1/ 0.02mm is interesting in the right hands. Especially if those hands are the D&AD award winning team behind Sagami’s ‘Love Distance’ campaign

2/ Markets can behave irrationally. How else can we explain UK bookmakers making England second favourites for the World Cup? (Yes I know, it’s the punters not the market that are behaving irrationally).

3/ We’ve gone real time. We’re texting, twittering, facebooking like …. It’s all about ‘Now’. Admittedly Vodafone cottoned onto that a while ago but Samsung tapped into that nicely with ‘impatience is a virtue’

4/ Hash can be bad for your health – hash tags that is – as Habitat found out earlier in the year when trying to use coverage of the Iranian election to sell sofas.

5/ The success of a campaign can be judged on recall of a TV execution? That was the argument some experts made to explain why an ad by ‘Confused.com’ had performed better than one by ‘Compare the Market’. Missing the point I think when you see that Mr. Aleksandr Orlov now has well over 600K facebook fans.

6/ That being said, TV advertising is far from dead. Comcast proved that without question – simply genius

7/ There is more than one way to skin a cat. Or launch a new car. As VW showed with the Golf GTI in the US

8/ You really are only as good as your last burger. See Fallon + Sony + Balls.

9/ Baku is interesting the first time you visit. On each subsequent trip it is blustery, dusty and a long way from home. Bakcell were doing well when we left them though.

And finally, one other thing that I now know all too well:

10/ Nappies are easy. Not pleasant, but easy. Thanks for every one Avie x.

Richard Mabbott
Group Head of Planning
GyroHSR

In the second phase of our research, entitled “Minding the Eco-Gap”, we’d like to uncover what marketers currently think about the green consumer. Our questionnaire comprises of nice short questions that should take no longer than 10 minutes to complete.

You can complete the questionnaire by visiting http://green.gyrohsr.com

For every completed questionnaire, we will donate £1 to MacMillan Cancer Support.

By

Patrick Danaher
GyroHSR
Marketing Manager

Perhaps if I explain the choice we all have to make, you’ll forgive the hyperbole. We’re all familiar with the current status quo, the received wisdom on integration. Consumers have access to more channels. They engage with different disciplines in different ways, and the TV spot is no longer king in the way it used to be. That much is recognised. So, until now the solution has been ‘take a brilliant brand idea (usually from a TV or press ad) and replicate it across all these brave (if slightly scary) new channels.’ Big Ideas, usually straplines from big brand campaigns have been simply handed down to other channels and expected to fly in the same way. After all, a big idea that doesn’t travel is a dead idea, right?

Well, yes. And no. A big idea must travel – but that doesn’t mean it must simply be slapped on a direct mail piece or a viral and expected to deliver in the same way as a 30-second TV spot. For too long, the ad agencies have created something beautiful, and once they have envisaged how it will deliver to a mass audience –they’ve chucked it back to their below the line friends and expected the same creative to translate virally, digitally, experientially. It won’t. It never will. And now, our world is divided into people who accept this and embrace it and people who won’t, who can’t.

This brave new approach should be about understanding the communications challenge and then feeding it through to everyone from every discipline at the same time. That way you aren’t pushing an idea into the confines of one discipline or another. Rather, you are celebrating and respecting each and its ability to deliver the big idea. Give everyone the challenge at the same time, no artist every delivered the masterpiece from a Paint By Numbers canvas – they always start with the raw materials. Change the way you look at your role. You aren’t the Creative Director, or the Marketing Director. Rather – you are curator, a facilitator – you bring the elements together and let them sing in the loudest, most relevant and exciting way possible.

Just as the Old World was once transfixed by ‘media neutrality’ and ‘seamless execution’, now we must embrace new additions to our lexicon, and challenge the old ones as we do so. For years, we have chased Fool’s Gold, the dream of seamless, cross-discipline delivery. And what does seamless mean to us? It means no interruptions, no surprises, no joins. But if you don’t deliver these clear differentiations between channels, then how can you engage through each one? A viral and a TV ad can’t be ‘seamlessly’ joined. They are fundamentally different, and that difference should be celebrated. The joins, the moments of difference are what will surprise the market.

And indeed, we should challenge the notion of the ‘Big Idea’ itself. What does ‘big’ even mean? Where once it meant ‘easily transferred’, now it must mean ‘expansive’. A true big idea just keeps on giving, and can be ignited across any channel, in any way. For so long, we have thought of our big ideas as fireworks for instant gratification. But we have been all about the visual display, and forgotten about the big bang we should be leaving.

And this new approach works. It is living, breathing happening at this very moment, as we speak. In the US, telecoms brand Sprint had one aim in mind – to be associated with the one thing consumers really want from technology – immediacy. The brief was ‘help us to own immediacy’ – and it was issued to everyone. And the result? A beautiful, engaging mishmash of touchpoints that celebrated the concept of immediacy in the way best suited to their channel. So, the Big Idea expanded. It became a brilliant, throbbing, fact-filled TV ad, a revolutionary widget, an interactive Yahoo takeover. These elements weren’t seamless, they were linked but they had their own characteristics, they existed as their own celebration of the Big Idea…this became the “Now Network” campaign.

I have seen the dramatic differences when you hand someone an idea, not an execution. When I worked with the US’ Office of National Drug Control Policy to help combat habitual drug abuse, the team and I started by identifying the insight that the issue wasn’t exacerbated by drugs themselves, it was driven by the ‘influence’. We personified this influence as the enemy and called every agency together in a room – planners, media buyers, PRs, creatives. We asked everyone to come back with their interpretation of “the influence being the enemy” and in return, they showed us the power of letting a great idea breathe through an endless number of creative (and sometimes unexpected) collaborations and channels. It worked in print, it worked in film and it worked digitally. It didn’t roll seamlessly over every channel. This became the “Above the Influence” campaign.

If you can’t remove yourself from the mindset of ‘seamless’, ‘transferable’ and ‘adaptation’ then you will never champion the new version of ‘integrated’. If you think integration should be about taking an execution and applying it everywhere then you should be working somewhere else, in branding perhaps. After all, that is the branding approach isn’t it? Making touchpoints consistent, keeping a unified identity. Advertising and marketing must be about igniting, not soothing seams.

We must believe our ideas live longer than an awareness campaign – we must have faith that they can fly in millions of ways –not through careful adaptation, but through noisy, viral, visual ignition. Because if they don’t, they will fester in the seamless wallpaper of old-fashioned integration. Let us never forget who we should be talking to, and no consumer ever said “the best thing about that campaign is the way it looks the same on the posters and on the website”. Never did, never will. So you can keep chasing that reaction or you can become a curator and let each element bring the Big Idea to life. The time is now – you are with us or against us, in support of creative eclecticism or in opposition.

Choose wisely, the future of the brands you are looking to ignite will depend upon it.

By Christoph Becker
Chief Creative Officer
GyroHSR

I distinctly remember saying when I first started writing this blog that I would avoid talking about the recession as I felt that as much as anything business confidence was critical in perpetuating this. The research that we carried out amongst B-to-B practitioners showed that despite the fact that much of the hysteria that was around this time last year, that practioners in general felt cautiously upbeat about the prospects for 2009.

What transpired will probably be remembered as our anus horriblus, and although we are by no means the only industry to have been hit hard, marketing has traditionally took the brunt of any downturn and this one was no different. Whilst this subject is normally taboo, I know that many businesses have been forced to examine their cost base and to make hard operational decisions. Whilst painful at the time this period of introspection will have a beneficial long term effect, within marcomms.  I believe it will make us all appreciate the good times better when they return.

We have had oversupply issues in the industry for many years now and in that sense driving some of this out of the industry will be a healthy process. I know that many of our clients have found trading conditions as tough but this has been almost uniform across all of the geographies, disciplines and verticals that we operate in.

On the upside, it seems to be the general consensus that we have ‘seen the worst of it’ and we are starting to see the green shoots of recovery in many of our markets. All of the leading indicators are encouraging: all leading European economies officially out of recession (except the UK and Spain); business and consumer confidence returning; the housing market rallying; the FTSE and NASDAQ on the up; and a strengthening pound. Recent industry reports surveying agency outlook for 2010 shows a quietly cautious optimism about the year ahead, however, I don’t think it’s time to exhale, and any recovery will be slow and shallow.

As we inevitably start the post mortem of the year, marketers are starting to consider what a ‘post recessionary’ world will look like. It’s fair to say that this year marketers have been forced to innovate and to change behaviours. Certain trends have been accelerated, such as the continued migration of online activity, and it will be interesting to see how much of this is longer term structural change.

Following on from some of our recent thought leadership work, we have been carrying out some detailed research within the B-to- B space to investigate this. Our Brand or Demand initiative seeks to examine the premise that recessionary pressures cause marketers to disinvest their brands in favour of short term demand generation, or whether this is indeed a false dichotomy. I guess this is a contemporary expression of the classic ‘RAT’ trap with Research Advertising and Training budgets being hit in any downturn. As many businesses have been in survival mode sales have been critical to recovery, and any expenditure which is seen as discretionary is deemed to be vulgar against a backdrop of operational cost control.

We are bringing our findings together at a summit in Manchester on the 23rd February where we will be debating this with the CMOs of some of the biggest B2B brands: HSS, BUPA, The CarbonNeutral Company and Pearson Vue to name but a few. For more information on this event check out the website at http://gyrohsrbrandordemand.eventbrite.com

I personally believe that while any recovery will be gradual that there is a pent up demand waiting to be released. There is a theory in marketing called the competitive saw which sees any downturn in marketing expenditure reflected in a downturn in demand which must be addressed by a corresponding uplift in activity. Some of the trends that we have seen emerge won’t reverse, recent figures from the MCCA show that it’s unlikely that we will see a return to anything like 2008 expenditure levels on print and display. Stakeholder comms and digital have been big winners from this year and that’s one of the reasons why GyroHSR has significantly outperformed the market this year.

In any case the environment in which we operate in is unlikely to return to how it was in pre-recessionary times and the future success of agencies and clients inevitably relies on their ability to adapt to the constantly changing challenges that businesses face on a day-to-day basis. In that sense nothing has really changed that much at all.

By
Danny Turnbull
General Manager
GyroHSR in Manchester

“Run Glasson Run” was born out of Richard’s determination to honour his mother’s legacy after losing her to cancer last summer. As part of his challenge Richard has already raced the toughest section of the Tour de France and completed an IronMan 70.3 Triathlon. After running the New York City Marathon on Sunday, he will be tasked with tackling the madness of the Hellrunner cross-country ordeal, before rounding things off in December with the off-road Helly Hansen Adventure Race.

Commenting on Richard’s challenge, Katy Chaytor, of Macmillan Cancer Support said “Richard’s legacy to his mother couldn’t be more impressive. When he recovers from his exhaustion, he should be very proud that his efforts will help so many others affected by cancer to the practical, emotional and financial support that Macmillan provides. Richard’s hard work will mean the difference between a good and a bad day for many cancer patients and we hope he’ll receive plenty of support for such an ambitious fundraiser!”

To give a donation to Richard’s extraordinary challenge please visit www.justgiving.com/glasson

By
Patrick Danaher
Marketing Manager
GyroHSR

Ferruccio’s secret? Realising that a simple element he was selling as functional, effective and reliable, could expand outwards into something that was beautiful, awe-inspiring and world-famous. Now, of course, Feruccio could have stuck to turning out his tractor clutch for tractors. But he didn’t. He realised he was only selling a percentage of what his product was actually worth, and went after the remaining potential.

It’s a lesson direct marketers would do well to learn. No, it’s a lesson direct marketers must learn, or risk finding themselves staring into the abyss. For too long, we have marched into pitches talking about data, targeting, response, measurement – all that solid, commercial stuff that we know budget-conscious clients want to hear. “Don’t spend your cash on those beautiful, but intangible brand awareness ads”, we urged. “Go for DM. It works, and here are some cold, hard (if boring) stats to prove it.”

And, for the most part, that approach has worked. Who wouldn’t want to engage with consumers in an intimate way and be able to track where every penny is spent? But the landscape has changed. The consumer has changed. And if direct marketers don’t learn to sell everything else they can deliver, then they can kiss a share of tomorrow’s marketing spend, goodbye.

So why now? What’s changed?

Well, the direct marketing industry has been focusing on the clutch – the fundamental cornerstone of its heritage. We’ve been selling our targeting and measurement. Which is great. Only now, everyone else is starting to walk the walk – or they are at least talking the talk. We all know that with a long history of understanding customer data, direct marketers are those best placed to navigate the new digital landscape for clients, but it’s unquestionable that other disciplines are staking a claim on cross-channel targeting and measurement.

Add to that the lightning speed at which consumer channels have fragmented and multiplied and the ensuing land-grab this has created. Where direct was once a one-to-one channel, it has fast become a one-to-many channel, and this has fundamentally changed the way we must operate.  We predict that we won’t see disciplines drop off, but we will see them continue to multiply.

Taking this new landscape into account forces us to reassess the way we view disciplines and channels within it. Contrary to what some may think, direct marketing is not just a tactical tool, it is a strategic approach. It can build brands and it can create an intimacy that no other approach can. Believe it, because if you don’t, you can’t sell it. And if you can’t sell it, you might be left to turn the lights out as everyone else embraces a new era somewhere in the future. This is an approach we had to adopt when launching a US campaign for agricultural and construction equipment giants John Deere. (If only these essays were themed ‘DM…and tractors’…).The challenge was clear: John Deere wanted to enter a new digger category. The audience was contractors, landscapers, farmers and dealers. So a simple offline DM piece, targeted and tracked, might have done the job.

It might have done. But then, it might have gone down as another classic example of the real potential of direct marketing going well and truly unexploited. Instead, we created a campaign that incorporated the stalwarts of direct marketing and used them to create something much, much bigger.

“Smackdown” involved staging a series of head-to-head battles featuring the top machines in a ‘robot wars’- style duel. The events—the hill climb, visibility test, power lift and serviceability—were based on real-world situations that drivers experience and were staged in front of a live audience.

Initially, the audience was engaged via offline mailers, but that was only the beginning. At the heart of the programme was the ‘SkidSteerSmackdown.com’ microsite, featuring videos of digger battles. The site was fully interactive, enabling visitors to engage in a number of ways. For example, fans could create e-postcards which could be customized and distributed to friends and co-workers. This simple tool converted dealers and operators into the campaign’s strongest advocates. A series of eDMs were distributed to alert both dealer and prospects when new content was available on the site, and finally – traditional elements such as print ads were also incorporated.

And through this activity, John Deere gained a cult following. Since the site launch in April 2008, the microsite has had more than 150,000 visitors with 125,000 unique views and more than 350,000 page views.  Smackdown videos have garnered more than 100,000 views on YouTube. Offline, the Smackdown-themed lead generators yielded a 4 percent response rate, outpacing many other similar mailers during the year. Drive-to-site banner advertising had click-through-rates of approximately 3 percent, and eBlasts promoting the site had response rates of more than 7 percent.

This was a campaign that had direct marketing at the heart – there was an identifiable audience, a clear proposition and a measurable response. But to encapsulate it in this way does no justice to the true reach of the activity. We could have sent out the mailers and waited to track the sales. But we didn’t. We took the brand to a new marketplace and created a following populated by genuine advocates. We drove awareness, created buzz and instigated WOM. And if I’m starting to sound like a traditional adman, then I make no apologies.

And neither should DM as a discipline. It is perfectly poised to tell complete brand stories through this brave new media landscape. But if DM professionals hide behind data and measurement without talking about the inspiring creative, groundbreaking online innovation and power to build genuine brand experiences, then they will be selling themselves short. They will be moaning about their Ferrari clutch, whilst never looking beyond to the potential of their own product. Go forth and sell it all, sell it now. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about

By Christoph Becker
Chief Creative Officer
GyroHSR

Links: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/944635/PROMOTIONAL-FEATURE—Direct-marketing-round-table/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH/

On a recent trip there I discovered the locals have their very own version of The Real Thing – Corsica Cola – and they haven’t been shy in using the Coke packaging as the inspiration for their own e.g. http://www.fractal-angel.org/photo/img/photo0829.jpg

At first I assumed that Coke must own or license the brand but I am reliably informed that the Pietra brewery on the island actually launched it in 2003.

So how have they managed to create something so similar to and seemingly ‘get away with it’? Of course I’m no lawyer so maybe there simply isn’t a case to answer but if there is then what could the story be?

Well what became very evident whilst travelling around was the fierce pride in being Corsican. Road signs are presented in both French and the local Corse language but the French version is almost always painted (or sometimes shot!) out. Advertising celebrates a ‘made in Corsica’ sentiment. And restaurants delight in serving up all manner of traditional and very local delights.

So one theory has to be that a judgement call has been made at Coke HQ that the newspaper headlines created by tackling Pietra in the courts would do the brand more harm than good on this very proud island.

Maybe. Maybe not. Either way one final question remains.

Does Corsica Cola taste like The Real Thing?

Simply, no! Though certain other brands sold by the Pietra brewery do come recommended.

Richard Mabbott
Group Head of Planning
GyroHSR

Ferrand, a former Media Strategist at Naked Communications and Maxus Global, where he was group head, oversaw the media planning for clients including UNIQLO, Timberland, FT and Fujitsu-Siemens. He is responsible for driving GyroHSR’s growing media planning division, with a particular emphasis on London Business School, NXP, Nuffield Health and Tate & Lyle.

Swann meanwhile, who spent five years at JWT and several years in brand consultancy before moving to creative ad-boutique Mother London, has been behind the brand and communications strategy for clients including HSBC, PG Tips and Boots Opticians. He is tasked with driving the development of stronger planning and strategy across the GyroHSR network and elevating its creative product, and will work across the T-Mobile and Shell accounts.  Adam was instrumental in winning the recent Nuffield Health account and building closer ties with existing clients.

The additions are part of a raft of recent senior appointments at GyroHSR, which has been investing heavily in its creative output following former DraftFCB creative head Christoph Becker joining the agency as Chief Creative Officer in June.

Richard Perry, Chief Operating Officer, GyroHSR says: “Agencies need to think harder and operate faster than ever before, and GyroHSR is committed to investing in the best talent to meet this changing landscape.  With the addition of Adam and Luc to an already strong team, we are confident we have the experience, insight and creative skills to drive the best results for our clients. Attracting talent of such a high calibre is testament to the growth of our business and ongoing commitment to our creative output.”

In April, Gyro announced its merger with US agency HSR to meet the scale and reach of client requirements. GyroHSR now has 17 offices in 15 cities spanning Europe, North America and the Middle East.

Links:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=gyrohsr

http://www.brandrepublic.com/Discipline/Advertising/News/939779/GyroHSR-expands-its-planning-function-hires-Mother-Naked/

http://www.marketingdirectmag.co.uk/news/939779/GyroHSR-expands-its-planning-function-hires-Mother-Naked/

GyroHSR has been tasked with the next stage in the development of the Nuffield Health brand following its acquisition and integration of Cannons Health Clubs last year. Our work will support the ongoing implementation of Nuffield’s  innovative, integrated healthcare strategy.

Activity will focus on positioning the organisation as the leading destination for healthcare, fitness and wellbeing across its wide network of hospitals, health clinics and centres. The first phase of the campaign, which is set to launch in this September, will use online, direct marketing, guerrilla and above-the-line advertising to promote Nuffield Health’s unique offering and to attract people to one of the organisation’s 50 fitness and wellbeing centres.

Richard Perry, of  GyroHSR, said “We are delighted to have been appointed by Nuffield Health and excited by the opportunities this brief presents. We know that we have the integrated services and creative talent that will truly help deliver results and bring a different way of thinking to the healthcare sector.”

Mat Hart, Group Marketing Director, Nuffield Health, said “GyroHSR’s interpretation of our brief demonstrated its excellent understanding of our objectives and its superior creative thinking set it apart from the competition.”

Useful, usable and desirable. Those are the buzz words of utility. And they are amazingly relevant. If your company’s product or service doesn’t fulfill those three tenets, you are in jeopardy of becoming, well, quite frankly, irrelevant, not used and not needed.

As marketing and advertising change gears from a model of disruption and intrusion to a model of audiences choosing the who, what, where and when to engage a brand, the agencies that are versed in user-centric design strategies are the ones that feel at home in this landscape. These three basic principles are no secret to digital agencies and have worked over the last decade. To us, it has always been about user-centric design. Our products have always been subject to precise scrutiny, usability tests, human factors and user analysis. In many ways, digital designers share several commonalities with architects, designers of cars, furniture, products and software. Our products are built to enable people to experience something meaningful and help them achieve their tasks and goals.

So how do you start moving to a user-centric approach for marketing, product and services development? Simple. Make understanding your user’s/customer’s goals and their needs a top priority. Drive hard to mine the user insight needed to create great experiences.

Time, priority and money are the roadblocks. User research is the intangible marketing spend that is seemingly unnecessary to the end deliverable. Companies will say, “We know our customers … we did research years ago, but our audience is simple and hasn’t changed in years. Our customers are complex. There is no way we could understand them entirely. There are too many audiences and we’d never get through the research.”

But not spending time on user research and analysis is a critical mistake. It is like trying to design a chair without understanding who will be sitting in it, or creating software without considering whose computer it will be installed on. Innovation occurs when users’ challenges are understood, new solutions are explored, and the selected solutions become successful and critical for the end audience’s achievement of their goal. And any user research is better than none. In many cases, focusing on key audiences will inherently take care of the secondary audience’s needs. Additionally, there are many ways to get at user needs and goals that are agile and still provide relevance and meaning to a project.

Advertising is obviously changing. It is no longer satisfying for consumers to merely receive brand messages to inform their decisions. Brands must now create two-way experiences that are useful, usable and desirable in the achievement of a user’s goals. Where those user goals align with a brand’s business objective is the marketing sweet spot.

You want innovation? Start with the understanding of your customers’ needs, goals and desires. And then unleash a creative agency on ways to excite, delight and solve those customer challenges and passions.

Mike Tittel
Senior Vice President-
Global Practice Leader-Digital

This has also been posted on Mike Tittel’s blog at: http://artistinthefield.blogspot.com/