Spinach Blog

We've previously blogged about public servants with a sense of humour when the 2010 census Twitter account was tweeting out pearls of light-hearted humour to the Australian public.

Being a correspondence this story is a little less social, but considering the writer had already blogged his letter, it's unlikely the responder didn't think this would go public.

First read the original letter:

http://haughtfeelings.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/my-email-to-yarra-trams/

Then the response:

http://haughtfeelings.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/the-response-my-email-to-yarra-trams/

Social media has meant that customer service experiences are now very quickly, if not immediately, put in the public domain.

I find it interesting that these examples of brands being allowed to show personality and humour are both public service organisations.  Surely there is more room for online customer service employees of the world to be more themselves.  Anyone who has had a laugh and a chat about the weather with a call centre employee will hang up feeling a little warmer about the brand they've just dealt with. And at the end of the day, we all know there is someone at the other end sitting at the keyboard.

Zoe Freeman, Digital Director

 

Given the overwhelmingly upbeat support of the advertising industry for all things digital, it is notable that one of the UK’s leading agencies, and a recognised thought leader, accepted the challenge of arguing the case against the digital revolution.  Using the considerable intellectual resources normally reserved for the other side of the debate, BBH London wrote a deliberately provocative article for Viewpoint at the end of 2011.  The piece, Majority report: looking through the digital hype, can be found here.

For those that don’t want to wade through it, here is a summary of the main points.

• Despite the possibilities of technical advances, the reality of “how people actually live and use technologies has changed very little.   This gap between the myth and reality is ever-widening”.  The average Briton in 2011 was living a very similar life to those twenty years earlier in terms of: hours of television watched per day, most popular news source (The Sun), number one brand (Coke), best selling car (Ford Fiesta), the economy and the National Health System remained the issues of most concern, and myriad behaviours relating to family life and leisure were unchanged.


• Purchase of new technologies is too often confused with adoption.  For example, “only 20% of the average smartphone’s capacity is ever used”.


• “Even where a new medium is being used, it is primarily facilitating old behaviours.  Despite the breadth of user-generated content, 98% of the UK’s viewing is of professionally produced film content…However, the illusion of revolution is so convincing that it affects how people perceive their own behaviour. On average PVR owners believe they watch over 70% of their TV on demand.  The real figure is 14%.  86% of their viewing is traditional real-time broadcast.  This ratio is not changing”.

Interestingly some of the most visible academic contributions to the case against digital hype come from the University of South Australia’s Ehrenburg-Bass Institute.    Results of a study of the 200 biggest brands on Facebook, just released in 2012, found that less than 0.5% of fans actually engaged with a brand (that is undertook meaningful activity, including comment and share, rather than just ‘Like’).  The study also found that Facebook fans were skewed towards heavy buyers, and that purchase frequency didn’t increase after someone became a fan.

This has led them to cautioning marketers and their agencies against "putting a disproportionate amount of effort into engagement and strategies to get people to talk about a brand, when you should be spending more time getting more light buyers".

The final post in this series will outline the approach agencies and clients should be taking given the questions being asked of the credibility of the digital revolution.

Glenn Myatt, Strategy Director

 

 

It’s not news that the past decade has seen some of the biggest technological shifts since the invention of the printing press. The way people can now communicate with each other, and the way businesses can communicate with customers, was not that long ago the stuff of science fiction.

If you listen to the industry’s digital acolytes this has signalled a paradigm shift of apocalyptic proportions for ‘traditional’ advertising. At the forefront of this is the ‘television is dead’ position popularised - with an obvious degree of self-interest - by various new-to-world digital agencies. To different degrees established advertising agencies have joined the chorus, either not wanting to be seen as cavemen or wanting to recoup their investment in newly acquired digital capabilities.  

Marketers, particularly in Australia, have been a bit more circumspect about going along for the ride.  But you would be hard pressed to find a brand that hasn’t at least dabbled with social media. And, of course, what career conscious marketer isn’t lured by the need to have ‘digital’ on their CV?

Ironically, all of this may have led to a rampant case of herd behaviour within the microcosm of the marketing and advertising community.

In comparison, counter-point perspectives have had a much smaller voice.  The ‘emperor has no clothes’ arguments have come largely from a few of advertising’s elder statesmen and academics.  These commenters tend to see the digital revolution much like the dot com boom of the 1990s; full of unfounded optimism and unproven potential.  Where the fundamental principles of how people relate to brands are ignored.  And where the engagement of the few doesn’t even come close to having the same impact as the semi-partial attention of the many.

If accepting that the case for a new communications paradigm isn’t as clear cut as it seems, then agencies and clients need a more reasoned approach to developing digital initiatives.  An approach where agencies detail up front what proposed ideas are realistically expected to achieve.  And where the basic thinking about an audience around and beyond their digital interactions is always done.  More on this in the third post of this series.

The next post will outline a rare counter-argument to the digital revolution from the agency side by one of the UK’s leading agencies.

Glenn Myatt, Strategy Director

 

 

1. What is your favourite advertising commercial?

 

Geek references and Dogs - how could you go wrong?

The especially clever part this advertising campaign is realising that both those things appeal to niche sets of internet users, which meant it's share-ability (we don't use the word viral) is very high.

2. What do you love about Melbourne?

I moved to Melbourne from Sydney last year so I love lots of things about it as the novelty is still very strong. The experience of eating out in Melbourne, from a casual coffee and pastry to a full five-course dinner is by far and away my favourite part of living here - both service and food is always amazing. Trams are a very close second.

3. What's the most creative thing you've ever done?

I started, grew and eventually sold a digital agency in Sydney. It was the hardest thing I've ever done but it required that I be constantly creative. It also reaped a lot of rewards and taught me most of what I know about marketing digital services to businesses.

4. Sum up your career in 10 words:

1. Computers
2. Web
3. Internet
4. Hospitals*
5. Digital
6. Business
7. Advertising
8. Strategy
9. Creative
10. Geek

*A true child of the internet age, I was made redundant in the UK after the dot crash and worked as a medical secretary for the rest of my time there, which at least means I can type fast.

5. What does digital mean to you?

I eat, breathe and sleep digital marketing, but unlike a lot of my counterparts I see it as evolution not a revolution - not to say we're not seeing some fundamental paradigm shifts in the advertising/marketing industry and business as a whole.

I do believe social media will change the way big brands think about their customers. Consumers will start to actively seek out brands that listen to what they have to say. Those that refuse to listen and respond will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage very quickly.

Japanese digital billboards can target shoppers using facial recognition to guage their age/gender and show appropriate products

Read more at geek.com

Australians showcase a ‘photo-shopped’ version of self

“In a tribe you are who you are. In a cyber tribe you can present a photo-shopped image of yourself. In a tribe your friends are self-evident. In a cyber tribe you can present a schedule of who your friends are purported to be. In a tribe you are where you are. In a cyber tribe your status can be strategically updated so that you can give the impression of being someone who travels extensively.

It is this capacity for there to be a significant difference between the real person and the cultivated persona that is the new development of social media. And yet in another respect there is nothing new about this: the desire to present yourself in the best possible light is instinctive human behaviour.” Bernard Salt