Archive for February, 2012
it turns out I give good spreadsheet after all
I’ve been working with a new client for a few months that, by virtue of their business model, have to be very focused on a few KPIs.
They do a lot of digital activity and are also pretty hot on tracking where other incoming leads are coming from, so you can tweak an element of their marketing activity and quickly see the effect it has.
I used to be a bit negative about the digital enthusiasm for all things spreadsheet, feeling that it concentrated too much on the science of marketing, at the expense of the art. But I have to say I’m now a convert. Assuming you start with a decent injection of proper qualitative insight, keep topping this up and overlay with a sanity check, I now officially love spreadsheets (so long as I don’t have to do the tricky formulas to make them work properly).
buy one here
It’s allowed me to really understand the back end of this particular business and see how my insight can add value not just to what we’d traditionally term marketing activity, but also to the way the phone is answered, their customer satisfaction surveys and even how the business deals with customers who don’t turn up.
In short, I’m now Mrs Brand Touchpoint. Thanks to a combination of qual and KPIs, I’m loving working out where the bottlenecks and heavy attrition points are to start thinking about how to help improve them. It obviously helps that that everyone working at and for the client is really nice and that we all agreed to start with the proverbial clean sheet of paper. So ideal conditions really for a marketing revolution.
Like Rob hinted in a post a few weeks ago, I’d already be thinking about an IPA Effectiveness Awards paper, if only I could find a spare £2k down the back of the sofa…
charity messaging – for the good of the funds or the cause?
After a rather depressing visit to a local horse sanctuary full of miserable horses this week and another meeting with my vet about the life expectancy of my horse, the topic of euthanasia for horses and dogs has been on my mind.
Chatting it through with the girls at the stables, we all agreed that it was quality of life that mattered – not quantity and that just because an animal wasn’t actually dying there was no hard and fast rule that it should be kept alive. Animals with incurable behavioural issues that mean they can’t be rehomed, animals in constant pain or animals that have quite clearly had enough all deserve the most dignified, pain and distress free end we can give them.
Which makes me wonder about Dogs Trust and the message they’ve been running for the last few years that ‘we never put a healthy dog down’. It’s a great positioning from a marketing point of view as it would clearly appeal to animal lovers who anthropomorphise animals and believe they have a right to life.
The line also positions Dogs Trust as the best dog charity to support if the thought of healthy dogs being put down distresses you – I’m always amazed when I deal with the marketing teams of charities by how they often see other charities aiming for the same goals as them as competition not collaborators.
But I’m not sure that this messaging is actually in the best interests of all of their animals. Where do you draw the line at ‘healthy’? For example, with an exuberant Staffie (they’re sweet dogs but very full-on and some have been turned irrevocably nasty by abuse, giving them a bad reputation) who is never going to be rehomed and will spend the next 5 years in kennels (which we know is a very stressful place to be for a dog) it may actually be kinder to spare the dog all that stress and put them to sleep. But it sounds like Dogs Trust wouldn’t do that. Estimates vary, but it looks like Staffies take up between 40% and 80% of space in charity kennels at the moment while presumably other dogs who could be rehomed and go on to a fulfilling life can’t be accommodated.
What’s a charity to do? Chose a positioning that will bring in the most money to support their cause – or one that seems (to me to be) best from a welfare point of view?
Interestingly, Dogs Trust have dropped that line from this lovely new ad (by Soho Square) I found on their youtube channel (although it’s still on their website):
why isn’t anybrand saying that the gym isn’t always the answer?
I’ve had a bee in my bonnet for a while about what I see as the broad perception among the health, diet and fitness profession that being fit & healthy = going to the gym.
Apart from the super fit fitness fans and some of my Dad’s 60+ mates (who seem to use the gym as a pub type social club with exercise as a minor added bonus), I don’t know many people who actually enjoy going to the gym. Which seems to me to be the problem.
If you enjoy something, you’ll keep doing it. You’ll make an effort even when you’re tired, or busy, or it’s raining sideways. But if you don’t really enjoy it you’ll go less frequently and eventually stop – witness the massive influx of new members to gyms every January who quickly drop off again – the first year gym membership drop out rate has been variously estimated from 30-40% (The Independent) to 60-70% (The Mail).
We do seem to be gradually shifting from a ‘diet and lose weight quickly’ message to a ‘lifetime of healthy eating habits’ approach, but apart from a bit of Change 4 Life 150 active minutes messaging the Powers That Be don’t seem to have addressed the issue of finding exercise activities that people actually enjoy and will keep up.
Thanks to regular horse riding (some of it side saddle) I’m fairly fit (and halfway to a six pack) yet I haven’t darkened the doors of a gym in ten years. I keep at it because I really enjoy it. It was the same with most of the older ladies I used to meet at my tap dancing class who turned out once a week without fail for a giggle and a dance.
You have to find something you love. It might be the gym, but it equally might be swimming, jogging, canoeing, hill walking, bellydancing or mountain biking.
With Change 4 Life funding unfrozen, it feels like now would be a great time for a ‘try something new (and keep it up)’ campaign from them. Or maybe this is an opportunity for a brand to step up and claim the territory (and moral high ground). Nestle did ‘Get Set Go Free’ last year but that talked about trial, not lifestyle.
I really think there’s an opportunity here – or has someone just done this and I’ve missed it?
Yay (and also Boo Hiss) to the return of long copy
I keep getting told that long copy ads are back.
MI6 have this month taken a wordy approach to recruitment (courtesy of M&C Saatchi):
(click the image above and click again to enlarge to a readable size)
There’s lots of nice long copy outdoor around at the moment:
which came from here, where there’s a fab posterscope recruitment one too
Does it work? Well here’s what the eye tracking says:
taken from a great post by thinkeyetracking
The last 12 months has seen a lot of nice long(er) copy generally:
view the hi-res origional here at Marketing Week
image from here
BUT. There’s beautifully crafted, and sweated over long copy, honed to touch the soul of the reader. And then there’s this B2B ‘diary style’ ad I found in this month’s Research magazine:
(click and click to enlarge if you must, but I wouldn’t bother)
<sigh>
Never Knowingly Underprepared
As the fridge heaved last weekend with the extra-large-in-case-it-snows-alot supermarket shop, I was chatting to a family member about what our family motto could be. We came up with Never Knowingly Underprepared.
image generated here
As a family we all like lists, fully stocked cupboards, Plans of Action and Being Prepared. In my previous agency life my desk draw was like a cross between Boots and WhSmith and regularly saved the day by dispensing baby wipes, plasters, painkillers, staplers and spare umbrellas.
Admittedly, I was that irritating pitch team member who was ready to leave for the pitch ten minutes early, with directions, an agenda, background notes and an extension cable.
But in contrast, most of AdLand seems to live by the mantra Always Winging It and/or It’ll be right on the night. I’ve lost count of number of times I’ve sat in meetings where it quickly became apparent to everyone including the client that at least one of the agency team was winging it and hopelessly unprepared.
It’s such a waste of time and money. As an industry we spend an absolute fortune on New Business activity, from PR and networking to exorbitant awards entries and even advertising ourselves – then when we do get that coveted initial client meeting, we roll up unprepared.
Or if you’re looking at it from a ‘bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ point of view, sometimes we even rock up to meetings with clients we’re already working with and still try to blag it.
I know we’re all very busy. And I know that everyone isn’t like that. But it seems bonkers for anyone to go unprepared to even one meeting – it has just cost too much to get there.
PS I should point out that I’m not Superwoman. Before Christmas I got stuck in a traffic jam on the way to a new business meeting, got there 15 minutes late and promptly spilt coffee all over myself. Not surprisingly, I have yet to get any work from that client…
