speaking in clicks

[November 29, 2011] 

One of the ongoing hot topics in digital space is “Content Marketing,” a discipline that’s been around long enough to have an institute, and everything. The promise of the premise is that brands can establish themselves as thought leaders on a topic of immediate relevance to their product, service or image. In light of that, it might be better to think of this category as “Thought Leader Marketing.” After all, there’s no direct relationship between the amount of content you generate and the likelihood you’ll achieve rockstar-guru status.

Nor is it enough to crank out reprints of the obvious. For example, while the overall strategy adopted by American Express in its Open Forum is sound, an article providing generic tips for small business owners does little to enhance the company’s image. We expect more from this venerable brand than a glib once-over about market segmentation. Worse, the example the author uses, PepsiCo, hardly provides a model for a Cincinnati locksmith or a Tallahassee remodeling company.

As fluff, the article fails to deliver value, relying on namedropping (Pepsi) and marketing jargon (segmentation) to stand in for substance. It’s not, of course, that the advice isn’t sound. But we expect American Express to tell us something about the topic we don’t already know—not suggestions a business owner could get from the local Chamber of Commerce or About.com—let alone a community college business school degree program.

Take a position—preferably not lying down.
Like a vast percentage of what passes for advice in digital space, articles like this are less about thought leadership, or even content, than about space filling. And nowhere is “Abhor a Vacuum” Marketing more prevalent than when the topic is nutrition. The empty calories that fill out a recent article from Campbell’s Web site is one of hundreds of examples. “Eat smaller portions,” such articles say, and “keep a food diary.” With cogent, actionable advice like that, it’s a wonder more Americans aren’t thin as a rail and fit as a fiddle.

And, of course, the last thing we can expect from Campbell’s is a thought provoking essay about the fat, salt and sugar at the heart of the food addiction debate—a topic that crops up in any discussion of the American obesity epidemic. Does Campbell’s think the phrase “food addiction” is overblown? A thought leader would make its position clear, and not only when called to task by the NIH.

Gimmicks of the Golden Age.
Given the damage to a brand’s image caused by such contentless content, I’m afraid this situation confirms my worst fears, borne out by years of experience. While brands love to talk about the importance of content, they either can’t recognize it when they see it, or are terrified of actually saying anything definitive.

Added to that is the widespread belief that, despite the popularity of the Kindle, we are well into an age of voluntary Fahrenheit 451ism—even if what we experience now is more like book-ignoring than book-burning. Yet even if it could be proved that nobody reads, shouldn’t we reasonably expect the “infographics” or video that replace traditional essays to contain more than recycled summaries of last year’s sound bites?

Otherwise, “Content Marketing” is simply another gimmicky holdover from the glory days of direct mail—when thecoup de grace of empty value gestures was sending customers a pencil monogrammed with their names. Like the magic beans of European folklore, mechanical marketing ploys based on the spewing out of empty words are a sham—whose only purpose is to justify a consultant’s paycheck or an institute’s membership fees.

[November 21, 2010]

At the recent Mashable Media Summit, one topic was the trend toward mobile marketing that many predict is much more than the latest wave. The rapid adoption of portable, touch screen digital access seems poised to shape user behavior for the next few years.

So the question arises, what impact will the pre-eminence of mobile devices have on how people retain and share digital content? The quickest glance at the touch screen of any high-end i-something or droid-wazzit tells me users are already powerfully influenced to perceive content in terms of tiny, compact chunks of engagement. 

An app, a tweet, a friend update, a memeshot, or a video earning its 7.5 minutes of viral fame, are well on the way to being the standard to which all forms of content are expected to conform.

To me, that says one thing: It’s no longer going to be possible to cram every single marketing message you want to deliver into every single engagement you hope to have with consumers. As someone constantly enjoined over the last few years to bulletize, summarize and merchandise in ever-smaller spaces, I can assure you the era of the Incredible Shrinking Copy Block is over. 

Unless you come up with a way to inscribe your outdated copy online with quantum holography, something’s got to change.

In other words, you’ll have to build your marketing strategy around saying less in each communication. Only by lowering the real content density of your message can you hope to score your business goals on mobile computing’s space-challenged playing field. You’ll need to break your narrative into units that flow naturally, idiomatically onto smaller screens. 

And you’ll have to do it without summoning “Learn More,” that hoary gremlin, who defaces digital communication night and day—scrawling his name wherever there’s a pixel-width to spare.

Refining your sense of touch.
While there’s nothing wrong, in principle, with referring interested users to a Web site for a complete discussion of a topic, the more mobile your users are, the harder it is to tempt them to learn more. 

It’s partly a cultural thing. After all, in the time it takes your audience to “touch through,” they could respond to an IM, repost a tweet, comment on a photo, take a photo, post a photo, comment on their post and watch a response video shared by a friend.

The solution brands must find, if they wish to engage mobile audiences, must lie in understanding what value to deliver and when. Each brand will need to break its narrative and the message it conveys into categories, based on immediate impact, entertainment value and what may have research value once you sell your audience on taking an in-depth look.

Then again, you’ll have to think twice about how you deliver that research value. Once tempted in, mobile users won’t sit still for content they can’t break into digestible bites. What’s needed, as I see it, is a new kind of bookmarking system. 

That is, not another third- forth- or fifth-party app, but a built-in feature of your Web site. This system would allowing users to read a portion now, bookmark and return where they left off instantly, the moment they dial up your site. 

That means, yes, skipping past the home page and every last overkill callout you now think is indispensable to “making the sale.”

Tapping the cocoon.
And speaking of sales, I’m starting to believe that the definition of “sale” may now be in flux. Considering the expertise it takes to get mobile users to engage, the biggest sell will be getting them to notice you. 

Finalizing the sale will have to involve a simple, rapid delivery system for price points, special offers and so on—followed by an order form that *sigh* doesn’t waste an ounce of attention span on survey questions, sweepstakes entries or CRM programs that merely recycle home page content from your static Web presence.

Having stimulated that first impulse—and enticed a user to touch through—you must conserve every precious second. Otherwise, your mobile customer will be off again, answering, responding, downloading, uploading, updating and settling back down into the digital cocoon that embeds more and more Americans in a cozy psychological world of instant, self-referential gratification.

As I see it, what this points to is a radical rethinking of the shopworn maxim, “content is king.” In a mobile messaging universe, delivery is the dominant player—though I prefer to think of mobile marketing not as a monarchy, but as an autonomous collective.

[November 14, 2011] 

The explosive design revolution that began at the turn of the last century has left us many legacies, but none more lasting than the perception of design as a coherent, visual language. No mere array of decorative elements, design communicates aspects of the human condition other languages cannot.

Today the design awakening continues, celebrated in digital space at a wide array of Web sites, including the following—a list rising just slightly above the status of a random sampling:

• Communication Arts
• Design Bloom
• Design Magazine
• Gizmodo
• Like Cool

Paging through such sites is especially enlightening once you browse back to digital places many of us consult daily. Whatever else Facebook may be, an exemplar of design-as-communication it ain’t. But, of course, there are thousands of other flat, boxy and uninteresting sites to choose from.

And that’s exactly the issue that’s been keeping me up at night: Why, in the face of the last 111 years, does standard, Box + Text Web design continue to dominate the scene? 

Not that we can expect much more when the majority of sites are nothing more than containers for Content, that mysterious goo we crop and shape to fit our space requirements. Now, don’t bother striking up another chorus of “The Client Made Me Do It,” because I’m not buying that. 

Confusing cause and effect.
While I’m intimately familiar with the pressures to conform that shape our industry, they’re no excuse for ignoring that Box + Text Web design communicates absolutely nothing to consumers, no matter how witty the copy, how touching the stock art, or how engaging the offer.

Fail to recognize that design itself is a mode of communication and you’ll be perpetually flummoxed by low response rates and high click-aways. You’ll continue to attribute lack of success to copy that isn’t “strong enough” or graphics that don’t “pop enough.” You’ll also fail to realize what a boring, lackluster voice is telling your brand story. 

Learning the language of experience.
If you’re with me so far, it’s time you acknowledge that digital space is an entirely new language, with a unique multidimensional syntax. As such, it’s a language you can only speak properly if each of its components is crafted correctly—to function interdependently.

To achieve fluency in this language, you must begin by creating a message and crafting a verbal/visual/sonic/motive instrument to convey it. Done right, visual elements shape and are shaped by how users read text. Text is accessible in multiple formats—its meaning, shaped by and shaping its environment. Video merges seamlessly into the texture, ebbing, flowing and unobtrusively marking several intuitive paths through the site.

Today, even better Web site designs communicate little beyond “Pages for Clicks.” As I see it, we’re wasting precious resources if we don’t give creatives a mandate to create vivid online experiences. After all, it’s the experience that sells. That’s the real message behind the moth-eaten adage, “sell the sizzle, not the steak” attributed to Elmer Wheeler.

Having explored what Web design is not, let’s look at recent developments, some not so much “new” as underutilized. 

Setting a challenging new standard.
The first example was developed to promote the work of Canadian illustrator William Kurelik. Here a flash environment or its equivalent enables users to navigate a virtual gallery of his works, biography etc. As a result, the site seems to acknowledge the users’ presence. At its best, this and similar approaches offer an engaging set of temptations to explore the work of a relatively obscure artist. 

The site developed for The Frye Company, an “artisanal” boot and shoe maker, takes this level of responsiveness further. Its sense-enlivening confluence of imagery and text celebrates emotion, discovery and the joy of living. The site, a window into an alternative universe of fulfillment, exists to make even the style-impaired stop and screen shop.

Finally, the shadow world conjured by the French interactive agency, Werkstatt uses the illusion of movement through space-time to create a fresh, multidimensional language of motion, color, pattern, sound and shifting meaning. As with our experience of the real world, objects and vistas recede and increase within a field of vision we’re ready to explore even in the absence of a “strong call to action.”

Speaking of the future.
What each of these sites share is an intent to create a narrative environment that itself contributes to the flow of narrative content. In these instances, the categories of content and design merge inseparably. As in any true language, it’s the interaction of its components, their overlap and cross influence that communicates, not its individual “words.” 

More important, the startling potential these sites reveal points to the eventual development of new modes of communication that may one day lessen the crippling distance currently ripping our real world apart.

[November 6, 2011]

So far, my foray into the wilds of Bannerania has given me a fresh angle from which to assess the state of digital marketing. While there is much to be glum about, including bottomless swamps of mediocrity, there are also flickers of hope.

That is, hope generated by the mere fact that the better examples ever saw the light of day. In 2011, I’m astonished to say, there are still legions of marketers who subscribe to the “Dumber-Than-Me” school of consumer engagement. In this sector of the industry, nothing raises the specters of Terror and Suspicion faster than any ad object conceived with an ounce of intelligence.

“Sure,” this line of logic runs, “I understand it. But consumers? You must be joking.”

I gather this dim view of “the average consumer” is inculcated early. As such, it’s a form of cult programming that’s no easier to shake than any number of street-level opiates. At least, I have no other explanation for the proliferation of 350 x 200 panels of sheer tedium masquerading as engagement strategy.

Ironically, not even “the average consumer’s” complete indifference to such lifeless communication is enough to make “average MBA holders” challenge their biases. It merely spurs them on to lower the bar one notch more. “Click here now to find out why you should click here now,” reads the subtext of many banners. I’m surprised manufacturers of such nonsense are willing to acknowledge their audience members can even grasp the phrase “click here.”

After all, consumers can’t “click here.” Consumers can only click their mouse buttons. I mean, isn’t that confusing? As I see it, it follows from the Dumber-Than-Me POV that “average consumers” need more direction, as:

Use your computer mouse to move the on-screen pointer until it’s directly over the rectangular image resembling a button on an electronic device. Then depress the left computer mouse button with your index finger (Mac Users, see the below special instructions) and release. You’ll be connected automatically to a Web page explaining what we have to offer. Act now.

As I see it, you can’t have it both ways. If you accept the idea that everyday people can grasp the contextually-defined phrase “click here,” you’re in no position to claim they lack the intelligence to interpret—and be moved by—advertising concepts that steer clear of the obvious, the banal and the mechanically directive.

Offering real value.
Lucky for me, there’s reason to hope the tide is turning. At least in some quarters, in cases where the target is meant to be “millennials,” digital banners move closer to offering real value—the only thing that will ever motivate a consumer to engage. 

That is, not value to be delivered at a remote site by following a mind-numbing registration process, but value delivered right there in the banner. At the simplest level are banners like one posted recently by The Home Depot that allow actual catalog shopping within a tiny frame.

With the ability to sample wares in real time, users can experience the brand more efficiently than on a “K-heavy” Web page. In a similar way, a Volkswagen game banner celebrated in recent weeks by digitalbuzz.com, gives users something to do within its own confines. You’re right, it doesn’t include a price point, it doesn’t even include a product shot. Not to worry, that won’t confuse consumers. They’ll be too busy playing the game. Why? Because entertainment is itself a category of value.

The interplay of play and motivation.
Stern proponents of American Values aside, the urge to play is one of the most fundamental human characteristics. You need only think of the thousands of hours Americans devote to televised sports, TV game shows and, naturally, offline and online video games to realize the truth: Play, whether for entertainment or sacred observance is—at least in the U.S.—the number one engagement medium.

In light of that, the role of playful design elements in a recent Samsung banner makes perfect sense. When the topic is as dry as computer memory chips—components only a handful of electrical engineers could get excited about—Samsung made a smart choice. The chips, critical to the realization of digital gaming environments, were personified by an animated leopard users could engage in a simple game of fetch.

Earth-shattering? No. But, artfully done, the animation brought Samsung to life, by dramatizing how the brand puts “high-tech” at the service of everyday human needs. More to the point, it momentarily restored my trust that Samsung has the faintest idea that I’m a real person. Try getting that across with a traditional banner screaming, “Buy two, get one free. No one makes memory more memorable than Samsung!”