Spark09 Final

Presented by Jan Van den Bergh Chairman Holaba “ Push or Pull?” Sponsored by

When was the last time an ad convinced you to buy something?

You don't remember since it was a long time ago

When was the last time an ad interrupted what you
were doing?

Probably now?

When was the last time an ad came just in time to
solve your problem?

Maybe it wasn't an ad but your lover. Or your boss.

Will I use on all slides this naked man on the left?

Yes! He's* from Belgium too and he was the nicest one I
Googled. Nicer than this one at least
*Later I will also add a naked woman.

I could also have used our national hero : ‘Manneken Pis’. He pissed
on Brussels to extinguish a dangerous fire centuries ago. Here he is
in his newest clothes of vermillion also known as China Red*.
* donated by China's "fur capital" Haining city of Zhejiang province.

Ads are pushy, hidden invaders that send you - with
99% certainty- irrelevant messages.
These old ads lose more and more credibility and
persuasion power. It’s a pity for them.
At their best they are entertaining stalkers.

….this is an example of a non-entertaining stalker

Do I know what I am talking about?
I started working in advertising in 1977 and - in a
way - I’m still a part-time-stalker.

Part-time. Because … since the web started to
weave itself – since 1994 – this pushy-world loses:
The world of mass media weakens.
Mass media lose audience, readers.
Propaganda loses believers.

Eyeballs – me and you – have a mouth and we
can talk back.
We DO talk back.
We WANT to talk back.
Through email the good old 1.2.1 “word of mouth’
became a powerful 1.2.many “word of mou s e*”
*Easier to pronounce too!

We voice our opinion since 15 years on a
massive scale and our thoughts can be read
instantly by our complete mailbox.

These “opinion voicers” started setting the pace.
They don’t want to be pushed.
They want to pull.
They want and can and will find you when they need you or some things about you.

Brands had to make themselves searchable. Half
of the advertising spend goes to Google.
You search a toaster. You see an ad for a toaster.
You read about toasters you see an ad about toasters.

The web brought you into direct contact with the
brands.
On your terms.
The web brought humans to things. And vice
versa.

Since a couple of years (the QQ / MSN / Facebook
/MySpace / Twitter years) we are even more related
through the web to other people – friends or
followers or previously unknown strangers - than to
branded things.

And we all get more and more interested in what
these other humans think about these things than
what these things think about themselves.
“ Propaganda influencing perception” seems to be
another bubble bursting.

When we search we try to find out what actual
users or former users think about a brand. Other
humans become the trusted source par
excellence in the pre-buying period. Peer to peer.

What we publish … marketers call it:
“ user generated content”.
It can be scores, good and bad.
Reviews good and bad.
Recommendations good and bad.

The higher the risk…
The higher the price…
The higher the interest in the category…
The less frequent you buy…
the more you want to learn from those who’ve
been to all that before: learn from their positive or
negative experience.

Consumers even try to find out among all those
who write comments who are the real trustworthy
recommenders. The knowledgeable people.

Not all consumers help other consumers to find
their way out. Only 15-20% do. They are the
evangelists. Not all of these content creators
create useful or trustworthy content. Some tell
bullshit. Some lie. Some cheat. Some are paid.
Human media are only humans. Me too.

http://evamendes.com
She's* one of those 15%
very openly voicing her
opinion.
*There will be no more nakedness in the show

You need a place where you can find all the
recommenders or "would be recommenders" and
where the community of readers filters them to
find out the best of the best. The wisdom of the
crowd is such a filter. Not infallible though.

Brands learn to listen to them. Since these born
opinion leaders directly influence sales. Brands
want to know them. Brands want to know which
others brands they like. Brands learn how to
cooperate with these human media.

This commercial break for the best Belgian beer*
could directly influence sales as from tonite on.
*Kaiba@kangdinglu is a real Belgian beer bar.

Since these human media are by definition human
you cannot NOT treat them as human. Although
they should be part of a media plan. Since they
have reach and influence when both are
necessary.

Holaba is the 1 st trial in the world to group these
human media in one big platform. Ideally we
should have 45,000,000 Chinese recommenders
and 255,000,000 Chinese readers searching for
truth behind the ads.

But that’s the ideal world. Until we have arrived there
we should continue to suffer - and sometimes enjoy
the pushy ads . But at the same time we gradually
enter the real "listen and talk-back world" of pulling
recommenders.

Thank you for listening. And talking back.

Speak with Jan Van den Bergh Business Networking Area Level 4 Sponsored by

Spark09 Final

by Jan Van den Bergh on Mar 28, 2009

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Spark09 Final — Presentation Transcript