Whether it is between a customer and a piece of brand communication, between two customers discussing a brand or an interaction with a contextual situation associated with a brand, communication is all about starting a conversation.

The more relevant the content of the conversation, the more immersive the experience and the more willing people are to engage and consistently participate.

The objective of the conversation can have a short-term objective. If you want a short-term reaction, the unstructured ‘bling-bling’ of a pick-up line may get a superficial reaction (good sex). Though, as we all know, relationships mature over time. Participants expect the connection to get stronger to maintain commitment. Hence, ‘bling-bling’ is an exhaustive and unsustainable way to maintain interest in / participation in a conversation.

Relationships that stand the test-of-time normally start with conversations built on mutual respect and admiration.

‘Communication Design’ is exactly that exploratory process. It is the process of carefully constructing an integrated architecture of messages that remain consistent in their personality and tone across many different content forms, contexts and contact environments.

For brands that are serious about their commitment to their relationships, each conversation needs to firstly be inherently linked to a human behavior or insight. To be considered ‘Good design’, each experience, message, content piece and delivery context needs to be intuitively architected and have continuity and consistency.

Lastly, well designed messages don´t have to rely on tedious repetition to force engagement. The immersive connection leverages relevance and aesthetic appeal.

I´m under no illusion that ‘good design’ is easy. Actually, it is actually near impossible in the fragmented, competitive and dysfunctional communications industry. We need to explore the dynamics and disciplines required to stimulate a conversation that can help us make the small steps necessary to bring this to life.

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.