Presentation to the participant of the Internet & Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines on August 24, 2012. Covers information on Asian social media consumers, mobile, storytelling and how to set up programs to gain true integrated 360 degree involvement from all media using digital as a hub.
Four rules\nThis is normally for me a larger session. This is the condensed version - which I’ve had a tonne of fun working and reworking for you today. Had to shrink some of the videos?\nIt’s been almost 15 years since I’ve been to the Philippines. It’s amazing to see the contrast between now and then and get a reminder just how far Asia is coming along.\n
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My background - expat Canadian established in Japan ad/digital industry since 2005.\n
This is the metaphor for my job. The stuff in the middle squeezed by two interchangeable forces \n1) Old media and new media. I try and bring the digital reality home to clients who deal with traditional/mass media and others.\n2) I also act as the bridge between cultures - bringing Japan to the world, the world to Japan.\n
I’ve posted scheduled tweets of some of the main points(and ones I haven’t covered here) on these hashtags. You’re welcome to view them here or add to discussion later.\n
Consumers - A look at the way consumers are changing and reacting \nLocation - Why where we is not simply about location.\nTelling Stories - The importance of sharing values and telling stories to win the hearts and minds of our people.\nEverywhere - the role of ubiquity and what it means.\n
\nTwo aspects - one is the concept of participating in your brands. The other is how by listening to the consumer we have to make changes to come in line with their expectations and needs.\n\nThe landscape has changed from one that is linear and manageable, to one that is more fluid and asynchronous. \n
WE SPEND SO MUCH TIME multitasking (TV and mobiles, etc) that THERE ARE ACTUALLY MORE hours in the day we spend doing stuff than ACTUAL hours in the day.\n
Social’s big effect - people ask each other. \nTHIS IS FROM THE EDELEMAN TRUST BAROMETER. \nQUESTION HERE IS WHERE YOU GET INFORMATION ON Brands/COMPANY. \nNOTHING is getting better at building that trust faster than social media. \n
And this is even more prominent in the ascendent economies of Asia. Where people talking to people carries massive import.\nThis is a chart of those who are online and use social media in various capacities from Forrester. They cover off the number of people in each market that create content, update status, post comments, or in the case of the bottom DO NOTHING at all.\n\nThe vertical lines are - the rates of SoMe activity uptake in the “west” EU/US. The bottom light green bar is Japan.\nThe others - those are metro China and India. The ascending markets use the ascending media. It can’t be avoided. I’m sure if this study had taken other markets such as the Philippines into consideration we’d see a similar effect.\n\nSO: we have more people talking to each other, we have fickle folks who are more distracted, all communicating online socially.. People are creating and controlling content. They’re controlling and creating content for you. For brands this comes with risks and opportunities.\n
The most obvious way to kick everything off is with risk.\nI am only a small believer in the consumer boogeyman. I like to cite Edlemen’s declaration in 2011 about the year of the “authority figure”. The risks to me for brands exist more with influencers, and activism. Rightfully so - brands do have to find ways to become more transparent and to give back. Here is an example of how NOT to do it. \nGreenpeace highjacked the Shell corporate communications for the Arctic exploration efforts, which they were trying to PR as positive, without showing any means (other than profit) about how this would benefit everyone as a whole. Using Shell’s “Let’s Go” tagline, they created a spoof site that looked, felt and walked and talked like Shell. They then let people create their own taglines, and even bought real world ad space for the winners! Shell didn’t even catch on.....and that led to more buzz about how “out of touch” they were in social.\n\nThere were 431 pages of ads created. 18 ads on each page. Each one didn’t get viral on it’s own, but thousands upon thousands of like, retweets and shares were captured for many of the photos and shared within social networks.\n\n
The most obvious way to kick everything off is with risk.\nI am only a small believer in the consumer boogeyman. I like to cite Edlemen’s declaration in 2011 about the year of the “authority figure”. The risks to me for brands exist more with influencers, and activism. Rightfully so - brands do have to find ways to become more transparent and to give back. Here is an example of how NOT to do it. \nGreenpeace highjacked the Shell corporate communications for the Arctic exploration efforts, which they were trying to PR as positive, without showing any means (other than profit) about how this would benefit everyone as a whole. Using Shell’s “Let’s Go” tagline, they created a spoof site that looked, felt and walked and talked like Shell. They then let people create their own taglines, and even bought real world ad space for the winners! Shell didn’t even catch on.....and that led to more buzz about how “out of touch” they were in social.\n\nThere were 431 pages of ads created. 18 ads on each page. Each one didn’t get viral on it’s own, but thousands upon thousands of like, retweets and shares were captured for many of the photos and shared within social networks.\n\n
The most obvious way to kick everything off is with risk.\nI am only a small believer in the consumer boogeyman. I like to cite Edlemen’s declaration in 2011 about the year of the “authority figure”. The risks to me for brands exist more with influencers, and activism. Rightfully so - brands do have to find ways to become more transparent and to give back. Here is an example of how NOT to do it. \nGreenpeace highjacked the Shell corporate communications for the Arctic exploration efforts, which they were trying to PR as positive, without showing any means (other than profit) about how this would benefit everyone as a whole. Using Shell’s “Let’s Go” tagline, they created a spoof site that looked, felt and walked and talked like Shell. They then let people create their own taglines, and even bought real world ad space for the winners! Shell didn’t even catch on.....and that led to more buzz about how “out of touch” they were in social.\n\nThere were 431 pages of ads created. 18 ads on each page. Each one didn’t get viral on it’s own, but thousands upon thousands of like, retweets and shares were captured for many of the photos and shared within social networks.\n\n
If we do something fun or interesting though, we can get people to help us. This is something simple for Evian - following up the Guiness Book of Records spot “Rollerbabies” produced by Euro. People like the concept, so it’s easy to involve them - folks submit a second or two or three shots of themselves, and it’s placed on a timeline. Hours and hours of footage has been complied to date.\n\nIt’s about business, too. Starbucks Ideas is a good model to also take a look at as they have used the ideas platform to build their business. Implementing Wifi and drink flavors for Frappacinos are not created internally but outside.\n\n
If we do something fun or interesting though, we can get people to help us. This is something simple for Evian - following up the Guiness Book of Records spot “Rollerbabies” produced by Euro. People like the concept, so it’s easy to involve them - folks submit a second or two or three shots of themselves, and it’s placed on a timeline. Hours and hours of footage has been complied to date.\n\nIt’s about business, too. Starbucks Ideas is a good model to also take a look at as they have used the ideas platform to build their business. Implementing Wifi and drink flavors for Frappacinos are not created internally but outside.\n\n
If we do something fun or interesting though, we can get people to help us. This is something simple for Evian - following up the Guiness Book of Records spot “Rollerbabies” produced by Euro. People like the concept, so it’s easy to involve them - folks submit a second or two or three shots of themselves, and it’s placed on a timeline. Hours and hours of footage has been complied to date.\n\nIt’s about business, too. Starbucks Ideas is a good model to also take a look at as they have used the ideas platform to build their business. Implementing Wifi and drink flavors for Frappacinos are not created internally but outside.\n\n
i’m not strictly talking about devices as marketers or technology. The theme of IMMAP 2012 - Hit the heart - is really at work here. We have to think about not only where people are. And I don’t mean just about location - place is more and more about context.\n
Devices are important and fueling this. Mainstream - how many people have more than 4 or 5 devices. But they only deliver content. What people can or choose to do with this is important.\n\nDevices are driving the movement to mobile, and the focus on what people are doing in that moment is important.\n
Why this is important - we almost first go to shopping when we go to mobile - a new channel to sell. This is a big benefit, but it’s not where it ends.\n\nIt’s easy to see why this causes marketers to salivate. Photo - Tokyo Girls Collection. Point = gals could buy the ensembles right there, from their mobile phones. It’s only going to get easier. This is around 2008 or 2009 BTW.\n. It’s not only about shopping, you know.\n\nWhen you think about mobile, think about it in three ways:\n1) How you can provide instant gratification\n2) How you can make it as simple as possible\n3) How you can make what it is you’re trying to do as contextually relevant as possible.\n
It’s not about becoming groupon - but it’s about finding what you can do to increase “in the moment” engagement for your customers. Killing time, 暇つぶし is about that sense of doing something in the moment, and it’s the natural DNA of mobile.\n\n
Going again non-mobile in a reference to start. Think Amazon one click for this. Mobile by nature has to be easy. This isn’t an option - developing processes to make things as simple as possible, with as few steps is key to this. \nStrappy is a service in Japan that allows you to view commerical content on trains in Japan. All you have to do is touch your phone to it and you can make your train ride a little less dull. Super easy.\n
Context/ figuring out all the ways in which you can offer your brand to customers. To brainstorm this....you have to figure out\nWhat your brand offers (what can you do to adapt/engage/communication)\nWhere your customer is (physical space, frame of mind)\nHow the environment around them impacts purchase.\n\nThink of the ways you can sell ice cream using the above three factors!\n\nBut getting good at this is going to be tough - big data, building CRM for this, takes time, patience and money. Those with the most relevant contextual data will have a huge advantage.\n
Example of context - making the label of the bottle into interactive mobile content. Drinking wine as an occasion created some new opportunities.\n
“It is a really brilliant time to be in our business. Today brands are more important because, with more and more competition and more and more clutter, something that cuts through is critical. Creativity and ideas are much more important than in the old days when people were stuck in front of their TVs and we could put whatever nonsense on and they had to watch it. Now if you don’t engage people they won’t pay attention.”\nDavid Jones, CEO of Havas said the above. It’s as true as ever.\n
Way to think about this is to think of your customers not as dollar signs, but as volunteers who are taking time out of their busy 40 hour days to hang out with you. In both Japan and the Philippines, the importance of volunteerism is easy to remember seeing the recent tragedies both countries face and hopefully this concept will stick with you today.\n\nNot using this to take advantage - it’s important to understand that we are competing for people’s time. Digital strategy isn’t about purely getting eyeballs. When people search for you, or come and interact with you they expect an experience, and expect you can fulfill something for them.\n\n
Brands and marketers also have to entertain and engage. Every brand is a meida company now - think of how you can engage and extend beyond what you sell.\n\n
POWER OF STORIES: People are open to and expect more complex engagements between brands and themselves, after all. They also expect brands to give back. This is from Dulux. Let’s color used the restorative power of color to change the lives of people around the world. You’ll see this created buzz, especially in SoME as the concept was powerful and touched people in a way that wanted to make them respond. \n\n
Concept of freemium - give them something, reward users who spend time with you. (This also makes it easier for word to spread)\n In it Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man) wears these bracelets to call the new suit of armor. \nThose bracelets are the magnetic health gear Colantotte, featured in the new Avengers film. Typically Colantotte marketed to athletes, but they wanted to expand their offering to other demographics and earn some Pure product integration, but in order to take it beyond the movie an interactive comic was created by Marvel. It gave users something they wanted - backstory of the new Iron Man armor - in exchange for them understanding a bit more about a new medical/health brand from Japan called Colantotte.\n\n
This case endures. Start as you all know the meme. Point is it’s already 5 years old, but still going because it ticked all the boxes and is still relevant today\n\nWhy it lingers it that it found something that the consumer wants that spoke and created a strong reaction. It did this by blowing away category standards. Good content endures, and good content creates stories that still go on today.\n\nThe goal is to turn your BRAND messages, into conversational content.\n
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This is not about having media. This is about ideas, and creating something that can spread. Ideas have to live everywhere. Doesn’t matter what they are. And as digital marketers we are responsible for making ideas live in “our world”, and about developing ideas that can spread through traditional media as well. We’re being leaned on more and more to contribute to the bigger conversations and to get involved.\n\n
As we know it’s no longer about campaigns simply doing one thing well, it has to be done in any number of media. Part of the mission is to find that “something” about the brand that we can blast wherever we have to. This is widely understood, but bloody hard to implement.\n\n
This is why I believe real digital thinking goes beyond all of that.\nAs digital marketers we have to create new values and new territories to approach customers. ONE of the beauties of being a digital marketer is that we are uniquely able to do this at LOW RELATIVE COST. Think of it almost like a long tail approach to markets.\n\n
Part of this involves us making sure we go beyond the brand territory to get into people’s minds before they are considering you product. Look at things from a context that don’t stop at the category. If you can relate to culture than that is awesome.\nAIM FOR THINGS HAPPENING AROUND YOU AND SEE IF THERE’S A LINK THAT MAKES SENSE\n\n
This method works really well with search. In fact, search combined with social listening is a powerful tool that can really give you some hints at what it is that people are thinking of which we can use to seed ideas to promote the product.\n
Going beyond category into long-tail micro-niches really upped the ability to insert a conversation about bandages into more than health and wellness, but into brand new topics and usage.\n
Going beyond category into long-tail micro-niches really upped the ability to insert a conversation about bandages into more than health and wellness, but into brand new topics and usage.\n
For muse - a medicated handsoap for kids with an automatic dispenser, we created a concept and a big idea inspired by letting kids discover “with their hands”. Why it resonated is that mom’s today in Japan are always looking for ways to encourage healthy play as opposed to indoor play (video games, etc) which is a new challenge for mothers.\nTo bring us into the new value space, content was created for the concept that focused on “old school” games and ways kids can play outside. And tied these topics to the kinds of things their mothers would search about or had an interest in solving.\n
Summing up the rules - customers will control our content - find ways to do that, location - go beyond the devices and shopping to get to some new territories, storytelling to engage our brand “volunteers” and being everywhere (mental/physical) to make up where we’re at today.\nIf you’ve noticed, what I’ve talked about isn’t digital specific, but these are the days where digital’s role has changed - digital is playing an ever greater role in shaping brands and brand experience, and with the requirement for brands to stretch themselves digital will play as big a role as TV and the other mass media channels.\n\nApproaching and rethinking the playbook is essential, and I’m hoping these rules will help to guide you.\n