It was festival time a few weeks back I had the pleasure of attending Econsultancy’s Festival of Marketing. Hundreds of swarming marketeers huddled together for warmth (held at Tobacco Docs – it was in fairness really quite chilly) and seemingly throwing all the chips in the air to ultimately uncover some behind the scenes tips and treasures from a wealth of brands and agencies.
Or perhaps more accurately described as one brand meekly asking another…‘We gave it a bash with mixed results…how did you do it?’. Because folks, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from working in Digital for so many years, fortunately or unfortunately there are no rules. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder.
Below is a blow by blow account of my Festival experience – or here are the key take away themes (for the busy exec):
- Social can be a revenue generator
- Digital transformation must start at the top
- Controversy can work for you not against you…Don’t run from the conversation
- Narrate your strategy, don’t dictate it
- Don’t be afraid to alienate less likely buyers
- Always fly KLM (you’ll have to read on to see why)
1. Ryan Air Chest Beating
I started off in the Strategy tent with CMO Kenny Jacobs of Ryan Air who, while intending to talk mainly about transforming brand perception, ultimately shared the chest beating message that Ryan air has successfully “brought the American low cost airline to fussy Europe” and told us about their love of a price war. Yes yes, but how have you transformed your brand perception? A simple line diagram with ‘useful’ going one way and ‘likable’ going another charted helpfully against ‘today’ and ‘the future’ was all that was really offered in answer to that question. Yes well.
2. KLM getting in the Conversation
Thankfully my next stop in the Social tent was a fascinating, empowering and all inspiring discussion from long standing Karlijn Vogel-Meijer, Social Media Manager at KLM. Now these guys know their stuff. Or sorry, they listen to the stuff they need to know, daily, minute by minute, they are IN the conversation. Karlijn talked openly about the interruption a social media communication plan can cause, how you live on someone else’s timeline and must behave accordingly. Some of you must have seen their ‘lost and found’ ad where the cute little puppy is sent galloping into the terminal strapped down with various valuable lost objects belonging to passengers who may or may not have noticed they were missing. Surprise and delight at its finest one might argue which sends out that inevitable gooey feeling that as marketeers we search high and low for. But this is the real deal, their crew are all given iPads, and as soon as they find something on board after passengers have disembarked they send a message out to say they found a phone/toy/favourite jumper and the passenger gets contacted immediately, while making full use of social media channels. Better yet, they might even get their item delivered to their seat on their next flight without even knowing it was left behind. The lesson here, it is about what you say sure…but it is also about what you DO. This is liquid gold in terms of brand perception (ehem Kenny take note).
KLM have put their money where there social mouth is – they have invested in 150 employees whose only job it is to answer tweets (in 11 languages mind you), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their average response time is 23 minutes. They manage expectations, they have an estimated response time ticker on their twitter page, they implement change on a daily basis. Someone wants to upgrade using twitter so they respond accordingly, €3500 investment for what is now over €80,000 worth of sales WEEKLY of users upgrading using twitter. Hats off to you KLM.
3. Sony Inspiring Conversations
I’m glad to say KLM are not alone in their thinking. Sony’s Tim Lion, Head of Social Media, said much the same thing, namely, be relevant. It’s not about volume of likes but quality in content. They don’t want a like gate to a competition that will enhance their numbers but then be left with a coma induced audience. It’s a conversation and it must be an inspiring one, one that creates value and trust in the product and celebrates those that leave the conversation who were only in it for the free prize. Quite rightly he points out that you can always buy numbers and data, but a loyal and engaged audience takes time.
4. Alaistair Campbell’s Old Village Square
The second day started exceptionally well with what was undoubtedly a very thought provoking Keynote speech from Alaistair Campbell , self-proclaimed Strategist and Spin Doctor. Again, content and social media were the dilemmas of the day. How is it that Rupert Murdoch, who practically owns half the world’s press, has lost control of his reputation? Yet Richard Branson, who crashes a spaceship and has his name branded to a disaster that caused severe casualties, is still well respected and in some ways revered? Mr. Campbell quite rightly pointed out that social media is like a ‘technological old village square’ and todays version of something to write home about is INSTANT whether we like it or not. Obama’s election campaign 2008 used the purest and perhaps crudest form of AB testing by using different messages to different audiences using celebrities – special dinners for the select few who had a far enough reach or deep enough pocket to make Sarah Jessica Parker’s repetition of Obamas catered message have the right effect. George Clooney had his own twist of course. So, says Campbell, “the job of a leader is not only to dictate strategy but to narrate strategy”. Murdoch’s mistake? Among many I assume but a crude lesson in not underestimating your audience. This is the era of convergence of a corporate reputation by consumer communication, his words not mine, but it’s true. What you can control is what you do and what you say and no more, but the speed and pure volume of what’s out there means you cannot stay inactive, you cannot put up barriers, you must be part of the conversation. And as if the point needed to be labored further, Campbell pointed out quite neatly that the telephone took 75 years to get 50 million users, the TV took 13 years, the Web 4 years…and Angry Birds, well, that only took 35 days.
5. Universal’s Doing Nothing Tactics
My next stop was to hear from the glamorous world of Universal, imagining teams of hundreds working on digital outputs, I was shocked to hear that there are two of them working their way through the release schedule deciding how best to manage their social media message and content. Their challenge is that the content is completely different for every film, the brand completely different, they cannot speak with a unified brand voice, and all because they are telling someone else’s story. That’s an interesting conundrum. And with content so rich and with such high traction what do you do? Sometimes very little. Albert Hogan, Head of Digital Strategy at Universal shared his insight while showing us behind the scenes of arguably one of the most exciting production houses in the business. ‘Sometimes doing nothing is the best tactic’. In this case the audience is your response and you have to ride the storm, take the good with the bad and let it happen. Let the audience self-moderate, watch and wait. They may just swing back around, in fact they often do.
6. Doug Kessler promotes Brand Weakness
One of the most thought provoking talks of the festival is easily awarded to Doug Kessler, Creative Director and Founder of Velocity. We’ve talked about allowing bad press to roam around the outskirts of your brand untouched and allowed to run riot, but actively promoting total proactive honesty? Hear him out. Volunteer your weakness is his advice, actively promote it instead of hiding it away. You just have to look at the first of his examples to know he has a point. Avis, dying against the Hertz giant runs a campaign over 50 years ago “When you’re number 2, you try harder. Or else.” Well it didn’t fail. Risky and a tad gimmicky but his argument is backed up by plenty of feel good and agreeable points I can’t argue with – delights, builds trust, alienates less likely buyers (this is the most important one for me and where most people should prick up their ears). After all, selling to time wasters sucks up more of your money than sense right? Yes. Ultimately, says Kessler, it focuses you on the battles you can win. Wouldn’t that be nice… It’s an interesting theory, not for every marketeer or brand mind you, but you have to admire his commitment to negativity.
The Wrap up
I learnt a great deal from the 2 days I spent at the Festival of Marketing, not least of all from Albert Hogan at Universal that Iron Man 3 outdid Frozen at the box office by a cool 10 Million quid (WHAT???). I suppose more importantly that brands are being a little more free and loose with their communications. The general consensus is to file the marketing plans in the vault and just respond, respond to customers’ needs, answer the questions as they ask them and by all means don’t run a mile from the bad press. “Move fast, break things” as KLM’s Karlijn Vogel-Meijer openly quoted Zuckerberg. It’s a digital landscape these days that has a life of its own.
The seemingly best advice of the 2 days was to listen accordingly and don’t for one minute assume you know everything. You don’t. It will change and if you’re clever, you’ll change with it.
My advice? Let’s all try tweeting Richard Branson and see what happens.
