RETROWURST: Brand consultancies March 2007

This month’s Retrowurst is less about brands and markets and more about those that earn their living through understanding what brands are, how they work and helping helping them to grow. In March 2007, I examined Germany’s brand consultancy agencies - and came to the conclusion that the choice was more limited than in the English-speaking world. 

Eighteen years is a long time in the world of brands and marketing. 2007 was pre- Byron Sharp’s How Brands Grow (2010) and Les Binet and Peter Field’s The long and the short of it (2013). I also note that the only business-orientated social media network mentioned was Xing. LinkedIn was launched in 2003, but in 2007, it would only have attracted English speakers working internationally.

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My Extrawurst this month is inspired by my recent work with a UK-based International Brand Consultancy which left me wondering why this particular market is so under-developed in Germany.

 

My last month seems to have been one workshop after another and, interestingly, it has given me an opportunity to muse on the German way of doing things and on the UK (or perhaps I should say International) way. This led me to wondering why the market in Germany for Brand and Innovation Consultancy is so underdeveloped, so I have had a quick look into who is there, what they do and a few reasons for why, in my opinion, they are not doing it better.

 

The first point is that there is no lack of companies and individuals in Germany who set themselves up as some sort of Brand Consultant. I suppose that I belong to this motley bunch as well! If one starts with doing a Google search, on something like Markenberatung (Brand Consultancy), there are pages and pages of links. In addition, there are whole networking websites such as www.marketing-boerse.de or www.xing.com  where you can seek out and contact companies and experts in whatever field of marketing or branding you fancy.

 

Most of the companies that come top of the list in the Google search are what I would call “old-school brand management consultants”. Typical of these is www.brandmeyer-markenberatung.de (which you can look at in English) which is full of process and promise to pinpoint precisely what profit each element of your marketing mix will bring. The idea of “brand core analysis- or whatever else they may be called (Sic.)” is heavily pooh-poohed as being fanciful, flakey and having no connection with commercial reality.

 

In a similar vein, but dry and intellectual rather than aggressive and dismissive is www.taikn.de . This is a website that I don’t think you can read in English but be thankful. A little better are www.esch-brand.com “The Brand Consultants” who appear to be a husband-and-wife combo with more academic qualifications than you could shake a stick at. They offer all the usual fare of Mission, Visions, Positionings and Architecture and make big of their academic connections to the Justus Liebig University in Giessen. However, despite their intellectual posturing, the site is loaded with marketing clichés of the “Win-Win” or “Whole is more than the sum of its parts” type.

 

Another category of Brand Consultancies is P.R, advertising, market research or media agencies who obviously want to add a bit of added value and substance to their offering and thus add a bit of Brand Consultancy to their menu. For example, www.k-mb.de, Kamps Markenberatung or www.brandaide.de . 

 

The Planning or Strategy part of an advertising or communications agency may also set themselves up as an independent Brand Consultancy, taking on their own clients as well as those of the main agency. A good example is Publicis-Sasserath www.markenfreunde.de who offer consultancy to clients outside the Publicis stable via their own tools and methods, such as the MarkenWesen. The question here, though, must always be: how independent are they really? There are other Brand Consultancy Agencies, who appear to be independent but on closer inspection, they are part of one of the giant communications networks. One example is www.economia.de , which offers trend-watching, innovation and new product development in addition to brand consultancy but appears to be part of BBDO. Another is www.21twentyone.com who promise to “make your brand an everyday hero” but who seem to be something to do with Carat.

 

The final category is Brand Consultancies who position themselves more on the innovation and creativity side of the spectrum but who are independent of major communications networks. These seem to be rather few and far between, but I have managed to find a couple of examples. First up is Dr Krüger & Equity, www.equity.de who formed as the first Strategic Planning Agency in Germany in 1995. They position themselves as “Creativity based on Information”. Another example is Diffferent, www.diffferent.de who also offer a combination of creative spirit and analytical expertise. Diffferent take on strategy for brands and communication, innovation and product and brand development.

 

Getting back to my differing experiences with the International and the German workshops, I suppose I can sum it up by saying that the International camp centres more around a way of thinking where a number of avenues are pursued in parallel, where we have to move out of comfort zones and where we must have faith that things will fall into place. The German experience was far more about following a linear, deductive process (“when we have got the answer to this, we can move on to the question for that”) with far more of a feeling of (false?) security that everything would be approached “step by step”. Maybe it is my UK training and upbringing, but I found the UK/International approach preferable in that it seems to lead to a number of possibilities rather than a definitive solution to one problem. 

 

While it is easy to dismiss the German way of doing Workshops as rigid and German Brand Consultancies as being inferior to ours, it did get me thinking about the why and wherefore and what we can do about it, especially if we are working with clients who are from a predominantly German culture. I think it is true to say that Germans are very reliant on structures and definitions and dislike ambiguity. This does not make their way of thinking inferior to ours, only different. After all, they have some pretty strong brands, too! I was reminded of a recent personal battle I have had here with the Finanzamt (or Tax Office) about my status. While I have argued that I am a professional freelancer, they want me registered as a “trade”. While I initially was more concerned about the tax implications, it became a matter of professional pride about what I do. My mistake was to call myself a Werbeberater (Advertising Consultant) instead of an Unternehmungsberater (Management Consultant). Now, these were the only two job descriptions in the Finanzamt’sapproved list (compiled in 1974, I have found out) that came anywhere near to Strategic Planner. Once I tried to argue that I was a Management Consultant with specialization in Brands and Marketing and not someone who advises the local nail studio on how the layout of their flyer should be, the Finanzamt demanded that I produced evidence that I had appropriate qualifications, that is, a Business Studies degree. To cut a long story short, I only achieved my desired status after much argumentation from my husband, who happens to be a German lawyer!

 

This little story sort of illustrates the problem about the fixed circle of ideas: in Germany, you can only set yourself up as a Brand Consultant if you have the relevant qualification. Although I do not have a German degree in Business Studies, I know plenty of people who have and the sort of stuff you learn there is not the stuff of creative innovation. And if you have studied something else, maybe rather more “academic”, there is a sense of “selling out” if you go into commerce. There is a distinct feeling of distaste in mixing the academic and the commercial. If you should go into qualitative research after studying Psychology, for example, you only do this on the grounds that everything is taken very earnestly and seriously. You will stress your qualifications on your business card and website and write lots of learned books about the state of the German psyche: “pop psychology” will have no place in your offer.

 

I think that there are two main points to this Extrawurst: firstly, that there is a real need for good Brand Innovation Consultancies here and secondly, that maybe we should have a good think about how we can really make use of people’s creative and thinking skills in a way that doesn’t alarm them too much when we’re working with predominantly German clients.

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There are a lot more players in the Brand Consultancy market in Germany these days. I guess that, as Account Planning in German ad agencies reached its critical mass a lot later than in the UK, it took a while for the idea and principles of Brand Strategy to take root. I came to Germany in 1996 to develop a fledgling Planning Department at Saatchi & Saatchi. At that time, people looked to marketing people in organisations such as P&G as the brand experts, rather than anyone within an ad agency. 

Many of the agencies I mentioned in 2007, particularly those that were offshoots of a communications agency network have bitten the dust. But most of the “pure” brand consultancies are still going strong. And although these have relished the rise of performance marketing with theit own Customer Journey models and growth flywheels, I’m pleased to see more acceptance of “fluffier” ideas about the nature of brands, too. In other words, that creating and growing brands is as much art as science. 

There’s a lot more choice on the market, from one-(wo)man bands to sizeable agencies, from the academic and learned to the design-thinky and innovative. And it’s good to see plenty of formal and informal networks of brand strategists as well the sharing of useful stuff on LinkedIn and beyond. 

Will the brand consultancies all have been gobbled up by AI by the end of the decade? I’m inclined to think not. In the end, you can have all the synthetic respondents and data you want, thousands of AI-generated concepts, research summaries at the touch of a button - but none of this will replace human insight.

   

Body Parts

 

I’ve spent the last quarter-century blabbing on to whoever will listen about the expression “the consumer” - here, here and here (and there’s plenty more). It’s dehumanising, depersonalising and creates a notion of “other” that we don’t need.

Unfortunately, I have no record of my valiant attempt around the turn of the century to convince P&G otherwise. Although this slide does survive from that Powerpoint of long ago:

I can still feel the disdain in those inverted commas.

It particularly annoys me when pronounced “the consoomer”. But that’s just me being pernickety and a bit of a bore.

This depersonalisation becomes even more yukky when “the poor consoomer” is dissected into various body parts. And pounced upon by over-avaricious marketers:

“Owning more hearts and minds.”

“Increasing our share of stomach.”

And with social media, and the focus on Attention as a metric, there’s a very nasty expression that conjures up even more grisly images:

“Capturing eyeballs.”

I shudder to think what new KPIs marketers for period products, condoms or loo roll have these days.

A couple of years ago, I heard mutterings about “The Ear Economy”, but that seems to have gone rather quiet now. Or I’m going deaf.

Yes, yes, yes. It’s only words and a figure of speech.

Does it really matter?

Probably. If only because each of us is far, far more than the sum of our body parts. 

Penny for your thoughts?

 

I’ve been writing an article for one of my clients about Christmas advertising. Because it’s for an international audience, most of the focus is on ads from the UK and other English-speaking markets. In Germany, Christmas advertising is a thing, but not such a colossal humongous thing (literally, in the case of this year’s John Lewis ad) as it is in the UK. 

You can see what I mean if you scroll down this article about German supermarkets’ Christmassy commercials. Apart from Edeka’s slightly weird meaty mumblings, there’s nothing really unexpected and many of the ads are a little lacklustre and conventional. 

There’s cuteness, kids,  magic and animals with Lidl and REWE. Some “get the tissues” from Co-op. And a bit of fun and nostalgia from Aldi with grown-ups behaving like big kids.

But that’s me with my London ad person hat on (also looking a bit lacklustre these days, to be honest). Time and time again, we hear that the ads that do well at Christmas are those that do all the cuteness, tears, smiles, entertainment and general warm fuzziness. And do it well.

So what the heck were Penny thinking? Over 3 minutes, entitled “The Kids” with the message “It’s our future, please listen to us.” Four youngsters, discontented, sad and angry about the grown-ups in their immediate family, or society in general. A girl forced into ballet when she’d rather dance freestyle. A little chap who can’t bear his mum’s social media obsession. A young lad upset by all the “six-pack” bodies he sees on his phone. A junior environmentalist striding around the house switching lights and appliances off.  

Then a montage of sulky glum faces, school protests, “Fridays for Future”-style activism clichés accompanied by a children’s choir rendition of a song from P!nk (I think).

Maybe it seemed like a good idea when the agency made this back in the Spring or Summer. But at this time of year, and given the news of the last few weeks, it feels completely tone deaf. As I said last year, no-one wants to be reminded of misery, hate and division. Especially not now. 

A long time ago, when I worked on P&G, I’d often have to steer the clients away from anything that felt like finger-pointing. I’d remind them that new mums often felt inadequate and hopeless enough without ads suggesting that if they didn’t use the new-improved super-ultra-Pampers (or whatever), they were a crap mother. Especially if they couldn’t afford better than Aldi.

That attitude from advertisers and their agencies is sneaking back into commercials, and this is a prime example. Finger-pointing, parent-shaming (if you like) manipulative stuff to make people feel lousy about themselves. Backed up by some sort of agency bullshit that they’ve “got out there” (where is “there”, anyway?) and listened to “real” children’s wishes. Well, I have my own experience of that.

I quoted an article from Richard Huntington in my last post and this was one of the stand-out sentences for me:

Everyone is trying in their own way to be a good person living a good life.

In the end, it shouldn’t be more complicated than that.

Reinventing the past

 

My dad used to annoy me something rotten when we were watching something like Colditz or The Great Escape by pointing out inaccuracies in anything from the pilots not wearing masks through to how many stripes a colonel should or shouldn’t have on their uniform.

Now that I’ve reached a certain age, I find myself doing exactly the same when it comes to advertising. When some bright spark starts talking about how such and such a campaign has revolutionalised, disrupted or utterly transformed the category’s communication, it’s usually to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Yes, I know - people want simple stories of from:to, of heroes turning things on their heads, of creatives taking humungous leaps. Short attention span and all that. The vogue for storytelling has a lot to answer for.

Still, it’s sometimes worth putting the record straight.

Recently, in Campaign, I read an article from a chief strategy officer from a major international agency praising Persil’s Dirt is Good campaign. Now, I also admire this campaign, despite its occasional forays into false directions. The campaign has been running for 17 years, which is pretty good going. The chief strategy officer makes plenty of good points about the campaign, yet dismisses all pre-2005 detergent advertising with a sweeping generalisation:

"Historically, the casting and scenarios for washing powder ads were dreadfully homogenous, typically oppressive portrayals of perfect Stepford mums beaming at a neat stack of clean clothing.”

I wonder if he ever saw this Ariel ad from 1997 as a lad? Can you spot any of these:

    - Mum’s perfect kitchen?

    - perfectly folded piles of clothing?

    - oppression?

    - Stepford mums?

No, me neither. All I can see is a brilliant piece of communication, based on a universal human truth: the younger generation think they invented the world.

Sigh.

From one Heile Welt to the next

 

When I first came to Germany and listened to people in group discussions talking about advertising (mostly TV advertising in those days), one phrase I heard again and again was Heile Welt. It’s a phrase that doesn’t translate exactly into English, but the idea is of an undamaged/unhurt/unbroken world. It’s a bit like a Utopia, but presented as if it just could be reality.

Advertising in those days in Germany was more influenced by US-style advertising typified by P&G than the more self-deprecating humour, or surreal flights of fantasy found in UK advertising at the time.

The Heile Welt had some typical tropes - flawless skin, happy nuclear families, white washing and sparkling homes, svelte and beautiful career women tossing manes of glossy hair around, endless summers in a countryside idyll, wise and knowing loving grannies in cosy rustic kitchens, square-jawed men driving impossibly shiny cars up picturesque mountain passes ... R.E.M’s Shiny Happy People wherever you looked.

I think, in those days, most people watching knew the rules of the game. It was only advertising, after all.

In the last few years, there has been a greater call for authenticity in brand communication. More reflection of “real people” (what other kind are there?) and “real life” as well as more representation of today’s diverse society. 

But have we exchanged one Heile Welt for another?

I suspect, looking at this year’s selection of Christmas ads, that we have.

Advertising has moved from material or appearance-related aspiration to what I’d call emotional aspiration. 

People in ads these days - from tiny tots to great-grandparents  - are caring and generous. Inclusive, tolerant and kind. Feisty and resilient. Empathetic and compassionate.

But I can bet you that these models of new EQ standards make some people feel as inadequate as the impossibly slender models of the last century’s beauty standards (by the way, I’ve always wondered if there's some ministry hidden away somewhere busily setting all these standards that the new advertising is so keen to disrupt and smash).

This kind of advertising is no more “authentic” than the stuff from the last Heile Welt. Real homes are messy, and so are real people, emotionally. On a good day, I can be a model of empathy and compassion, but on other days I can be downright spiteful and pig-headed. It’s called being human.

I don’t mind a bit of emotional depth in advertising, but I’d ask agencies to be more honest - or even authentic - about what they’re producing. 

Good story-telling that pulls at the heartstrings is nothing to be ashamed of - but just don’t pretend that it’s real life.   

Macho Metamorphosis

"Grandpop" from "The Al-Eden Emergency"

I'm not going to wade in with my tuppence worth on the Gillette ad, suffice to say a couple of things. It's yet another prime example of this, employing the good old Procter & Gamble problem-solution formula, with a bit of band-wagon-jumping thrown in.

In addition, it's more ammunition for those who consider "Purpose" per se at best a fluffy marketing buzz word. But isn't it time to distinguish between "purpose-driven ad campaigns" (take a popular social issue and churn out a film that will polarise opinion/get lots of YouTube hits) and "purpose-driven brands" (everything the brand does is driven by its unique purpose, which is related to the product/service/experience the brand offers).

I wonder what Unilever make of their arch rival's attempt? I first blogged 3 years ago on the Lynx/Axe turnaround in the direction of Find Your Magic. Here's a Lynx film from a little while ago as part of the brand campaign:



I find the Lynx/Axe approach infinitely better than Gillette creatively,  but to me the strategy still feels awfully generic. It could have been hung on any number of brands targeting a broad audience of men. I fear that "male empowerment" will become as much of a cliche as "female empowerment" has become for brands over the last few years.

I do wonder whether the vogue for this men/women marketing en masse isn't just a little lazy.

Take this man:

He's famous for not holding back the tears.
He's done brilliant things.
He's even done heroic things.
But he's also been accused of sexual assault and racism.
He has (or has had) a number of mental illnesses.
But he has probably done unacceptable things just for the heck of it.

People are complex, and putting all men/women in the same box with a big "toxic" or "victim" label on it doesn't get us anywhere.

I'd like to see brands looking to their product, service, experience and values to find their unique purpose, and using that to drive all they do. And it doesn't have to be about the latest Twitterati issue.

If your brand does have a large proportion of men in its user base, how about looking at some masculine values that may be due for a revival (or maybe they never went away): courage, honour, strength, grit, decency, loyalty, respect.

Or are there no more (brand) heroes any more?

Recycled paradigms

Vancouver is one of my favourite cities, and this week it has been playing host to Sustainable Brands 18 "Redesigning the Good Life", where the good and great in branding and marketing get together to talk about how brands can help make the world a better place. Vancouver seems an apt choice for the host city, as it aims to be the greenest city in the world by 2020.

One of the speakers at the event was Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at P&G. In this interview for Sustainable Brands, he talks about what needs to be changed in the world of branding. No huge surprises, but it's a useful summary of the way that branding has evolved over the last decade or two:

*Lead disruption rather than trying to follow
*Focus on growing the market, not just gaining share
*'Built-in' doing good rather than 'bolted-on'
*Big is beautiful when it's good
*Sustainable is mainstream, not niche

So there we are. It seems that one place to start with being a sustainable brand is to recycle your old marketing paradigms and models - and possibly re-purpose them as frameworks ;)

Elastic Fantastic

One benefit of the wonderful digital age in which we live is that agencies have become so much more generous with their information and knowledge. You may argue that there's no such thing as a free report, or that if it costs nothing, then it has no value, but I beg to disagree.

JWT Intelligence has recently released a report on the women of what they term 'The Elastic Generation'. It's a UK report, based on research amongst women aged 53 - 72. That age group, born from the late 40s to mid-60s, are more commonly known as Baby Boomers, especially in the US. The re-name has been chosen to reflect this generation's inner resilience, energy, strength and potential - as embodied by, for example, Pauline Black of The Selecter , above.

The report, which you can download here, is pretty comprehensive, substantial, and a million miles from the kind of customer-facing horrors that, for example, P&G put out. There are all manner of interesting links and references, including the fascinating Age of no Retirement

So, many thanks to JWT Intelligence, and I'll finish with two remarks:
It may be my age, but I'm afraid I immediately associated 'elastic' with comfy elastic waistbands, much as I get your reasons for the name.
And - the big question - what happens after 72, or do I have to wait to find out?

The Age of Confusion

If I had one wish for Christmas, or even for next year, I'd like to knock all those brands off their faux social mission bandwagons and take an axe to that plinky piano whose music always features behind such creations.

OK, maybe I'm being unseasonably miserable, and maybe the ad for Olay has a fantastic insight that will have women round the world cheering, but I find it patronising. There's the ad itself. Do people really take comments such as 'you're beautiful' and 'you've got a lovely smile' and 'I love your hair' from a random film-maker that they don't know as 'true compliments'? Oh, and incidentally, what if the film-maker had been male? Where would we have been then?

And I have never, ever heard anyone say someone has 'a lovely smile for their age.' Then the rallying call 'It's time we stop defining women by their age.' I wondered who 'we' means in this context. Who is the finger being pointed at? I can only come to the conclusion that it must be Olay pointing the finger at themselves. I wonder if they'll put their words into action?

As (Oil of) Olay, Ulay, Olaz, Ulan and maybe some other permutations and combinations, this brand has invested years in the idea of younger-looking skin.



Today, the product line-up includes products 'For fighting the 7 signs of ageing' while there are anti-wrinkle products classified into age groups 25+, 40+ and 55+. By the way, whether you're 55 or 95, you come into the 'deep wrinkles' category. Sorry.

And of course, the makers of Olay send you a wonderful magazine once you get over the age of 50, together with an incontinence pad sample. You see, they are allowed to segment and judge according to your age, but for the general public, it's a no-no.

I think Olay - or at least the people running the brand - need to work out what they stand for, and what they are offering. At the moment, the messages are mixed and contradictory. It would be a brave move, for example, to accept that many women do want to look younger, even if it's not the most PC, feminist right-on thing to want. (In the same way that many women in the Far East wish for fairer skin.)

And while much of the advertising from the last century is cringeworthy, there's a brilliant ad from the then Oil of Olay which I think captures the spirit of the brand and still works today. Better than 10,000 plinky pianos.

#ISeeWallpaper

Apologies if I start sounding like a broken record (maybe 4 Non-Blondes?) as I've recently blogged about this subject. But with International Women's Day fast approaching (on March 8th), there has been a splurge of yet more brands and companies desperate to show just how determined they are to lead the fight against inequality.

International Women's Day celebrates women's social, economic, cultural and political achievements (although I don't think Marine Le Pen's or Frauke Petry's 'achievements' come high on the list to be celebrated). This is important, as there are many countries in the world where women do not have equal opportunities and it's vital to raise awareness and prompt action to change.

But I can't help thinking that when brands and companies start leaping on this rather over-loaded band waggon, that the people involved in creating the communications are either naive or cynical.

Take P&G's new commercial #WeSeeEqual. This 'shows men, women, boys and girls defying gender stereotypes.'

OK. I looked carefully, and unless the baby is a boy, there are no boys to be seen. Could this be because P&G don't make any products specifically for boys? Or am I being cynical now? And are these people really defying gender stereotypes? What century are we in? I'm afraid the only stereotypes I can see are a load of advertising cliches: the tattooed beefy dad changing a nappy (not very competently), the bungee-jumping granny, the brainy women in glasses. All accompanied by the rather tired 'What's Up' soundtrack.

I appreciate that P&G have made some positive steps forward in terms of women in their senior management, which is good to see. But I have a feeling that this film falls into the category of protesting too much. Maybe decades of advertising featuring housewives obsessing about stains and smells leaves a guilty corporate conscience.

And it's only a few years ago that the same company were busy 'thanking moms' in their communication.

I'd love to see a company the size of P&G really use their clout to change something in the world, instead of producing wallpaper.

Stop talking about it?

The actor Morgan Freeman, when asked once about Black History Month, said that it was 'ridiculous', and maintained the way to get rid of racism is to 'stop talking about it.'

I'm getting a bit like that about sexism - at least as far as Western markets go. I don't deny that there is serious work to be done (and probably not by brands) to achieve gender equality in some parts of the world. But I wonder whether some of the recent (Dove/Always- esque) campaigns on this theme that I've seen create problems where maybe there aren't any.

Practically every female-orientated product that I buy these days seems to be promising to empower me in some way or another, whether I like it or not. And these are inevitably accompanied by campaigns of the sort above. Cue that melancholic keyboard, cue the cute little girls.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's a US issue. Somehow, growing up in the UK, where our best kings were queens, and living in Europe where female leaders are everyday, it just doesn't seem to be an acute problem. The campaign above, from BBDO and called Put Her on the Map is a public service campaign to get more US city streets and public landmarks named after women. The idea is: Let's inspire girls by celebrating inspiring women.'

Can't girls just get inspired by inspiring people? I know I was.

Maybe I am cynical, but I wonder if all this 'female empowerment' marketing is simply lazy. And, more worrying, whether it's the same old marketing trick: creating needs and problems in people's minds (in this case young girls') that aren't really there.

Yesterday it was stubborn stains, today it's gender equality.

(Written from Käthe-Kollwitz-Ring)

Plastic Fantastic

As a manufacturer or retailer intent on doing Good as well as making a profit, you could do worse than using the UN's 17 sustainable development goals (aka 'Goals to transform our world') as a framework for action.

Announced recently at the World Economic Forum at Davos is an initiative from P&G that hopefully will have some impact on goals:

3. Good health and well-being
12. Responsible consumption and production
14. Life below water

... and maybe a few more besides.

Head & Shoulders in the '1st recyclable shampoo bottle made with beach plastic' will be available at Carrefour in France this summer. The bottle is made with up to 25% recycled beach plastic, (PCR = post-consumer recycled ) and P&G have developed this with recycling experts TerraCycle and SUEZ.  Numerous technical problems had to be overcome such as UV exposure and degrading of plastic.

Now, yes, it's 'up to 25%' and, yes, it's only going to be available in a limited run in France, and, yes, P&G haven't got the cleanest slate in other areas of responsible production (record on animal testing),  but I do think this is a great step in the direction 'part of the solution instead of part of the problem.' Hats off to P&G (which I can happily do if I use Head & Shoulders.)

Using beach plastic has also inspired adidas, who are co-operating with the organisation Parley for the Oceans to produce trainers using the recycled waste from the seas and beaches.

And, while P&G are claiming their 'first', there's a small but great brand who have been doing this for a while - Method.

If I was working at Method, I'd have a slight sly smile on my face about all P&G's ta-raaing about their Head & Shoulders bottle. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

New Improved iPhone!!!

I've been wondering for the last year or so whether I should upgrade my iPhone. I have a tendency to hang onto mobile phones so long that they end up being retro. My iPhone 3G has a poor excuse for a camera, and most apps only half work, but, I don't know, I'm kind of attached to it. When I first got it I felt terribly leading edge and I take a strange satisfaction in showing that off in a subtle way.

Apple have recently launched the iPhone 7, so I thought I'd have a quick reccy as to what's on offer. Here's an introductory film, voiced-over by Greg Joswick, VP Worldwide Product Marketing:



What do we have here:

Better, faster, more powerful, even better, larger, brighter, better, longer, more detailed, even better ...

A load of adjectives in the comparative form, culminating in 'the best iPhone ever.' So the comparison is with previous iPhones, not with the competition that's snapping at their heels. 'Best iPhone Ever' is supported by a catalogue of technical product details. Apple have gone all Procter & Gamble, old style, with a claim, a demo and a load of 'reasons to believe.'

Where's the magic? Where's the wow? The only genuine new points seem to be that the iPhone 7 is water resistant (big deal) and there's no little hole to stick your headphones in (so you either have to get an adaptor, or buy the super new AirPods at huge expense.)

Apple have been having some rough times recently. Revenues are down, and the company has been ordered to pay a large tax bill in Ireland which hasn't done wonders for the corporate image.

I'm not sure that going back to 1970s-style detergent marketing is the right way to go.

I think my trusty iPhone 3G will stay with me for a bit longer.

The story of the emperor's new clothes

The expression 'story-telling' is one that has crept into branding and business over the last few years (usually referred to as 'Story' in the singular with a BIG Capital Letter by those who think they are in the know). I've nothing against it - I have been known to tell a story or two myself. I think it's a lot to do with the massive change in the way people use media, and the vast choice of media available.

Brand communication has moved from (more of) a message/receiver model - although tell me people never used to discuss ads in the pub - to something more akin to a multi-media network. This was all brilliantly illustrated by The Guardian a few years back.

I say 'more of', because I think story-telling has always been an element of brand communication. Creative people in agencies have an instinct for story-telling: look how many of them become novelists and film directors. Back when I started in advertising, long-copy ads were still in vogue. I was involved in the development of some super ads for The London Philharmonic - the kind of posters that would fill up a dull minute or two waiting for a train. They were about the lengths the musicians went to to perfect their art - for example, the trombonist refraining from kissing his wife a few days before a performance in case of damage to the embouchure.

Stories are fine. Where I do object, however, is how some practitioners create their own (trademarked) tools and models, and sell these to the unsuspecting marketing community, like a dodgy lamp in the bazaar. These tools and models are invariably backed up with a reference to an academic, in all likelihood Joseph Campbell, along with numerous examples from the world of Disney, fantasy and Sci-Fi (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter being particular favourites). Suddenly 'Story' becomes a problem-solving tool for business.

I'd love to know how many of these tool-and-model-touters, the people who go on their seminars and the Corporate Storytellers (yes, really - Procter & Gamble have one) have actually read Joseph Campbell.

I've read The Hero with a Thousand Faces and found it fascinating. But it's certainly not a quick skim-through, at around 400 pages. I have studied psychology and read a lot of Jung, and I did not find Campbell's book an easy read. But it contains many, many beautifully-written and thought-provoking passages. Like this:

The unconscious sends all sorts of vapors, odd beings, terrors and deluding images up into the mind – whether in dream, broad daylight, or insanity; for the human kingdom, beneath the floor of the comparatively neat little dwelling that we call our consciousness, goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves. There not only jewels but also dangerous jinn abide: the inconvenient or resisted psychological powers that we have not thought or dared to integrate into our lives. And they may remain unsuspected or, on the other hand, some chance word, the smell of a landscape, the taste of a cup of tea, or the glance of an eye may touch a magic spring, and then dangerous messengers begin to appear in the brain. They are dangerous because they threaten the fabric of the security into which we have built ourselves and our family. But they are fiendishly fascinating too, for they carry keys that open the whole realm of the desired and feared adventure of the discovery of the self. Destruction of the world that we have built and in which we live, and of ourselves within it; but then a wonderful reconstruction, of the bolder, cleaner, more spacious, and fully human life – that is the lure, the promise and terror, of these disturbing night visitants from the mythological realm that we carry within.

Now, compare that description of the unconscious with a 'framework' that I have seen presented on the internet as a simplification of Campbell. This 'storytelling framework' will (purportedly) help you to develop advertising:

A hero overcomes an obstacle in pursuit of a treasure, aided by a mentor.

Now then, just substitute the following words and phrases in the sentence above:

'Consumer' for 'hero'

'Problem' for 'obstacle'

'Benefit' for 'treasure'

'Brand - probably from Procter & Gamble' for 'mentor'

Sound familiar?

50 is the new ...no.

When my son was born, nearly 16 years ago, I signed up for freebies and tips from as many baby product brands as I could. I was entering a phase of the great unknown, and appreciated a few experts (even if they were connected to brands) giving me advice.

Procter & Gamble, who make Pampers, have hung onto my data with the tenacity of a terrier, and I was the recipient of their new magazine for 'Women around 50', Victoria, subtitled Lebenslust ist Zeitlos (Joy of Life is Timeless). My first thought was - if Joy of Life is Timeless, why mention 50? My second thought was - uh-oh, there's something squidgy in here that feels suspiciously like an incontinence pad. It nearly went in the bin. The whole magazine, that is, not just the free sample.

However, the sensible marketing part of me told the customer part of me to grit her teeth and have a look. How does one of the world's biggest companies go about marketing to such an important target group, in terms of numbers and spending power?

I'm afraid the answer, as far as I'm concerned, is not very well. I also looked at the UK site, and it's not any better. The first two comments on the site were negative, one woman saying she found the newsletters offensive and the second criticising Procter and Gamble for reinforcing stereotypes rather than challenging them.

P&G, of course, shout loud and long about how 9 out of 10 women enjoyed the first issue of Victoria. Well, these appear to be women who had already (for whatever reason) visited the website and chosen to take part in the survey, not those who had the magazine, complete with incontinence pad (sorry, Always Discreet) shoved through their letterbox.

The content of the magazine and website is as cliche-ridden as it comes. How to get through the menopause with herbs. SMS or WhatsApp? A little guide for beginners. Fashion tips to help us (sic) look younger. What's making you look older than you are? 50+ blogger and Life-Coach. A recipe (or is it a tip?) for 'Water with Cucumber and Radish.' Detox for your bathroom cupboard (Yeah, great idea - chuck out all those useless Procter and Gamble products). All accompanied by stock shots (like the one above) of models doing something no sane person would dream of doing unless they'd taken a few drugs.

There's a film of grinning women in clothes that don't suit them (probably chosen by the 50+ stylist) to one of those Coldplay soundalike tracks going on about 'my best time' and 'I feel super' and '50 is young' and '50 is just a number.'

And then there are the crap products. Teeth whiteners for those who still have their teeth and denture creams for those who haven't. The Always Discreet (according to a French study, one in three women in Germany has need of these). And then the thing that really got me - something called Lenor Unstoppables - presumably some cocktail of chemicals to make your laundry smell like a Proctor and Gamble factory. It's difficult to tell exactly what to do with it as the writing on the back of the sample is illegible to anyone over about 15, let alone 50.

And this is the point. Instead of going down some high and mighty 'empowering women 50+' route (have you ever thought, Procter and Gamble, that 50+ contains three very different generations?), why not do something practical? Packets that people can read? This is worth so much more than all that patronising 'best age' drivel.

And, if you must attempt that 'inspiring women' thing, take a leaf out of Boots No.7's book. I'm not into ballet at all, and I'd never heard of Alessandra Ferri, but this is a great piece of advertising.

Halfway to the future

I love looking at my collection of business books from yesteryear, especially those that have the word 'future' in the title. One such is The Future of Brands, edited by Rita Clifton and Esther Maughan, which was published in 2000 to celebrate Interbrand's 25th anniversary. It's a book that was maybe ahead of its time, as it was a collaborative, co-operative effort. Rather than the Interbrand staff pontificating about their view, the editors questioned 25 different people on their 'vision of brands in 25 years' time.'

The 25 people represented some major brands of the time, including Starbucks, BMW, P&G, Samsung, The Body Shop and Reebok. In addition, other personalities a little further away from marketing and branding were included, such as Spike Lee, Paul Smith and one Sepp Blatter.

How well has it held up? This book was conceived and written in the last century, pre 9-11, pre Web 2.0 and in the days when the Interbrand Brand Value Table was topped by Coca Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE and Ford. Google and amazon were nowhere to be seen and Facebook hadn't been invented.

The answer is, unsurprisingly well. The brands people felt would remain classics and be successful in the future - meaning in 2025 - included Coca Cola, Disney, Ben & Jerry's, BMW, CNN and Adidas. OK, there was rather a lot of mention of Gillette, Yahoo! and Kodak, too - with maybe the strangest anomaly for a 21st century reader being the 15-year-old surfer raving about the brand Kodak - but by and large, over halfway to the future, those predictions are holding up.

What was maybe more difficult was to predict which successful brands of the late 20th century would not fare so well. The obvious answer of Marlboro has been proved right, but it was interesting to see several commentators wondering how McDonalds, Microsoft or Aldi/Lidl might fare. Looking at McDonalds' latest business results, it looks as if they certainly aren't going to go out without a fight. And those German discounters are definitely going from strength to strength.

Ten observations on Brand Futures are listed at the end of the book:

A brand with no clear vision has no clear future
Values-led marketing will create stronger brand relationships
Brand relationships are created for people, by people
The next journey for many companies is inside
It will be increasingly important to understand what makes a brand valuable
Stakeholder brands for a stakeholder society
Individual brands for an individual society 
Simplicity, simplicity
If you don't plan the future you want, you get the one that shows up
Brands have the power to change people's lives - and to change the world

Have these passed the test of time?

10/10.

Marketing with mother

I have written from time to time here about the futility of "marketing to the over 50s". A similarly futile exercise, as I see it, is "marketing to mums." I don't know if anyone else felt vaguely uneasy about the much feted P&G campaign a few years back, around the time of the Olympics: Proud Sponsor of Mums. My uneasiness came from a number of angles - first, the obvious, what about Dads? There was also the manipulative, cheesy tonality of the films. But the uneasiness also came from knowing the agenda at P&G, a company whose main brands are household and baby care products. I even worked on Pampers for a few years and I hate to say this, but there were precious few mums around, on either the client or the agency side. More of that later.

There's a article entitled Marketing to mums is broken in Marketing magazine which touches on this issue. It's written by a woman, who is a mother herself, Nicola Kemp. But, curiously, even in this article, three of the six people who are quoted are men, and it's not clear how many of the women are mothers. Now, I know you don't have to belong to a target group in order to market to that group, but the bias in advertising agencies against mothers still seems to be extreme. Of the three women quoted, one of them said this: There aren't enough female creatives and there aren't enough creatives that are mums. If we changed this, we would do a better job.

The woman who said this is Roisin Donnelly, of P&G. So that, at least, gives me hope.

Makes even the dullest brands sparkle!

It's sometimes said that advertising agencies are catastrophic when it comes to promoting themselves. That certainly has a ring of truth about it when you look through some of the agency websites, which can start to appear terribly samey in feel, language and content. And so dreadfully serious!

Ex-Saatchi man Graham Thomas recently posted this gem on YouTube and Facebook. I remember this well from my early days at Saatchi in the late 1980s. It's a delightful pee-pee-take of Ariel and the clever use of the retro look means that it hasn't dated, 25 years later. It was created by Cliff Francis.

Well, I'm off for an Easter Babycham with Barbara and Marjorie, so see you after the break, chaps.

That's the rub?

It's testament to my rude good health that I rarely run out of household medicines. I have, however, been struck down recently with a particularly pesky cold that had me reaching for my personal snake oil, Vick's VapoRub. Now, those of you who are English speakers but have a passing acquaintance with German pronunciation and German swearwords will realise immediately why this brand is known in Germany as Wick. The others will have to put two and two together. Or ask.

I estimate that I bought the pack on the left in the early years of this century, when my son was young and prone to winter snuffles. The expiry date is July 2006 but I refuse to believe this stuff can go off. I ventured into the Apotheke and picked up the pack on the right, slightly bemused, and even more so when the lady on the counter warned me that it shouldn't be used for children. That was news to me.

I guess I was bemused as Vick's VapoRub in its former packaging has such strong associations for me with the minor coughs and snuffles of childhood. Along with Lucozade (complete with transparent orange wrapping) and Veno's and Savlon, it conjures up the comforting feeling of being looked after by a greater power, that everything would be all right. I'm sure a lot of this comes through the packaging as much as the strong sensory cues of the product itself - that combination of green, blue and red suggests light in the temporary darkness of the winter sickroom.

The "new" packaging, which I am sure has been around for a few years, is something else. It looks like something to put on the garden, to make your grass grow. Those bullet points in the green box look like something that's escaped from a Powerpoint presentation. The pack has lost its mystery, its charm, its power.

Of course brands should keep up to date in their packaging. But there is surely a way of doing this - look at Marmite or Kellogg's Cornflakes - without losing the essence of what makes the brand special.

Leveraging our alignment

The first time I heard the noun "alignment" in a business meeting, I was puzzled. It was twenty years ago and I'd just started working on P&G brands across Europe. I knew the verb "to align", of course, in relation to text on a page, and the noun "alignment" in reference to planets from the horoscopes. But the question was: "are we in alignment?" It was rather as if the questioner had asked "are we in outer space?" Where was "alignment?"

Eventually, the penny dropped and I blurted out, "oh, you mean do we have our ducks in a row?" Of course, I had replaced a (to me) unusual figurative use of a word with a (to some) strange English idiom, and I'm not sure that got us any further.

Since then, of course, as more and more brands go global, the word "alignment" has become a regular part of the business vocabulary. But the problem remains that, however often we use it, it's a word that is being used figuratively and is, as such, open to interpretation. It's very easy to say, but not so easy to put into practice.

The next time you use the word "alignment", or write it down in a proposal, maybe as an objective, have a think about what you mean. Are you using it as a covert simile for "agreement"? Are you really saying - do as I say?

My aversion to the word when used in a business context is this. Normally, the word is applied to inanimate objects that need to be lined up in order to function - parts of a machine, words on a page and so on. And maybe, you could argue, that you are talking about parts of a process or organisation, so it's fair enough.

But is it? Those "parts" are inevitably made up of people, who have opinions, views, thoughts, ways of working. People are complex, as are the networks that they form. Rather than alignment, shouldn't we be thinking of leading networks of human beings to work together towards a common goal or vision that everyone agrees on?