Back in the good old days before audience content consumption fragmentation, it made sense to invest heavily in the crucial staple 30 second commercial. We relied heavily on it’s ability to drive demand. We made an art of measuring the frequency of exposure and constructing it’s content became an unquestionable `high ticket`art form.

Contrary to advertising doomsday analysts, the content landscape is definitely changing, but no, the 30 second commercial is not dead and will not be as long as marketers have the need to stimulate mass demand. Video will remain an extremely powerful content form and TV is still the most efficient content mass distribution form ever invented (that is if they don’t break the model by spending rediculously on High definition).

A cynic may also say that it’s still good business to spend someone else’s money the easiest way possible and increase production values.

My question though is, has this game gone too far?

When developing genuinely innovative connection ideas and insights are either too expensive, or beyond the capability of an antiquated structure, or when a brand has nothing worthwhile to say, it is much easier to mask our charade and wow a client and customer with `bling, bling` special effects and mega productions.

I fear that it may just be one more case of an old (very profitable) industry holding onto it’s business model. Ad agencies make easy money producing just a few expensive mass messaging commercials. Likewise, film production companies refuse to erode their very profitable business model.

Web video is reminding us that the idea is the key to start a conversation, not the production values or the expense of the production.

At the same time, we are approaching a tipping-point between mass and segmented messaging and that TV film production, and possibly bad advice from ad agencies is robbing new media of production investment and retarding much needed content diversification and interface design.

So, what’s the solution?

OK! Ad agencies will argue that producing more video and other content forms will be way too expensive and work intensive. Sure, planning departments are not structured to generate the multiple segmented insights required for more molecular messaging.

Similarly, clients are not structured for the increased vendor roster, project management / approval burden.

Also, there is a definite political risk for clients who dare to expose themselves and support change. No IT manager will get fired for buying Microsoft (regardless of the bugs and flaws), but by forcing a change to Linux, even if it is a smart decision, every disruption is amplified.

The reality is that there is too much inertia / too many structural problems in the agency model to drive the required change. If disruption to their business demands more segmented messaging or a innovation from a diversified content & contact mix, this change needs to be driven by clients.

Risk is merely perception. To affect change, I think we also need to take a step back and re-look at our perception of `too expensive`. Is mass messaging with short term, often totally unaccountable effect a wise place to over-invest??

The real question that we need to reflect on is; If diversified content forms and more segmented messaging produce more relevant and effective brand / consumer conversations, are they actually more expensive?? Is there a larger opportunity cost to ignore the change or set a measured (even if it is perceived as more costly) action plan to find a communication mix that makes our brands relevant to our consumers again.

Cheers, BC

Content or Contact mix decisions should not be arbitrary. There is no one rule and decisions should be made on a brand specific basis. Below are some considerations that may help you determine your brands right mix.

1. Where does the money come from to fund internet?

The Brazilian market is still using internet primarily for building awareness, advocacy and affinity. Markets where Digital has taken a stronger hold generally potentialize it´s benefits throughout the whole purchase decision process. Hence, although digital is a powerful affinity driving tool, in other markets digital is dragging money up from below-the-line more than shifting traditional media funds.

2. Purchasing process disruption forcing an integrated communications digital presence

The traditional path-to-purchase process is broken for many categories. Consumers are changing their expectations and the way that they consume content. Being able to connect with content in a self-service manner has dramatically shortened decision making cycles. Internet on-demand content, social networking and communications are facilitating quicker decisions that demand a constant multi- dimensional marketing presence.

3. Belgium and India (Brazil is five countries in one).

Lack of online critical mass / poor internet penetration can no longer be an excuse for inertia in shifting funds for many influential targets. With weekly internet penetration now ranges from 83% (AB Men 18-24) to zero depending on the target and the state. For most high value consumers, penetrations are well above many in markets considered developed.

4. Perceived or real risk?

Resistance to shifting money to digital is more a result of perceived risk rather that real risk. For many brands, innovation is fundamental, but lack of digital knowledge (driven by many years of digital separation) has created a large gap between perceived and real innovation risk. Often a huge gap exists between the innovation the brand requires and the risk the decision stakeholders are willing to take. This dramatically affects our abilities to get innovative ideas approved.

5. Is internet more effective and efficient that my traditional communication?

30sec video content (and many other traditional content forms) distributed via mass media is still an extremely power and persuasive form of communication content.

It is commonly believed that interactivity is one of the most effective content engagement mechanics, but while digital still has limited reach, it is yet to be proven if interactive is both more effective and more efficient at building affinity with your consumer.

For most integrated marketing campaigns with a central consumer insight focused core idea, digital can be an effective central destination to link each contact channel and drive communication synergies.

6. Which brands need to act urgently?

For many categories that do not have a disrupted path-to-purchase, we may need to first prove that alternate forms of content are both more efficient and effective before shifting investment. E.g. most package consumer goods, mass marketers skewing to broad audiences (that don´t have a specific need for segmentation).

That being said, if your focus is building Brand affinity to AB <40 targets, their expectation of how you connect with them has irreversibly changed. You definitely need to balance your traditional communications content with more conversational content forms.

Here are some other obvious extreme categories where path is disrupted and a constant aggressive presence addressing all parts of the decision path is required:

• High Innovation Demand Products: Soft drinks, Snack foods, fashion, music, mobile phones
• Anything where business model is inherently digital: some Commerce, Banking, ticket purchases, software,
• Info / WOM opinion rich decision process: Travel, Car purchase, house purchase, PC, technology,
• Any other product that can be sold via eCommerce and is easily and cheaply shipped: Books, movies, fast food etc

7. Responsible Innovation (Beware of expectation bubbles)

Ad hoc projects without a strategic vision often burn bridges and retard sustainable integration. Before investing in innovation, we should clarify the success metrics and align our efforts with an integrated strategic vision. Tactical actions should be evaluated in the context of how it will enhance our consumers Brand affinity and ultimately convert to sustainable demand. Ideally, programs should be based on a brands innovation needs and target content insights. They should be a sustainable process of incrementally building capabilities by setting clear success metrics, testing, learning and quickly reapplying.

Cheers, BC

Like many senior business decision makers, I lose sleep concerned if my staff and clients realize what ‘going digital’ means.

Many believe that it is including marketing using the latest gadget or simply including internet advertising in their communications mix.

Actually, going digital has very little to do with the technology. Digital represents a culture of change.

Digital is more about business becoming more sophisticated, evolving its capabilities and moving from a reactive to a proactive posture to attend to a faster and more detailed flow of content.

“Who moved my customer?”

Digital content is changing consumers expectations, and the most disrupted are extremely influential customers. E.g. AB SEL <40.

Businesses need to quickly realize that these disruptive experiences are permanently shifting customers perception of value. The challenge now is to identify which are fads and which are the true disruptive experiences e.g. will new content interfaces like Joost, Wii, iPhone have the same effect that Palm pilot had on Filofax, mobile phones had on fixed lines, Napster had on CD´s, Broadband is having on dial-up etc.

Digital evangelism retarding cultural change

Unfortunately, separation of digital within business has alienated the majority of business decision makers, exacerbating the problem by increasing the perceived risk associated with communication related investments.

There are few professionals who currently have a holistic view of communication and understand how to integrate across both traditional and emerging communications and also through the purchase process.

In the medium-term, Integration is a far more scalable approach and much more effective in balancing the ongoing needs of disrupted and conventional customers.

The emerging business professional

The new measure of the value and equity of a business professional is the ability to filter through the noise, isolate and deconstruct the dynamics of change, reconstruct the elements (connect the dots) to uncover trends , form a vision, provide thought leadership and resolve business problems in an innovative way.

To achieve this, we first all need to have opinions. A good place to start is to analyze our own content and delivery device experiences. E.g. is the user interface intuitive, will it change my value proposition. Right or wrong, opinions are critical to help us initiate a conversation to refine our point-of-view.

Ask the tough questions to innovate

For many industries and business professionals, the opportunity cost of doing nothing is greater than trying and failing.

Ignorance, politics and business culture unfortunately, force many business professionals to be risk-averse. The mix of innovation in a marketing plan should be treated like a financial portfolio. Even the most conservative portfolio has a small proportion of risk built in to keep up with the market.

Although easier, uncontrolled tactical risk is counter-productive to the digital economy. The most practical approach to innovation is to: create a vision, map a path to the vision, determine the gaps in knowledge or capabilities to achieve the vision and construct a research and development plan to evolve your capabilities.

Remember, once a problem is defined, it is much easier to resolve. Encourage your staff to be curious to ask the tough questions.

Good news: The fundamentals of marketing haven´t changed

Contrary to evangelistic prophesies, the marketing model is not broken. It is just evolving to a more sophisticated model (driven by the new disciplines of the digital economy).

Customers still go through the same process to form opinions or reaffirm existing beliefs when deciding on a product purchase (but now the decisions can be quicker). Marketing is still about creating big ideas that open the door, get our customers attention to start a conversation.

The secret to integration success is not to concentrate on differences, but to draw parallels between the old and new economic models.

Digital is the catalyst for broader change

Digital thinking accentuates many of the dynamic elements of the emerging economy. i.e. the need to:

• better understand customers and uncover ownable insights to effectively converse with them and influence their purchase decisions
• innovate content and contact channel forms to encourage customers to engage with our communication messages
• plan to an increasing level of detail and integrate to harmonize all elements in the marketing mix to provide a consistent brand personality across all phases of an increasingly accelerated purchase decision process
• anticipate customer trends to gain a competitive advantage
• define success metrics to ensure our marketing programs have benchmarked objectives and relevant measurement tools

Cheers, BC

In an era where companies are under pressure to increase shareholder value & efficiencies, John Wannamaker´s famous statement, “I know that half my advertising works, I just don’t know which half” has never been more worrying.

The power of mass messaging is eroding. Some consumers are becoming less responsive to general messaging being pushed at them and are summoning marketers to speak to them on their terms. Many now interact with content with a purpose, goal or need that drives their behavior. In the extreme, they reject most messaging and expect to be seduced by a brand experience to enter into a brand related conversation.

Brand communication is this environment is a bit like raising a teenager. You do your best to teach your kids right from wrong, but at the same time they can be affected by many external factors. Unlike the predictable and controlled process of dropping them at the cinema, when you drop them at a party, pick them up at the end, you never knowing what they actually did. We have to trust that our guidance leads them to navigate safely through the experience.

Likewise, when using mass communication, after the initial Ad. exposure, even the most sophisticated marketers lose their customer in ‘clouds of uncertainty’ or ‘blind spots’ during the decision process. If they are lucky, they find them again at the time of purchase. Unfortunately, most of the time, mass marketing has very little measurable correlation to creating demand.

For stockholders, the process of ‘pushing a general mass message out to a broad audience and holding your breath, hoping for a response’, is not a responsible way to spend money that could otherwise go to the bottom line.

These issues are creating enormous tensions. Contrary to the trend, digital marketing options are creating measurable segmented delivery channels to effectively target messages and track their purchase decision process content interactions.

If traditional mass messaging stops working, what can we do to build demand?

Three complementary options are:

1. Innovation to break through the clutter and get noticed is effective for mass audiences. Whether it be content, context or contact vehicle, most innovation is very short lived. To build a sustainable innovation program often requires a cultural change re-focus your company.

2. Recent trend to become more relevant has been a move towards integrated marketing. Cross discipline integration is driving efficiencies by synchronizing activities and is working very well for products with relatively simple purchase decision processes.

3. The third approach, which directly attacks communication wastage, is segmentation. Many marketers are reluctant to fragment efforts and challenge corporate culture and restructure to explore segmentation or ‘Molecular Marketing’.

Where do I start if my brand needs segmented ‘Molecular Marketing’?

Contrary to traditional marketing, Molecular Marketing requires creating multiple brand messages for different customer clusters and modes.

This segmentation can take many forms: more specific definitions of demographics, mind-set, behavior, context, geography or messaging.

For Molecular Marketing to be effective, we need to invest to develop deeper segmented insights and we need to re-define KPI´s, particularly at different stages of the purchasing decision process.

The key is to understand the consumer’s desired experience at the ‘tipping points’ where consumers and customers are looking for content to form an opinion. The challenge then is to craft our messages to help deliver a branded experience to influence consumers purchase decision. When we align our messages with the modes that consumers are in, we can actually become a part of the experience that consumers are seeking.

Whichever the approach, segmented messaging requires a lot more work. For some categories, the benefit still doesn´t warrant the extra cost and effort. Segmentation is inherently more expensive on a cost per exposure basis, but usually ends up more efficient when you analyze return on objectives.

Where relevant, for the investment to be mutually profitable, the communication industry will have to re-benchmark its value proposition to clients and change its remuneration structure for communication services to be more results focused.

Cheers, BC

Regardless of what type of content that you produce (PR, Advertising, Entertainment, Journalism, Art piece etc), the dynamics and process for constructing and analysing content are largely the same. The following steps / dynamics will hopefully give you a better understanding of what is / what is not functioning so that you can optimize the potential distribution & connect of your idea with your desired audience.

      1) CONSUMER / CUSTOMER:

        Start with an in-depth understanding of your target. A segmentation of who they are and the types of messages / experiences that we need to lead them to an interaction or purchase. many companies are using personas to dimensionalise the similarities and differences between these various prospect groups.

      2) IDEA:

Develop a connection idea or insight that will act as a Trojan horse and can be leveraged to convey a piece of brand communication. Ideally it should be based on a behavioral, attitudinal, cultural relevance to stimulate an emotional response and spark a conversation. This traditionally has been the ‘turf’ of the creative, writer, journalist. We are finding though that data analytics and research can uncover hard insights that help unlock the once mysterious connection process.

      3) ENGAGEMENT MECHANIC:

Employ an engagement mechanic to aid in involving the audience with the idea and provide a platform for an ongoing conversation / continuity. E.g. It could be a story, a puzzle, promotion, event, stunt, feedback mechanism etc. traditional mass communication is being challenged because it normally starts at this part of the process and assume mass generic insights.

      4) CONTENT FORM:

Then explore the various content forms in which the idea can come to life. This is usually the point where innovation fails and preconceptions dictate options e.g. a magazine journalist will automatically think of his long form text article to a predefined wordcount.

As business models change and content syndication (to other 3^rd party vendors and delivery devices) becomes the norm, content production processes and development structures will have to be rebuilt to explore the potential of an idea to live in as many forms as possible to optimise an ideas value (and return on investment).

      5) LENGTH:

Explore opportunities for expression using varying lengths within content forms e.g. :

A) a short form headline e.g. for use in RSS feeds / lead generation,

B) a 1 minute lead paragraph that acts as sound bite to lure consumers (similar to how a newspaper treats the first paragraph of an article)

C) the long form / full experiential content piece.

The objective is to lead people to the richest communication forms available to connect people with the idea and optimise the potential amount of time of interaction with content piece.

      6) INTERFACE:

Then develop a user interface that meets the targets expectations. Many traditional interfaces are programmed i.e. someone else decides the content standards. They also have standardized duration pods and technical specifications (that have evolved over time) to facilitate easier commercial inventory control. The emerging interfaces give the control to the consumer and by nature provide a free navigation that allows seemingly limitless interaction. Once we reduce the limits placed by programmed interfaces, we find that consumers are happy to invets more time to have a more immersive experience.

The keys to good interface design include: Design, intuitive architecture (content and navigation)  etc.

       7) DEVICE:

        Choose a delivery device (contact vehicle) that is consistent with the context and interface expectations. E.g. right hardware specifications e.g. chip processing speed, storage capacity, software capabilities.

       8). DISTRIBUTION:

Allow your content to be delivered on a relevant pipeline that meets your customers value expectations e.g. right cost proposition, sufficient access speed, timely content delivery, reliable performance.

A lot of planning conversation focuses on points #7 & #8. We argue that these are largely irrelevant if you don´t have steps #1 to #6 nailed.

Many digital evangelists claim the problem is that everyone else doesn´t get it!! They are partly right, but at the same time they are blind to their own ignorance and weaknesses.

The most successful digital minds are one that can either cross both the traditional and emerging worlds or partner with a mentor that can help them focus and articulate their value.

 90% of what digital evangelists claim that they are inventing – has actually already been done in the traditional world. Like naïve teenagers, they discover something (e.g. a remake of a Rolling Stones song), thinking it new, give it a name of their own and adopt it as their own groundbreaking innovation.

The problem is that digital evangelists not only disrespect historical marketing theory, but they have deliberately kept anyone (e.g. a grey hair mentor) in the dark and at arms-length. In fact, they have been guilty in many respects of ‘Reinventing the wheel’ because of the barriers that they have placed have stopped them learning from the elders of the ‘communications tribe’. In these times, where digital thinking transcends the digital mediums, it may be in the digital evangelists to be a bit more humble and sign a peace treaty.

Sure, the traditional establishment hasn´t made it easy for this seemingly disruptive splinter group. The demons of past battles still haunt the minds of digital journeymen. Likewise, the partying and arrogance prior to the digital bubble bursting and premature claims that ‘everyone associated with traditional communication are irrelevant and dying’, have left deep seated rift between the traditional and emerging communication worlds.

When an industry is growing, it makes sense to separate and concentrate efforts in a silo to achieve a sense of critical mass.  The problem is, as the pie grows, particularly in an extremely dynamic environment where training always plays a back seat to delivery, if you don´t reintegrate, there simply aren´t enough people to do the required work.

It is time that the ‘digital thoroughbreds’ start feeling a little more self-confident and start adopting and recruiting ‘digital immigrants’ people to do the work so that they can move forward and do what they do best – attack the critical problems facing communication: innovate and build conversation infrastructure. There is no doubt that digital thinkers will rule, but in this new world built upon collaboration and co-opetition, let´s hope that we all can find a way to heal the wounds, collectively swallow our pride and act as the mature leaders that our clients and customers need.