Adverts with the X Factor

Was going to post this last week, but I couldn't and we'll come back to that.

I don't watch a lot of commercial TV. Football on ITV, the odd Channel 4 drama (Generation Kill is great, but on too late for a school night) and that's about it. That and The X Factor. It's my guilty secret and one of the few times that I'll sit in front of ITV and actually watch the ads.



You watch the ads on X Factor, more than other programmes, because the show provokes a discussion. Instead of channel hopping or going to get a beer like you do at half time in the Champions' League, the break is a time to chat about the show.

Maybe this isn't a revelation, but I was staggered by what a low proportion of the advertising minutes actually featured any brands at all. You know the sort of thing - twenty five seconds to set the scene and then maybe a pack shot at the end. Maybe.

There was one for a home freshening scent that might have been a plug-in one or might not, I can't remember. It mostly featured lingering shots of paddy fields and deserts and was in conjunction with National Geographic (I remember that. Their name was on it more often.) Do deserts smell good? Not really the point. The point is I couldn't use that ad to make my point in this post, because I can't remember who it was for. And that's trying to make an effort!

That's why I couldn't write this post last week. There were so many ads where the brand itself was such a tiny feature, that I decided during the show it might make a blog post. Should have written down the bad examples though, because there was no way in hell I could remember what any of them were by Monday.

So this weekend I tried again. Here's one. Thirty five seconds of Paul Whitehouse being a camp hairdresser and if we're being generous, five seconds of Aviva. The word Aviva is said twice and their logo is on screen once, for one second. Everybody in the country 'watching' TV is discussing those creepy twins who can't sing and not paying attention. Blink and you've missed it.



Where's the effort? Surely the difficult bit of creating an ad is making it interesting with the product in it. Paul Whitehouse is already interesting, that bit's easy. Thirty five seconds of Paul Whitehouse practicing his accents and then a quick logo doesn't communicate much of anything.

Here's the one I did remember. The good example as a contrast. Will it win awards? Probably not, but I like it. And you know what? I could remember who it was for on Monday because it's got the bloody product in it!

Real Cheese in the M..
Watch the ad...

The 7 in 1 media agency. With extra blades.

Windows 7 comes out on Thursday. Are you excited?

No?

Me neither.


In marketing Windows 7, it strikes me that Microsoft have got the same problem that a lot of advertisers face - there's nothing new to say. Windows XP works fine. So does Vista, whatever the moaners say. What do we need to upgrade for? We'll end up on this new one when the whole PC's upgraded in a couple of years and that's fine. Microsoft are going to be forced to invent a compelling reason to upgrade, or maybe just suggest that it's amazing and new and the bestest thing ever! without actually explaining why.

Hopefully they'll do better than this though.




It's the problem that gives us marketing campaigns for Gillette razors with ridiculous numbers of blades and my personal favourite, the Finish 2 in 1, 3 in 1, 7 in 1, Max in 1 Powerball detergent. (Seriously, the old one was fine...)

"You need new news," cry the agencies. "It's what makes advertising work."

So we invent news. More blades, battery powered, with sparkly bits and powerballs.

Fine, it's what we do.

Then I thought about media agencies. We market ourselves to clients all the time. Where's our new news? Twitter? Ad skipping? Spotify?

Remember the Red Button? That was going to be huge. Honda were using it to make interactive TV ads. If you Google for Red Button now, the only media references you get* are from the BBC and from Channel 4 switching it off. Next big thing in advertising? Yeah right.

We're in competition with each other in selling to clients and I suppose at least we're consistent; we're doing what we tell our clients to do and inventing news. Lets face it though, most innovation in marketing is another blade on a razor - upping the price but getting the same result. Not long ago, Gillette started putting a single blade on the back of their razors, because there are now so many on the front that you can only shave big areas with it. It's a metaphor for the kind of thinking that's leading us back to basics. We've actually convinced ourselves that the 'news' is important enough to take our eye off the job we were doing pretty well before. It isn't. It's a sales technique.

Our clients know it too. It's how they're driving down the margins - turning media planning into a commodity. Without genuine news and innovation, everything eventually becomes a commodity. What starts off as clever and innovative becomes mainstream and before long, everybody's doing it. In FMCG terms, media agency clients are buying Own Label.


* On the first five pages, then I got bored. But you get the point.

Twenty one thousand is nothing

Let's get one thing straight before we start. I loathe the Daily Mail. It's a hateful, spiteful publication and the world would be a much nicer place if it didn't exist. Damn, that felt good.

This article about the death of Stephen Gately has had a lot of coverage over the weekend and generated more than twenty one thousand complaints to the Press Complaints Commission.


The thing is, it's not actually that bad, which is why it's still available to view on the Mail website. They know they're on safe ground. It's insensitive certainly, but that's the Daily Mail - it's usually insensitive. And bigoted. And arrogant. The article is those things too, but this time the Mail has generated twenty one thousand complaints.


The Daily Mail doesn't deserve to be censured over Jan Moir's article. A part of me dreams that it will fined an absolute fortune and go bankrupt, never to be seen again, but it wouldn't be fair.
The PCC needs to tread carefully and does undertand the problem, because it is currently 'considering' the complaints, rather than announcing an investigation.

Unfortunately, a society that has a tradition of freedom of speech and is progressive enough to allow civil partnerships, also has to tolerate the Daily Mail. Bugger.

Brilliant data presentation (but not for work)

Not for work, for skiing! Or for me, snowboarding. Everybody in media seems to ski anyway so its kind of on topic.

This is a really lovely, easy, useful browser for US ski resort review data. Lots of data, well presented. Time to get planning...

Courtesy of Ski Magazine via Chart Porn.

Why we're here

Why are we here? No not the answer to life, the universe and everything, which is obviously 42, but we the analysts. We the insights people. Why are we here and what are we good for?

Or put another way, what's the best way to make use of your insights department?


Conversation over a beer last night (yes on a Monday, things are going that well...) turned to what analysts should do when faced with the question 'I need your help to prove x?' It's not even really a question and I'm firmly of the opinion that if you find yourself asking or trying to answer it, things have already gone wrong. It happens far too often.

Let's go with the Hitchhikers Guide reference for a little longer. If you haven't read the book don't worry, but honestly what are you doing here? This is the realm of Data Monkeys and we've all read it. Many more than once. For any poor, lost, normal, well adjusted people who've found themselves on Wallpapering Fog it turns out the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42.

Helpful, right? And that's the joke. 42 is only useful if you understand the question.

If you regard your analysts as a rubber stamp to provide evidence for whatever strategy is flavour of the month at the moment - if you don't get their help in shaping the question, then you're in trouble. Partly because you'll have a team of pissed off, depressed analysts and more importantly because you're missing out on a huge opportunity.

Get the analysts in early. Get them in on the strategy discussions. Yes they might roll their eyes when you say 'brand value' but you roll yours when we say 'not statistically significant' so we're even.

There's no reason why having insights people on board early should make an idea less creative, but they'll be able to point out which bits of your success criteria are going to be measurable (or suggest new ones,) they'll be able to provide some useful evidence through the discussion and they just might stop you making a fool of yourself later, in front of the client, when it comes to measuring results.

That isn't the most powerful way to use analysts though. We're still taking about insight as a service - just a way to back up what the agency is already doing. Here's a radical thought... a lot of analysts (not all, admittedly) are excellent strategists, with good ideas, who just happen to be good at maths. They're people who are useful to have on board. Sometimes they come up with ideas that aren't measurable and still think they're worth trying. Make the most of it and get the analysis team in early! You'll end with stronger ideas, where you know which bits you can prove and where the client is going to have to trust you, and you won't have an insights team who - when you tell them at the end what you need to prove - look blank, worried or angry and say 'I can't'.

The future of UK television

TV in the UK is about to undergo a major shake-up and I'm surprised not to be hearing more about it in the marketing world. There are a few things happening that, taken together, point to a revolution at least as big as the one we've seen from Sky+ and Freeview+ (also known as PVRs before the Freeview branding people got hold of them.)

The UK had to retune its Freeview boxes last week, to free up bandwidth for HD broadcasts and to make Channel 5 universally available. Predictably, this week there are complaints about how the retune has gone wrong, but the glitches will be ironed out and then we'll all have TV signals that can do HD.

World Cup 2010 in HD? Yes please...

For that to happen, you're going to need a new set-top box. Again, predictably, the current ones can't decode the HD signal. Anybody remember when you could buy something electronic and it wasn't obsolete 18 months later? Ah, the good old days.

I've got a Humax PVR at home and barring the odd crash it's great, so it was interesting to see what new boxes they're going to be launching over the next few months. Of course HD - that's why you need the new box, but the techies are also getting excited by DLNA.

DLNA is what the Playstation 3 has got (when it works) and lets you access video, pictures and music on your PC and then stream them wirelessly somewhere else. Like onto the big telly in the living room. If you've got a PC and wireless in your house already, then you only have to be a tiny bit geeky to get it to work.

Give it a year and people who weren't techie enough to try getting their ripped off episodes of Lost from the PC to their living room, have suddenly got a very easy way to do it. It's also an 'always on' box, unlike the Playstation, so will be easy to do with the same remote you use for changing channels, making for a geniune choice between a repeat of Lost on Channel 4 or a new episode just downloaded from the US.


Hot on the heels of HD is going to be Project Canvas. Streamed content straight from the internet - the iPlayer on your set top box. If it works, alongside the iPlayer, you could well have Youtube, Vimeo, 4OD and more, browsable and watchable from your TV just like broadcast programmes. Though would it be too much to ask that we won't have to get another new box? Please? It's only coming in late 2010, so that's a reasonable request.

The debate around whether pre-rolls work and how to finance internet video is suddenly going to go mainstream. The choice of content available through your main television set will multiply exponentially and we'll have to wait and see what the combination of time-shifted HD viewing, much more attractive viewing of pirated content and much greater choice does to the audiences of our major broadcasters.

We regularly get promised the home of the future and it doesn't happen, mostly because the technology is cutting edge and doesn't work properly, but all the building blocks for a TV revolution are in place now. Wireless, broadband, big flat screen TVs, a PC in most homes... we just need the box in the living room to link it all together. And it's coming next year.

Ten signs that you're the problem

There's an ongoing complaint from the marketing agency world along the lines of 'if clients would only leave agencies alone and give them space, they'd get amazing work.' No doubt sometimes true, but I have a strong suspicion that if all clients did it, then many would end up with the sorts of expensive viral campaigns that are only followed by their agency's employees and a load of those bots on Twitter that try to get you to click on links to porn. Sometimes a tight leash is a good thing.


With that in mind, here's my top ten signs that your client is actually fine and that while your enthusiasm should be applauded, you (or your agency) might really be the problem...

1. You, personally, have got more than two clients who you think are 'not adventurous enough'.

2. You're sure your client should increase their advertising budget, but you have no idea what their profit margin is.

3. The client won't do your idea because you've never tried it before and it's unproven.
Let's face it, they're not risk averse, you just haven't persuaded them that it's a good enough idea. Or worse, they think it is a good idea but they don't trust you not to screw it up.

4. The number of people who actually visit the microsite and follow the brand on Twitter might be small, but it doesn't matter because a mystical thing called 'word of mouth' means the campaign's reach will be huge. If you believe that, step this way - today only I've got a special offer on some amazing magic beans...

5. You've never heard a point of view on your client's marketing from any of their staff who work outside the marketing department.

6. You regularly announce that the world has changed.

7. 'It's all about online' but you can't explain with confidence how a Google Adwords auction works.

8. If you leave London, it's to go abroad. What would you want to go up North for? Everyone there commutes on the Tube and is 25-40 years old too, right?

9. Your client needs to build their brand. Of course they do! So why can't you concisely define what brand means?

10. You can't find at least ten points to back up your argument. Er, damn.