Process and Creative are having an affair

Creative is the tall, curvy, sensual woman in the corner office. With her wardrobe and great hair she could have any man she wanted. Strangely she has been quietly hooking up with Process. He of the pocket protector and RACI charts. He is skinny and socially awkward but not without his own quiet intensity.  What on earth does she see in him? What do they have in common? Apparently this has been going on for a long time.

Developing Marketing Communications is not the least bit difficult; the challenge is doing it well. To get the kind of ROI most of us crave obviously involves applied creativity. That’s where it all goes sideways.  To achieve creative creative even the most experienced marketers can be challenged by the tango of Creative Development.  For over 10 years I have worked with Marketing groups and their agencies to install and train best practices in this regard.  Starting a recent project with a top 10 multinational reaffirmed for me the value of getting the process right in Creative Development.

The right approach is never one size fits all, but there are 5 simple practices that almost always help you get to better stuff and happier people.

Explicit Process:

Make it someone’s job on the client side to create, communicate and monitor the process.  Among other things it should include: who is the project team that should be in all the meetings, who is the ultimate “Decision Maker” and a realistic budget. “TBD” is not a budget. 

Have a Great Brief (ing):

Make sure that the Brief form you are starting with is reasonable. Sometimes they can get quite bent out of shape to serve a “distinct creative approach”.  Whether the Brand Manager or the Account Manager/Planner starts writing the Brief, make it a shared responsibility. In the end  It has to be owned by both parties. When the Account Manager briefs the creative team, a client should be there. It’s funny how some agencies resist this; usually this is a vestige from bad briefs that had to be ignored and reinterpreted or badly behaved clients.

One Creative Presentation:

Or, as close to one as you can possibly get.  Manage your client culture to have the important people in the first and only creative presentation, including the ultimate Decision Maker. To do this, clients need to learn to have a productive discussion about the concepts presented without too much regard for rank. They need to get over the obsession with making decisions on the spot and spend more effort on understanding the submissions and getting comfortable with risk. You can actually make the decision “tomorrow”. 

One Creative Presentation Part II:

I am not a fan of “tissue sessions” (rough/early idea presentations). Most clients have a hard enough time envisioning the end product at a tight creative presentation. It is hubris to think they need you in the creative process. You will enjoy the Creative so much more if you the skip the trailer.  Many agencies like to present “Creative Platforms” or Areas. What you really need is a good idea (subject for a later post).  Ask the agency to present ideas and executions concurrently.  Most of us are not skilled enough to judge a “platform”  divorced from its “output”.  Its only purpose, after all, is to create good executions, so let’s see it do that.

Provide Written Feedback:

Do it always.  Your response might be a one line email for a dangler or a three pager for a major campaign.  Writing has several advantages: it creates a record, forces alignment among clients (amen) and benefits from the precision of the written word. If the project is substantial, deliver this written feedback in person or at least on the phone to allow for conversation.

It is easy to find people who disagree with these practices. There are many ways to do it, and they are welcome to their methods.  The most popular ice cream flavour in Canada is still vanilla. I guess it just works. I have firsthand experience with both large and small Marketing teams witnessing improvement in their Marketing Communications when they apply these simple process improvements.  But simple is not the same as easy and they require both clients and agency partners to raise their games.

By: Marc Solby On Sunday, February 19, 2017

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US Tax reform proposes unbelievable changes to marketing and advertising

The United States government needs money. Wars and recessions can do that to your financial health. They also want to lower corporate taxes to be more globally competitive. I guess that leads to some very different ideas being put on the table...and some stay there.

Early last month David Camp the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee brought forward a draft tax reform package fully bent out of shape by lobbying efforts. In an effort to offset proposed corporate tax breaks he is recommending a wholesale change to the way in which adverting is expensed for tax purposes.

Camp is proposing that the first 50% of advertising costs are expensed in the year they are incurred and are tax deductible (like most other business expense). The deduction on the balance would be amortized over the next ten years. Apparently this passes for tax “simplification”. The impact of a change like this would be significant reductions in near term media spending and all that implies. Needless to say, agency, media, marketing jobs would go away. It would undoubtedly affect Canada as well.

Thankfully, what started as bi-partisan tax reform has quickly become no party non-reform. The general belief is that this bill will never make it to the floor for a vote this year.  Mr. Camp has also recently announced that he will not be running for re-election this year, making it unlikely that anyone will provide the impetus to move these reforms forward.

It still scares the heck out of me! Where on earth did it come from and can you put that genie back in the bottle? Once an idea like this gets floated it can be tough to sink. The advertising industry lobby will be doing their best to kill it once and for all.  I know that Tony Clement is not on my distribution list. I don’t think he reads Ad Age and I suggest that you NOT tell him about it.

You can read more about it, or at least verify that I am not making it up in the Adweek article here.

By: Marc Solby On Friday, April 04, 2014

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Stop wasting money on market research

Everyone in business does Market Research. Some even pay for it.  Whether you are an experienced and sophisticated marketing manager or a startup trying to better meet your customers’ needs you need to make sure that you are asking the right questions.

My favorite story in this regard  comes from Sergio Zyman’s book “The End of Marketing as We Know It”. As you likely know, Mr. Zyman was, for many years, the Chief Marketing Officer of Coca-Cola Ltd. His tenure included that legendary marketing mistake, the New Coke fiasco when they “improved” the ninety year old Coke formula and “relaunched” the brand with the new product. Consumers, of course, were outraged, the company was humiliated and within the year they reversed course and returned to the original formulation.

Mr. Zyman explains in print how the marketing team did extensive market research to inform their business decision (no kidding!) and they felt certain that the new formulation was preferred by both competitive users and current users. He distills his mistake this way: “we asked them ‘what would you do if we gave you [this] product as Coke? They told us, ‘they would buy it’. We didn’t ask The Question…‘if we took away Coca-Cola and gave you New Coke, would you accept it?”

If those smart, experienced and well-resourced people in Atlanta can get it wrong…well, anyone can.  To get it right you need to do what I do at the outset of every research project, a Strategic Research Review.  By doing it you will a) save money by avoiding useless research that you don’t need b) ensure that your research is relevant and has a high value to the business c) enjoy the long term benefits of making smarter decisions.

Like most “problem definition” documents the SRR is neither easy to do nor easy to explain. It is not something you do perfectly; it is a continuous improvement thing. Experience helps. Despite the obvious challenges I want to give you a sense for how you can ensure that you have done your homework prior to implementing market research.

Why do we need research?

This is relevant background. It has to describe the business situation and category dynamics that have created the research need. It should demonstrate that you have identified what you think is the root cause of the business problem. To do that it usually breaks the problem down into its component parts.

Example: Brand X is getting squeezed in the yogurt category between a local brand with superior quality and a global brand with extensive innovation across flavours and formats. (and so on)

What relevant research has already been done?

What is that George Bush-ism about “known unknowns and unknown unknowns?” Previous research is a “known unknown”, that is, there is almost always something useful if you are willing to look carefully. Articulate a concise summary of what you learned and note the studies for future reference.

What are the business decisions to be made with the research?

Clear links to the decisions to be made are your security against useless research. Articulate realistic and accurate aims for the research. There may be multiple decisions to impact, but it is important to convey their priority. There is nothing wrong with having secondary decisions, they can be handled on a “nice to have” basis.

Some projects are suited to “decision choices” i.e. the brand needs to do A or B depending on if the research outcome is 1 or 2.  These decisions should relate to the components of the problem outlined earlier.

Example: Yogurt Brand X needs to choose  where  to focus investment and how best to position the brand to win in those segments versus competitors.

What are the research objectives?

What are the specific questions, the things you want to learn? What information would enable you to make the decisions? You can frame them as questions (How do consumers switch among the various brands?) or as information needs (Determine brand interaction). This section will also convey exactly whom you want information from. Again, it is important to convey the priority of the various objectives. “Self reported media habits” may be nice to have, but brand image perceptions would be critical. This is where the new Coke team failed to pull out the precise question that related to the specific business problem.

Example:

To understand yogurt consumer purchase habits in terms of frequency, location of purchase, formats, brands, container size.

To understand consumption behavior in terms of who consumes the product and  the type of occasion.

What is the expected use of the results?

This section articulates specifics of how will the research information help with the decisions? It may not be required for simple projects. For others, however articulating specific analyses and uses ensures that you are getting the right data.

Example:

To develop an in-depth profile of the yogurt purchaser, particularly the heavy purchaser both for the category overall and for the most profitable yogurt formats.

To populate a scorecard of key measures that will evaluate the overall effectiveness of marketing programs.

Once those questions have been answered, only then can you  start designing a methodology. In general, there is far too much attention on innovative methodologies (MRI scanning? Sentiment monitoring?) and not enough focus on defining the research problem.  The issue is exacerbated by research suppliers who are selling off-the-shelf “products” that are standardized and easily executed by relatively junior staff.

What happened to poor Mr. Zyman? Well he had to leave in disgrace a year later…but he may have been out to prove something.  He wrote a bestselling book , started Zyman Group consulting, sold it seven years later to MDC for $64million  and was hired back at Coke as CMO for 3 years. It seems he did okay… once he learned to ask the right questions. Luckily, I have not sold out yet – just call or email.

By: Marc Solby On Monday, February 10, 2014

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Facilitation first aid - be ready.

I was at a client sales meeting for several days recently and participated in a planning exercise with breakout groups. It was all run by a third party that provided some planning tools and facilitators. While the exercise was good, it could have been better if the facilitation was a bit more skillful.

If everyone in Marketing Management should be able to write an effective presentation, I think they should also have some basic facilitation skills to actively lead a meeting.  Anyone can be a reasonably good facilitator with a little practice and few rules to keep them between the lines. Even if you are not the person holding the marker, you may well be a participant who can help out in a pinch if it’s not going well.

At the meeting there were two common mistakes worth pointing out. In the breakout, the facilitator acknowledged someone’s comment but did not write it down with the other notes on a flip chart. I thought that the contributor had made a good point, so I jumped in and said that.  I could also see that he was a bit miffed.  Despite my “piling on” the facilitator still failed write it down. She had a response in mind and was looking for someone to say THAT.

When all 150 of us came back together in the big room with each group’s top 3 ideas the facilitator put up several charts: Group 1 ideas, Group 2 ideas, and so on. Then she solicited the group to vote by clapping for the best overall ideas. “Hey” she exclaimed in the middle of it all “you can’t just vote for your own ideas!”  This breakdown happened precisely because she assigned the ideas to their originating group when she posted them.

Here are five simple rules to keep in mind when you have the “power of the pen”:

1. Write down the comments, in their own words. Ask people to “headline it” if it’s too long.
2. Write down all the comments, sort later.
3. Unless you have a good reason to do otherwise, once the comment goes up it belongs to the group. That way the group can delete it, elevate it or modify it without reference to its contributor.
4. Be completely neutral. You can’t be a referee and score a goal. If you have a bias you will lose the trust of the group. Game over.
5. Don’t let the ground rules of the session be violated without taking some action. They are not rules unless they are enforced.

If it all goes well, those simple guidelines will get you to your destination. If, however, there is conflict or dysfunction in the group it can be very challenging without a toolkit of practiced techniques. That is the next level and a good reason to seek out some expert training if you think you are going to use this skill set in your role. I learned facilitation from a pro named Michael Wilkinson in Atlanta who has literally written the book on it. If you are interested there are resources here. I use the learning all the time, particularly to get a group to a consensus.

There are many opportunities for Marketers to quickly get to better solutions through group problem solving. Leaders can actively facilitate sessions that last an hour not a day: ideation and selection,  rough planning, defining and agreeing to simple processes are a few examples.  It can create a much more purposeful and productive meeting.

Now, which ones are the whiteboard markers again?

By: Marc Solby On Wednesday, December 11, 2013

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Sampling Is Expensive...How Do You Know?

Oscar Wilde defined a cynic as “a man knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”  His description applies to many Marketers as well. I often hear Brand Managers complain about the COST of sampling programs. “Sampling is expensive”, seems to be common knowledge.

It is not surprising when we can “seemingly” buy media at vastly cheaper rates but we need to challenge ourselves to buy “outcomes” not “output”.  An “outcome” is clearly linked to our marketing goals. “Outcomes” have a clear path to how we make money. “Output” is often the way a vendor wants to sell it to us.  A TV spot in Modern Family is “output”. Someone being aware of your brand and its benefits is an “outcome” (Brand Awareness).

A typical launch or relaunch brand scenario wants to “drive awareness leading to trial”. I think it is instructive look at a few of the tactical options in terms of the “outcome”, in this case, “trial achieved”. To do that, we have to make a few wild assumptions, but it is still worth trying.

TV COMPARISON

A relatively “efficient” option to achieve trial is to buy a primetime TV spot. It costs roughly $30 per thousand.  We never see TV production included in the cost but I am going to guess at an incremental 15%: $34 per thousand. Now, that is the “opportunity to see”.  There is no guarantee that those thousand are actually paying attention to your ad, in fact there is a good chance many are not.  So, I am going to add on “effective frequency”.  How many times do you need to show your ad before it sinks in? Based on some recent research I am going to say five[i]. That takes into account: the creative, how people watch TV and overstatement in the audience by the provider. That would bring your cost to $170 for a thousand people who are aware.  How many of those Adults 18-54 are going to go and buy your brand? How about a generous estimate of 1%? That would yield 10 Triers at $17 per person.  Put another way, you would need 17% conversion (awareness to trial) to get your cost down to $1 per Trier.

Primetime CPM (Ontario)	$30
...add in creative of 15%	$34
Effective frequency 5x	$170/thousand aware
Conversion to trial @1%...	$17/Trier
...or conversion required for $1/Trier  cost	17%

ONLINE COMPARISON

Another comparative is Pay Per Click online. To buy the keywords “Best Shampoo” on Google adwords costs roughly $2.00 per click. What that buys you is someone moving from the search page to your landing page.  Your conversion would be a fraction of that.  When I looked, the brand buying “best shampoo” was selling $25 bottles of organic super-premium shampoo. You need a price and margins like that to pay $2 per click.

SAMPLING VALUE

There are a wide variety of sampling methods and their associated costs. Excluding cost of goods, door-to-door distribution costs roughly $0.70 per, whereas mailing to a database with a dedicated package could cost $2.50 per. A good midpoint for comparison is online request-based sampling in a co-op mailer. It costs roughly $1 per person to put a sample directly in the hands of someone in your target group. 

Of course, some programs opt for field marketing which almost always blends sampling, communication and the value of live contact which generally makes a considerable impression. That impression should impact your conversion rates.  It is usually easy to calculate a cost per “touch” in field marketing but you have to consider the value of the sample plus the communication plus the “engagement level”.

In any of these sampling tactics, if your product performs well, it’s a short walk to some very good conversion-to-purchase rates. At costs of 70 cents to a few dollars, depending on your margins, they can yield a favourable ROI.  

It may just be rough assumptions, but it is easy to see that comparing promotional tactics like sampling with mass media on a cost per thousand (CPM) is not very insightful.  If the value is in achieving Trial then the tactics that appear expensive at first glance may easily be the best value when the analysis is done.

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[i] See Igor Makienko’s, “Effective frequency estimates in local media planning practice” in the Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing (2012), vol 20

By: Marc Solby On Thursday, June 13, 2013

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Atheist Shoes

To read about ingenious Atheist shoes look here .
It is important to design your fashion brand with publicity built in. It is also a good example of differentiation - with intangible support points.

By: Marc Solby On Wednesday, March 27, 2013

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Applebee's Social Media Teachable Moment

This is a superb cautionary tale on how as company you have to learn how to take a punch on Social Media. Applebee's thought it could control the flow and obfuscate its way out of a sticky situation in which they fired a server.

Some form of honesty is not only the best policy in an 'always on' universe, it is the ONLY policy - as the screenshot has brought down many a politician and is used as weapon in this chronicle.

Applebee's teachable moment here.

By: Marc Solby On Wednesday, February 13, 2013

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