speaking in clicks

[January 20, 2011]

[This post reflects the state of the sites discussed at the time. The issues raised are still relevant to the discussion of manipulative branding practices.]

One of the most mystifying things I know is the fantasy-reality paradox that advertising continues to evoke. Starting from the logical premise that it’s useful to anchor a brand in the real world—if only to show it solves real-world problems—most branded communication proceeds to place its product in an unrealistic, fantasy version of that world.

The idea, of course, is that the idealized images in advertising are simply meant to convey the positive vibe the brand would like to be associated with. “The XYZ2011 will make you feel like a million bucks” says the subliminal subtext, overstated in such explicit terms that it ceases to function.

Why? Because, believe it or not, people have seen advertising before. Oceans of it. That’s why the threat of the TV mute button to advertisers has been grossly exaggerated.

See a car commercial with the sound off? If you can find a sucker, bet him 1000 to one the ad says, in essence, “You’re gonna love this car.” You’ll clean up. Same goes for those Applebee’s ads that say “Eatin’ Good in the Neighborhood.” The only lingering ambiguity is whether the featured personae are also “Lovin’ It,” or just on their way to a Justin Timberlake concert.

So if people get it already—about every product on Earth for the next 17 generations—what’s an understaffed big name agency going to do? Clearly, the answer is “Amp it up.” It’s easy to understand why. Now that our perception of reality is engulfed in a multimedia Purple Haze denser than anything imagined 45 years ago, the only way to reach an audience is by making everything bigger, faster and, ultimately, further removed from realistic expectations.

“…who’s the most over-empowered one of all?”
Into this crazed promotional environment step electronics manufacturers, people so desperate for a Bono endorsement they’ll say anything. Anything, that is, to imply their products endow you with super powers. That’s right. Now that the claim “Our Product Can Do Everything” has lost its luster, a brand’s only recourse is to assert “You Can Do Everything” once you plunk down the cash. Terms and Restrictions Apply.

Just listen to the iPad’s creators hawk the product online:

When something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sort of becomes magical. And that’s exactly what an iPad is. It’s hard to see how something so simple, so thin and so light could possibly be so capable…It’s going to change the way we do the things we do every day.

OK, just give me a second to shake the vomit out of my shoes.

The hype about “the magic” is so heavy at apple.com, I’m surprised they haven’t already merged with Disney—though maybe the latter’s long-time association with the phrase “poison apple” is just too much of a buzz kill. And yet, as they reach for an 11 on a narcissism scale of 10, Apple probably feels The Evil Queen has no mirror as enchanting as the one they gaze into hour by hour. I mean, does hers have a Glee app?

Joining the league of extraordinary touch screens.
Not that other contenders for the hot-as-Beyoncé tablet market are any less starved for Messianic acclaim. The lengths Samsung goes to pitch the Galaxy Tab are only slightly less demoralizing. The series of videos on its Web site begins with a lackluster effort to equate owning a Galaxy Tab to running a successful small business.

Filmed in a washed out imitation of the Monkee’s washed out imitation of Hard Day’s Night, and accompanied by standard-issue stock pop from the “Late Beatles” rack, these almost-to-the-point videos (hosted on YouTube to lock in the virus), are soon superseded by a micro-mini-series of Lost parodies that quickly lose interest. Buy one of these tablets, you learn, and it will change the way you waste your time forever.

For more of the same, this time buried under a barrage of tech-magazine reviews and including the revolutionary phrases “best in class features,” and “breathtaking multimedia,” visit the Blackberry PlayBook video pod—where you’ll learn, among other things, how PlayBook will help you train for the National Jump Rope Competition.

“You can do anything, be anything with our magic wand,” promise these frenzied brands. With such egomaniacal messaging seeping into the collective consciousness, is it any wonder we live in an era dominated by the self-centered roll back of social responsibility? We now even have instances of people dressing up like superheroes, trying to make good on that promise.

And while there are many other things besides a magic touch screen that can make real people act like narcissistic idiots, I can’t help seeing the implied claims of electronic device manufacturers as fanning the flames of a deeply troubling trend in our culture.

[January 16, 2012]

In my last post, I talked about the ways Language shapes our perception of the very things we use Language to express. The impact of this paradox on our conversation with consumers is little understood. That’s because so much of what we produce is the result of habitual, mechanical practice and unexamined marketing theory. 

Am I being too harsh? Maybe. But I don’t know how else to account for what I encountered on
1-10-12 at Honda.com. Here, in the slide show marquee, is Car Copy Gone Wild:

• We’re all different. That’s why there are 5 Honda Civics
• All New Cry. Inspiration is Calling
• Million Mile Joe Did It!
• Right Size Meets Right Time.
• 2012 Honda Goldwing. Prepare to go everywhere!
• The next Honda in your life
• 2012 Honda Pilot. The SUV made better
• Honda’s “Sweet Dreams” kicks off the Rose Parade
• Honda Has More 2011 JD Power and Associates
  Initial Quality Awards Than Any Other Automaker
• The Fit Is GO! 
• Do you possess dreams or to they possess you
• The undying dream
• A Commuter’s Dream
• Refinement to the next power
• We’ve been an engine of growth for the US economy for over 40 years.

Imagine, 15 different message strategies, each conveyed with a different visual style, rhythm, pacing and voice—yet supposedly the outward expression of a unified brand. As I see it, the seductive impact of labels on perception has blindsided Honda. Far from being branded communication, this is the very exemplar of Web Site Copy, that bland, inhuman style of communication that slides closer to the standards set by the supermarket circular every year.

Face it, anyone who spoke this way to a friend or lover in the real world would be considered a sociopath. It’s a communication style we might call “Just Keep Talking—Until You Strike a Nerve or Your Prey Cracks From Nervous Exhaustion.”

Of course communicating humanely is easier face-to-face than through any advertising medium, but that’s no excuse for allowing the medium to interpose itself between a brand and its audience. “Look at me, I’m a marketing platform,” squeals the marquee at Honda.com—as at Xerox.com, Boarshead.com and countless other sites. In the rush to follow form and produce Web Site Copy that meets Professional Standards, real communication is lost. 

“Isn’t there a better way?”
My answer is a qualified “Yes.” Not coincidentally, the solutions I find at MMS.com involve more than a different approach to copy. While the text is much less “websitey” than average, the real impact lies in the way the message unfolds. Instead of confronting a visitor with a wall of unrelated copy snippets, the site creates context, a framework for communication. 

Like an engaging sales rep, it appeals to you as a rounded, unified entity. Also notice that this site, though built from the same visual/verbal vocabulary as the offline M&Ms campaign, has reinterpreted that vocabulary for a different medium. Then, page by page, it unfolds different aspects of its message at a human pace—without the drumbeat redundancy of traditional marketing speak.

Now, lest you think this approach won’t work in a campaign for a high value product marketed to discriminating customers, have a look at two examples. The first is the recent general campaign for The Cosmopolitan Resort Hotel under the banner “Just the Right Amount of Wrong.” I defy anyone to say a swatch of traditional Hotel Copy extolling “the finest accommodations for the luxury experience you deserve,” could have such an immediate impact. 

At a less sensational level, see the House of Travel Make Your Own Policy Tool. Not as much fun, but just as engaging, in one important sense: Here’s a page that delivers far more than mere words or images can convey about what the company offers.

Fail to grasp the implications here and you’re doomed to produce another wordy Web presence that paradoxically says nothing at all. Because the ultimate folly of label-based communication is its focus on words. Real communication doesn’t depend on individual words or phrases but on the background message that emerges from its surrounding context—a combination of word, image and sound, real or implied. 

This background message and the value it delivers is the true definition of branding. No amount of clever words or design gimmickry can motivate consumers if it doesn’t add up to a meaningful emotional connection, as conveyed in a unifying message. Forget this point and your destined to become just another sad puppet of Language and its labels.

[January 3, 2011]

One of the most important aspects of Language is the way it shapes our perceptions. A perfect example is the experience I had at a dinner party, a few years back. The main course was delicious—until I learned what was in it. Once the words “pigs’ knuckles” entered my brain, I lost my appetite and much else besides.

That’s just one of the ways the labels we attach to things can affect our experience. In this sense, Language not only conveys information, it is information.

Take the label “copywriter.” Over the last 50 years, as American marketing, like American society, has become more literal-minded, the meaning of “copywriter” has become increasingly limited. In 2012, your garden-variety marketing wonk defines “copywriter” as a technician who writes to order.

And due to the splintering effects of literalism on workflow, that order now frequently comes from a highly specialized “strategist.” According to common lore, copywriters only exist to realize a strategist’s strategies. They do so by pumping pre-approved PowerPoint slides full of category-appropriate stock phrases—kind of like a building contractor insulating your attic.

According to one school of thought, this analogy is entirely apt. It positions writing as a mechanical process, a skill anyone could learn if they didn’t have loftier things to attend to.

Step away from the whiteboard.
It’s easy to see why. As America’s descent into literalism continues—as evidenced by this season’s GOP debates—even people who should know better think in terms of “Pharmaceutical Copy,” “Real Estate Copy,” “Financial Copy,” “Insurance Copy.” That they also posit the existence of “Mommy Marketing Copy,” “Hispanic Marketing Copy,” and “Alternative Lifestyle Copy” is just this side of bigotry.

Yet this is what Language does to thought and perception if you let it. Ironically, as the premier label-makers of American society, the advertising industry is the one most thoroughly snared in labeling’s artful web. 

Having created a marketing category, we can’t walk away from the tight limitations it puts on our communications with real people—as opposed to the statistically generated mannequins many market researchers long to settle down with and start a family.

Ultimately, the seductive power of Language lies in the reassuringly mechanical thought processes it tempts us to accept. If my goal is to write me some Real Estate Copy, I know I can’t go wrong as long as I color within the lines—as laid out by ritualized service pledges, terse action statements and self-congratulatory heralding. 

After a few years, you can write this kind of dreck in your sleep, which is why so much of what we ask consumers to read is unreadable—except in the most literal sense.

“Moving, meaningful, human? Just write it already.”
As I see it, the saddest piece of this puzzle is the rampant ignorance of the truth behind the “copywriter” label. Do yourself a favor: Peer through the inky fog Language squirts at you when you let it run wild. You’ll realize that copywriting has very little to do with words. 

The real task of a copywriter is to create a compelling message and then build a structure through which it can flow. It’s a collaborative task that can’t be handled by the harried keyboard jockeys our pressure-cooker scheduling produces. It’s also an evolving process, which is why the rigid mandates of many strategic advisors are a prescription for disaster—precisely because they’re prescriptive.

To the chagrin of consultants everywhere, crafting an effective communication is not a connect-the-dots exercise you execute with a “fool-proof system.” Instead of proceeding word-for-word from a literal transcription of “key learnings,” “audience insights” or “user profiles,” your creative messaging team, led by an accomplished copy creative, must interact with the data, test its limits and listen intuitively for its true emotional resonance.

Sure, the strategists’ hard work is duly noted and the directional leads it offers are often invaluable. But only someone with the experience, training and talent to understand the impact of language on thought, emotion and meaning can properly manage the intricate interplay of fact, image, sound, rhythm and pacing required to motivate consumers to action.

Everything else is just words, the empty rattling of conventional marketing wisdom, a body of knowledge curiously ignorant of its own central thesis: That its number one goal is to get under consumers’ skin and make them itch to take action. 

Reaching that goal requires a finely tuned structure that can’t be cooked up around a conference table over pasta salad and Coke Zero. In my next post, I’ll take a look at some of the ways structure and message interact—as a stab at outlining a more flexible paradigm for crafting consumer messaging.

[December 16, 2011]

Tell me if you’ve heard this one.

You’re minding your own business at a busy agency, when the call comes in from one of your newer clients. They’re not happy with their connunication strategy. 

They want you to present a fresh direction, a new look and feel, a plan to establish them as the category thought leader in a way that won’t alienate existing customers. The new approach must, of course be “smart,” “ownable,” “scalable” and have “mobile legs.”

Naturally, no sooner are the words out of their mouths than your bright-eyed account leads promise a full array of deliverables. Instantly, schedules are drawn up, resources are allocated, a kick-off meeting is convened and a bee-hive of activity trembles into high gear. The Concepting Dance begins!

Trouble is, a crucial step is most often skipped between the client’s call to action and the agency’s response.

Curb your enthusiasm.
Instead of jumping in with both feet, pulling ideas from every corner of the digital universe, you need to just stop. Before another hour passes, ask your clients strategic questions, based on an assessment of the communications they’ve launched in the last year. Listen closely to their description—of goals, strategies and, just as important, what they had hoped to acheive.

Then ask them to define their brand position. Yes, you may have gleaned a thing or two when you originally pitched the business, but I guarantee you haven’t heard the whole story.

Whatever topline worship words they may have chanted by rote, when it comes to working out the details of the next campaign, you’ll find your immediate contacts have a personal and, often, more detailed view of where their brand identity lies. More to the point, you’ll perceive the frame of reference that POV inhabits.

Lost in translation.
Only then can you begin a successful process and create concepts that grow out of shared assumptions. Why does this matter? Look at it this way. Over time, I’ve seen countless brilliant, dedicated operatives in every agency discipline waste untold hours crafting concept presentations in excruciating detail—only to discover that, in the words of the bard:

The client doesn’t get it.

With certain rare exceptions, when this happens, it’s for only one reason. You’ve taken the client’s request literally, at face value, without taking into account the corporate marketing culture that produced that request. And in this business, understanding your client’s corporate culture is a corner stone of your success. Unglamorous, perhaps, but true.

Engage your memory and see for yourself how this usually plays out. Agency people hear the word “fresh” and immediately think of a concept based on the voice and tone of the edgiest, hottest trends just hitting the airwaves.

Do the kind of investigative work I’ve described and you’re liable discover that the client’s idea of “fresh” is a change of font or a brand new color scheme—often no more than a minimal swap out of one pastel color pallette for another.

Not that this information won’t eventually make it’s way into your consciousness. But within the typical agency process, it usually only arrives in Round 5, as the deadline looms and you find out to your teeth-gnashing dismay that all your good work is destined for the porcelain file drawer.

Destiny’s child?
So is that it? Is the client’s POV the agancy’s destiny, immutable, unchanging, doggedly “consistent” until its last breath? As I see it, only if you let it be. Because it’s precisely in the initial investigation that you have an opportunity to educate your clients, by turning their self-referential worldview toward a broader vista. 

Of course, this is no time for condescension, or chest-thumping invocations of the latest TED video. It’s simply a matter of ensuring your concept presentation takes place in the context of the broadest possible awareness of the available options.

The modest investment of effort this entails will be rewarded with a rare prize: A communication strategy in tune with its own core message. Instead of a “really cool idea” whittled down to an incomprehensible nub by a half-baked compromise, you’ll have a fully realized messaging strategy that delivers real value to its audience.

That, after all, is what we’re here for. Just as important, having established clear, meaningful communication, you’ll have the possibility to continue the process, enlarging the scope of your mutual vision until you arrive together at higher ground.

[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!”

[October 24, 2011] 

As digital engagement vehicles go, Web banners have to work hardest to earn consumers’ attention. If we find that regrettable, we have only ourselves to blame. Low response rates for banners are the direct result of the thoughtless way this resource was squandered in the early years of digital marketing. 

In retrospect, it’s astonishing how quickly the medium was dragged down to levels of shlock normally associated with those “mouth-watering” come-ons that dominate the wee hours of the broadcast TV schedule.

Gaudy, jiggly and stuffed full of archaic promotional ploys even the direct mail niche had largely abandoned, banners proliferated like Star Trek tribbles, popping up everywhere and spawning the exaggerated, security-mad environment that makes users reluctant to click through to this day.

Of course, on another level, that mistrust is certainly justified—as the reward for click-through continues to be, in many cases, a value-nebulous landing page with a plea to “sign up for more information”—a promise more often made than kept. Even the introduction of rich media banners of the kind exemplified by Pointroll.com has done nothing to halt this downward slide to mediocrity. 

So it is, as with every other advertising media, a refusal to maintain reasonable standards for quality and transparency have led to the situation we now face. Having taught consumers that banner ads are, with few exceptions, worthless sink holes of empty promotional nonsense, we can hardly be surprised if click-through or interaction rates are disappointingly low. 

When failure is expected…
It has, in some circles, become axiomatic. Whether your talent currently resides at an Effie-laden, established agency or a struggling start-up with a heart of strategic insight, you’re liable to hear the phrase “Nobody clicks on banners,” an average of 20 times a week. Like any of the other unexamined assertions about consumer behavior that circulate like dust mites in the wind, this one is based on a self-fulfilled prophesy. 

Now, to be clear, I’m not disputing the statistics, assuming they’ve been gathered correctly. I’m simply questioning their mechanical interpretation. If banners, as a category, aren’t generating results, I doubt it’s because there’s anything inherently off-putting about them. On the contrary, as a concentrated blast of messaging, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be among the most effective tools we have to motivate behavior.

…the prophesy is easy to fulfill.
On this issue, as on so many others, marketing theorists and advertising gurus who should know better are suffering from a confusion of cause and effect. Again, if consumers are refusing to interact with banners—or muting TV spots, or closing their eyes to billboards, or strolling past POP displays—it’s because we’ve taught people to expect our work to, excuse me, suck.

Have you taken a look at the average Web banner? Have you stopped to read one? 

OMG. The unrivaled drivel that resides in a standard 728 x 90, whether it expands to 728 x 250 or not, is so dreary I’m sure it will soon be listed as a primary cause of narcolepsy by the Merck Manual. On the messaging front alone, what we choose to say to consumers in these randomly-sized boxes rarely rises above the level of this:

Welcome to the Department of Demotivator-Vehicles.
Sure, you can doll-up this structure with a wacky pun, a hip cultural reference, or an “interesting fact,” but that’s still only the proverbial lipstick. At base, this pig is still an empty shell adding nothing of value. Imagine the difference if your banner delivered even a tad of value before click-through. As it stands, the absence of value in the opening sequence of many a banner is deathly demotivating. 

Equally demotivating is the way such banners are overloaded with layered messages. In a space that would challenge the limited dimensions of a cracker, we are way too eager to pile on the toppings and go for the extra cheese. And by messages, I’m not talking about words, exclusively, but everything we use to engage and enrapture consumers. 

“Isn’t there a better way?” Maybe. In my next post I’ll report on my upcoming expedition into the wilds of Bannerania. Will I find my worse fears confirmed, or will a glint of rainbow appear here and there between the giant ferns of the genus optimus praxis austerus that dominate the landscape?

[October 16, 2011]

What do people want?

A basic understanding of the social forces contributing to the answer is essential for every human interaction. Fortunately, we learn much of what we need to know through experience and the acculturation process that defines large swaths of our childhood.

Now, as the local news reminds us every day, that process is never 100% foolproof. Whether due to trauma, accidents of inheritance, or grossly inappropriate parenting, some people fail to grasp the bottom line need of every human being: to be respected, valued, loved and left unharmed.

Of course, the quest to understand human nature requires us to explore a dizzying array of additional factors, including age, location, ethnicity, income, etc. But if we limit the discussion to “what people want from digital marketing,” the list of factors to consider is more manageable. For my part, I value any brand that:

• Saves me time / money
• Improves my status / self-esteem
• Simplifies my life
• Solves a technical problem
• Solves a social / spiritual problem
• Teaches me a skill / imparts practical information
• Engages my imagination

Now, I’m willing to bet I’m within one or two bullet points of a universal list, especially if the bullets are interpreted in the broadest sense. It’s a margin of error that’s good enough for my purposes—as I search for a tool to measure marketing success. My premise is that successful marketers know how to deliver what people want. To do anything less is to show consumers the kind of disrespect that currently fans the flames of a global populist movement.

“I don’t think you do…”
By now, a majority of brands already aspire to add value online. It’s the actual delivery process that hangs them up. The most they can manage is a flimsy need-premise, a qualified benefit list (check the fine print) or a vague promise of future rewards.

In the pharmaceutical realm, the latter is a common ploy, a way for marketers to gather user data now and reward registration weeks or months later with press releases and white papers a consumer is unlikely either to value or fully understand.

When it comes to technical problems, as long as your patience “wears thick,” you can often find a Web site housing some of the information you crave—often where you’d least expect it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve found troubleshooting advice for a Microsoft product everywhere except on microsoft.com.

Microsoft’s online help menus remind me of small town highway signs: The only way they’re useful is if you already know the route. Help menus that don’t deliver meaningful help? Case in point. Like many other companies, Microsoft fails to realize that delivering meaningful customer service is a vital component of any marketing plan.

Web site, schmeb site—create a value channel.
While there are many other examples of value-nebulous marketing, they all point to the same conclusion. If your ROI on digital marketing is consistently disappointing, the problem most likely lies in your unwillingness or inability to deliver what people value. The solution? Reimagine your Web presence as a dynamic delivery system with a sustainable source of intellectual property.

In that scenario, a Web site, banner or Facebook app isn’t a thing in its own right, it’s a pipeline to deliver value. Not self-promotion, but value. Not cloned data anyone can access, but value. Not static “advice and tips,” but an ongoing editorial calendar of the latest advice delivered by acknowledged experts.

So instead of mass-producing another round of media buys, sweepstakes, discounts and cross-promotions, put your budget money toward developing a core of branded content that enlightens, educates, stimulates and helps people connect to ideas that can change their lives. Instead of racking up agency fees in a perfectionist panic of messaging revisions, rise above the details and focus on substance.

You have no idea how much more efficient it is to build a campaign around real value than it is to puff air into the legally qualified claims that usually pass for consumer benefits. A Web banner, I promise you, is much easier to make when it actually has something to say.

That’s because, instead of huffing and puffing to create demand, you’re openly supplying what people want. If this sounds simplistic, I invite you to try it. The challenge of reimagining your online communications as a value channel is worthy of your top minds—provided you haven’t already fired them for “reinventing the wheel.”