Viral Video

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I cannot help but love stuff that takes a dig at things that marketers and agencies embrace with the passion of a zealot. The video above might be a spoof but I assure you it is not way off the mark. There are companies that help you get followers, likes, clicks and yes, even views. It is also a well-known fact that there are brands who use the services of these companies (abetted by agencies of dodgy reputation). When a marketer's performance matrix depends on the number of followers, clicks, likes and views acquired, what can you expect. 

In my opinion, there is only one viral that matters - 'has the product gone viral?'.

No Interface

Today the market offers SmartTV, SmartFridge, SmartCars, SmartPhones...and a host of devices with complicated and sometimes unnecessary user interface to make you look stupid. Agree?

I came across this wonderful post on UI, The best interface is no interface. The title says it all. It is almost as if the author knew how we feel about (over-designed) interfaces. More importantly, the author advocates 3 principles for the 'no interface approach' with interesting examples to prove his point. Here are some nuggets:

"Creative minds in technology should focus on solving problems. Not just make interfaces. 

As Donald Norman said in 1990 - 'The real problem with the interface is that it is an interface. Interfaces get in the way. I don’t want to focus my energies on an interface. I want to focus on the job…I don’t want to think of myself as using a computer, I want to think of myself as doing my job.'

It’s time for us to move beyond screen-based thinking. Because when we think in screens, we design based upon a model that is inherently unnatural, inhumane, and has diminishing returns. It requires a great deal of talent, money and time to make these systems somewhat usable, and after all that effort, the software can sadly, only truly improve with a major overhaul.

There is a better path: No UI. A design methodology that aims to produce a radically simple technological future without digital interfaces......

......Several car companies have recently created smartphone apps that allow drivers to unlock their car doors. Generally, the unlocking feature plays out like this:

1. A driver approaches her car.
2. Takes her smartphone out of her purse.
3. Turns her phone on.
4. Slides to unlock her phone.
5. Enters her passcode into her phone.
6. Swipes through a sea of icons, trying to find the app.
7. Taps the desired app icon.
8. Waits for the app to load.
9. Looks at the app, and tries figure out (or remember) how it works.
10. Makes a best guess about which menu item to hit to unlock doors and taps that item.
11. Taps a button to unlock the doors.
12. The car doors unlock.
13. She opens her car door.

Thirteen steps later, she can enter her car.

The app forces the driver to use her phone. She has to learn a new interface. And the experience is designed around the flow of the computer, not the flow of a person.

If we eliminate the UI, we’re left with only three, natural steps:

1. A driver approaches her car.
2. The car doors unlock.
3. She opens her car door.

Anything beyond these three steps should be frowned upon. Seem crazy?" 

 

 

Get Real

The gear shift is pushed higher. The throttle is pressed hard. The car leaps and zips along a beautiful highway. The car swerves dramatically a full 360 degree. The car screeches to a halt. Steve McQueen steps out of the car. 

This car.

BTW, I was kidding. About Steve McQueen.

Seriously, if ever there was a lemon it is the car above. No amount of dramatic television spots will move this beyond a taxi-wallah’s favorite. 

I have not singled out this brand for special treatment. This malaise of ‘stupid’ hyperbole cuts across brands and the evidence is there for all to see, on television and online. I must also admit that I have been part of such work. I must also admit that in all the instances, the client was told of the ‘stupidity’ of such an approach. But then, we were clobbered with logic, stats and the ultimate crutch of marketers, research. We had to quietly relent.

Call it mid-life crisis or burn-out or whatever, I am increasingly finding it difficult to be part of such an exercise. It is to my mind a case of 'good money behind bad money'. 

Is there a way to call the crap on this kind of marketing and advertising? 

Why don't marketers and agencies realize that there is merit in being honest and real? The creative possibilities are far more interesting with such an approach. The believability and empathy is also likely to be more. I am not saying no to hyperbole. But hyperbole for a product/service that is at best a ‘turkey’ should be avoided.

I recently read a charming post by an UX expert that beautifully captured this thought. Here are some gems from the post.

“Our best chance for establishing trust with our users is to be honest. After all, trust inspires confidence. And it’s confidence—not just a knowledge of differences—that compels decision-making.

Perhaps we should stop fixating on what makes us different and, instead, acknowledge the real aspects of who we are, what we do, and why people choose us.

We often overlook our own assets because they’re real. Real things aren’t flashy, polished, or perfect. That’s often what makes them an asset in the first place.”

Finally, there can be no better validation of this approach than from The Master. Recognize this?

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The Internet is my religion

I came across this inspiring speech and the notes below here. I would urge you to see the 12 minutes of video, if possible.

"In the video, Jim Gilliam gives us a short tour of his life’s story. I encourage you to watch the entire mind-blowing twelve minutes. In it, Jim tells the story of how after contracting life-threatening cancer, he went from following a popular movement—Jerry Falwell-branded fundamentalist Christianity—to creating two of his own. First, following the tragedy of September 11, 2001, Jim became an activist for a better America and produced a series of compelling documentary films to further his cause. In order to promote these films, Jim developed a series of techniques using the Internet to basically create a movement—i.e. to organize a group of people to do something. In this case, learn from his films and strive to improve the country. Later, we find that the cancer treatment that Jim received earlier in the story burned out his lungs requiring that he receive a double lung transplant or die. Finding a donor for two healthy lungs and a doctor willing to perform the insanely risky surgery is the mother of all long shots, so Jim had to start a new movement to get new lungs. Organizing people to save his own life profoundly impacted Jim’s view of how he should spend the rest of it. So much so that his personal domain is called 3dna.us to represent the 3 different DNAs that combine to keep him alive, a constant reminder that he cannot do it alone. 

After recovering from the operation, Jim had a defining revelation. He realized that everything good comes from people working together to accomplish something important and, furthermore, that the Internet would be the great enabler of the most important endeavors."

Digital Games

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I couldn’t believe that this is a spoof. This is exactly the kind of bull-crap digital agencies peddle that marketers lap up thirstily. I have said before, digital and social media are far too precious to be left in the hands of agencies, marketers and gurus. 

I am being a bit unfair here. There are agencies around the world doing some great work in the digital and social media space. There are a few clients, like Nike, who have got digital right. Unfortunately, the vast majority of agencies and clients use digital (and social media), especially in India, as yet another advertising medium. These agencies tout the alleged superiority over broadcast media in a pyrotechnic demonstration of data and metrics. They will have the client heaving with multiple orgasms. Unfortunately, this hard-sell approach almost always comes back to bite them in their arse.

By pitching against broadcast media agencies, they are pitching for the same (limited) marketing $$$. Being at the lowest level of the marketing food-chain, the digital (and social media) agencies get thrown the crumbs. It doesn’t stop with that. The race for the crumbs has turned so vicious amongst these agencies that the digital landscape has become a bloody battlefield with no winners. These agencies are completely undermining the industry. I have written about all this in great lengths here.

There is change in the air. I have been speaking to people within the digital space in India. Some of them have refreshing ideas and will hopefully chart a new course for the industry. It is not going to be easy. But if one is in it for the long haul, there is glory. 

PS: BTW, the next biggest con…er…thing keeping agencies and marketers busy is ‘apps’. I am now looking forward to the spoof from BBC Two.

Social Media Revolution

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At last someone made this video. It is a brilliant parody that rips apart the BS that mavens and zealots thrive in. 

Social Media and Digital are far too precious to be left in the hands of agencies and marketers.

Dan Weiden - Marketers and agencies better listen and learn from him

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Dan Weiden is one of the few people left in the agency business who talks sense. Not only does he talk sense, he has demonstrated it in the work created by his agency.

I picked up these two gems from the video.

"This business(agency) is about creating strong provocative relationships between good companies and their customers. Those relationships will then feed the business(sales). But you have to feed the relationship first."

"We are not in a place where we can chose between doing broadcast and interactive. That is ridiculous. It is like saying do you want the right hand or left hand. I want to use both my hands and some other appendages too. It is not a choice. It is just expanding the opportunities."

Well said, Dan.

The boss is no longer the Caesar

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I came across this short but illuminating speech by Scott Cook, Intuit’s founder.

He gives very interesting suggestions on how bosses can help create a culture of innovation within an organization. Following are some of the gems from his speech.

“Boss’s role is not that of Caesar making decisions, but to put in a system where junior people can learn from faster and cheaper experiments, so that ideas can prove themselves.”

“Move decision making from politics and power-points to enabling ideas to prove themselves. Nothing enfranchises innovators more than this.”

He stresses that this approach can work in formulating government policies as much as helping companies launch new ideas/products. The examples in his speech amply demonstrate this.

You might think that in the digital environment, like for example in a digital agency, the culture of low-cost and fast experimentation is all pervasive. Nothing can be further from the truth than that.

Testing an idea with low-cost or no-cost experiments almost never happens. Somehow the mindset of ‘big campaigns’ with ‘big budgets’ always comes into play, even in the digital space. In fact, the client is a willing accomplice to this. But this big budget does not translate to bigger fees as far as agencies are concerned. Digital agencies, for the most part, live in penury when compared to their mainline agency cousins.

I guess, we are in the mesozoic stage of digital evolution in India. Let the dinosaurs roam.

Digital Ninja

This video made me LOL because it is so true. You find ninjas everywhere and in every form. Brand, advertising, strategy, social media....but for these ninjas life will be boring. Behind every great bubble of hot air stands a ninja wielding a powerpoint. Or is it babble?

The World Of Mobile

Sowing seeds by yiibu

View more presentations from Bryan Rieger.

Courtesy via Conrad Lisco

I couldn’t help post the above presentation for two reasons.

Reason 1: It is a great presentation of thoughts and stats that reinforces simplicity as the key to succeed in creating mobile experiences. 

Reason 2: We have been hearing the constant drone about the ‘future is mobile’. Yes, the stats are impressive and the projections even more so. Yes, at a socio-cultural-economic level the impact of mobile technology has been phenomenal. This is best represented by aid to Haiti or the service to farmers in India or m-pesa in Africa. And we know that this is just the beginning in this sphere of mobile activity.

However, brands have made very little headway in trying to tame this beast. There are examples though but they are more an exception than the norm. 

This wonderful presentation by a young strategist, Avin Narasimhan, is maybe just the answer brands need. He has provided an easy framework for us to look at people’s mobile behaviour and brands. The reason I am endorsing this POV is based on my personal experience in December 2009. In order to demonstrate the capabilities of my client’s mobile technology (3dSoc) to a prospective client, I had worked almost on the same lines as Avin has suggested in his presentation. I knew then that I had hit a sweet-spot in the approach to mobile for brands and so did my client. And when I came across Avin’s presentation sometime in 2010, it was a déjà vu of sorts.

I also think that the beginning of a new year (and a new decade) is a good time to place before you thoughts and information that I have collected on this interesting subject. So here goes: 

The amazing Mary Meeker sets the tone with some stunning stats and predictions here and here. By default most presentations today carry key slides from her presentation. Frankly, this has increased my annoyance quotient considerably, not at Mary Meeker but at these unimaginative hacks.

When an industry has astonishing growth figures, the VC’s cannot be far behind. Here’s the latest view from the highly respected Fred Wilson on the direction mobile is headed. It might seem predictable. But hey, you might want to know what the VC’s think for you to wrangle the all important $$$ with the sliver of an idea buzzing in your head.  

Academia too have strong views on the subject with MIT summing up 2010 neatly.

Youth form the largest base of mobile owners with 1.5 billion of them owning it across the globe. But do we know how they use it? For example, did you know that rural youth in India spend nearly 5 hours every day listening to music on their mobile? You can find such information about youth from across 65 countries in the amazing MobileYouth.

Tomi Ahonen is One of the leading experts on mobile and marketing. He is a rich resource of insights and information that one should tap into regularly.

Finally, the icing on the cake is this crystal-ball gazing effort on the part of guru’s on what mobile trends in 2020 will be like.

Let’s not go that far though. Let’s begin with 2011 and hope it truly ushers in the ‘decade of the mobile’. 

Happy New Year!

PS: More suggestions welcome

The Great Indian Digital Fault

(Warning: A longish post. Now that you are here, you might as well read it!)

Indian digital agencies are sitting on a seismic fault of their own making. The fault is that they are scraping the bottom of the marketing value-chain showing little or no intention of trying to move up. Now it must be mentioned here that even traditional advertising agencies are fast sliding down the marketing value-chain. This is a topic that is much debated across agency forums and therefore we will skip that for now.

What is the reason for this sorry state of affairs amongst digital agencies?

Digital agencies in India do not talk the language of the brand and business. They have no perspective on the digital revolution and its impact on culture and behaviour. The fact that digital is about ‘doing ideas that work’ is missing when you take a look at the body of work from these agencies.

Digital agencies in India are busy selling their ‘tech’ expertise. So it is all about SEO’s, SEM’s, PHP’s and SQL’s. They are great implementers and therein lies the problem. Clients view and treat them as ‘production shops’ in the much the same way they would treat a print production company – only difference being you get a digital ‘brochure’ instead of a printed one.

All this has resulted in digital agencies fighting amongst themselves for the miniscule budget that clients dole out. It is not surprising to see clients having more than three agencies in a panel with ‘jobs’ going to the lowest bidder. In many ways the current Indian digital agency scenario closely resembles the Indian IT services business. The main value they bring to the table is the low value of their services. 

A quick scan of the Indian digital landscape will reveal the following types of agencies. This is by no means exhaustive but only representative.

Gremlins: Like Gremlins they replicate at an alarming rate and hence are all over the place. They normally consist of a motley crew of ‘tech’ guys who want to do ‘something digital’. 

Flash Gordon: Any digital solution has to involve flash. An animated film that is a spoof of a Bollywood film that is somehow integrated into a brand constitutes a viral. It is a joke – literally and figuratively.

Master Yoda: You cannot miss them as they are the guru’s who-know-it-all on the world of social media and digital. To them it is all about conversations or collaboration or whatever is the latest jargon doing the rounds. You can see in their eyes (and mouth) the zeal and fervour of the convert and nothing else.

What unites these and other types of digital agencies and its people is their total lack of brand experience and perspective. They have never experienced the magic that comes into play when strategy and creative intersect. They have never seen how ideas, big and small, can power brands (and individuals) to another level together. They have never dared. 

Take a look at this amazing collection of great digital work and you will understand what I am trying to say. We in India have not even attempted to think like this, leave alone doing it. I am aware that there are many sceptics out there who think all this is a bit too much for India. 

In the digital space there is no such thing as an Indian standard and a global standard. Hey, a similar view about loos in recent times drew a great deal of flak. Anyway, this is my belief and the basis for questioning some other established notions like:

We do not have clients who are prepared to take the leap: I agree. This is true even for majority of the work on TV and print media, what to talk of digital. However, this is a journey in which the agency has to take the lead...er...leap. There is no silver bullet. They have to constantly demonstrate passion with a capacity to come up with radical ideas. There will be rejection not once but many times over. Hopefully, one day they might get lucky. I am talking from experience here. 

Low internet penetration: I am not denying that India is largely a TV and print media market and will continue to be so for many years to come.  I am also aware that digital is at a nascent stage. However, that does not mean that digital has no role or that one cannot try and produce work that we can be proud of. More importantly, 5% penetration translates to over 50 million internet users and this number is growing rapidly. There are some categories, especially aimed at urban youth and young professionals, where digital possibilities are enormous. More importantly, with over 55% penetration (that is 600 million users) mobile is virgin territory!  

Digital budgets are so low: Not all ideas require a large budget. If one can demonstrate a clear benefit in terms of brand growth – sales as well as reputation – budget will be no constraint. More importantly, clients need to see value from the engagement for them to scale up the budget. They do not see it now amongst any of the agencies and therefore are unwilling to loosen the purse strings.

Amidst all this you might ask what happened to those large agency networks with their ‘integrated marketing’ approach. The only thing they are busy integrating is profits. The large agency networks are fast asleep at the wheel. They do not get digital and they do not care. I have already explained why.

But things are changing elsewhere in the world. Traditional agencies are fast closing the tech divide. It is led by relatively smaller agencies like Wieden&Kennedy and Goodby,Silverstein who have developed a strong digital soul. Not only have they developed a strong digital soul, they have also demonstrated it with some outstanding work. This they do by experimenting with an interesting mix of people and by rapidly scaling their ability to navigate the digital landscape. Pure-play digital agencies are watching this development with interest and even a degree of apprehension. 

Wieden&Kennedy’s views best exemplify these developments and are music to my ears as they mirror mine.  

Digital and traditional are anachronistic way of categorizing agencies.Digital is not a channel. It is a context in which everything lives. New campaigns and ideas must combine an understanding of tech and media along with ‘traditional’ skills.  

Unless Indian agencies, both digital and the older agencies trying to develop a digital soul, have a strong perspective like W&K and put it to practice, the seismic fault will result in tremors pulling everybody down. And remember you heard it here first.

(Image courtesy)