Archive for the ‘research’ Tag

(Part 1 of a 2 part series)

Imagine looking at a magazine ad with a sexy, half naked girl atop a dining table, straddling a handsome Asian man who has his shirt off. It’s a jeans ad.  Now imagine a low-level shot of a man pressing his body hard against a half-naked woman who is up against a brick wall of a building, the man’s flashy sports car is stopped several feet away and the car door is open—all this framed through the legs of an attractive woman in a mini-skirt. You would think this ad was selling something sex-related.  Surprisingly it is an ad for truck tires.

It’s universally acknowledged that sex sells, and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you may have noticed that sex in advertising has become the most popular form of advertising throughout the world. Whether it is legal or illegal, sex in advertising is part of our daily lives.

The exact role of sex in advertising is debatable, but most people—including industry experts—would agree that getting the attention of the product’s target audience is its primary goal. Although sex in advertising can be controversial or distasteful, it can also be presented intelligently as well as tastefully. Yet, one can argue, ads containing distasteful sexual imagery are more common in Asia than ads featuring tasteful sex appeal.

(Above: an ad for Chupa Chups candy from ad agency: Nongshim Communications, Seoul. Headline reads: “for adults”.)

Over the past few decades, the use of sex appeal and sexual imagery in consumer advertising has become almost commonplace. Whether it’s appropriate or not, sex has been used successfully by advertising agencies and marketers who see sexual attractiveness as a benefit of products and services, from cars to lipstick, from clothing to washing powder. As competition for the consumer gets stiffer, the fine line between creative marketing and overt sexuality is getting even thinner.

A recent survey taken on the subject revealed that about two thirds of women thought that some advertisements they were shown had gone too far in using sex to sell product. Throughout Asia, use of sexual imagery in advertising has been criticized on various grounds. Most religious conservatives consider it obscene. Some feminists and claim it reinforces sexism by objectifying the individual. In Korea,  the importance given to body image in many ads has been blamed for the poor self–esteem and unhappiness among women.

(Above: an ad for Samantha Cracked Heel Lotion. Headline reads: “Sexy Heels by Samantha”, from ad agency: dentsuINDIO, Philippines)

Does sex really sell?

Actually, sex does not sell, but ‘sex appeal’ does. The most obvious reason sex appeal works, is that it grabs attention. With advertising having become more culturally relevant in Asia over the past thirty years, audiences much like their Western counterpart, have become steadily more difficult to impress. Perhaps ad agencies are running out of new elements to spice things up?

For some people in Asia, sexual imagery has become too provocative, like pin-up posters edging close to pornography. They sight huge billboard ads showing drop-dead gorgeous women wearing skimpy lingerie or swimwear, the focus being more on their sexy sleek bodies rather than the attributes of the brand itself.

(Above: an ad for Fowin’s Sexual Efficiency Ring Headline reads: “Get her back.” from ad agency: McCann Worldgroup, Bangkok, Thailand)

The level of sexual appeal in ads differs from country to country based on the beliefs and values of the cultures within the country. In many Asian countries, sexual ads are not well received—at least that is what some research would have us believe. Advertising regulations vary country-to-country, and it is often difficult to use an ad campaign with sex appeal throughout the region as it may offend cultural morals. Asia’s advertising markets are brimming with opportunities for brands, but each comes with its own local quirks and challenges. While sex is still a universal selling point, what works in the USA, France or London may not fly in India, Malaysia or China.

Perception would have it that Asian markets are quite conservative when it comes to sexual imagery. Still, the old adage that “sex sells” remains true pretty much anywhere. You just have to get the message right – for both your audience and your brand. In some Asian markets you can be a lot more direct in your appeal to sex than you can in many western countries.  Marketers in Singapore, Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong, for example, get away with a surprisingly overt approach to sex in advertising, providing certain sensitivities are observed.  In contrast, the cultures of China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia are more traditional and talking about sex overtly is usually considered to be in poor taste.

(Above: an ad for  DIY Living, headline reads: “Instant furniture. The new DIY series. In stores now.” advertising agency: Publicis, Singapore)

(Above: an ad for the Nikon S60, headline reads: “The Nikon S60. Detects up to 12 faces.” advertising agency: Euro RSCG, Singapore)

Knowing how far a brand can go comes down to understanding the culture, the unique histories and nuances of a country. In Malaysia, using innuendo and relying on the audience to connect the dots has proven to be a very engaging strategy to overcome advertising restrictions.  India, at first glance, might seem like a highly socially conservative market, but their tradition of sensuality (think Tantra) means that it is possible to make sexy ads that are culturally referenced and don’t upset the censors. Brands in India continue to test the waters. While a direct approach to sex may be taboo in India, fantasy and innuendo fit within cultural norms and beliefs.

(Above, an ad for Downy: Naturally Soft, headline reads: “Naturally Soft.”ad agency: Grey Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

So what’s the takeaway? While sex appeal may sell everywhere, it sells differently depending on where you are in the world. But the real story is still “same, same but different,” because the motivation underneath it remains universal.

Some Asian countries are notoriously shy when it comes to sex, but that’s changing.

A regional-wide ad campaign using sex appeal as a platform, can cause difficulties for marketers in a region as vast as Asia, from liberal Japan, where almost anything goes on TV, including nudity, to Malaysia where ads can’t show a woman’s bare back. Images that would be innocuous in some countries are deemed too provocative due to deeply engrained social and cultural views. One European shampoo-maker had to pull from the Malaysia market a commercial showing a hairdresser washing a woman’s hair. The problem: the hairdresser was male.

Can’t think of a good idea? Try sex appeal.

Governments attempt to regulate advertising, but sex appeal blinks at you on neon signs in Hong Kong to huge billboards that share Bangkok’s temple spired skyline.  Walk into any modern mall in Kuala Lumpur and you will find giant sized posters of half-naked models showing a lot of flesh-per-square-inch, for Guess, Versace, Calvin Klein and La Senza. So who is kidding who? The big brands do it. Because sex sells.

Here (below) from Lowe Hunt, in Sydney, is a sexy print example from LYNX—a Unilever product. Ads like these make people talk—it’s a debate you can have on so many levels. Maybe that’s really the reason why sexually charged advertising is so affective. It’s not because you’re buying the sexual message. It’s because you end up talking about whether or not it’s okay. And as we all know, any press is good press.

If advertising really does need to have more sex appeal in it, the least that Asia’s marketers could do is make that sex matter.  And if they can’t make it matter, at least make it more interesting. Clearly, great ads don’t need great, good, or even bad sex to get noticed and appreciated.

In his blog, Mark Golin says: “Sex sells, sex sells easily and the whole question is if you don’t want to do quite as much sex, that means you’re going to have to come up with something else and that means you’re going to have to be creative and it’s going to be a lot more work and it’s going to be a little bit more of a challenge in what’s becoming an increasingly competitive market.”

In a recent print ad campaign, Korean car manufacturer Hyundai decided to give their cars a sexier image by putting their cars on hot models bodies in the form of tattoos. The two ads below are from the Jupiter Drawing Room in South Africa. The headline reads: “Pretty But Tough. Hyundai. Drive your way.” The ads caught my eye instantly. I think they really step away from your traditional approach to car ads.

Do ads need to use sex appeal to get attention?

If you look around Asian markets, there is little doubt that sexual content is on the uptick. Why the change?  According to Anthony Spaeth of Time Asia, “You can thank satellite television,  globalization, and the Internet, for the content that may titillate or tantalize. There are several chat rooms for spouses seeking greater satisfaction; singles who want to do it with someone before marriage, and minority groups such as gays and lesbians. In today’s Asia, there’s never been a better time for any of these groups to find answers, action, and fulfillment.”

What Asian government regulators say they wish to establish is the line between healthy, informative and interesting content on sexual issues vs. provocative, gratuitous, blatant sexual content. I wonder how that line gets decided. And who decides it and what are the implications of these decisions? After all, people do in fact have sex, last time I checked.

(Above, cards for Pfizer’s Viagara, ad agency: Chil Worldwide, Seoul, Korea)

In order to get around the ban of direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs on TV in Korea, Pfizer’s ad agency came up with these interactive ads to promote Viagra pills. The ads come in the shape of a promotional hand fan with an image of an old or fat man. In order to use the fan, you have to put your finger in the hole, which instantly gives the guy an erection. That’s fun, and very clever!

Today‘s young Asians now have liberties unimaginable a couple of decades back and their sexual freedom seems to be proliferating, especially on the Internet, no matter what their governments may demand. Sex appeal and sex in advertising are here to stay. That’s undeniable.  I’ve always believed that ads with sex appeal, in general, simply reflect a country’s pop culture—reflecting on what is already happening. They don’t in themselves create a new movement.

The question is, is it really the job of governments and politicians to censor advertising and the social movements that are already happening in the world?  Is it the right of politicians to tell you what’s right and wrong?

Or should that be up to the consumer, the advertiser and the retailer to keep things in check, and to push sexuality forward, but within self-imposed boundaries?

In conclusion

When sexual imagery becomes so ubiquitous in marketing campaigns, it loses the power to shock us or engage our interest. A naked body is about as effective as slapping the words “New and Improved” on the front of the product. Instead, companies will have to find another way to promote their goods. Maybe they could try just telling what it is, what it does, and how much it costs. Now, that really would be shocking.

No doubt, much of the work produced with sex appeal themes is intentionally provocative—some say irredeemably sexist, and anti-women.  As advertising “looks” to be less blatantly sexist, more ads than ever are being called sexist.

So, where do you draw the line? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Part 2—coming next week

Next week I will conclude this topic with PART 2 of “If we are getting sexier, what about the sex in Asian Advertising?” What you will find is a country by country synopsis — a guide to Sex in Asian Advertising featuring sample ads from TV and print. Stay tuned.

Mike Fromowitz
OCTANE

I tore the package open with great delight while the FedEx man stood at the doorway earnestly awaiting my signature for proof of delivery. I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into the pages of Neil French’s “Sorry for the Lobsters.”

“Thanks for the Lobsters“, Giclee Print, 72″ X 72″ (1.82 m), by Mike Fromowitz, AOCA

I’ve known Neil for well over twenty-five years, having come to Asia in the early 1980’s, a few short years after he first landed in Thailand. To put it simply, he’s my favourite ad man. I believe I learned more from him than from any other creative person I had ever worked with or worked for.

I figured, if this book of his was anything like the hilarious and witty ads he had written over the years, it would be a fun filled read. I also figured, that if he included some of the multitude of stories I had heard him tell in the sweaty bars of Bangkok; on the crowded beaches of Pattaya; at the conferences in Switzerland and Jomtien Beach; inside the noisy nightclubs of Singapore and Hong Kong, and during lunches and dinners in some of Asia’s finest hotels, restaurants and cafés, the book would be different than any other written on the subject of advertising.

“Portrait of Neil French, Pattaya Beach, พัทยา, Thailand”, Acrylic on Canvas, by Mike Fromowitz, AOCA

And sure enough, I was absorbed in it from the opening pages of Indrah Sinha’s preface, through to the author’s very last few paragraphs where he says: “This will be the last book I write, as well as the first.”  Frenchy makes you look at advertising—no, at life—on a whole new level, Besides, it conjured up memories of the fun times together—none of which, thank heavens, are written about in these pages. Neil’s tales had always made me laugh my pants off. After reading “Sorry for the Lobsters”, I found myself begging for more.

These days, the market is pretty well saturated when it comes to memoir. Which means it has to be good. It has to be different. Neil’s essays from his early days in the ad business in England to his first “famous” ad for DYNO-Rod which featured “a wincingly awful pun”,  dare we say it, are as funny and quirky as a dog with a big, juicy bone. When you aren’t squirming in your chair, you’re laughing out loud.

The writing is evocative, unflinching, whimsical and cool. When Frenchy takes a scalpel to his life, what you feel is the precision of the surgeon.  It gives off a vibe of a carefree honesty. Smart, heartfelt and confessional, he approaches his subjects with generosity, warmth and integrity, without being maudlin.

For those willing to go on this adventure with Frenchy, welcome. Everybody else, please continue on to the ‘A’ section of the bookstore, where you’ll find a multitude of milquetoast books written on the subject of “advertising and marketing in the new digital age”, by people that never wrote an ad in their lives and to whom Neil French will undoubtedly be compared.

Neil French is an advertising genius. A master communicator. He is to advertising what Picasso was to painting. His new book is not about the secrets to creating great advertising, selling strategies or advertising techniques. This is one of the most entertaining guides to the power of communicating and salesmanship.

Neil French ‘IV’, Acrylic on Mylar, 36″ X 36″ (0.9144 m), by Mike Fromowitz, AOCA

Who better to write a book that will soon become an advertising classic than Mr. French. Whether you manage, sell, buy or create, his book will inspire. Neil is a brilliant writer, a great art director and a creative director of unmatched abilities. He’s been a pioneer, an innovator, and a Renaissance man to the Asian advertising industry, and a beacon of originality to the rest of the advertising world. Not to mention, he’s a legendary and controversial figure who has done as much as anyone to open new doors of possibility and change to the way we advertise.

He’s a lovingly brash, sometimes arrogant, one-hell-of a highly talented guy. I’ve been told that Neil could be notoriously short-tempered, unyielding, quick and changeable in temperament, but I haven’t seen that personally. He certainly doesn’t suffer fools—I think that if you were several IQ points smarter than most, you’d be irritated a lot of the time, too.

“The Big Idea”, Acrylic on Canvas, 28′ X 12.9′ (8.5344m X 3.9319m), by Mike Fromowitz, AOCA

Whatever people think of him, he has always remained fiercely loyal to his principles and to his friends and close colleagues.  He’s always been an intense competitor and resolute in his ambitions. Ever since I’ve known him, he’s kicked up a creative storm throughout the ad world. And in the process, he has had a major impact on the lives and professional careers of many others in our industry—I consider myself one of the fortunate ones.

The man himself is The Big Idea. His solutions to creative problems are often audacious, and always full of wit and freshness. His work has set the bar for how advertising should be, fun, endearing, approachable and always, always relevant.

“The Infamous XO”, Oil on Linen, 48″ X 48″ (1.2192 m), by Mike Fromowitz, AOCA

He has been called an “advertising guru” because he has that special quality handed down from the heavens—he has “it” and he knows how to flaunt “it”. He’s worked for David Ogilvy, yet no man I know has defied the “rules” more than Neil, and been able to persuade clients to accept his bold ideas.

“Sorry for the Lobsters” is a an intimate and intensely personal romp through the extraordinary times of Neil French—revealing, passionate, engaging, poetic, witty, and charming—a mesmerizing window on his thoughts, influences and generosity. His unparalleled storytelling gifts and exquisite expressiveness are the hallmarks of his advertising and his career.

The writing is clear and easy to follow, making for a quick,  pleasurable and informative read—not at all one that is long and drags. This is one memoir that does not disappoint. For me personally, it’s a reminder of how much fun advertising use to be.

“Thanks” for the Lobsters, Frenchy!

Do you get frustrated by companies that don’t tell you why they are in business? In a marketplace filled with commodity products, brand knock-offs, copyright infringements and questionable new company start-ups on the Internet, I believe more and more people are requiring businesses to define their company in more than just products and services.

Most business owners only explain what they do, defining their business by the products they make or sell.  They don’t tell you why they do it, or why they exist. Whether you’re an advertising agency, a marketing consultancy or a company that markets products or brands, a well thought out company manifesto gives customers the reason to align with you, promote you, and become members of your tribe.

We have entered a period where the consumer is now making purchases based on more that the simple act of what the product or service does for them. Consumers are increasingly making decisions that are aligned with their own values and beliefs. If your company, brand or products are aligned with your customers views, attitudes and lifestyles, some amazing things will happen.

Writing a company manifesto for both your employees and your customers is a way to communicate why your business exists, and why you get out bed everyday. Add your ultimate values to the equation and you’ll be explaining how you’ll go about your business as well.

What a Manifesto is Not

A manifesto is not your business plan and does not include information about your products and services. It is not about how you’re going to make money. Nor is a mission statement a manifesto. Most mission statements are corporate, boring, and reek of status quo. The manifesto is by no means an exercise meant to impress people with the writing. A manifesto should simply fulfill the need to get out why the company does what it does. If you begin talking about what your business does, you’re getting off track.

A manifesto is a way of announcing not only where you are going but how you are going to get there,  and also why you want to get there: the beliefs and principles that connect intellect to emotion.

Manifestos are a powerful catalyst. By publicly stating your views and intentions, you create a pact for taking action. Manifestos were written to spark revolutions and movements: the American Revolution and Communist Revolution;  art and design  movements (Dada Manifesto 1916 and the Surrealist Manifesto 1924), to name but a few. Even Firefoxe’s web browser was launched with its own manifesto.

Needless to say, developing a set of principles that you believe in and constantly strive to stand by is an invaluable tool. If you want to change the world, even in just a small way, creating a business manifesto is a great place to start.

To spark your imagination, I’ve rounded up some of my favorite manifestos:

The Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright

This manifesto, from architect Frank Lloyd Wright, was written as a series of “fellowship assets” meant to guide the apprentices who worked with him at his school, Taliesin.

1. An honest ego in a healthy body.
2. An eye to see nature.
3. A heart to feel nature.
4. Courage to follow nature.
5. The sense of proportion (humor).
6. Appreciation of work as idea and idea as work.
7. Fertility of imagination.
8. Capacity for faith and rebellion.
9. Disregard for commonplace (inorganic) elegance.
10. Instinctive cooperation.

The Clothing Company: Levi’s

In 2009, Levi Strauss launched a new advertising campaign, “Go Forth”, presenting an optimistic tone in a time of pessimism in the United States. The goforth.levi.com, (see: Now is our time.) campaign elements borrow words and concepts from American poet Walt Whitman to establish its own Manifesto— a pioneering tone for the “New Americans”.

The Levi’s GO FORTH manifesto reads:

I am the new American pioneer. Looking forward, never back. No longer content to wait for better times… I will work for better times. ‘Cause no one built this country in suits. All I need is all I got. Bruises heal. Stink is good. And apathy is death. So I strike up for the new world! A newer, mightier world. The one I will make to my liking. For after the darkness comes the dawn. There is a better tomorrow. Look across the plains and mountains and see America’s eternal promise. A promise of progress. Go forth with me.

The Marketer: Seth Godin

Seth Godin has written thirteen books that have been translated into more than thirty languages. Every one has been a bestseller. American Way Magazine calls him, “America’s Greatest Marketer,” and his blog is perhaps the most popular in the world written by a single individual. The always insightful Godin wrote his own manifesto “Unforgivable Manifesto” a few years ago. His notion that we’re all marketers in point 7 is quite an eye opener.

1. The greatest innovations appear to come from those that are self-reliant. Individuals who go right to the edge and do something worth talking about. Not solo, of course, but as instigators of a team. In two words: don’t settle.
2. The greatest marketers do two things: they treat customers with respect and they measure.
3. The greatest salespeople understand that people resist change and that ‘no’ is the single easiest way to do that.
4. The greatest bloggers blog for their readers, not for themselves.
5. There really isn’t much a of ‘short run’. It quickly becomes yesterday. The long run, on the other hand, sticks around for quite a while.
6. The internet doesn’t forget. And sooner or later, the internet finds out.
7. Everyone is a marketer, even people and organizations that don’t market. They’re just marketers who are doing it poorly.
8. Amazing organizations and people receive rewards that more than make up for the effort required to be that good.
9. There is no number 9.
10. Mass taste is rarely good taste.

The Media Entrepreneurs: Bre Pettis & Kio Stark

‘THE CULT OF BEING DONE’ Manifesto was written by Bre Pettis in collaboration with Kio Stark in 20 minutes because “we only had 20 minutes to get it done”. Bre Pettis is a founder of Makerbot, a company that produces robots that make things. Bre is also a founder of NYCResistor, a hacker collective in Brooklyn. Besides being a TV host and Video Podcast producer, he’s created new media for Etsy.com, hosted Make Magazine’s Weekend Projects podcast, and has been a schoolteacher, artist, and puppeteer.

Kio Stark is a writer who just completed her first book ‘Follow Me Down’—about the way humans relate to technology—and to each other, mediated by technology. On top of nearly 15 years experience in interactive advertising, she also teaches at—New York University in the graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

The Ad Agency: Bob Levenson & Bill Bernbach

William “Bill” Bernbach, one of the founders of DDB, redefined advertising in the 1950′s with his ”creative manifesto” which stated: “Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art, good writing can be good selling.”

Bernbach’s iconic ‘Think Small’ VW Beetle campaigns were the antidote to conspicuous consumption of the times. ‘Think Small’ was thinking quite big, actually. “The rounded fenders were, in effect, the biggest tail fins of all, for what Volkswagen sold with its seductive, disarming candor was nothing more lofty than conspicuously inconspicuous consumption. Beetle ownership allowed you to show off that you didn’t need to show off.”( Ad Age ).

Bill Bernbach left behind him an inspiring legacy and an ever present challenge to be the very best. One of the many touchstones was the Manifesto written by Bernbach’s famous colleague Bob Levenson,  one of the most successful creative directors and agency executives in the industry.

In Levenson’s own words, “We knew we were onto something, in terms of changing the face of the business. Bernbach was always urging us to find ways to attract attention, but also to make the product the star. That’s what it was about. You can overlay all kinds of fancy language on top of that, but in the end it’s about making somebody want what you’re selling. We were working against what the conventional advertising norms were at the time. (Bill) cared more about how someone would approach a problem and find the heart of the matter. And put it down in some way that it hadn’t been put down before.”

And Levenson did just that when he responded to a contest from Time Magazine in the late 1960′s. Ad agencies were invited to create an advertisement in the public interest. Levenson penned a manifesto for the ad industry that conveys so much honesty and respect for the profession and its constituents that it still resonates with incredible power today (and it won the contest). The original advertisement titled “DO THIS OR DIE” is attached bellow followed by the copy.

DO THIS OR DIE.

Is this ad some kind of trick? No. But it could have been. And at exactly that point rests a do or die decision for American business. We in advertising, together with our clients, have all the power and skill to trick people. Or so we think. But we’re wrong. We can’t fool any of the people any of the time. There is indeed a twelve-year-old mentality in this country; every six-year-old has one. We are a nation of smart people. And most smart people ignore most advertising because most advertising ignores smart people. Instead we talk to each other. We debate endlessly about the medium and the message. Nonsense. In advertising, the message itself is the message. A blank page and a blank television screen are one and the same. And above all, the messages we put on those pages and on those television screens must be the truth. For if we play tricks with the truth, we die.

Now. The other side of the coin. Telling the truth about a product demands a product that’s worth telling the truth about. Sadly, so many products aren’t. So many products don’t do anything better. Or anything different. So many don’t work quite right. Or don’t last. Or simply don’t matter. If we also play this trick, we also die. Because advertising only helps a bad product fail faster. No donkey chases the carrot forever. He catches on. And quits. That’s the lesson to remember. Unless we do, we die. Unless we change, the tidal wave of consumer indifference will wallop into the mountain of advertising and manufacturing drivel. That day we die. We’ll die in our marketplace. On our shelves. In our gleaming packages of empty promises. Not with a bang. Not with a whimper. But by our own skilled hands. 
DOYLE DANE BERNBACH INC.

The Designer: John Maeda

RISD president John Maeda’s book, The Laws of Simplicity, contains only about 100 pages, but it is one of my favorites.  It has some insights that apply as easily to arranging your living room as to designing a visionary product.  Maeda notes: “Humans want ‘more’ (food, storage, stuff). So ‘more’ is an important marketing concept. But while humans want more, design is about less. Yahoo design is about more. Google design is about less.” Maeda’s manifesto elaborates on 10 laws for business, design, and life:

1. Reduce: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
2. Organize: Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
3. Time: Savings in time feel like simplicity.
4. Learn. Knowledge makes everything simpler.
5. Differences: Simplicity and complexity need each other.
6. Context: What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.
7. Emotion: More emotions are better than less.
8. Trust: In simplicity we trust.
9. Failure: Some things can never be made simple.
10. The One: Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

The Writer: Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy’s “Rules for life” is a manifesto originally written when he was 18 years old. It contains some useful gems. In particular, the notion of managing your energy and prioritizing based on goals (no. 5), and of managing your finances wisely by always keeping a low overhead (no. 9 & 10).

1. Get up early (five o’clock).
2. Go to bed early (nine to ten o’clock).
3. Eat little and avoid sweets.
4. Try to do everything by yourself.
5. Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for one section of your life, a goal for a shorter period and a goal for the year; a goal for every month, a goal for every week, a goal for every day, a goal for every hour and for every minute, and sacrifice the lesser goal to the greater.
6. Keep away from women.
7. Kill desire by work.
8. Be good, but try to let no one know it.
9. Always live less expensively than you might.
10. Change nothing in your style of living even if you become ten times richer.

The father of creativity: Dr. E. Paul Torrance

Torrance developed the widely used Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, which are used to identify creative ability in children. He also created the Future Problem Solving Program, the mission of which is to “To develop the ability of young people globally to design and promote positive futures using critical, creative thinking.” Based on his findings, Torrance wrote the following manifesto:

1. Don’t be afraid to fall in love with something and pursue it with intensity.
2. Know, understand, take pride in, practice, develop, exploit, and enjoy your greatest strengths.
3. Learn to free yourself from the expectations of others and walk away from the games they impose on you. Free yourself to play your own game.
4. Find a great teacher or mentor who will help you.
5. Don’t waste energy trying to be well-rounded.
6. Do what you love and can do well.
7. Learn the skills of interdependence.

The Company: Apple

Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook boiled the company’s culture down to what was essentially an 8-point manifesto. He did this as the company’s COO in 2009, when Steve Jobs went on medical leave. At the time, financial analysts were making dire predictions about the future of the company.

1. We believe that we’re on the face of the earth to make great products.
2. We’re constantly focusing on innovating.
3. We believe in the simple, not the complex.
4. We believe we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution.
5. We believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can focus on the few that are meaningful to us.
6. We believe in deep collaboration and cross pollination in order to innovate in a way others cannot.
7. We don’t settle for anything other than excellence in any group in the company.
8. We have the self-honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change.

So what’s your message?

A manifesto is a great way to condense your message into a short, all-encompassing format. Customers, clients, staff, shareholders and more, can read it, print it, email it to their friends, or feed it to their dog. By reading it they will get a better understanding of your core message, which you may have been trying to communicate for years through a website, annual report, a blog, or social media.

To be unique, to be revolutionary, to be a brand with a difference, you’re company and your employees must be passionate about your business. Your manifesto, should you decide to write one, must be something not only worth reading, but worth acting on. Can your company create a movement? Can it improve people’s lives in some small but important way?

To create a company manifesto you need a strong message before you even think about writing a manifesto. And if you do it right,  it is certain to improve:

• your branding efforts
• your overall purpose
• how your audience relates to you
• your value offer
• your market positioning
• your communications direction

A manifesto crystalizes and clarifies the intention of an organization, and it asks others (employees and customers) to join together and make it a reality. Powerful stuff. Not easy to write, but powerful stuff.

There must have been something extra put in the drinks last week. I spent a few informative hours at a birthday celebration with a group of twelve people that included several senior ad agency creatives, one managing director, a strategic planner and an ad agency CFO. Given the direction of the conversation and the opportunity, they were considerably vocal about some of their client relationships.

Overall, they voiced disenchantment and concern. Some were brought to the point of anger citing that their clients showed “very little respect’ for the efforts of the agency and for the creative work. Others, showed “no respect at all”, noted one creative director.

I don’t believe it’s only the advertising industry that gets knocked. According to several of the agency people I talked to, they feel that very few clients hold their ad agencies in high regard. I found that very surprising and worrying. The managing director, a seasoned pro for a major international agency said that, “Many Asian clients tend to see advertising as an expense, not an investment. They are more concerned with price than they are the content. It’s a trader’s mentality—not a brand mentality.”

It made me wonder. Is this one of the reasons why Asian products and brands are not as well known around the world, or around the region for that matter?  Did the same hold true for other industries— architecture, visual arts, music, and design?

Take for example an award winning hair stylist I know. We got into a conversation and within a matter of minutes he was letting off steam. He started to rant on about some of his clients.

“You know what pisses me off about some of my clients?” he said. “Some of them tell me how to do my job! I can apply color. I can do haircuts. I can wrap a perm. I have done extensions for years. Do you think I need people telling me what to do… do you think I don’t know my craft?

“Then there are the customers that try to hurry me. Hello! Products take time to process, and there is only so much I can do!  That is why I try to keep everyone entertained. I don’t know if it’s the economy, but so many of my customers are bitching about the price! You get what you pay for but things cost me money.  Retail space costs money. There are salaries for my staff, and everything else it costs to open a business?  I price myself accordingly.  Not the highest.  And I am definitely not the lowest.  Sometimes I have promotions and sometimes I offer discounts. But I want to be paid fairly for what I do”.

Perhaps it is these tough economic times that tend to bring out the dark side in professionals. It’s no different for many in the advertising industry. The troubling stories I heard from the group of twelve didn’t fare too well for the ad industry or for marketers. Here are a few of the comments I culled from the conversation:

• “Clients you’ve been accustomed to doing business with for years are now making unusual and often times silly demands on our agency. There’s no question that most jobs will require some requests that weren’t made up front. That’s unavoidable in many cases. However, when a client requests round after round of revisions, with new requests each time, he’s more trouble than he’s worth.”

• “Clients can push an agency so low on fees that making a profit is out of the question.”

• “Clients who question our rates in the middle of projects are the ones that really annoy me. The client who questions your rates is a client who shows signs of distrust. There is a nothing wrong with a client telling you they can’t afford what you have quoted, but that is different from them telling you it shouldn’t cost so much. Clients should understand you are quoting fairly and accurately (assuming you are) based on the scope of the project. Your cost coming in higher doesn’t mean you are cheating them.”

• “Clients are slow payers, and some don’t pay their fees and invoices for 90 to 120 days. Then their accounting department escalates the situation and challenges the invoices. This can take another 30-60 days. Some do not pay at all. In this electronic age, payment is as simple as a few clicks. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks to make a payment. There are some big clients with millions or billions in their bank accounts and they hold the little guy to ransom by not paying their invoices on time.”

• “What I seem to be getting more of on a daily basis is tersely worded emails that convey impatience and disrespect.”

• “What really bugs me is the CEO overriding the marketing director’s decision on the creative execution, giving the agency a case of revision whiplash. If he doesn’t trust his marketing director why did he put him into that job in the first place?”

• “Taking the agency’s advice on strategy and creative work, then abruptly doing an about-face is what angers me.”

• “I hate clients that (BLEEP) around with the agency. They really annoy me to no end. Especially those who ignore standard agency timelines and demand turnaround at an unreasonable pace. It always leads to several mistakes, loss of profit, and extra time to do the job. And in the end, the work suffers. So do the people who have to create the work.”

• “My biggest grievance with some clients is when there is really not enough communication. I like a client that keeps communications short and sweet, but honestly,  there still needs to be enough communication to get the job done right. If the client doesn’t communicate clearly or sufficiently at the start, or fails to give you a proper brief, there is sure to be problems later.”

• “The client has to follow through on what he says he will do in order for us to get the job done. And if he doesn’t, it can be very frustrating. A client who says he’s going to do something, but then is too busy or too forgetful to follow through can be a real pain in the backside. Then there are the ones who don’t return phone calls or emails — not a good sign either.”

• “Many client Managing Directors or CEO’s don’t know the difference between a marketing officer and a salesman. They hire a salesman and then give him the marketing job because he is cheaper than hiring an expert who understands marketing and branding. That’s always a problem for the ad agency.”

I could go on with a much longer list. There were several more of these horror stories told on the night. But I know from history that there have always been good clients and bad clients. I’ve been dealing with both for over 25 years.

In Asia, as in most other markets, a good number of clients are apprehensive about increasing ad budgets given the possibility of world recession. They are growing anxious as they anticipate lower revenues, lost customers, shrinking market share, increased competition, and irate shareholders—all of which spreads like an epidemic from customer to client to agency.

Clients need to understand the care and feeding of an agency. You get what you give. Clients should know that this bad behavior hurts, more than helps their cause. Agencies that are treated with professional respect give more than they take.

When lines of communication are open, honest and fair, the ad agency ultimately produces better work. I believe some clients understand that. Notice I said “some”.

Ad industry practitioners will tell you that when the heat is on, best practices go out the window. This leads to short-term thinking, low morale on the agency side, frustration on the client side and poor results overall.

Personally, I have rarely had to deal with a really bad client. Maybe I have been one of the lucky ones. Or just maybe, the way clients view ad agencies today is different from the way they have dealt with agencies in the past. Or just maybe, the computer has helped to make clients think that most advertising and design is a commodity that you can buy anywhere, from anyone, off-the-shelf like a cheap suit.

No doubt, the present economic climate is causing a number of marketers to act like cads. Some will do anything to justify their roles and appear as responsible team players in these trying times by saving money in every possible area to the detriment of the quality of the work, to client and agency relationships,  and ultimately to the detriment of the brand they’re responsible for growing and protecting.

Mike Fromowitz
OCTANE

Our traditional idea of bands is changing.

David Ogilvy, Leo Burnett and Bill Bernbach pioneered powerful Brand images that transformed the landscape of commerce.  Great creative work combined with mass audience awareness proved to be a powerful combination.  Brands evolved and some became consumer icons building enormous profitability for their companies.

Today, there are many who advocate that Brands will become less important as digital technology marches onward.  In fact, it is likely that Branding will become more important in the Digital Age.  With more media and more Brands, consumers have more to filter out. In order to cut through the clutter, marketers will have to work harder to build Brands that inspire loyalty. Brands must not only capture consumers attention, but keep it. That means they need to evolve in the marketplace while staying true to core values.

However, our traditional idea of bands is changing. We don’t “build” Brands anymore—not like we use to.  They grow to have a life of their own, and web savvy consumers are finding it much easier to identify with these strange new organisms.

Wally Olins, Chairman and co-founder of Saffron Brand Consultants. is widely recognised as a pioneer in the field of Brand strategy and corporate identity. He believes “Brands are becoming something bigger and different. Brands are becoming platforms. More and more, customers are invited not just to buy things but to do things.”

Technology has enabled a higher level of dialogue with consumers and consumers in turn have come to expect a higher level of transparency with their favourite Brands. More involvement/engagement fosters more loyalty to the Brand VS the old broadcast model of preaching from the mountaintop.

On platforms like Alybaba, eBay, YouTube, Facebook, Wikepedia, Craigslist and flickr, people are selling their own things, sharing their photographs, writing and collaborating on articles and blogs, sharing their insights and knowledge, and broadcasting videos. “It’s a less emotional, more practical relationship” says Olins. “People don’t love eBay though they love what it allows them to do.”

The trend to watch—Co-Creating with your customers

From a business and innovation standpoint, one of the most important trends to watch is the ‘Customer-Made’ trend—Co-Creating with your customers.  Not everything will be co-created in the future, but tapping into the collective skills and ingenuity of hundreds of millions of consumers around the world is nothing short of a brilliant idea. From a practical standpoint the idea of co-creating with the customer base also is good PR and makes the Brand more accessible to consumers.

It is a complete departure from the ‘producer’ innovation model so common to corporations around the world. This is a new phenomenon, where corporations create new products and services in close cooperation with experienced and creative consumers. The company taps into their intellectual capital, and in exchange gives them a direct say in what actually gets manufactured, developed, designed or serviced, and rewards them for it.

For example, the French car Brand Peugeot now invites customers to become car designers, and Crowdspirit.com, a crowdsourcing community, gets large numbers of users to submit ideas for innovative electronic products that the community fine tunes and votes on. The best ideas and their product specifications rise to the top where investors provide financing and development partners make prototypes.

Watch out for the Networked Marketplace

Advertising and marketing are going through constant change, and while many of us continue to talk about creativity and the Big Idea, there’s a growing acceptance of the notion that the Big Idea might very well be a lot of smaller ideas with a higher level of consumer involvement. It positions the company as not just a big multi-gazillion-dollar corporation but as “friendly”, accessible, transparent and open to the voice of the consumer. All enabled by very accessible technology.

Companies have woken up to the reality of the networked world. They are viewing ‘advertising’ as one of the ways of talking to customers, but not the only way. For them, mere Brand logos and taglines won’t suffice. The networked world is one where ‘brand voice’ (how your Brand talks to your customers) will assume more significance. Brands need to be seen as humble and authentic, rather than mighty; Brands will have to understand, rather than be understood; Brands will have to listen and not talk.

It’s a brand new era that is unfolding, and with it is the growing phenomenon of the “Networked Marketplace”. In the Networked Marketplace some big Brands are turning to customers and the general public to make ads for them.

Look on their websites and you will find that virtually every Brand these days is inviting their customers to contribute to their next advertising campaign—proof that co-creation is in fact an established trend.

Recent examples like this slick video now featured on YouTube, called “Sony Transformation,”— http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdaMb_LTcJs—features a stereo system that shape-shifts its way into different electronics devices using mind-bending special effects. The spot was created by an 18-year-old, self-taught animator Tyson Ibele who works in Minneapolis.

In a world where YouTube videos are as common as bumper stickers, it’s no wonder marketers are looking to their customers and the general public for ideas. Meanwhile, inexpensive digital cameras, more-powerful computers, easy-to-use editing and publishing software and the proliferation of broadband makes it easy for anyone with a laptop and some imagination to express himself or herself.

CurrentTV.com posts viewer-created ads particularly for the 18- to 34-year-old market. This demographic does not respond positively to videos or commercials that are overly produced and are hard sell. Viewers can enter videos and get paid $1,000 if their spot is chosen to run on the network.

L’Oreal Paris also sponsored a “You Make the Commercial Contest” on the teen entertainment site VarsityWorld.com. The grand prize winner of that contest was a video called “Juicy,” made by two students at Granite Bay High School in California. In it, a young woman’s lips and love life become more colorful when she puts on L’Oreal Lip Gloss. The contest created so much excitement among high schools that the top 25 commercials posted for online voting received more than a quarter million votes in less than a month.

“The new Brands have many ways of doing things, many ways of speaking.” says Olins. “They experiment and change over time. The Brand is not a perfect blueprint, and Brand creators are less architects and more inventors, learning by adapting. What unites the organisation (or constellation) isn’t the surface logo but the underlying idea.”

Alan Blose, EVP, Chief Creative Officer at BKV, one of the largest Direct Response agencies in the USA, cites Brands and consumers “sharing common passions and beliefs”. “Brands,” he says, “are adopting a cause and then using that affinity for the cause to help differentiate their Brand from their competitors. There’s greater propensity for consumers to be involved or passionate about a charity or a cause these days (and of course there are more causes and more ways to become involved). This is a generational shift too”.

While getting some of your customers involved at a tactical marketing level has its rewards, it doesn’t touch upon the truly massive opportunities that the Customer-Made trend has to offer when you move beyond advertising: from product development to open-conversation feedback schemes.

What’s happening to the Newspaper?

At first, traditional newspaper people ridiculed the internet. It was populated by a bunch of “disgruntled soreheads” and “resentful”, “inept crazies”–and was no real competitor. As it grew, the internet swooped up readers of all ages, particularly younger ones. Today, the younger generation simply doesn’t read the newspaper. Most of them certainly don’t subscribe or buy the daily print edition. Why should they? They were weaned on computers and it’s free.

Eventually the newspaper industry changed gears, from disdain of the internet to a “must have” obsession.  Newspapers with their own web site were proud that they still dominated the news in their own communities, a mind-set that still controls the industry. They all came to agreed that ad revenue from the web sites would eventually take the place of print advertising. But it didn’t. For awhile, it rose rapidly, then it declined.

Put all of these hits together: the current state of the global economy and the possibilities of recession, shrinking of the former customer base, shift of much advertising to other media, and disappointment in ad revenues from newspaper-owned web sites – and what you have is a newspaper industry in a free-fall.

As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

What’s happening to the Book?

A good number of us say we will never give up the physical book that we hold in our hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I continue to want my hard copy CD. But I do know that there will come a time when I too will change my mind. Yes, I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing is happening with books.

Hundreds of books sit inside one small and light device with integrated video clips, interactive quizzes, search functionality and full web browsing. It all seems like a dream come true for avid readers, doesn’t it? You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a book from the book store.

Think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can’t wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you’re holding a gadget instead of a book.

Consider the “Things” that you own.

We are great collectors of “stuff”. Today, we own many of our possessions, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in “the cloud.” Your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest “cloud services.” That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system.

So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That’s the good news. But, will you actually own any of this “stuff” or will it all be able to disappear at any moment because you clicked the wrong command?

Consumers don’t behave like they use to.

The Internet has made niche marketing more viable. As trust in companies, services  and Brands declines, the availability of instant information expands. The Internet has transformed our ability to find information on any conceivable topic. As busy consumers we need to take shortcuts. We need to find the most reliable ways of making Brand choices.

Thanks in a large part to Google, we’ve become experts in cutting through trivia to get to the facts. We’ve also become experts in finding sources of reliable information—through friends, family and the Internet. Consumers believe they are all more trustworthy than advertising messages. We want to see samples, we want to know the benefits, and we want effective ways of reducing the risk of making the wrong choice. Because reducing risk in Brand choice is a major force-fitting customer behaviour.

More and more, I wonder whether we are forgetting the basics when we try to create integrated marketing and advertising campaigns. The basics lay in the insight of how and why consumers make purchasing decisions, and of what and who are the best sources of information and influence to reassure and inspire consumers to try and buy.

The “big idea” is being replaced by a “network of ideas”.

In the old days a creative team was made up of primarily a copywriter and an art director.  With the creative directors input and blessings, the campaign would then go on air and the job would be done.

The world of advertising however, has become significantly more complex.  Campaigns don’t end when they go “off air” any more.  We can no longer think in terms of marketing programs with a distinct start and finish. They are ongoing. They live on as consumers praise them, trash them, mash them up and discuss them online.

Nowadays, in addition to copywriters and art directors, there are web developers, event specialists, social media experts and on and on. The “big idea” has been replaced by a network of ideas that includes input from consumers and clients. This new reality requires different competencies than the old one. A vast array of skill sets need to be integrated.

While broadcasting messages will continue to play a central part, consumers themselves are sharing Brands as well. While consumers can’t be controlled, they can be encouraged. Creative directors native to digital know this instinctively. Mechanisms of interaction have been designed to empower consumers, but care must be taken not to intrude or offend.  This is still an emerging area and we still have a lot to learn.

“It’s also increasingly easy to address nuances in the marketplace, adds Alan Blose. “Customisation and tailoring messages to segments of the market is easier because the technology to do so is more accessible and cheaper. In many ways it wasn’t practical before. Now it‘s far more efficient to reach niche customers—more Millenials, X’s, Y’s and fewer Boomers”.

Strategy can no longer pick out one point on the continuum, but needs to develop and adapt in real-time.  Most of all, the new creativity will no longer revolve around one “big idea,” but hinge on the combined talents of diverse network of teams.

Without disparaging the great accomplishments of the past, or the genius of those from whom they sprung, I think it’s fair to say that the future of advertising, marketing and creativity will be more rich, nuanced and immersive than anything we’ve seen before.

Recession should be good for advertising.

In a curious way, a recession should be a force for good, improving advertising’s creative output – necessity quite literally being the mother of invention.

But how odd and depressing, then, that the knee-jerk reaction to an economic downturn by clients is to either cut budgets, reduce staff, halt hiring activities, or produce “low-risk creative”—a euphemism for boring, pointless advertising.

In today’s marketing and media environment only the naive and foolish confuse presence with impact. Gaining presence in the market is easy. Impact is hard. Impact requires creative ideas that bring entertainment value to Brands. To win over today’s consumer, we have to create ideas that elicit emotion and create connections.

In the world of creativity, the real ROI is not the Return On Investment, but the Return On Imagination. Sales results behind the now famous Apple “I’m a Mac” campaign featuring John Hodgman as PC and Justin Long as Mac, had little to do with it’s financial investment and everything to do with its creative investment, aided and abetted by millions and millions of online viewings. The campaign was also ripped off and satirised by Microsoft too, which I suppose is its own form of flattery.

Nobody can predict the future of the advertising industry.

Some people predict the advertising business will have to get smaller before it gets better. Others see it having to get simpler rather than remain complex and inflexible. I believe we are only at the beginning of a creative revolution—a time of positive disruption filled with new possibilities.

No doubt about it, there is a new advertising ecosystem forming, one made of startups: collaboratives, crowdsourcing agencies, innovation labs, and independent talent that can thrive on minimum overhead. We are seeing big time agency talent jumping ship, starting their own nimble agencies that are ideas-led, media-neutral, integrated, and multi-disciplinary. Along the way they are picking up talent best suited for each creative project. Now it’s much more like the Hollywood Production Company Model, casting the team for the project and then keeping the overhead low.

With markets and media fragmenting, and the consumer becoming more individualistic, choosy and demanding, clients are also having to adapt to a new marketing environment. Their Brands must become more multi-faceted, and appeal to a more diverse set of consumer needs and attitudes, if they are to develop or maintain significant franchises.

Brands guarantee consistency and offer an easy choice, but in a world where there are too many choices available and too little time to waste on choosing, one can not argue the importance of customisation and tailoring messages to the needs and the demands of a widely diverging group of consumers.

Could all of the above be the vision for the industry moving forward?

If it is, it could make the ‘new’ advertising industry a fraction of the size of the current one. It could, on the other hand, create amazing opportunities for the inventor, the innovator, the most talented of creative people, and for the client. More and more, clients seem open and accepting of this new model. It ultimately benefits them.

In conclusion:

“When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.” — John M. Richardson, Jr.

P.S. Please let me know what you predict for the future of advertising and marketing. Thanks.

Mike Fromowitz

OCTANE

One of the things that you notice early on in Japan, even if you are not a proponent of digital media and/or a student of the net consumption behavior, is that the Japanese rarely type in a URL. Even the companies/brands do not advertise their URLs as much as they refer to keywords/QR codes in their communications.

A similar observation with statistics was shared and the question (title of this article) posed, by a marketer in a recent discussion. Banking on “I am thinking aloud” and adding for good measure “and I am not an expert in the digital field, but..” I ventured forth with my response that this could be because:

• Most of the URLs are in English; and Japanese are not comfortable with the language
• The default language settings on keyboard are Japanese, and it is not worth the effort to switch on to Roman script just to key in the URL

Though the response met with “seems logical and commonsensical” comment from the marketer and murmurs of agreement from the domain experts in audience, I wanted to find out for myself.

With the help of my good friend and colleague Nariya-san, I quickly did a dipstick study (40 respondents). The following are the results:

• 100% used search to visit a website for the first time (one more statistic reinforcing the observation)
• 50% visited the same site again through search, while a good 43% used bookmarks to visit it subsequently (convenience kicks-in along with comfort)
• 80% said the reason is difficulty in keying the English URL and 20% said it is because the default language settings are in Japanese (validating the hypothesis)

Further probing (and discussion with experts in the field, Craig and Shimada-san) revealed that it is:

• Easier to spell the URL incorrectly as most Japanese are less familiar/comfortable with English language (for non-Japanese sites)
• Less cumbersome to type in the theme or associated words (in Japanese, transliterating)
  • In the search box where one has the search engine as the homepage in their browser
  • Using the address bar as search box (fewer keystrokes since you do away with .com or .co.jp) and clicking on the link once it is displayed
  • It works well for Japanese sites too, as a Japanese URL can be composed of characters from three scripts – Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana; and it is difficult to type in the exact URL using the language settings

That must satisfy the stakeholders in the SEO/SEM field as it looks like the business is here to thrive for a long time to come. It did make me a happy person momentarily by validating the “loud thinking”.

Still, the initial elation led to one motherhood question, having been on the client side earlier (now I take their side) – What are the implications for the marketers?

• Do they have to continue investing in multiple keywords (even misspelt ones, just in case)?
• How can they get users to bookmark once they visit the site through search, so:
  • Next time they do not risk losing out the consumer to competitor, since purchasing a keyword at a higher price does increase the chances of staying on top of the results; but the user could as easily click the 3^rd or 8^th result, if found relevant.
  • Can subsequently reduce spends as they would be paying for fewer new click-throughs
• Is the behavior same across demographics? Or are there any idiosyncrasies that one has to take into account?
• What about other markets where the keyboards are set to non-Roman script language defaults? (E.g.: Arabic, Chinese)
  • Are there any best practices that one can use from across these markets to increase chances of higher click through and lower spends / cost per clicks (or such metrics)?
• Should they be investing in local language URLs, simplified with characters from one script? E.g: Kanji, or Hiragana, or Katakana and not a mixture of all or some of the scripts
• What of search through mobiles/smart phones? Does the SEO/SEM tactics have to be any different over there? Will it necessitate an investment reallocation?

(As an aside, what is the implication for Yahoo, if more people are using the address bar as a search box? It could be a double whammy as it

• Does not have a browser unlike Google or Bing(IE) and
• Is not a default browser on Safari or Firefox (it is there as an option, but not necessarily default).

Is it likely to lose share of market in search in years to come?)

Soon more marketers are going to ask the SEO/SEM fraternity to help find answers for the above posers, beyond the existential keyword purchase or meta-tag tinkering.  Let the search for the answers begin now.

This is the fourth and last post in the short series of posts that I started about Challenges facing Qualitative research in China. As I have said in the posts before, the idea is not to castigate research agencies or trash the ways of some of the marketers. Instead the idea is to highlight the research & marketing issues plaguing various marketing and research systems & highlight that if we address these we can find a way to superior understanding of people in China and consequently do better marketing and market planning.

Insight is an oft-quoted word in the marketing circles. What is an insight? Where do we find it? Does the consumer say it? Does it come from a data table? What does it lead to? How do we know when we get it? Is it real or mythical?

I have always believed that the insight lives in interpretation of information, not the information itself. Insight is not a fact, a data point or a consumer quote – it is the unique way in which we interpret it that gives it meaning. It is about intuitive understanding of inner nature of things. For example Coffee is commonly believed to be a stimulating beverage that people like to drink to keep them awake. But most certainly it is also a way of socializing with others.

The way I interpret this is that coffee is not just a stimulating beverage in the physical sense. ‘It is an excuse to meet and talk’. It is a great way to get to know people over an engaging conversation. ‘Coffee stimulates socialization!’

All this sounds very obvious after I say it but respondents almost never say it this way in a research discussion. This is for us to interpret. This is the real insight. Like always it is hidden in the obvious. And yet by its very nature helps in creating a competitively advantageous idea. For example – premium coffee bars/cafes etc are just one business idea coming out of the insight about being ‘an excuse to meet and talk’ and ‘stimulates socialization’.

Just observe how the same product, that we were treating only as a stimulant just a few minutes back, has given us an opportunity to think about it in an entirely new way.

I therefore believe that if we need to derive real insights – we need to interpret information afresh. We cannot expect consumers to verbalize it, nor can we write it down and ask them to choose it or rate it. That is just not real. In a developing market like China, where consumers are not very articulate, nor are they very savvy about the products and services that they use, we cannot adopt a direct approach of deriving the insights. Giving people various statements as options is definitely not the best way of working. Instead – we need to tap into our collective experience and use personal judgment to interpret the information that we receive.

To explore the world we do not need to travel to new places, we need a fresh pair of eyes and new perspectives. That discovery is not out there, it is inside us. I wish we looked inside more, I wish we reflected more on the inner nature of things.

Happy Working!

This is the third in the short series of posts on Challenges facing Qualitative research in China. As I have said in the posts before, the idea is not to castigate research agencies or trash the ways of some of the marketers. Instead the idea is to highlight the research & marketing issues plaguing various marketing and research systems & highlight that if we address these we can find a way to superior understanding of people in China and consequently do better marketing and market planning.

Have you ever wondered what kind of working people would take out time on a Wednesday afternoon (or morning!) to go to a discussion in a room full of strangers talking about sanitary napkins or tyres or adhesives etc for over two and a half hours? I can hazard a guess – these are people who do not have much happening in their personal or work life. Some of my not so polite friends have another word to describe these people – they call them “losers who don’t have a life!”

Come to think of it – who can take out so much time for a relatively unimportant topic and that too in the middle of a workday! These people are outside the stream of active social or professional life and thus have so much time to spare. They are the laggards in all kinds of product adoption processes. Outside of occasions like the focus group discussion – they are a conservative lot without strong opinions on most of the subjects – leave aside consumption choices.

This is the other challenge that a lot of qualitative research faces in developing markets like China. Most of the people that we end up recruiting for research are at best not savvy about the topic being discussed. This is dangerous because we base many of our marketing decisions on the feedback captured from these researches. When we do this – what we are effectively doing is taking feedback from the masses and ending up with the lowest common denominator of understanding. This might be a better idea in electing a government but it can definitely not help us make strategic breakthroughs in marketing.

Having said that – this also does not mean that we only speak with opinion leaders – that is not realistic either. What we really need to do is to structure our research in a fashion that we strike a balance between such dull followers and some savvy adopters. Learnings from only that kind of a mix can be considered more balanced and representative of the reality.

Only such a respondent mix can help us find inspiration not just information.

Happy Working!

This is the second in the short series of posts on Challenges facing Qualitative research in China. As I said before, the idea is not to castigate research agencies or trash the ways of some of the marketers. Instead it is to highlight research & marketing issues plaguing various marketing and research systems & highlight that if we address these we can find a way to superior understanding of people in China. And consequently do better marketing and market planning.

In this second part, I will share some thoughts about the way we ask the questions in our researches.

It pains me to see how we run our consumer immersion groups.

Why are we so direct?

After every response – we simply barge in with a “why?” or “why not?”

Do we really believe that people will give an honest explanation for their usual behaviour?

Add to this, people in China take much longer to open up than people from most of the other cultures that I have been exposed to. We need to respect this cultural truth. China is a lot about steady conversations and negotiations. It is not a “on and off” culture, it is not about this way or that way, it is not the start and stop mindset. It is a continuum. It is about maneuvering around and about topics – touching them enough to give a hint rather than making them obvious.

Our way of talking to people needs to learn from this.

My long-time friend once told me how Chinese and Westerners think differently. He explained it to me through a business meeting analogy. For the Westerners – if a meeting is short it must be very good because everybody was talking the same language and thus not much conversation was required to reach an agreement. Contrast this with the Chinese idea of a good meeting. The Chinese think that if the meeting is short – it did not really achieve much. The underlying principle is that it takes longer to know people and understand their motives – too quick and you have not really achieved anything. On the contrary, if it is longer – it sure means that it helped people know each other more. Knowing people is most important. All the business can follow.

Now think about our interview situations – how can we rush through it with a 100-bullet point checklist?

I often say – “In China – slow down, if you want to speed up.” Things move forward briskly when we do not labour them too much. Conversations are no exception. Of course we need answers to “why” and “why not” but we need not ask it that way. We need to make the questions indirect, help respondent speak about himself without feeling shy about it by. Make it less sharp and allow the real answers to flow in. Only a comfortable respondent is a natural respondent.

A few more to come in this series.

Happy Working!

From today I will start a short series of posts on Challenges facing Qualitative research in China. The idea is not to castigate research agencies or trash the ways of some of the marketers. Instead it is to highlight research & marketing issues plaguing various marketing and research systems & that if addressed it can lead to a way for a superior understanding of people in China and consequently better marketing  & market planning.

Why do we always have so many questions? Do we know so less or are we playing safe by getting the research to confirm even the most elementary things?

Fewer questions, shorter questions with more room for conversation are much better than long questions and many questions. Visualize our conversation with our friends and family – how we talk to them over tea and snacks. It is fluid, enjoyable and refreshing. It helps us know each other even more and it brings us closer. Now think about our last conversation with users – chances are

We had many more things to discuss (many-many questions)

We moved from one question to another very fast (completing a ‘list’ rather than striking a conversation and trying to understand)

We consumed almost two hours doing this and everyone was tired & irritable at the end of it (rather than becoming more open, refreshed and thus closer).

Why do we do this? Why are we so paranoid about not being able to complete all the questions in our DG? If we all know the marketing goal, the brand challenge and our priorities – then why don’t we allow the interviewer some intellectual & conversation autonomy? Why do we act like we just came from Mars and we need to be told everything by the research?

“If there is a shared vision –there is no need for supervision”, said someone, and if there is a shared vision, I don’t see any reason to be paranoid.

More on this in the posts to come, Happy Working!