Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy UK spoke on TED Global about the value of the intangible, and how advertising helps create that value:
Highly entertaining, as usual for Rory. Having worked with Rory in a brainstorming some time ago, when I still worked at Ogilvy, I can tell you: he really is that entertaining. The story about how to make the train ride between London and Paris any more enjoyable I already heard back then, it’s a classic…
For the rest of that talk: I do believe that we’re now living in a world of mass produced commodities, no matter what you buy, the added value almost always lies within the imagined value that you yourself (with the little help of stories created by advertising as well as socially networked word-of-mouth) asign to your individual brand experience…
Is crowdsourcing really the way of the future? Will your target audience do your work for you and create advertising and products at minimal cost?
Unilever seems to think so. First, they fired Lowe and now they call out for Users to create the next TV spot for their peperami brand. They’re offering $10.000 in a competition to create ideas for the next TV and Print campaign. Their benchmark seem to be the Doritos and Pringles campaigns, where the winning ideas cost about $6 or $300 to produce. A rather ironic quote in these circumstances by Unilever about Lowe, their agency for 16 years:
„We are extremely thankful to Lowe for the brilliant work they achieved over the last two decades and are looking forward to seeing the ideas to take Lowe’s legacy forward into the next era of Animal.“
It’s a punch in the face of Lowe. And of course, that is worth a test. However, „Unilever said it has no plans to retain a full-time ad agency for the Peperami account in future.“ It’s one thing to test this kind of approach on singular occasions. Not sure, weather this is a good idea for the long run – when not piloted first.
In my humble opinion they’re not taking into account the laziness and complacency of the general public. It’s fun producing ads the first time around, maybe the second or third, too. At some point, novelty will wear off and it will become the „daily grind“ – yet with no guaranteed pay off.
Another example: Audi also engaged in some crowdsourcing, however it is not as directly tied to daily business. Instead, they’re asking for inspiration, they want users to help them design the car of the future.They’re approach is a little different:
Audi is posting videos of their design process, information about the contest as it progresses, and soliciting questions and feedback to find out what the fans would like to see in a car of the future. It wants its 300,000 fans to know that as a company, Audi listens to its customers and wants to engage in a conversation about the future.
Is this any better? They don’t seem to offer any remuneration or prizes, so they’re also not raising any materialistic hopes. Who ever joins the conversation does so out of passion or joy, not because he or she hopes to win anything.
There has been an extensive debate about these kinds of crowdsourcing projects, especially about the speculative work involved. People participating in these kind of crowdsourcing contests, activities etc. don’t know whether they’ll get paid or if it will stay „a hobby“. There is a chance of winning a lot of money, but the odds gets smaller, the more people participate. At the same time, brands face a much higher potential of actually receiving something worth airing, the more people participate. It doesn’t sound like a win-win situation to me.
Crowdsourcing projects should be organised in a way that is rewarding for both sides. For marketers in my view this means: organise contests, that are mainly fun for the audience. And if want to receive something in return, make sure you don’t look greedy.
(Also, if your interested in some more crowdsourcing casestudies (and you can read German), see this list here.)
Samsung is on a roll with their viral videos. Here is another one that is fascinating to watch. It is based on the „unboxing“ meme that many adopted on youtube:
14:00 audience session: context by Stefan Erschwendner
Some interesting questions arise after the kick off presentation:
Should agencies rather focus on context of the target audience? Will context drive marketing (communicationss) in the future?
Which type of agency will be best suited for this in the future? PR or ad agencies?
What happens when companies piggyback contexts without honestly solving the problems relevant to these contexts – when the branding effect is purely placebo.
How can you focus on certain contexts, for chocolate bars, for example? You can’t with the current system of target audience definition.
If the goal is managing relationships with consumers in different contexts, who will do that in the future? The brand, the agency? Probably the brand in the long term, agencies will turn in to coaches.
Will the time frame for communications programms change? The model of having „quarterly“ campaigns can probably not be sustained in the future.
11:05 second day just started, with some delay, as Roland points out explicitly 😉
First panel:
Trend Cocooning
Wie verändert die Krise das Verbraucherverhalten?
With Prof. Peter Wippermann and Roland Kühl v. Puttkammer (Organisator der remix09)
First, Roland explains the trend cocooning. Prof. Wippermann expands on it. The trend was orifinally coined by Faith Popcorn, before the internet existed in it’s current version.
Quote Wippermann: Freedom is being defined by technology…
Prof. Wippermann about scouting the web via software for identifying trends and topics. Sounds reasonable.
The below 20 year olds search for social connections preferrably online, instead of online. (?)
Now the panel is extended by two people from the audience: a young guy living in London, and John Groves, one of the sponsors of the conference. They are now discussing their personal media usage.
Especially younger people don’t have an internet presence such as a „homepage“, but rather facebook profiles, etc. Homepages are oldschool?
Wippermann: „Die Mitte ist die neue Minderheit“ (not sure how to translate that: the average German is a minority)
People in gerneral are very slow in adopting new things. 34% still calculate prices in Deutsche Mark.
Who has more knowledge about the consumer: the ad agency or the companies? Wippermann: the companies. Agencies are still busy being „creative“.
it is an idea of the industrial age to separate everything: ad agencies from the companies. Originally, advertising was part of the companies. In the network age, everything will be connected (again).
The middlemen (media companies, agencies) will have to proof their added value. Companies can directly connect with their target audience and gain knowledge.
Three Trends by Wipperman: freedom defined by technology, success defined by sharing, family as a „negative“ trend, because people are afraid/don’t want it…
12:00 – next session is about Hinz&Kunzt, a street magazine sold by homeless people here in Hamburg.
Hinz & Kunzt
Ein gemeinnütziger Verlag im Überblick
A monthly magazine, founded: 1993 by Dr. Reimers. A brand awareness of 94% The idea: helping people to help themselves. Financially and politically independent.
Each homeless person is a single entrepreneur. They purchase the magazine in advance for 0,80€ and then sell it for 1,70€ When starting, each reseller gets 10 magazines for free. There are about 400 resellers in Hamburg.
There also is a website, wich some of the magazine articles as a teaser. They even have a blog (because: you have to have one today…?)
Wo ich sonst so bin...