The insight within

Great effect but what's wrong?

Having recently browsed through Campaign’s best creative agency of this decade, I came across an ad that I had forgotten about but still loved to this very day. Despite modern day’s growth in technology and society’s maturity in artistic civility, this particular ad hones in on the bloke inside of every man.

 

Now from a personal perspective, I like the production, it makes me smile, I’ve always liked the productions, I’ve at times embarrassingly reenacted them across dance floors to the tune of ‘make luv’. I even like the smell, I certainly remember the brand name and yet I still don’t buy the product. So what’s wrong?

As Ivan Pollard says, “A person’s feeling towards a brand is made up of the aggregation of their experiences with that brand layered one on top of another over time”. 

This brand has been apart my life since I was a prepubescent young lad running to matron feeling poorly (anything to get out of Latin!). So it’s safe to say that Lynx has had a lot of time, and a lot of individual influences, to generate a feeling towards the brand.

Clearly it’s not the communications, or even the product that is discouraging, but similarly to the Porsche case study, it’s the person using it that is the problem. In the case of Porsche back in the 90’s, after extensive research among those who drove them showed that the car looked good, it was a great drive and was all round excellent, the company execs simply couldn’t understand why there was a decline in sales. Product was good and the people who were driving them loved it. So what was the issue? The issue was that those who didn’t drive Porsches thought that those who did were a bunch of slick tossers and hence didn’t want to be part of the group. Now when you revert back to the type of male using Lynx, they are often meager, nerdy, teenage and one would assume they would struggle to ever find a girlfriend, despite the resurgence of geek chic. Each time a person sees this uninspiring audience using the product over a period of time, the associated effect on the brand negates the communications that the brand is trying to convey.

Still love the ads though.

People need and want engagement

Last night, I was at a truly inspirational industry event hosted by the lovely people at Canvas 8. Their speakers included an ex creative director of Publicis, a professor in consumer behaviour and a doctor that specialises in semiotics.

The general theme of the evening is that consumers are transforming, and we as communications professionals need to go with the change. Interestingly, there was less emphasis on the recession and much more was spoken about history, innate human nature and the need for greater engagement.

 

Fordism and mass consumerism essentially has not promised us the blissful paradise that it set out. Instead of satisfying our every desire, in the context of retail, it has ultimately turned people in to unengaged mindless zombies. However, people need stimuli and to truly tap in to innate human nature, they need to be engaged. There are many ways of doing so such as co creation, although not just merely at a media level but to a deeper business level that can dictate things such as price and actual products. Dr Pepper for example are allowing people to vote for which agency they should align with and Local motorsin Detroit, briefed the consumer to design a car, which they in turn built! Now that's consumer generated content to it's fullest. People also need to be surprised in the retail environment through activities such as the T-Mobile flash mob dance or pop up stores.

We are also living in as evermore integrated online and offline world. The Proteus effectsupports the idea that our emotions won't differentiate our feelings both online and offline. Thus concepts such as augumented reality and virtual worlds will become ever more important in the future. Technology has enabled us to be much more communicative and given us greater opportunity to engage with consumers and this is something we should truly embrace, as ultimately this will drive greater resonance between consumers and brands, which in turn will increase advocacy, sales and ROI.

The overarching idea is that people should be treated as that, people, and not seen as dollar signs that are ignored. By listening to people more and engaging with them, more profitable business models can be attained. Put people first. Threadlessis a brilliant example of a model that engages consumers to design T-shirts which in turn are put up on to the website for sale. Notably, every single one of the T-shirts put on to the website sell. It's about making things much more than simple products with practicalities and uses. The Hollywood exchangeis also another example where the voice of the consumer has turned out to be surprisingly more accurate than the experts when predicting the next box office hit.

The message is simple - listen and involve those who will be buying your product.

Obama goes for a presidential burger

This is brilliant. Obama, conveniently nips out to a burger joint for lunch.

Now, although it was without a shadow of a doubt pre-planned, brand Obama has done it again. By performing this stunt, he not only communicates to the world that he is a mere mortal, but a very accessible one at that.

To draw analogies from the music industry, it's this kind of public accessibility that made the likes of Curt Cubain and Pete Docherty such cult heroes. By going out for lunch, with the intent on encouraging people to spend again, he is saying that he has the same wants, desires and actions as every other ordinary person. In doing so, it has added an incredible amount of value to his brand reputation. People can truly associate with this, which makes him ever more likeable. Anyone could have done this, you may say, but lets not forget how contrived and unnatural Blair and Brown performed the sharing of a simple ice cream back in 2006.