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.

Let the force be with you

 

Every couple of months, it seems, a must-read book about business as a force for good is launched. Although we’d discussed topics such as sustainability in relation to our clients’ business back in the 1990s at Saatchis, the real eye-opener for me came in the form of a book called, simply Good Business, which came out in May 2002. Maybe I paid attention to this one as I knew the authors. Or because I had a toddler at the time, and was thinking a little more deeply about what makes the world go round and, indeed, what kind of world he’d inherit. Or possibly because, post-9/11, my own career was in danger of toppling into the abyss.

That’s all history now, and one of the book’s authors now runs a remarkably successful and Good Business, under that very name. I looked back at the book’s write-up on amazon, and found this: In this radical manifesto for capitalism, the authors argue that it’s time for companies to start becoming the solution to the world’s problems and stop being seen as the cause ...

Fast-forward through 2013 and Who Cares Wins by David Jones, meaningful brands, responsible capitalism, doing well AND doing good. And on to the Brand Purpose era, led by Good is the New Cool: Market Like You Give a Damn by Afdhel Aziz and Bobby Jones (I have always wondered about the “Like” in that title).

And this week, a new book (or maybe not just a book, but a movement) has launched: netpositive by Paul Polman and Andrew Winston, with the subtitle how courageous companies thrive by giving more than they take. The website and publicity for the book, sorry, movement, talk about the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the urgency for businesses to step up and work with governments and NGOs to tackle worldwide problems. There’s a net positive readiness test (I particularly like the thorny issue/elephant in the room which asks: Do you seek to pay a fair share of taxes that contribute to collective prosperity in the communities you operate in?)

I will read the book, which I hope goes into a bit more depth than the publicity material, which focuses rather on “runaway climate change and rampant inequality ravaging the world” when actually capitalism has made a huge contribution to the UN’s No. 1 goal “No Poverty” over the years. I am hoping for a reasoned argument of shareholder AND stakeholder responsibility. And why some of the tech companies who are hailed as shining examples still insist on building obsolesence into their products.

Hopefully, if we are talking about the world, the book will be translated into, for example, the Chinese languages and Russian, too.

I often wonder why, if we’ve been talking about reponsible capitalism for years, the same arguments are used by successive authors. Perhaps the clue is in the subtitle, and it’s about responsibility.

Companies aren’t courageous. People are. 

The freedom of lancing

 

LinkedIn started up at almost exactly the time I started freelancing - founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003. So maybe it’s no surprise that my experiences, highs, lows and progress in my occupation have been closely linked to the way that work-related networking has changed over the years.

When I started up (and at the time I had no idea of whether I’d brave the slings and arrows, or retreat back into classic employment) it was a time pre-social media. I had no office, and was working from an Aldi computer my husband had bought in the previously century. I had a toddler and a freenet email address. I’d written a business plan for the Arbeitsamt but knew that it was as much a fiction as the retro-style adventures I was to write. An exercise in box-ticking only (more of that later).

I knew intuitively that I was likely to get business from people who already knew me and what I was capable of, and their contacts. My working title was “Ideas for Sale” before I hit on Secret Agency. I still love the irony inherent in this name - I’d be a plug-in-and-plan type of freelancer, flexible and happy to fit in to clients’ ways of working, systems and culture. I’d have ideas and experience of methods and tools, but wouldn’t force any propriety straightjackets on anyone. I’d be content working in the background, but would make no secret of who I was or where I came from. I wouldn’t hide behind some corporate-style website using the Royal We, implying I had unlimited resources at my disposal.

By and large, I’ve been happy about how this has turned out. The upside is that being low profile allows me to pursue other interests - writing those books, for example.

But the downside is that there is no safety net when you operate under the radar (I know, a particularly clumsy mixed metaphor).

Over the time I’ve been doing my freelancing, there have been vast changes in the way the freelance world works. Most of these, on the surface at least, have not really improved my lot.

First of all, there has been a huge increase in compliance-type stuff from clients of all sorts - hoops to jump through that are time-wasting and irritating for a one-woman band. Box-ticking, forms to be filled in and signed, purchasing departments’ rules and regulations, certifications here there and everywhere. In summary, a lot of things not being taken on trust, as they were in the past. I understand, to some extent. But it is wearisome.

Then there’s the growth of what used to be called the gig economy. This stretches from the democratic/exploitative (depending on your viewpoint) crowd-sourcing such as Fiverr through to what is referred to as Open Talent. This is the elite end: curated networks of specialists and experts. I’m not sure about Open Talent yet. I have joined a couple of these, and was turned down by one - I suspect due to insufficient attention to Buzzword Bingo. My main concern is that they don’t know me and what I can do, and I’m damned if I’m going to start trying to explain it all.

And the latest development is a Covid-related one as companies re-examine ways of working post-pandemic. A new employment model from Unilever is U-Work, the idea being to have a pool of staff assigned to different roles on a project-by-project basis. This gives the staff in question the benefits of freelance/contract work plus the security of fixed employment as they are paid a monthly retainer. I note the benefit to the company is that this model “avoids the costs of finding freelance workers and getting them up to speed.” I expect a lot of other companies will follow suit.

If I was starting up now, I would do things differently. I’d be all over LinkedIn using the right buzzwords and hashtags, collecting certificates, making connections, speaking the Key Word, algorithm-friendly language about great leaders, amazingly empowering inspiring blah and following the advice about asking questions and writing engaging posts. 

Or would I?

A subversive part of me shudders when LinkedIn suggests phrases I might like to use. I read somewhere, in a discussion amongst creatives about today’s award-winning ads that someone said “I don’t want to be good at doing that kind of advertising.” In the same way, I’m not sure I want to be good at raising my profile.

I still get asked through my various acquaintances in the business - could you, or do you know someone who could ...? And I still believe that companies look for an outside view on strategy - a view from someone independent, free of company culture, processes, philosophies, who is nevertheless prepared to listen and understand, and work out something tailor-made that fits and works.

LinkedIn can become ChainedUp only too easily.

  

Give them all a rest

From the days of the much-maligned Brand Onion (which occasionally shape-shifted into a pyramid, or a key, if you were at Unilever), I remember very few specific good examples.

But I can remember the endless debates:

Is X a functional benefit or an emotional benefit?

Does this go in Personality or Values?

What's the difference between an attribute and a benefit?

Is this meant to be how we're seen now, or where we want to be?

Fast forward a decade or two, and enter Kipling's "honest serving men" - or some of them - in a glorious glowing Golden Circle. It was all going to be simple - chuck out those endless debates and start with Why?

I've noticed in the last few years that those "honest serving men" are getting about a bit. Almost every presentation on a process or strategy is peppered with Hows and Whos and Whats.

However, the debates remain:

Do we mean Who or To Whom? (The grammar fanatics love this one!)

Is that the How or the What?

Is When important?

And in this article by Thomas Kolster the author (previously a proponent of Pupose and Why?) suggests that it's now all about the Who a brand can help people to become (so a kind of Who in the future). A brand is a coach, helping people "be more, do more, see more, experience more!". This Who "focuses on the role you can play enabling their beliefs and dreams, whereas Why focuses on your organisation's beliefs and dreams."

The "honest serving men" have done a sneaky pivot from a circle to an arrow (perhaps still golden?). Why has disappeared and taken Where with him:

This all feels suspiciously like a return to "what's in it for me" - or a simple statement of what your brand does for people - benefit, if you like.

Kipling's poem continues - and this is not often quoted -

But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine to five,
For I am busy then ...

I think he had a point, and don't intend to discuss the Whys and Wherefores ;)

Home Comforts

Looking back over the last six or seven weeks, the main thing that's struck me is the rediscovery of  the comforts of your own home. I'm talking about a particular group of people here, who may well have pooh-poohed their home in healthier days, or even denied that their home consisted of something as solid as four walls. The younger amongst this group like to think of themselves as Global Nomads, the older as International Business People or Liberal Elite Citizens of the World. Many of the Marketing and Advertising community belong (although belonging isn't really their thing) to this group of "Anywheres". It's a group who can, on occasion, have a slightly sneery and condescending view of those who are - let's say - more rooted.

A fascinating report came out last week from discover.ai, who have been chronicling the passage of lockdown and beyond more-or-less in real time. Last week's issue looked at enjoyment - how people are talking about pleasure, treats, joy and fun. And so much of what they found related back to home comforts, from TV binges to Burgeoning Booziness.

What discover.ai have termed Age of Nostalgia is only too apparent in a Facebook news stream cluttered with photos of dog-eared albums as yet another friend takes up the challenge (I would personally find running up Ben Nevis a challenge, or jumping into the North Sea on New Years Day, but there you go).

I listened to a webinar where Steve Challouma, the General Manager of Birds Eye talked about growth of 60% for Fish Fingers, and 120% for Chicken Nuggets - comfort food has leapt out from under the duvet to reclaim its place in our stomachs, and therefore hearts.

The booze story with all those Quadrantinis and Furlough Merlots is well-documented.

And, in a Society of Authors (virtual) Tea With ... event, author Joanne Harris admitted to reading Georgette Heyer in the bath.

In the UK at least, all of this cosy, nostalgic, naughty-but-nice, keep the home fires burning stuff will cumulate tomorrow in an outbreak of Stay at Home VE Day Street Parties.

And there will be no excuse from the (former) Global Nomads and Elite World Citizens not to join in with the jollity.

Because now we're all grounded.

Old dogs and new tricks

Perhaps it was ever thus, but I've noticed a distinct divide developing in the world of brands, certainly as reported by the marketing press.

There are the legacy brands, the old school. At best traditional and comfortable, with a certain staying power, solid and dependable. At worst, introspective and out-of-touch, hopelessly irrelevant, weighed down by their analogue past.

Then there are the disruptors, the start-ups and upstarts. They're busting norms, moulds, conventions and the old order. Possessed by more superpowers than the Marvel universe, they're shaking up spaces and zapping categories into oblivion.

And, increasingly, there are agencies springing up to service (sorry, co-create with) these trailblazers - agencies who talk their language and are disruptors in their own game. There's TwentyFirstCenturyBrand , staffed by data-geeks and storytellers (amongst others), or Nimbly, an "agile, daring, bold" insight agency.

What's a brand of a certain age to do? You can't teach an old dog new tricks - or can you? In the same way that designers introduced diffusion lines in the 1990s, established brands are introducing offshoots where they can collaborate, innovate and generally play the start-up game unrestricted by the usual processes and structures. There's a post about Unilever's Foundry here, and other examples include Henkel X and Oetker Digital

Beiersdorf are also in on the act, with Oscar&Paul - Corporate Indie Brands and the relaunch of the deodorant 8x4, originally introduced in 1951.

The question is maybe not whether an old dog can learn new tricks in theory, but whether he's genuinely agile enough to show them off in practice, without doing himself a nasty injury.

Overabundance and overindulgence

I've remarked before on how, over the last 20 years, the internet has become more and more of a passive medium. More like the 'couch potato' picture of TV, in fact. Twenty years ago, we were surfers, springing from crest to crest in an invigorating new world, with just a few other cool young dudes for company. Fifteen years ago, the pace had slowed and we were stumbling over this or that in a mild-mannered absent-minded professor sort of way. And now, most of the world's population are online and content, in many cases, with being fed non-stop with digital drivel by Nanny algorithm, in the guise of a personal curator.

Another parallel is that of nourishment. In the early days, information was relatively scarce, and you had to forage for it. We then moved into what seemed like a golden agricultural age - everyone could grow and create their own stuff, and pass it around for the greater good. But somehow, that dream descended into a passive force-feeding in an age of overabundance.

Well, over-indulgence isn't good for anyone, and the signs are there that the digital honeymoon is over, that paradise is lost for more and more people.

Exhibit One: The Edelman Trust Barometer  this year shows that people trust platforms less than ever before, seeing Facebook and Co. as harbouring bullies and trolls, spreading extremist content and fake news, and not taking any responsibility for it. 'Woah! Hang on, we're just the platform' in a sort of 'don't shoot the messenger' sort of way.

Exhibit Two: Keith Weed, the CMO of Unilever, threatens to pull investment from online platforms that 'create divisions in society'. There's talk of 2018 being the year of the 'techlash' and that 'social media should build social responsibility.'

Exhibit Three: Belinda Parmar aka 'Lady Geek' in today's Guardian gets tough on the tech companies that launched her career, on a personal (locking away the family's devices) and collective level, calling out those who profit from our 'over-engagement' (now, there's an interesting euphemism!). For example, Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, who said that the company's main competitor wasn't Amazon Video or YouTube, but sleep. Ouch.

This article is a cautionary tale for all parents. Children imitate their parents' behaviour. If you want your child to grow up a bookworm, he or she has to see you reading. Often. If all they see is their parent glued to Twitter in the bathroom, bedroom, while driving, well ...

Exhibit Four: Sludge - the new word for inserting a pesky seam into all that seamless stuff, making it more difficult to 'over-engage'. Breaking the passivity and forcing action.

So there we have it. Will 2018 be the year our beautiful digital paradise will be regained? And what will it look like with the benefit of experience?

The hating gene

A bit of a mini-trend that's been going on for a year or two is the idea of getting your DNA analysed. This plays into human narcissism, of course - certainly a step better than all those personality tests or getting your colours done or blood group analysis. And it's been used creatively, usually in the form of those 'social experiments' where a tough, shaven-headed and tattooed bloke with nationalist leanings is horrified to find some of his ancestors coming from the Indian sub-continent (for example.)

But now this trend has been used in what may be one of my favourite TV spots of the year so far, for one of my favourite brands - Marmite. In a wonderful piece of not-quite-science, The Marmite Gene Project has taken cheek swabs from over 250 individuals to try and find if there are genetic markers for loving or hating the gunky savoury stuff.

To the sounds of Elgar's Nimrod, we have a collection of characters -  the expectant new parents, the stroppy teenager, the nervous young man, the affronted wife and many more - reacting to the results and those of their nearest and dearest. Beautifully acted, some lovely observation and a bit of a mickey-take of all those po-faced 'social experiment' ads.

It makes me proud to be British. Thank you, Marmite and Adam & Eve/DDB.

Now, the clever trick here is this: the agency didn't latch onto a random piece of pop culture and force-fit it into the brand, or try and 'claim it.'

What they have done is to start with the brand truth and show and tell this in a fresh new way using current pop culture.

I love it!

The brand who saved the world?

Funny how fashions in marketing often go full circle.

Take 'Purpose'. For most of this decade so far, Purpose has been the marketing buzzword. I think a lot of it started with the popularity of Simon Sinek's 2009 book and talks - Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to take Action. Purpose has even found its way to be included as the 5th, or 6th, or 101st 'P' of marketing.

And just last week, I received a trend report from Trendwatching, entitled 'Big Brand Redemption', all about how Big Brands can be the solution (not the problem) when it comes to a sustainable, ethical, brighter future for us all, citing examples such as Unilever's Lifebuoy.

But, but, but. To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, or whatever. For every brand with high falutin' ideas about saving the world, there's another who wants to come down to earth. One of the biggest brand repositioning stories in the last year is from Coke with the move from 'Open Happiness' to the more functional 'Taste the Feeling'. To quote Marco de Quinto, the Coke CMO: We are a simple pleasure, a product that refreshes. Not one that's going to save the world. If by refreshing, you save the world, fine. We are going back to this truth.

And then, in Millward Brown's BrandZ: Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, this view is reflected:

pg 27: Brands may not need a purpose as high as saving humanity

Intro pg 5: Brands seem to be shifting from higher purpose (making the world better) to narrower purpose (making the customer's life better)

and

Brands do not need a higher purpose ... they need to be seen as improving the life of the consumer in some way

Hang on - isn't that what we used to call a benefit?

Partners in Crime

Two ads have come to my attention this week that use criminals/offenders/call them what you will to draw attention to and sell products. And while one of these certainly stole my attention, the other is a crime against advertising, as far as I'm concerned.

I'll start with the ad above - Free the Kids: Dirt is Good  from Persil. This film on an epic scale has been dreamed up by Unilever in conjunction with education advocate Sir Ken Robinson. No expense was spared in getting a top notch director and filming in Wabash Maximum Security Prison, Indiana. The idea, or insight, is that even these top security prisoners get more time outside than 'our' children - two hours instead of one.

I really don't like this ad at all. And not because it's controversial, or edgy, or anything like that. It's not. The faux documentary style is becoming a yawn these days, with all that slow motion, depressing music and that awful worthy and sanctimonious tonality.

Then there's the contrived link to Persil and 'dirt is good'. What on earth are they trying to do here? Finger-point at mums, saying 'you are treating your children worse than high security prisoners just because you don't want their clothes to get muddy, you selfish cow?'

And finally, this may make me unpopular but I really don't like the link between high security prisoners and children. These guys are not inside for stealing a packet of bubblegum or forgetting to pay a parking fine. I wonder how their victims feel about them being glamorised in a glossy ad campaign? And as for 'I'd love to take my kid to the park', my heart bleeds for him. Should have thought about that before committing whatever serious crime he did.

And now for the second ad - Shoplifters from Harvey Nichols. This is from adam&eveDDB and uses real security camera footage to promote the store's Loyalty Reward App.



This one has just won the Film Grand Prix at Cannes and, OK, it's directed at a completely different audience to the Persil ad but I think it's a great piece of film.

It's the opposite of yawn. I've never seen or heard anything quite like it before - it's quirky, funny, entertaining, clever. No big names, no heavy moralising, just a simple message about 'legal shopping highs.'

In this case, maybe crime does pay when it comes to advertising.

Axe your magic?

After 20 years of a positioning that could be summarised as 'Get sprayed, get laid', Unilever's male grooming brand Axe/Lynx has been repositioned. A new commercial from 72andsunny, Amsterdam features a guy with a prominent nose, a hipster with kittens (of the fluffy rather than the sex- variety), a guy wheelchair-dancing and a catwalk model (male) sporting killer heels. There isn't a bikini-clad babe in sight.

It's a nice-looking ad, and ticks all the 'inclusivity' boxes - except the lack of subtitles for hard-of-hearing, as one YouTube wag pointed out - and the message is less about getting the girl and more about 'finding your magic.' 'Find your thing - now work on it!'

Unilever and their agency say it's all about 'inspiring and supporting' young men, and the 'e' word that we know and love from Dove has already been used. Only 5% of men in the UK, according to Unilever's research, agree that they 'feel like an attractive man.' Well, that could have been something to do with the way the question was phrased, but there we go. Unilever say: 'The pressure to conform has gone up. Guys have lost their confidence to express themselves. The moment you show individuality then people get bullied, and this is the big issue.'

Hmm.

Maybe that could be re-phrased as 'the moment you show something that could be construed as sexist, then you get bullied.' I have seen no evidence that Axe sales are on the slide, or that the product is no longer relevant to the target group. What I have seen is plenty of commentary of the sort - how can Unilever promote Dove as empowering women, while producing those awful sexist Axe ads?

But were they? History seems to have been rewritten here. Yes, Axe have produced some notoriously sexist ads (although I always regarded them as tongue-in-cheek) that probably don't belong in the 21st century any more than Benny Hill or Carry-On films. But there have been some brilliant films, too. which have shown how the basic brand idea can be brought up to date and executed in a way more fitting to the values of the day:



This one is over 10 years old and still looks good.

Or this, from a couple of years back:



If I'd been on the Axe team, I'd have asked what was the magic of Axe, what was its 'thing' and tried to bring it up to date. There are plenty of examples of that around - James Bond, Sherlock, Star Wars, even Old Spice.

As it is, I worry they have diluted the magic, or lost it altogether. From moving from sexual attractiveness (which doesn't have to be exclusively to women, by the way) to being a 'beautiful human being'/empowering/building confidence or whatever the idea is now, they have lost the link to the product and the uniqueness of the brand.

In fact, the whole campaign seems to smell a little bit of 'attractiveness to yourself', but maybe that's the method behind the madness - to appeal to the narcissistic generation.

Wherefore art thou Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth ...?

AXE. Romeo Reboot Manuel | Trailer (english) from THE KUMITE on Vimeo.

Hot on the heels of the ad that writes itself (see previous post) comes the personalised ad, from Axe in Brazil. The brand has created 100,000 versions of its Romeo Reboot commercial via programmatics (yes, I know, I don't have a clue what that is, either.)

Four broad audience segments have been identified - based on music taste and previous purchase - with four top filmmakers each shooting their own version of the film. Within each of these, various scenes can be personalised, leading to 100,000 permutations in all.

This is, without doubt, impressive.

But is it yet another case of doing something just because you can? Something in this reminds me of those children's books where you can choose which way the plot turns at a number of points. And although these have an undoubted novelty effect, in the end most children would rather be reading Harry Potter.

Technology can never be a substitute for a great idea, based on human insight, that unites people - whatever their taste in music, deodorants or Shakespearean heroes.

Innovation Foundation

I've been lucky in my time as a freelancer to work with some of the biggest names in marketing - such as P&G - and also with a number of very creative small organisations and individuals, for whom the cost of an ad agency on their business is prohibitive.

As a general rule, a top marketer at a company like P&G and a creative entrepreneur will tend to move in different worlds, and play by different rules, but I was impressed to see a new development from Unilever that attempts to bring the two together, for mutual benefit.

In the spirit of co-creation and collaboration, Unilever have launched The Foundry - a platform whereby the marketing people for the big brands can get together with entrepreneurs and inventors to work on challenges to improve people's daily lives.

It's a kind of David meets Goliath - and they make friends. Your ingenuity, creativity and agility for our investment, mentorship and marketing muscle.

Under the heading of "Collaborate. Experiment. Pioneer," a number of projects and challenges based around Unilever brands or groups of brands, are put up for pitch to technology start-ups. These range from the Young Entrepreneurs' Award - for anyone under 30 with a new product, service or app that could make a big difference to enable sustainable living - to Smart Bathroom - enabling families to plan/predict/recommend, organise and enjoy their personal grooming products more effectively and efficiently - to Smart Wardrobe - backed by Persil/Omo to maximise value from the family's clothes while reducing environmental impact.

I'm sure this will result in more breakthrough innovations than yet another new air freshener fragrance.