LaughlinOutLoud

I tweeted earlier this week: “Okay, Soccer. You win. I’m all in for the World Cup. Don’t let me down.” And I meant it. For a sport I’ve barely watched before, I couldn’t be more excited for what a good friend calls “a month-long celebration of awesome.”

But I find how I got here interesting. I’ve always known about the product of soccer. I played it for more than a decade. Marketers take note, it’s not the game of soccer that sold me on the tournament. It was the technology and the advertising.

Technology Changes The Game. It was just announced that AT&T Uverse will be launching ESPN 3D in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. I don’t (yet) have a 3D TV, but  HD already makes the experience thoroughly enjoyable. It makes things that were previously uninteresting to me imminently watchable. Case in point, I have recently enjoyed both hockey and curling for the first times ever. Technology, quite literally, changes the game.

The Power of Advertising. From McDonald’s to Nike, big brands have drawn me in with emotional messages. Especially Nike. The “Write The Future” campaign is so good, I think it could redefine the role a corporate sponsor plays – I hope FIFA paid Wieden + Kennedy handsomely. [Update: Nike is not an official sponsor. Which doesn't change my feelings about FIFA paying them.] Before I’ve watched a minute, I know some players and I am emotionally invested in the fates of not only the athletes, but their fans. That’s the power of advertising.

Until the technology and advertising changed the game for me, I was never a fan of the “product.” We’ll see how the next month goes. But fanaticism (and its ensuing loyalty) does not seem out of the question.

I don’t watch Lost. My excuse is not a good one. I just didn’t watch at the beginning – then felt like I couldn’t catch up. That said, I have a great deal of respect for the show.

It’s an old school drama that is leading the way in a reality world. And it weaves a story so compelling that its network let it run its course despite the fact that it was only going to lose audience as it moved towards completion (really, with all the plot complexities and questions, how many people were just going to “jump in” during Season Six?).

I recently listened to an interview with Carlton Cuse, one of the show’s head writers. As he talked about Lost for an hour – again, a show I really know nothing about – I became more and more interested in what he was saying. In describing his approach to writing the show, I felt like he was describing a strategic approach to brand management.

I thought he made four points that act as good reminders for any marketer building a brand via storytelling.

Embrace the community. Cuse said the writers write with intentional ambiguity. Think about that. Intentional ambiguity works to get fans involved. The show is meant to be discussed. In the world of branding, ambiguity sounds scary. But it can be a powerful engagement tool.

Execution really matters. In television, the premise is much less important than the execution of the premise. Exhibit A: Seinfeld. Exhibit B: Friends. The concept for Lost started as “Let’s do a show about a plane crash and an island.” Great execution can make an average idea powerful. It rarely works the other way around.

Don’t over-think it. The pilot for Lost was done – start to finish – in eleven weeks. That’s unheard of. On one hand, it’s amazing it got done. On the other, there wasn’t time to think it to death. Decisions were made. The creators got to trust their vision. There is always a reason not to do something. When the potential is great, we need to find more reasons to say yes.

Evolve. Cuse’s advice? You have to be willing to try things. The writers introduce characters based on both the storyline and ideas they have for great characters. They know there are lots of pieces. The show will tell you what it wants to be. They manage accordingly. How are you listening to your brand’s story?

Sports fans know when a referee is doing a good job. It’s when you don’t notice them. The best referees are chameleons. Their consistency and low-profile make them totally forgettable. In a good way.

This is the opposite of what your brand experience should be. While being the default option is a worthy goal, being used without a second thought may not be the ultimate recipe for success.

Research from McKinsey spells this out in rather remarkable terms. According to its report, A new way to measure word-of-mouth marketing, word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions. The most powerful form of word of mouth results largely when that experience deviates from what’s expected.

Overkill and lack of authenticity are clear enemies. But the worst thing your brand experience may be able to do is go unnoticed.

The necessary ingredients for this new age of brand experiences: Surprise. Fascination. Delight.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop – #Agency2.5  – in Chicago. It was sponsored by @4As and run by @TimWilliamsICG. And it was great. A full day of interesting statistics, fresh perspectives and conversation starters.

The #Agency2.5 workshop addressed how agencies are transforming for the future. One of the biggest themes of the day was the opportunity for brands to provide value. This is something that I believe to be at the crux of how we should be marketing. And, while this is by no means a new idea, there is a change afoot.

Value used to be provided post-purchase. Buy X to get Y. But smart brands are expediting that process. When “there’s an app for that” (digital or otherwise), brands can provide help and useful information pre-purchase rather than simply trying to persuade their consumers to buy, buy, buy.

It is a simple – but powerful – idea. We used to live in a time when consumers had a scarcity of choice and an abundance of time. That balance has shifted. A recent study from the University of California – San Diego found that Americans consume 34GB of information every day. Every day. It’s the very definition of information overload.

One way to get them to pay attention? Provide value. Done well, you might gain more than one time-starved customer. Provide the right value at the right time and you might just gain an advocate who gets the attention of their time-starved friends, fans and followers.

Forbes just listed the marketing world’s 10 most trusted celebrities.

The fact that Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) led the list over the guy who drove Miss Daisy (Morgan Freeman) should make the validity of this ranking a little suspect.  Maybe the value of celebrities in general is a little suspect, too.

As of this posting, the Forbes website has this list archived above the top ten retirement havens.  Marketers who bank on celebrities might want to keep that second list handy.  Celebrities are a little too much like politicians who are a little too much like all the rest of us.  Prone to bad behavior.

In spite of all the risks, there have been some spectacular endorsements. Michael Jordan and Nike leap to mind.  But it’s rare to be that right.

Michael Jordan is also the spokesperson for Hanes along with Charlie Sheen, a serial bad-boy.  He replaces Cuba Gooding Jr. in a continuing story line as the B-list celebrity who wants part of Michael’s A-list aura.  Michael comes across as unapproachable.  Mere stars aren’t even good enough for this guy.  Trouble is, you can’t replace an idea with a celebrity as so many spots try to do.  It’s either the celebrity getting in the way of the product, or vice versa.  My guess is celebrities don’t fit Hanes they way they used to.

A great old maxim went, if you don’t have anything important to say, get someone important to say it.  Today, brands just can’t afford to say nothing.  Mere awareness just won’t cut it anymore.

The great brands, like Kraft, Proctor & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Johnson Wax, McDonald’s, Coke, Google, IBM, and Apple rarely use celebrities.  They focus on always having something new to talk about.  Sure there are plenty of exceptions, but in way too many cases, celebrities just aren’t good enough for a brand.

We are faced with choices on how best to tell stories on a daily basis. Often times, the decision comes down to “do we / can we trust the audience?” Can we trust them to be smart enough? Engaged enough? Responsible enough?

I was reminded of this the other night as I read How The Grinch Stole Christmas. It was the first time I had read it in, likely, twenty-five years. And you know what? [Spoiler Alert!] Despite the promise of the title, the grinch doesn’t steal Christmas. He can’t. That’s the point of the story. Here’s how the book ends:

And he brought back the toys! And the food for the feast!

And he… HE HIMSELF… !

The Grinch carved the roast beast.

The story ends with the grinch carving the roast beast at the Who’s Christmas dinner.

When run through a committee, the story would have been called “The Unsteal-able Holiday.” Or “How The Grinch Couldn’t Steal Christmas.” Or, maybe most palatable, at least in hindsight, “How Christmas Saved The Grinch.”

But it wasn’t run through a committee. Or made into a literal translation. It was told by someone who believed strongly enough that this was the exact right way to tell it. And that people would get it. The good Doctor Seuss used a title that was, in reality, the opposite of what the story was about.

And the story has been told and retold ever since.

Happy Holidays.

According to a new book, Inside the Mind of the Shopper by Herb Sorensen, a typical supermarket contains 40,000 SKUs. But, over the course of a year, a shopper only buys about 400 of those offerings. Rituals are a way of life. It’s brand loyalty in action.

A recent article by Joel Rubinson, the chief research officer at the Journal of Advertising Research, explores this idea further. The author challenged readers to keep a diary of all the different brands they use during a day. It was a means of identifying if loyalty is borne of love (the way we managers of brands would like to believe) or something else.

When Rubinson tried the exercise, he reached 77 brands by two in the afternoon and realized he cared about only 5 of them – a number smaller than the one he was loyal to. I tried the same exercise and came away with similar results. In fact, I considered myself loyal to about twice as many brands as I cared about on a random Wednesday. A key to these non-love loyalties? They were easy to choose.

Value propositions and positioning statements seem to have fallen out of favor with thought leaders lately. I believe it’s because they have been so badly abused for so many years. But they do serve an important purpose. Done well, they provide an opportunity to prioritize away all the excess. They’re a good barometer for “Am I easy to choose?” And, in the age of exponential clutter, they may be as important as ever. The brand loyalty of your customer may depend on it.

The essentials of advertising is the top result of 103,000,000 for a Google search of “the essentials of advertising.” It was written in 1921.

Growing up, the threat of something going on your permanent record was real. But, in the end, it amounted to a manilla folder in the filing cabinet of a principal’s office.

Things have changed.

Now we really do have a permanent record. As marketers, brands and people. Compliments of Google and Bing. Facebook and Twitter. Digg and Reddit. What your brand does today may be a click away from now until the end of time.

And that matters. McKinsey estimates that by 2011, the Internet will play a role in more than 45% of all retail sales, as either a research tool or a sales channel. Think about that for a second. Half of all purchases may be available with a pretty comprehensive record of everything your brand has ever done.

So the idea that, in this new age of technology, creativity matters less or that pitch-perfect execution isn’t essential is short sighted.

In fact, the stakes have never been higher. Who knows how long they’ll last?

Earlier this year, I saw Daniel Levine speak. He used a phrase that has stuck with me since: The Tyranny of Transparency. The sharing of data and opinion is giving consumers insight that they’ve never had before. Right down to the street corner.

Consumers are more empowered than ever. This is a good thing. We can all embrace transparency by being better at what we do.

But that doesn’t mean transparency doesn’t have its irrational side. The latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey asked over 25,000 consumers in 50 countries if they trusted a number of forms of “advertising.” The most trusted source was “recommendations from people known” at 90%. No surprise there. But number two was a tie between “brand websites” and “consumer opinions posted online,” which both registered 70% of consumers reporting that they either completely or somewhat trusted these sources.

So 70% of Red Sox fans are at least somewhat trusting of the opinions of anonymous Yankee fans’ online? Would they say that face-to-face sitting in Section 312?

While this pendulum will likely swing back at some point, these numbers are actually all “up” from an identical study done in 2007.

Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere reports that 82% of bloggers post product or brand reviews and 89% post about brands that they love (or hate). As I mentioned here a few weeks ago, 62% of consumers go online to share opinions.

If 70% of consumers are trusting of these opinions, your brand has a new high-level priority on its hands. You need to manage your brand’s reputation online. Or, clearly, somebody else will.

Yesterday I received a link to an online case study for Element skateboards. There is lots of online buzz about this being great work. And the buzz is deserved. The idea behind the campaign blew me away. The way they thought about using technology blew me away. The awards that it won? Let’s just say everything about it impressed me immediately. And after about three minutes of digging further, I realized that this was not a case study. It was a student entry in an awards competition.

That’s the internet for you. Students in Norway come up with an idea. Produce a video. Put it online. Get people excited about an idea. One that walks and talks like a real idea. One that creates awareness in the brand. Changes perceptions of the brand. Builds equity in the brand. Creates jealousy among art directors, copywriters and planners everywhere. And, in actuality, never “existed.”

Pre-execution buzz has existed in many categories for many years. And, perhaps, Element (or some other skateboard brand or some group of dedicated consumers) will take this idea and make it real. But, then again, it might not.

This idea may live out it’s life as an idea, and still make an impact. Technology changes everything. In this case, the way in which the idea was presented changed perceptions. And it did so by looking like it changed reality.