.

It was conducted by Dr Karen Nelson-Field, Dr Erica Riebe and Dr Kellie Newstead at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, based in the University of South Australia, and their three main conclusions are breathtakingly simple:

a) Videos are most shared when they ignite emotions that create ‘High Arousal’ – in psychological terms, this means emotions that create a physiological response, like physical laughter, tears, shock or anger.

b) Videos which create Positive Arousal (laughter, happiness, inspiration etc) have much greater impact on sharing than videos that create negative arousal (shock, sadness etc)

c) Clients and Agencies must not simply push their creativity to the limit – they must push beyond the limit. Because levels of High Arousal are only created by extreme stimulus – and extreme stimulus is essential if videos are to go viral.

What Are The Implications?

To succeed in the viral world, Marketers have to stop behaving like Marketers, and Agencies have to stop behaving like Agencies.

Creativity must become King, and – now more than ever – we have to realize that it’s only by taking risks that we will get rewards.

So – whenever we’ve got to a place where we’re feeling comfortable with the video treatment we’ve created – we must realize that we’re in the wrong place. To succeed, we need to feel uncomfortable. We need to feel that we may be pushing things too far, otherwise we’re not pushing things far enough.

This is either incredibly exciting or utterly terrifying, depending on the kind of person you are, or the type of company you’re working with.

I happen to believe that this is the most exciting time for any of us to be in the world’s most exciting industry.

Follow Chris Jaques by clicking twitter.com/HEREcomesNOW now

Mark Zuckerberg was a screaming mess of a child, a pooping two-year-old, when the first Spikes were awarded in 1986.

Batey was the big winner back then, two years before the internet was even created. They won — for Singapore Tourism — with the most traditional execution of traditional media. A sweet little film, a celluloid cliché that showed the intrepid adventures of a dear old Western woman being bounced about exotic Singapore in the back of a rickety rickshaw.

Fast forward to Now. Big winners are jumping with live feeds, Tweets, social engagement, exciting ambient. 2010′s winner even instigated a movement of co-creation that resulted in a new product concept, design, development, production, distribution, sampling and sales. All for a dying business called Yellow Pages that was created in 1886 and is being mercilessly murdered by a company called Google that wasn’t born until 1996.

The transformation is breathtaking. For 25 years, Spikes has been the primary record of an industry that — like Asia — is permanently reinventing itself.

Looking back through the sweep of this history, Spikes seems to reflect three major ages of reinvention — and is currently witnessing the beginning of the fourth, and most profound.

The Age Of Impact was literally forced upon the industry by the utter brilliance, brutal determination and relentless self-confidence of Neil French and the Singapore talent that he inspired and groomed. From the absurd simplicity and scale of Hennessy VSOP in 1987, to the brilliant and bizarre Kaminomoto of 1990, and the utterly original and pioneering XO Beer campaign of 1993, French taught an entire generation the most important les- son of all: less is more.

The Age Of Involvement witnessed a new grasp of the power of television, and was led by a generation of Asian talent who began to explore their own cultures and values. CC Tang in Hong Kong, Bhanu Inkawat and Suthisak Sucharittanonta in Bangkok, and a whole group of extraordinary contemporaries began to capture the unique personality of the world’s most varied and vibrant region on film. They sparked a decade of brilliance and they were awarded Spikes for beautiful, breakthrough ideas like Optical 88, Remy Martin and Black Cat in the mid- 1990s, right up to Jureeporn Thaidumrong’s Smooth E series and the hilarious Soken campaign of the mid-2000s.

The Age Of Engagement came out of nowhere. When we first saw Hakuhodo’s Oxyride Battery campaign in 2007, it was like nothing else that Spikes had seen before. It was the oldest trick in the book — a product demo — delivered with breathtaking originality and a new wave of social involvement that heralded a new era of regional communication. It was followed by the extraordinary engagement of Earth Hour in 2008 and then the radical innovation of Yellow Pages in 2010 — campaigns that didn’t just communicate a message, but ignited social movements to deliver audacious goals.

Whereas The Age Of Impact was led by English-language print advertising out of Singapore, The Age of Involvement was dominated by TVCs out of Bangkok and Hong Kong. The Age Of Engagement has, so far, been driven by the leading digital advertising markets: Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

The Age Of Asia is being born in the unique, extraordinary and explosive worlds of China and India. It is spearheaded by mobile, location-based marketing and entire new technologies that are rapidly emerging. It will be built on local cultures. And it will bear no relation to any work being created by the old western mindsets of Goodby, RGA, Clemenger BBDO and Droga5.

This is because Asia – and particularly China and India – has some of the richest contemporary cultures on earth, which are becoming more self-confident and creative than ever, no longer benchmarking themselves against the West. They believe that they are superior civilisations and, when you look at the current state of the world economy and the riots spreading throughout the crumbling remnants of European civilisation, it’s hard to argue.

Just as the Age Of Involvement learned from Neil French and the best of the West, it didn’t follow it. It created completely new forms of communication, built on Asian culture, Asian values,
Asian humour.

So China and India are learning from the West, but they are already creating new forms of communication, for a new age in new markets. Australia and New Zealand may be leading the creative rankings, but not for long.

New kinds of agencies are beginning to lead the way. Agencies like Taproot and Creativeland in India and Bravo in China are creating new forms of communication that are built on a deep knowledge of both local cultures and developing technologies.

That knowledge is the foundation of the future. And if there’s one thing that the last 25 years has shown us, it is this: Asia is an instinctively vibrant, creative and entrepreneurial region that is quick to adapt and change. It learns fast and acts faster.

In another 25 years from now, Asia will be leading the world both economically and creatively — and I feel more excited than ever to know that Spikes will be there to record the most significant transformation in communications since the concept of brand was first created.

Follow Chris Jaques by clicking twitter.com/HEREcomesNOW now.

(This is an edited version of an original article that appeared in Campaign digital edition on September 25th 2011 and Campaign’s Spikes magazine supplement.)

I’ve just finished a mind-numbingly dull meeting with a media agency.

It was filled with shallow intellect, undigested data, meaningless platitudes, unoriginal proposals defended with stubborn stupidity – and an utter absence of any creative thought.

You can tell that I enjoyed it.

But instead of getting angry and opinionated (again), I decided to be adult and objective and ask myself a simple, rational question:

“Are Media Agencies capable of creating great ideas?”

Why This Is An Important Question

This is a genuinely critical question for clients.

Because – for better or worse – media agencies are supplanting creative agencies as the primary communications partner for an increasing proportion of clients.

I’m sure that Media Agencies’ superior investment in research, analysis, tools and statistics might well justify this role.

But my problem is this:

It’s great thinking and great ideas that build great brands – not great data and terrific tools.

And I don’t believe that media agencies in their current form are capable of providing the creative brilliance on which business success depends.

So I thought I’d start with a simple measure: the performance of Media Agencies at this year’s Cannes Festival of Creativity.

And here are the simple facts:

Why Don’t Media Agencies Win Much At Cannes?

Out of the 81 winners of Media Lions this year, 66 were won by Creative Agencies and only 39 were won by Media Agencies. (I know, I know…before any media people tell me that I can’t add-up, the reason why the number comes to more than 81 is because some winners had joint entrants).

So Creative Agencies massively outperformed Media Agencies in their own Media Awards.

In other categories where Media Agencies should be able to show that they are at the cutting edge of consumer engagement, the picture was even more extreme.

Among the 16 Titanium and Integrated Lions, Media Agencies walked away with a share of an incredible 1 Lion (Congratulations Mindshare for being a part of W+K’s Team Nike).

Among the 55 Promotion & Activation Lions, Media Agencies won an impressive total of absolutely nothing. They were not the winning entrant for any single award.

Of the 81 Cyber Lions, Media Agencies were the winning entrant for an impressive share of precisely 0%.

Now, Media Agencies might claim that they were part of the winning teams, even if they weren’t the winning entrant.

In which case I would ask a simple question:

No Excuses

If Media Agencies were leading the team that created the winning ideas, why did they not enter those campaigns under their own name? After all, they entered many, many other awards under their own names….just not the ones that won big.

I suspect that the answer is simple:

They didn’t come up with the campaign idea in the first place. They were simply part of the team that planned and placed the media implementation, or added bits and pieces to the core concept.

That is my experience from most of the awards won by Asian Media Agencies in recent years:

They seldom created the winning idea – they merely planned and placed the media for an idea generated by the creative agency. Then they took credit for the campaign that they didn’t create.

Nice work if you can get away with it.

But, if Cannes proved anything this year, it was this:

Creative Agencies Have The Best Media Ideas

Most of the big winners at Cannes were utterly original, truly pioneering Media ideas – not just creative ideas – and these Media ideas were created by creative agencies:

Bing is a massive Media Idea, created by Droga5.

Homeplus is a brilliant Media Idea, created by Cheil.

ROM is an extraordinary Media Idea, created by McCann.

VW is a transformational Media Idea, created by DDB.

Why?

I personally believe that Media Agencies should be the creative leaders of the future.

But they are not currently capable. They are not able to generate great ideas that can ignite consumer attitudes and behaviour, ideas that can truly transform a client’s business.

This is for some fundamental reasons that lie at the heart of their very essence:

- Their primary purpose is to invest money wisely and effectively. ZenithOptimedia describes its role in words which could represent the core competence of the entire industry:

“We take the greatest care with every dollar, euro or pound we invest on our clients’ behalf, setting clear goals and monitoring performance in meticulous detail.”

- Their role within their holding companies blatantly limits their freedom to offer expertise that is competitive to other group companies.

- Their legacy from the past: Up until the last 10 years or so, Media Agencies were simple planners & traders, not originators of creative thought, and were not expected to be so. This has led to a related and fundamental issue:

- The talent they attract: truth is, as a result of their legacy and their primary purpose, Media Agencies are not the most attractive home for truly creative minds. And without truly creative minds working in an open creative environment, it is impossible for any business to generate great creative ideas on a consistent basis.

- Their client relationships & expectations: Clients still primarily judge Media Agencies against measurable data, not creative originality, and this shapes the money they pay and the services they believe that they are paying for:

- Their remuneration & incentivization: if Media Agencies don’t deliver the numbers, they don’t get their incentives – so it’s no surprise that they remain obsessed with quantitative performance more than creative brilliance

The issues are complex, but my belief is simple:

There has never been a more exciting time to be in communications.

And Media Agencies have a unique opportunity to transform themselves into one of most powerful and creative forces in the entire world of business for the foreseeable future.

But they must make some profound changes to their offering, their talent, their culture and their business model if they are to seize the opportunity.

Otherwise, clients will continue to look to those pesky little Creative Agencies for the things that matter most.

Follow Chris Jaques by clicking twitter.com/HEREcomesNOW now