Boy meets girl meet IRL

I've been blathering on about what I call the internot for over eight years on this (ahem!) internet blog.

Sometimes I think it's because I'm old and jaded and view the past through Anglo bubble-gum pink glasses. 

But more and more, I get the feeling it's not just me. From digital detox to anemoia (nostalgia for a time you never knew) to AI vegans, there's a tangible weariness about all things internet.

Boy meets girl meets IRL is a popular theme for ads these days. Here are just three I've seen in the last week:

In the latest duplo ad, boy tries to get girl's attention with various internot devices. Finally, a paper aeroplane made from a duplo wrapper does the trick. 

For the couple in the Dr. Oetker Ristorante ad, "It's a Match" on the first IRL date:

And then there's Deutsche Telekom & iPhone 17 with an ad called "Unique Together":

The message of this one is - the whizz-bang tech of the iPhone and the Telekom network is all fine and dandy - but in the end, nothing beats meeting up IRL in a coffee shop. 

If there's one thing that AI has taught us, it's that you can't fake having lived.

Back to life, back to reality

 

I’ve always thought that positioning and brand communications is a tricky balancing act for the big telecoms brands. All too often, the customer ends up with left-hand-doesn’t-know-what-right-hand’s-doing mixed and muddled messages.

Banging on about sustainability on the one hand.

Salespeople pushing you to have yet more GBs on the super-duper-saver tariff on the other.

Heart-wrenching films decrying cyber-bullying from one direction.

Mega-super addictive games and competitions from the other.

Brands like Deutsche Telekom must continually balance responsibility with their mindset of “digital optimism.” In that it can never be blind, non-critical optimism.

The thing is, you can’t set the clock back - or catch the particular bolted horse. But maybe you can stop other horses from bolting in the future.

In Australia, you now have to be proven over 16 to have a social media account. Under 16s can still look at content, but companies are forbidden to enter into a business relationship with children. 

Will less doom-scrolling mean more time to enjoy life unprocessed through algorithms and screens? Vodafone are hoping so. The brand’s Chistmas ad is part of the “Go Real Life” initiative which  encourages more considered SmartPhone usage and everyday mindfulness in general. It’s produced together with Borussia Dortmund and extols the joy of 70,000 fans getting together for a Christmas sing-song. The slogan “Leb im Jetzt statt im Netz. Zeit für echte Verbingdungen” can be roughly translated as “Live in the Now, not in the Net. Time for real connections.”

It’s a apt message especially for now, when every Christmas card, napkin design or poster for Christmas shopping has that distinctive but not very original AI-look to it. 

But, I wonder - to show real responsibility to tackle the problems that social media has unleashed - how would it be if the big telecoms brands got together to work on solutions?  

 

Hung up

 

When I started this blog, I didn’t have an iPhone. It was iPod that brought me into Apple, followed by a MacBook and only then, the capitulation. 

I started using social media on a laptop, and as far as I'm concerned,  Facebook can stay there. I’ve never had the app on my phone, and it’s been a good decision. Ditto never joining Twitter. Although I’ll admit to having the Instagram app in my pocket. 

Have I missed out? Possibly. My biggest question is whether, had I leapt onto TikTok in the early days, might I have made something more of my children’s books? But somehow, I doubt it. I have a secretive nature (the clue's in the name) and I am now rather thankful that if I’m rising anywhere, it’s into obscurity.

The topic of mobile phones, social media and the potential damage they’re doing to people’s mental well-being, particularly the young, is hard to avoid these days. The sense of nostalgia for a world they never knew is strong amongst young people, as expressed in this article by Freya India. (Although I remember being obsessed with the 1950s and before in my teens, so maybe it’s part of growing up.)

There’s an interesting study out this week from More in Common  . The topline conclusion is that the Brits are more hung-up on their smartphones and more in favour of restrictions than people in France, Germany or the US. Here are just a couple of charts:

44% of Brits go for an hour or less without looking at their phone, compared to only 25% of Germans. That’s a major difference and one I can well imagine from my UK trips. 

Lots of questions, obviously.

Is it push or pull? It’s certainly more difficult to get by in the UK without a smartphone than in Germany, even with something as simple as paying for car parking. 

What are people checking their phone for? The weather? Messages from colleagues? News? Football scores? Or how many likes they’ve clocked up in the last 10 minutes?

Regulation and implementing restrictions is a huge area, and one where all parties - with conflicting interests - have to find common ground and work together. Government, social media platforms, telecoms companies, academics and health professionals ...

One thing the More in Common report does point out, which makes a lot of sense, is that all technology is not equal. This isn’t about technophobia, and of course smartphones have many beneficial functions. 

Surely it’s not too much of a challenge to make a helpful, useful phone for young people? With the functional stuff but less of the potentially dysfunctional? 

RETROWURST: Time July 2003

With the longest day of 2021 behind us, it seems right that the next article from the pre-Extrawurst archive is one I wrote on the subject of Time, eighteen years ago, in July 2003. I’d been up to the Account Planning Group Germany conference and was fascinated by a talk given by Professor Karlheinz A. Geissler on the subject of the German relationship to speed and time. A prediction was made that “we will be ruled by the mobile phone/communications handset, not by the clock.”

Remember, this was a good few years before smart phones ...

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I was up at the German Account Planning Group’s annual ‘Open Source’ event in Hamburg last week, where, sandwiched in between two talks - the entertaining-but-expected (an Army colonel talking about military strategy and what we commercial Planners can learn from it) and the expected – and mind-blowingly tedious (a Management Consultant doing an elongated sales pitch; see www.rolandberger.de for the full horror) - was a fascinating talk from Professor Karlheinz A. Geissler on the subject of Time.

 

The professor spoke about our relationship with time over history, moving from the time when time and the weather were one and the same (the word for both remains similar in the Latin-based languages such as temps, tempo), to the age of the clock, to the industrial age where man’s speed was no longer limited by nature and through to our own age. He argued that, in our ‘post-modern’ world, the key is no longer speed but flexibility. That is, the people that will succeed in our times are those that have the flexibility to do several things at once, not those who can do one thing faster than anyone else. We will be ruled by the mobile phone/communications handset, not by the clock.

 

Interestingly, he raised the point that some people/cultures already have a head-start in this new world of flexibility, the US (generally) and working mothers being two examples he cited. Conversely, other cultures may well be handicapped in the adaptation process, especially those who have excelled in the last age. Professor Geissler was not slow in holding up the Germans as the key example here. Maybe the Swiss have a greater obsession with clocks and punctuality, but the Germans combine this with their love of the stopwatch and what it measures - speed, rather than time!

 

So, this is the country where Michael Schumacher is the most revered sports hero but where you’re not allowed to use your washing machine after 8pm; where 150mph on the Autobahn is totally acceptable if your car is built for it (and most German cars are) but where having a BBQ party that goes on after 10pm is not. Even in German advertising agencies, punctuality and efficiency rule the roost- in some of Jung von Matt’s conference rooms there are no chairs, encouraging meetings to begin and end on time - in fact, there is no English equivalent of the German word Stehtischwhich is literally, a table to stand at. Contrast that with the comfy sofas of UK advertising agencies!

 

This all brings me on to a topic of huge current interest here in the area of retailing- opening hours. When I first moved to Germany in 1996, the opening hours, even in the big cities, were like something out of 1950s Britain (minus the ration books!) It seemed that what you won on the pubs (most open until 1am), you lost on the supermarkets, which were only open until 1pm on Saturdays (typical German exception of one Saturday per month being ‘long Saturday’ but I was blowed if I could ever remember whether Langesamstag was the first in the month, the last or in the middle somewhere!). Imagine the scene, if you will, of the entire working population of Frankfurt all queuing up at the same three supermarket tills at 12.30pm on a Saturday. I was appalled by this: the grudging acceptance with which the local people regarded this, and the underlying implication that women aren’t meant to be working, except as a good Hausfrau, so they can jolly well do the shopping during the week. Things improved a little a year or two later, with supermarkets opening until 8pm most weekdays and until 4pm on Saturdays.

 

However, the latest change has met with disapproval from many sides. For the last month or so, the Supermarkets have stayed open until 8pm on Saturdays. The church is up in arms, so to speak, as they see this as the next (final?) step down the slippery slope to that abomination, Sunday opening. (NB. Finding a shop open on Sundays here in Germany- with the exception of petrol stations, airports, railway stations and the odd kiosk- is about as difficult as beating Michael Schumacher round the Nürburgring. Even the DIY and garden centres are geschlossen.) But the Church aside, what is perhaps surprising is the somewhat unenthusiastic attitude of the general population. Who in their right mind, they think, would want to go to a Supermarket at 7pm on Saturday evening, when they should be watching the Bundesliga, throwing half a pig onto the BBQ or baking a cake for Sunday’s Kaffee und Kuchen with the mother-in-law?

 

The point here is not that the German people don’t like change, but that this is a change that they don’t understand. It doesn’t fit into the unwritten rules of order and efficiency. If someone has to do their shopping on Saturday evening, they must be disorganised (not spontaneous). They clearly haven’t planned ahead. I haven’t been shopping myself yet on Saturday evening, but I’ll make an effort this weekend to tear myself away from the cake-baking, or the BBQ (Bundesliga is in the middle of the summer pause!). I suspect that the people I’ll see; far from being disorganised, will be the sort of spontaneous, flexible consumers who will have to represent Germany’s future as they move away from the age of speed and punctuality to the age of flexibility and multiple lives all lived simultaneously.

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Pre-pandemic, Germany wasn’t quite on 24/7. Retail opening hours had stretched to 10pm or so, but Sunday remains sacred (except for online ordering, of which more later). 

It’s interesting how the pandemic has thrown time out of the window, along with freedom, while online shopping has devastated the city centre (although local independent shops of the butcher, baker and candlestick maker variety seem to be thriving). 

What intrigues me is that, over the eighteen years that have passed, I can still see Professor Geissler and his antiquated overhead slides before me, and I can recall many of his words of wisdom. 

I can’t remember a single thing the chap from the management consultancy (with his slick PowerPoint presentation) said.

I understand that Professor Geissler doesn’t have a driving licence and lives “watchless”.

Sounds like the norm amongst young people.

Not-so-smart addiction

Yesterday, I nearly got into a fight, or at least a slanging match. A man crossed the path of my car (yes, I was on the road), glued to his SmartPhone, not looking, oblivious. If I'd been paying as little attention to my surroundings as he was, he'd be dead or seriously injured. Yet, he seemed to think I was in the wrong.

The news (which most people probably read on their SmartPhone) is cram-full of articles about SmartPhone addiction (or is it social media addiction, or internet addiction? And does it matter?) and as long ago as 2014, the McCarthy Group's Trust and Attention Survey found that, for millennials, access to the internet is more important than access to their best friend. The word Nomophobia has been coined to mean "the fear of being without your phone."

We're not just heading for the dystopia depicted in this cartoon (inspired by The Fleischer Bros.' Bimbo's Initiation), we're active - or passive - participants already.




The Googles, Facebooks, Instagrams and YouTubes of this world are responding by a focus on "Digital Wellbeing", building take-a-break features into their services, amongst other measures. This move towards "responsible devicing" feels familiar - rather like the booze companies encouraging responsible drinking. A little bit "nanny knows best?"

The man on my local street aside, it's difficult to say how much of this is real and how much is media hype. And I wonder if just as much anxiety and mental distress comes from well-meaning and "look at my perfect world" posts as it does from hate speech and the like.

One thing is for sure: the (social) media companies dealing with the problem head-on isn't new.

One famously-long TV program title from my youth was Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead? 

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.

'Time present and time past ...

... are both perhaps present in time future'
                               T.S.Eliot, Burnt Norton




I have noticed two examples of brands that have made news this week by combining past and present to (maybe) create the future.

I'll start with the one not absolutely everyone has heard of, which is Polaroid Swing. I've often wondered how the Polaroid brand lives on, while the Kodak brand seems to have died, or at least retired and disappeared from view. This is one reason: a nifty little app that combines the heritage of Polaroid (for the name inspiration, see the groovy ad above) with bang up-to-date technology. In this case, moving photos. These are kind of like gifs, put different. 60 frames are captured in 1 second and the picture comes to life when you tap it or get swinging your iPhone. The world of Harry Potter has nothing on this!

The people from Polaroid and their collaborators at Swing have high hopes - could this be the visual version of Twitter? The insight is that we perceive the world as a series of (very short) moments. I'm not 100% convinced, but let's see.

The other new launch needs no introduction - Pokemon Go . You can't avoid having heard about it unless you're living under a stone (although that, too, is unlikely as you're probably sharing your under-a-stone space with a funny little yellow creature.) As well as combining old (well, 90s) with new to appeal to at least a couple of generations, much has been made of the combination of real and virtual worlds. Here is one of the better articles about the success factors.

So there you have it - for a successful brand extension, maybe we have to think like a bride and combine the old, the new, the borrowed (preferably via collaboration) and the blue - or yellow.

A tale of two Hartleys

It was L.P.Hartley who wrote 'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.' When I first saw the classic TV ad for Yellow Pages, which told the story of an elderly man tracking down his long-lost book, Fly Fishing, I think I got my Hartleys muddled up and they merged into one.

The gentleman in the ad is J.R.Hartley and his creator, David Abbott, who founded the advertising agency AWV BBDO, passed away on May 17th. Although I never had the experience of working in his agency, his work was a huge influence on me in my choice of a career. Just one example is the series of posters for The Economist.

Why do I love the Yellow Pages ad? Well, it is classic storytelling at its best, and I bet David Abbott didn't need to go on an academic seminar on story arcs and heroes' journeys to learn his craft. And the brand is integral to the ad - not tacked on, not plonked in. Everyone remembers it's for Yellow Pages. And then the way it's put together - the music, the actor Norman Lumsden's performance, the Joss Ackland voiceover - wonderful! The ad was even recreated in 2011 in an updated version, with a middle-aged DJ searching for his 90s vinyl hit, aide by his young daughter and the Yell app.

Claire Beale, the editor of Campaign, wrote of David Abbott: 'Abbott's writing was created to sell, but to sell with an integrity and a humanity that truly respected the consumer.' And that's where the other Hartley quote comes in. Is this a thing of the past? Did David Abbott "do things differently" from the young copywriters of today?

I do hope not.

Um...you know that nudge-nudge-wink-wink need?

Good innovations in products and services answer a need, as we all know. Sometimes this need is so blatant and obvious, it hits you round the face - music on the go that doesn't disturb others is a classic. Or sometimes the need is one you didn't know you had, but, by golly - you couldn't live without that product now - as in PostIts. And sometimes it's not a need at all, but it's damned good to have. Like Marmite Crisps.

But there are plenty of human needs that you know all about but there's no way you're going to mention them to that nice lady moderating the Group Discussion. Ahem.

The anonymous digital world has meant, of course, that there's been a huge increase in these nudge-nudge-wink-wink needs being answered, from the legions of otherwise wholesome mummies reading really rather grubby books to the following little gem.

FakeShower is an app that spares your blushes from your nearest and dearest. Have a look at the video if you want to know the awful truth.

But one question remains in my mind. Who takes their iPhone to the loo with them at home? Should I do some market research to find out?

Chasm-Crossing

When I first saw an iPhone, three or four years ago, I was singularly unimpressed. A guy from one of the ad agencies had bought one in the US and while he had fallen head-over-heels in love with it, I saw it simply as an impractical, complicated and expensive gadget.

I'm coming up now for my one year iPhone anniversary and I note that even primary school kids seem to have iPhones these days.

The difference between the ad agency guy and me is that he's one of the early adopters in this market and I'm one of the early majority. Doesn't sound like a huge difference, but it is. We tend to think of the adoption curve for new products as continuous, but it's not, always. If you're not familiar with it already, I recommend a look at a book from 1991, Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore. And in this book, you'll see that, for discontinuous innovations - those requiring a behavioural change, there is a huge difference between those two "early" groups. A chasm, in fact. The guy from the agency is a visionary. I'm a pragmatic conservative.

Crossing the chasm between these two psychologically vastly different groups is even more relevant these days. With the fast churn of technology, there are simply more discontinuous innovations around. This may explain the huge interest in behavioural economics amongst the marketing community. And, it's also vital to hang onto your visionaries aka early adopters for long enough to let you cross the chasm, before they flit off to this month's (week's?) thing.

The book was originally written with hi-tech markets and products in mind. But the theory may also be applicable in areas where a behavioural change is required - like moving to a carbon-neutral lifestyle, for example.

And that may be a chasm we're all going to have to cross one day.

Retromatic

A little while ago I bloggered on about reinventing the wheel and I meant to mention Hipstamatic as a cracking example of just that.

It's the perfect combination of old fashioned and cutting edge with its promise "Digital Photography Never Looked So Analog."

In fact, the whole retro film thing seems to be unstoppable at the moment - every second car ad seems to feature nostalgic scenes from some golden 70s summer. Not to mention Spielberg's film Super 8.

I wonder what will be next - an app to get your iTunes songs sounding scratched and sticky as the result of an accident with a bottle of Pomagne?

MacOstracised

Phoning Telekom used to be right up there on my "favourite things to do in Germany" list along with discussing pension plans, visiting the dentist and filling in my tax return. Every time something went wrong with my email, or that box on the wall, or that thing with flashing lights that sits on my desk, I would be filled with creeping dread.

They have got better. Problems have been sorted out without a 30 minute da-da-da-di-dah! preamble. And they have now even started to get proactive.

A nice young lady rang me up the other day with an offer too good to refuse. They'd twigged that I called their technical people regularly so now I was to be offered my very own dedicated technician. It sounded just the ticket.

But...

Me: "Does this technician understand Macs?"

She: "Uh...no. Our technicians understand Microsoft."

Here tone changed completely. Admitting to having a Mac was tantamount to admitting to some nasty highly contagious disease caught from dodgy practices of an unmentionable nature. She wanted to end the conversation as soon as possible. Even my pleas for her to pass on my suggestion that maybe they could recruit a few technicians that understand Macs fell on deaf ears. Da-da-da-di-dah!

Come on, Telekom! There you are selling iPhones like hot cakes but hasn't it occurred to you that all these people with iPhones could be attracted to an iPad, or a MacBook? And that they might need a bit of support with the internet side of things?

That phrase with left hands and right hands and not knowing what the other is doing comes to mind.

iCapitulation

Nearly six years after first seeing the Web in mobile, I have capitulated and got myself an iPhone.

What may be of interest to anyone looking at this particular Customer Journey is, firstly - how long it was. I mean, six years of knowing that I could have all the benefits of mobile internet at my fingertips and not doing anything about it!

And then there were the two "nudges" or "moments of truth" that shoved me to the point of no return. The first of these will have all the Customer Journey Academics nodding sagely. Last time I was in England, I couldn't check in over the internet. Which meant that, but for the legendary kind-heartedness of Lufthansa (what?), I would have been separated from my young son on the plane.

But the second one is both silly and frivolous. You see, when I was in London, I bought a rather natty iPhone cover. So I just had to get something to put in it.

Right - off to become a fully-fledged Apps bore.