And in at number ....
by ameetc
27. February 2009 14:29
26
Campaign just released their Top 100 ad agency list and Libertine is in at 26 - wey hey!
Of course this is the top 100 based on media related billings for clients that we do above-the-line creative work for and therefore doesn't cover the digital side of our business, which now accounts for more than half the company. Some would say that the world has moved on but the measurement of the top 100 hasn't.
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Strength of character
by neilh
27. February 2009 13:01
As the recession of the early 90s bit, a large retailer was getting twitchy.
Having included a price promise in their advertising a competitor started doing the same.
The client feared customers might start to migrate so a decision was taken to maintain the price promise, keep things as they were and add another device, this time talking about customer service.
And for a couple of weeks the problem went away... until the competitor predictably followed suit.
The twitch returned.
“We’re telling people we’ve got the lowest prices guaranteed and the best customer service but how do we strengthen our offering?”
Adding a line of copy talking about offering the best range of products was considered, trouble was their competitors could replicate that overnight if they wished.
Similarly, using more red, changing the headlines from lower case to upper case, increasing the size of the savings devices and so on, were all things that weren’t going to provide a long term solution.
It was pointed out that the consumer was really the one who would be getting frustrated by all of this.
With three similar retailers all claiming to have the best savings, the best choice and the best service there was no point of difference, leaving the consumer very confused.
‘They can’t all have the lowest prices, best range and best service can they?’
Who could the consumer believe?
Fact was the strength of the brand had also been lost in all of this. A large household name, everyone knew what they sold but their advertising bacame too reliant on using well-worn claims. Time to reconnect with the consumer then.
A way of expressing this was adopted and twelve months later sales were much healthier.
Their customer service and pricing was taken as a given because the brand had regained the consumer’s trust, heck they even featured less product more effectively.
In fact they now had a look and character all of their own, while one of their competitors had disappeared.
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It’s not an OR question, it’s an AND question
by johnw
26. February 2009 11:41
Sitting in a café with my 7 year old son recently we got into a deep and troubled debate, “donut or chocolate cake?” the donut’s bigger… but the cake is chocolatier…what to do? “donut or chocolate cake?”. In a blinding moment of clarity we realised we had been asking the wrong question it was an AND issue not an OR question. We would have “ a donut AND chocolate cake”.
It struck me that too often the OR and AND get muddled.
“Nature or nurture?” has been debated for hundreds of years.Turns out it’s “ nature and nurture”….obviously.
Another example, a nice old saying, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”….no it isn’t, it’s both, “it’s what you know AND who you know”.
This week in one of those media meetings we all have, we were yet again in the “on-line or off-line” media debate. But it is not an OR issue its an AND issue. How do we get off-line and on-line working together? That’s the point.
Our industry is riddled with the wrong use of OR. TV or press, print or digital. Every time a new medium appears we predict the death of an old one and our predictions are usually wrong.
The problem with most marketing folk is that they want black and white answers not grey ones, hence too much OR and not enough AND.
Another analogy and a personal favourite is that of an Orchestra. Lots of instruments do their own thing in a co-ordinated way and the result is usually great music. The conductor does not analyse which instruments contribute the most and then rule out the others. “ Ladies and gentleman, having done a thorough analysis of the relative contribution of all instruments and optimised for maximum return Beethoven’s 5th will today be performed with six triangles, three oboes and a cannon”.
The problem comes back to the fact that an awful lot
of marketing communications is more art than science and just like
music that requires a feel for the subject, a sense of shape, of rhythm
and of aesthetic. It can’t all be done by hard analysis.
Of course, sometimes AND isn’t possible and OR is a given. What if we hadn’t enough money for a donut AND chocolate cake. Well then you have to be a bit creative.
So the question “a donut or chocolate cake?”… the answer “ a chocolate éclair of course.”
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Communication, understanding and all that good stuff.
by willp
25. February 2009 22:47
The other day I stumbled across this cartoon, a classic example of how a simple idea can be so easily misunderstood and misinterpreted, and the pitfalls that go hand in hand with misunderstanding and poor interpretation.
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Mio Mao
by neilh
25. February 2009 12:51
Not that I'm regressing but I've been getting up early to catch a bit of Mio Mao, a children's show on Five.
Mio Mao are two claymation cats that meet interesting characters in each episode.
First created in Italy in the 70s Mio Mao went quiet until a new series was commissioned in 2005.
Quite a break but it still feels fresh.
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