TV advertising used to work like this: you sat on your sofa while creatives were paid to throw a bucket of shit in your face. Today you're expected to sit on the bucket, fill it with your own shit, and tip it over your head while filming yourself on your mobile. Then you upload the video to the creatives. You do the work; they still get paid.Hail the rise of "loser-generated content"; commercials assembled from footage shot by members of the public coaxed into participating with the promise of TV glory. The advantages to the advertiser are obvious: it saves cash and makes your advert feel like part of some warm, communal celebration rather than the 30-second helping of underlit YouTube dog piss it is.
Witness the current Oxo Factor campaign. According to the website: "Has your Family got the OXO Factor? It's 2009. There's no such thing as 'the OXO Family' any more. We're all OXO Families! That's why we asked you to film your family performing the script for our new TV ad, for the chance to see yourselves on TV, alongside some of Britain's other brilliant families." Or "other insufferable arseholes", depending on your point of view.
End result: a bunch of wacky-doo show-offs titting around in their kitchens, each reciting the same script, which they're not allowed to deviate from. They can perform it "ironically", and indeed they all do, which somehow only makes it more horrible still: the Oxo family of 2009 may display faint traces of corporate-approved subversion, provided they adhere to the corporate-approved screenplay. Lynda Bellingham's fictional family of yore might've been insipid, but at least they weren't willing participants in a macabre dystopian dumb-show.
Phone ads are worse. Everybody's "brightdancing" according to The X Factor break bumpers. "Brightdancing" consists of shooting a video of yourself waving your mobile around while being filmed by a Talk Talk website gizmo which turns the glare from your mobile's screen into a ribbon of light. It's less creative than choosing which colour iPod you want for Christmas. "Brightdancing". Jesus.
Then there's Josh, the simpering middle-class mop who's apparently "forming a supergroup" for T-Mobile. According to the official story, Josh was strolling down the street one day when a T-Mobile film crew asked him what he'd do if he had free texts for life. Rather than pointing out that "free texts for life" means dick-all in a world containing the internet, Josh burbled something about forming a band. A few weeks later and gosh oh crikey that's precisely what's happening! And we're all invited! Hey everyone! Join Josh's Band!
As well as TV spots recounting the irritating story of Josh and his "volunteers" (Yikes! They're busking in an open-top London bus! Bonkers!), there are YouTube videos of Josh's utterly spontaneous and not-at-all-stage-managed musical quest. The group has its own song, which you're encouraged to perform and upload yourself, hastening humankind's slow cultural death in the process. The recurring melody sounds suspiciously like a seven-note ringtone, while the lyrics speak vaguely inclusion and connectivity – y'know, the sort of thing they guff on about in mobile phone ads. The third line is "I call up all of my friends". Why call anyone? You've got free texts for life, you prick.
It's so clumsily contrived it wouldn't fool a hen, yet we're meant to welcome this "supergroup" as an authentic grassroots musical phenomenon. On MySpace, Josh (or whoever's controlling him) claims, "It's a shame so many cynics think this band is completely manufactured."
So it's a genuine people's movement, then? And this band doesn't contain any paid-for session musicians? And that song wasn't written by professional tunesmiths-for-hire? And the lyrics weren't penned by some dickshoe at Saatchi & Saatchi? Hmm. Piss off, T-Mobile. Stop trying to "crowdsource". You're embarrassing yourselves. Scram. And empty that bucket on your way out.
Archival analysis indicated that of a total of 1366 corporate directors, women constituted 88 (6.44%) directorships. Women held 64 non-executive (4.69% of total directorships), 23 executive (1.68% of total directorships) and one alternate directorship. The findings indicated that there were only five women CEOs and only five out of a total of 240 New Zealand corporate boards achieved gender equality. Women on NZ Coporate Boards 2008
Christopher Vollmer wrote in the journal Strategy+Business.
“Advertising has evolved from an interruption—grabbing attention for a product or brand—into an experience, an application, a service that the consumer actually wants. This new marketing model doesn’t shout; it listens and learns. And relevance, interactivity, and accountability are its essential ingredients.”
I’m very pleased to see the social media return on investment (ROI) debate being taken to the next level with more sophisticated discussion coming from strategists such as @briansolis @thebrandbuilder and @loic
Those of you that have worked in direct or database marketing will know that the real problem with collecting so much customer data is not in the ‘getting’ or the ‘having’ but in the ‘using’.
I used to work for a nationwide retailer with 350 stores collecting scan and consumer data. We would often joke about the paranoia from customers about the detailed information that we kept on them and that we as big brother “know what colour undies you wear to your store.”
Truth was—the information got swiped into the database at point of purchase and, for the most part, that’s where it stayed. Most companies in New Zealand have cut back on their marketing teams and dedicated, in house analysts are rare as hen’s teeth. A lot of large retail operations, like banks, have moved to generalist marketing teams that work on a project basis to save costs after the recession. Most simply don’t have people with the time or the skill set to sit and mine data and make meaningful business decisions with it. Not to mention record cleaning and system convergence issues.
One of the most insightful analysts that I’ve worked with on consumer purchase data spends most of his time doing historical, reporting work. His company isn’t resourced to have him doing more than the bare basics in his 40 hour week. There’s nothing wrong with that but I think some of the hype on dynamic product customisation and customer segmentation is just that- hype.
Retailer Tesco have done some very sophisticated card-based marketing work over the years and customised store offers based on real-time store data. What the glowing case studies forget to mention is that Tesco had up to 100 full time analysts mining the data and managing communications back through buyers, promotions and store teams. That’s a huge investment and one that most companies are not (and maybe should not) make. You have to look at the total business case.
Be straight up with companies and let them know the true resource commitment upfront. That includes community managers, trainers and analysts.
Yes there’s a big mine out there, but you need miners. Not software applications, real people with lights on the heads.
Further reading: ROI: How to Measure Return on Investment in Social Media @briansolis
The proportion of the population aged 15 years and over reporting that people can "almost always" or "usually" be trusted, in the Quality of Life Survey.
Trust in others is an important indicator of how people feel about members of their community. High levels of trust facilitate co-operative behaviour among people and contribute to people’s ability to develop positive relationships with others.
In 2008, 78 per cent of New Zealanders aged 15 years and over said that people can be trusted, a similar proportion to that recorded 2006 (76 per cent). Those who said that people can usually be trusted made up the largest group (60 per cent), while those who said that people can almost always be trusted made up 17 per cent. The corresponding figures for 2006 were 58 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively.
Figure SC3.1 Proportion of people reporting that people can be trusted, by level of trust, 2006 and 2008
Source: Quality of Life Survey 2006; Quality of Life Survey 2008
The proportion of New Zealanders aged 15 years and over reporting that people can be trusted was similar for males (78 per cent) and females (77 per cent). Eighteen per cent of males and 17 per cent of females agreed that people can almost always be trusted, while 60 per cent of both males and females responded that people can usually be trusted.
Young adults aged 15–24 years (74 per cent) were slightly less likely than people aged 25 years and over (78 per cent) to report that people can be trusted.
People of European ethnicity reported a slightly higher level of trust in people (79 per cent) than Māori (75 per cent). Pacific peoples (72 per cent) and those of Asian ethnicity (71 per cent) had the lowest proportions who said that people could be trusted.
Figure SC3.2 Proportion of people reporting that people can be trusted, by ethnic group and level of trust, 2008
Source: Quality of Life Survey 2008
Across all income levels, a large majority of New Zealanders indicated that people can be trusted. Overall levels of reported trust increased with personal income levels. People with incomes over $100,000 reported the highest overall level of trust (84 per cent), while people with incomes of $30,000 or less reported the lowest level (76 per cent).
Figure SC3.3 Proportion of people reporting that people can be trusted, by personal income and level of trust, 2008
Source: Quality of Life Survey 2008
Across all New Zealand’s big cities, a large majority of New Zealanders indicated that people can be trusted. Reported levels of trust were highest in Wellington (87 per cent) and lowest in Manukau (68 per cent).
New Zealanders’ level of trust in other people in 2006 compared well with those of people in European Union countries in 2005, and to that of people in Canada in 2003. Out of 25 OECD countries for which there was data, New Zealand had the sixth highest reported level of trust in other people.111
