speaking in clicks

[December 11, 2009]

The more digital space expands, the more people access information, news, entertainment—even personal communication—online than through any other medium.

I suppose it all boils down to immediacy. With ever-smaller lag times, you can now catch up with “the latest” on any topic whenever you choose. And if you want to look back at the topic that shook yesterday’s world to its knees, you’ll find limitless stockpiles of news articles. blog posts, user-comments, comments on comments, articles on articles ad infinitem et ad nauseam.

It’s a wonderful thing.

Growing up I was always hungry for information, but the only sources for answers to obscure questions were the aging encyclopedias in my family’s home library— heavier than a planet and smelling like a mausoleum. There was enough dust in one of those volumes to shut down an entire MacBook Air production facility. Not exactly an incentive to learning.

Linear & Limited.
I lived in a small town in an un-gentrified sector of New Jersey, where curiosity in children was frowned on and “Why do you need to know that?” was not an uncommon question. “Look it up,” someone would invariably say, pointing me in the direction of a children’s encyclopedia, carefully edited to include no useful information at all.

Sure, it was full of facts, but offered no help in answering the only two questions that have ever interested me: “Why?” and “How?”

So the first time I saw a digital page, I greeted it with a sigh of relief. Finally, here was a way to address the nagging questions that plagued me as a child without having to go through a condescending human gatekeeper. Better yet, I wouldn’t have to enroll in a four-year degree program just to have little bits of information doled out to me by an educational system wedded to deadbeat linear thinking.

Associative & Free.
Because if digital space has accomplished any one thing, it has established once and for all that every scrap of information and knowledge is holistically connected with every other. It proves a child’s interest in topic A doesn’t need to be justified, simply because the clock says it’s time to discuss topic B. Postponed perhaps, but not justified. In digital space, no one can challenge your desire to know—provided, of course, you don’t live in China.

It has proven a liberating experience for me and, I suspect, has inspired people to reach critical leap-frogging insights faster than ever before.

At the same time, even the most enlightening online experience is wasted unless you take time to reflect, correlate, interpret, edit, embrace and reject—the kind of things you can only do in your head. That just might be the only legacy from the past I want to preserve. The magic that happens when you switch off the power and re-imagine the world in your mind’s eye.

[December 8, 2009] 

During the execution phase of any Web site project, there’s a common expectation that, from a copy standpoint, “we just need to write it.” I suspect most people assume it’s a process akin to playing Mad Libs.

Even within the Creative team, this process is often misunderstood. It’s not unusual to hear a digital Art Director say “I need a 50-word intro, five two-line lead-ins and a three-word teaser for the marquee.”

But as Copy creatives know, it just doesn’t work like that. Sure, we can work within word limits and even character counts. At a fundamental level, however, language needs room to breathe. It can’t be laid down like bricks, one word at a time to build a prefab module.

Analog synesthesia…
That’s because what communicates in language isn’t words, but meaning, which can’t be constructed. Instead, meaning emerges from the interplay of different factors, including context, tone, and the intricate web of associations enveloping every topic. To see what I mean, say the following words aloud:

• Wedding
• Baby
• Love
• War

Memory quickly floods your consciousness with thousands of sense impressions. Add just one word to each:

• Society Wedding
• Border Baby
• Puppy Love
• Bidding War

…and everything changes. Now try to grasp the challenge of writing unmistakably clear prose about a complex topic, limited by brand guidelines, audience data and buzz-word avoidance parameters. On top of that are the wildly unpredictable strictures imposed by lawyers.

You’ll notice I’ve talked about the mechanics of writing well without mentioning grammar, a relative value having more to do with editorial style, and the decade you were born, in than with any absolute standard.

…builds a network of connections…
Regardless, the need to make a direct, emotionally grounded connection to the reader is far more important than writing mechanics. As much as you may wish to believe otherwise, the exact amount of copy required to make that connection is not quantifiable.

…in which content and design are one.
Now, I wouldn’t dream of saying that Web sites should be built entirely around the demands of language. I mean, I’d feel terrible if the sheer shock and horror of that thought made someone spend the night in an ICU.

What I would like to suggest is that Web design and architecture needs to be handled more flexibly. Not all topics lend themselves to the same treatment. Not all audiences absorb information in the same way. The more your process resembles what’s going on at Snappages, the farther you are from creating a motivating and emotionally engaging experience.

Even at that, I’m not saying Copy necessarily needs more physical space. What’s needed is better integration of so-called content with so-called design. That only makes sense, since the difference between the two is a flat-out semantic illusion. In reality, a great Web site channels all the meaning emerging from it—through its associative network of data, memory, visual and auditory output.

[December 4, 2009]

Like autumn leaves in November, Creatives are a varied lot, subject to the whims of every errant breeze. Some prefer to think like marketing experts, mapping out their work primarily in terms of the “facts on the ground,” from segmentation studies to Nielson trends to SEO data.

Others chase the latest cultural obsession. A subset of this group bases concepts on well-known pop-tunes, a practice raising issues of cultural sustainability. Overused, a pop icon’s voice sounds a tad too jingly to be taken seriously—just one more reason Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” is an unlikely shill for Friedrich Air Conditioners.

Then again, there are Creatives on a life quest for The Big Idea, a beast they pursue with quixotic zeal—whether they’re planning a national campaign for Apple or just scribbling up space ads for USA Today.

Despite these differences, I’m sure most Creatives would agree: the concepting phase is the most satisfying part of the process. It’s a time to close the conference room—and open the mind to the winds of imagination.

It’s a fragile process, even for the most technocratic Creatives, those hard-wired souls whose first words as a child were “user experience,” That’s because creative concepts are rooted in a deeply personal inner narrative we can only access by making ourselves emotionally vulnerable.

Now, in the hard-knuckles world of American business, nobody expects brownie points for personally taxing work that falls flat. Risk and responsibility are part of the job description. Even so, if you want a work-atmosphere that fosters great creative, here are a few things I’d like to suggest you keep in mind:

• Respond honestly.
  Nothing kills creativty like a cold front rolling in from false, political motives.

• Expect to be challenged.
   Cranking out the tried and true is what vendors are for.

• Know that your audience is adaptable.

The last point is especially important. It’s a good thing Edison invented the light bulb before Robert King Merton invented the focus group. The preliminary data indicating consumer’s concerns about electrocution might have killed the whole project.

Finally, understand that concept and execution are two separate things. A concept isn’t a finished product. It’s merely a structure, a tool to channel the flow of messages and a means to motivate and provide opportunities for action.

So when it’s time to evaluate a creative concept the only question you need to answer is whether the concept offers a structure clear enough to bring the marketing strategy to life.

Anything else lies in the realm of personal preference, where the truth rarely resides. Because, truth to tell, a creative strategy is never about you. It’s all and only about your audience, a varied lot of real people, with one thing in common. When gusts of Marketing Theory blow their way, they run straight for the storm cellar and slam the door tight.

[December 1, 2009]

As any devotee of StumbleUpon knows, digital space offers an unparalleled range and depth of material. In some respects, this vastness is its undoing. The potential to deliver “everything and all” on any topic is a powerful temptation to site builders, one they often fail to resist. This has a devastating impact on user experience, as evidenced by the average health information portal.

Without in any way commenting on the quality of the information provided, it’s troubling to see how cluttered and confusing these sites can be. Case in point is WebMD. While the home page roughly adheres to current design standards, offering a slightly less cluttered look now than in recent years, WebMD shares a major deficit with most other sites of its kind: The lack of a clear information hierarchy.

Sure, the page layout helps a little. The central marquee area does focus our attention. It also creates contrast between a text-based left navigation, lesser features below the marquee and the assortment of additional links and advertisements over on the right. But my question is:

What does WebMD say to users beyond “We have lots of medical information for you?”

Absent a thematic point of orientation, the eye just wanders from one box to the other. More important, users can’t put this information in context, since WebMD espouses no explicit medical philosophy.

Adding to the disorientation is the random array of topics in featured content areas. As of today, on the home page, users can find articles about:

• History of AIDS
• RA Symptoms
• Autism
• Diet and Depression
• Diabetes
• Flu Symptoms

…as well as the “Skinny Jeans Workout.” Exploring these options is like leafing through a 5000-page glossy magazine. Where do you begin? Interior pages on specific topics are even harder to take in, offering hundreds of links, stacked one on top of the other. And nowhere is any guidance on how to search for medical information—or what constitutes a successful search.

This approach is quite common, as visits to Men’s Health, MSN Healthy Living, Women’s Health, Medicine.net and many other sites confirm. Most likely the insight behind this approach is that people come to a health portal for many different reasons.

As I see it, the implications of that insight lead away from this model. Instead of presenting “everything and all,” health portals should make a clear distinction, up front, between health news, medical journalism and expert opinion. Whether through a self-selection menu or a category-specific visual vocabulary, users could discover what they need more efficiently—and be far more likely to revisit the site.

In the end, the average health portal resembles Times Square in high season—an erratic mish-mash of garish messaging and uninvited stimuli. Considering the effort needed to maintain the best health portals, it’s a shame so much of their impact is lost on poor user experience.

[November 27, 2009]

Screenwriters use the phrase “on the nose” to describe dialogue too literal to be believable. Having observed that people express their deepest emotions indirectly, a good screenwriter conveys young love through the intimacy of a lover’s conversation—a conversation in which no one says “Oh, how I love you, my Darling!”

For exactly the same reasons, any “on the nose” interpretation of research data is just as unlikely to move your audience. This is especially true today, when every square inch of our environment is saturated with advertising. People know when they’re being sold—despite any attempt to camouflage sales tactics with an ill-fitting Cloak of Invisibility. If trumpeting product benefits was ever effective, that time is past. Even 50 years ago, I suspect that headlines like…

Tired of Vacuuming the Old Fashioned Way?

…were merely tolerated. People weren’t stupid back then, either—but advertising certainly was. In fact, I see every marketing innovation of the last 50 years as an outgrowth of a single realization: People are far more intelligent than traditional marketing theory allows.

That’s why I start each project by wondering what my audience has on its mind—and leave the bullet points for later. As the people at Shamwow recognize, effective marketing depends on your ability to summon the emotions surrounding a core human need.

The Shamwow announcer personifies the wow-factor, but the messaging grows out of a single, emotionally charged cultural value: Messy spills are disgusting and a terrible waste of time.

Lucky for me, I’ve never been asked to hawk products in this way, but my approach is the same. Whether it’s a promise of financial protection or eternal youth, I also have to dig beneath the surface of that promise, to discover the emotions at its core.

Like a screenwriter. however, I can’t stop there. I base my approach on direct observation of how people talk to themselves about those emotions. Instead of writing “on the nose,” I need to trigger the same response the topic itself triggers in my audience.

The current campaign for the American Express charge card puts this principle in practice. The headline:

“Don’t Take Chances, Take Charge”

…appeals to anxiety about fraud, loss and theft and opens the door to a clever series of images, in which consumers’ purchases echo their feelings. This shows what can happen when you go beyond a literal statement of market research. Instead of leading with:

  Worried About Fraud, Loss and Theft When You Use Your Debit Card?

…they’ve evoked emotion rather than talking about it, word for word.

Sure, “fraud, loss and theft” might have turned up in focus groups and SEM analytics. Taken out of subtext, however, the drama of the data never makes it to the screen.

[November 24, 2009]

Hang out in ad agencies for any length of time and you’re bound to run into conflicting ideologies. The people you work with come from so many different backgrounds, it’s hard to find two people who look at their role in the industry in exactly the same way.

Among the many fissures in advertising culture, however, none is more disruptive than the Servant/Consultant divide. It’s a rift cutting across all departments. Agency types wage siege war over this issue—like mythical beasts, competing for the soul of a troubled hero. Where’s the battleground? It’s on the disputed territory between Want the Client Wants and What the Client Needs.

The conflict really boils over on that fateful day when your client conceives a truly misguided project. You’re asked to create a pig-headed trout with eagle’s wings—a monster of dysfunctional engagement sure to deliver consumers into a competitor’s hands.

The fact that your client is also asking you to “find efficiencies” to save time and money just makes you reach for the Pepto-Bismol that much faster.

Running into the problem by running away from it.
There are three classic responses to this dilemma:

• Denial. No matter how misguided the project, some people will always
  assert it’s achievable. “If we all just pull together…” goes the dreary
  refrain. It’s how those in Denial signal their willingness to thow common
  sense out the window, just to “keep the client happy.”

• Refusal, a tactic that, while untenable in a business environment, expresses
  itself throughout the project in foot-dragging, excuse-making and subtle
  forms of sabotage. 

• Compromise, in which agencies agree to do a less dysfunctional version
of the project, modified just enough to save them from embarrassment. 

Mind you, this monster will still be a major drain on resources. And it will still teach junior team members that industry standards don’t really matter—if violating them will “keep the client happy.”

Client management? Not so much.
As I see it, all three of these responses are the outgrowth of failed client management. In a healthy client relationship, an agency would think nothing of advising a client against this pet project from Hell.

Trouble is, agencies often woo clients like desperate teenagers on a first date. Of course, promising a lifetime of servitude for just one kiss is a mistake most kids make only once. In an agency environment, however, grown men and women strike similarly self-erasing deals every day.

Wherever you are on this issue, ask yourself this: If your goal is keeping clients happy, what makes clients happier than success? It follows that your goal should also be to steer them away from strategies that invite disaster.

We’ve all seen the havoc that the “Fries with that?” mentality wreaks with the quality of our work. I say, “Enough.” We serve our clients best by leading them to new ideas—and by taking a stand against everything dysfunctional, deceitful and downright stupid.

[November 20, 2009]

While nowhere as subtly branded as the IKEA site I explored in my previous post, the innovative marketer,Amazon.com gives the experience of shopping online a bit more dimension.

Once users select a product from the site’s visually unappealing display, they gain access, indirectly, to a community of shoppers with similar interests. Through user’s comments, and Amazon’s data-driven advisories, visitors learn what others think of a product and what other related products others have most often purchased.

Of course, this sense of community is limited. Users can’t build networks of friends on the site and conversation is confined to the “call and response” rhythms of post and counter post.

And yet, the effect is a lot the same. Book buyers, in particular, benefit from this expanded shopping experience, since it seems people who read more also write more. Don’t quote me on that, because I’d hate to be tagged as a spreader of incriminating rumors in a world moving uncomfortably close to Fahrenheit 451.

Heaven sakes alive, these people actually relish ideas. They think and feel deeply about abstractions and eventually come to understand the difference between ideas and idiots.

Amazon, river of data…
A typical page from Amazon’s extensive book-mart is a microsite, offering the book in every available format, including, naturally, the Kindle edition. You may also find a video feature on the author. And in true Web 2.0 spirit, user reviews jockey for position with “Editorial Reviews” from professional critics. But wait, there’s more. You can even sign up to receive personalized recommendations.

Short of having Jeffrey P. Bezos read the book to you himself, I doubt you could ask more from a retailer. The site’s blockbuster success shows that someone has thought very deeply about what shoppers need to feel confident about a purchase.

Sure, Amazon.com, could use a facelift, as could Facebook for that matter. I mean, there has to be more to life than staring at row upon row of thumbnail images against a white background. But both sites work, despite appearances, because they’re based on a real insight about what motivates people to act.

…spawning a more interactive world.
And that spells opportunity for the next generation of e-merchandisers. As bandwidth increases and real-time data updates approach the speed of light, e-merchandisers ought to be able to extend their reach to the offline world. As comically alluded to in the now ancient sci-fi film, Minority Report, some kind of online/offline continuum can’t be far off. Of course, mobile marketing already bleeps its coupon deals direct-to-consumer, but that’s not quite the same thing.

What we may be looking at is a redefinition of “store” itself, to something closer to “product interface center.” Combined with enough Artifical Intelligence, your neighborhood Best Buy would then be well on it’s way to becoming your best buddy.

[November 17, 2009]

In some ways, digital space resembles an eco-system. Like life in the real world, digital creatures occupy different ecological niches and exhibit a wide variety of survival strategies. Some, like Kay Jewelers, discussed in my previous post, survive by providing just the facts and a bit of product education.

Others, like the Swedish furniture retailer, IKEA, use a sophisticated mix of facts, education, atmosphere and style to lure consumers into buying the whole package—IKEA’s make-life-more-graceful-for-less promotional subtext.

IKEA’s concept has a breadth and depth you can experience on every page, from the clear product directory, to the accessible new products display, to the special offers page, each including navigation to contextually sensitive next steps.

Even at this level, the site reflects the clean design and effortless functionality of the IKEA product line. In light of this, the absence of an umbrella headline on the home page is a minor misstep—but one that costs the site a key point of orientation for consumers.

Most effective are the pages devoted to individual rooms. “Living room,” for example, includes a slide show of photos, each displaying a different room treatment. Hotspots on each photo lead users to an education window and from there to detail pages of featured items.

With 10 living rooms, 18 bedrooms and 21 kitchens, the site recreates the in-store experience, while offering what no lengthy browse on foot can match. Visitors may also select from an image gallery, and quickly review an individual slide. Or they may view the featured products in a separate gallery with links to specific product pages that speed ordering and price comparison.

Accompanying each slideshow is a left navigation full of shopping advice, including “Ideas & Inspiration,” “Choose Your Style,” and “Guides & planners.” Meanwhile, a secondary index of product lines adds to the experience with whimsical headlines, including:

• Lets small budgets have fun
• Loves books as much as you do
• Clean lines for a calm bedroom

IKEA’s customer focus pays off even on product pages, where consumers can compile printable shopping lists. As I see it, only the slightly creepy “Ask Anna” feature—a rather patronizing recreation of the perky receptionist stereotype—strikes a false note.

Taken together, these elements help IKEA convey its underlying message. Without bluster, the site promotes IKEA products as the practical, affordable and stylish solution to home decorating.

Through thoughtful display, organization and guidance, IKEA spins a brand narrative of practicality, usability and light, uncluttered looks—all in the service of making everyday life more livable. Like the product line itself, ikea.com grows out of a single creative concept. It’s a rare example of marketing integration that flows as it should—from product development on out.

My next post will explore e-merchanising further and add a few closing thoughts.

[November 13, 2009]

As guilty pleasures go, shopping may be among the most harmless, even if, like anything else, it has the potential to become addictive. In the U.S. at least, when all else fails, the temptation to go out and “get more stuff” is simply irresistible.

Enter e-merchandisers, ready to capitalize. By now, they’re everywhere in digital space—some out in the open, some lurking in the back pages of sites devoted to loftier things.

Like it or not, since they do make up such a large chunk of what we still quaintly call “the Web,” e-merchandisers exert considerable influence on users’ cumulative experience. Anyone arriving here from a typical e-merchandising site knows what I mean. Most likely, your head is still spinning from the garish imagery and whiz-bang promotional lingo. How do e-merchandisers work their dark magic? Let’s have a look, starting with a popular jewelry chain, Kay Jewelers.

Here is a classic case of design by accretion without regard to its global visual impact. The site is simply a series of buckets. All the same, Kay.com succeeds in a number of important ways—precisely because Kay has thought deeply about a jewelry buyer’s state of mind.

Combining traditional sales promotion with consumer education, Kay demonstrates its expertise at no cost, as a way to instill trust. For example, an easy-to-use 4Cs Diamond Guide demystifies the topic in no time. This goes a long way to reassuring customers pulled in several directions by the cost—in dollars and emotion—attached to any major jewelry purchase.

The site also features a large index of product shots, to be enlarged, zoomed and “rotated.” While there’s nothing new about that, Kay’s commitment to educating consumers adds up to a very effective messaging strategy. Without recourse to blinky banners or oily voiceovers, the site’s resources combine to convey a single message:

We empathize with your concerns and we’re here to help you make an informed decision.

Still, I can’t help wondering how much more effective this site could be with a less functional design and a more functional navigation. Yes, the sheer volume of merchandise does require maximizing display space. But the sameness of each page quickly dulls a visitor’s enthusiasm and is not mitigated by the use of cookie-cutter stock photography.

As a further drag on enthusiasm, the user path loses most of its momentum below the top-level navigation. Get a few layers deep in your search for the perfect diamond engagement ring and you’ll have a tough time finding “that other ring” you saw a few pages back. Also missing is the ability to make side-by-side comparisons of selected items. I

n my next post, I’ll look at a very different approach to the problem of displaying wares online, as taken by a well-known retailer with a distinctive sense of style.

[November 10, 2009]

If your goal is to deliver value to consumers, it stands to reason you have to know who you’re talking to. That’s why market research is highly prized in some quarters—though never more so than when it tells us what we want to hear.

In fact, market research is all-pervasive. Chances are you can’t remember working on a project whose basic premise wasn’t nominally derived from “audience insights.” You began the project believing you knew exactly what buttons to push.

Based on such hard data, why should any appeal to consumers fail? Let’s assume your project delivers real value—whether in the form of tips, advice, a time-saving digest of relevant links or a straight up discount price code.

Let’s also assume you follow “best practices” for design and user experience. You never ask people to read more than 50 words at a time and everything—from the colorful buttons to the diverse array of happy, healthy, wholesomely sexy people and their laughing babies—screams a positivist outlook on life.

So why won’t people respond as projected?

Calculus of Expediency.
I suggest your problem stems from approaching your work with too much science and not enough art. Or should I say, “pseudo-science?”

In the rush to make agency work more accountable to the same abstract cost-benefit ratios that recently ruined the American economy, we’ve created an entire edifice of pantomime science, dedicated to proving that x-approach will yield y-results for z-cost. We had no choice. The alternative was to actually advise clients on how to work with us more efficiently.

Trouble is, while the calculations are nominally based on mathematical modeling, first developed for engineering and later applied to economics, the variables they purport to measure are human behaviors.

Art of Empathy.
Navigate society with mathematical logic? Can’t be done. Modern social conventions —which coexist with traditions from other eras and cultures, with myth, mental illness and wishful thinking—are anything but logical. You’d never think of “measuring the response” of the wedding presents you give or the baby showers you throw. So why believe you can craft effective consumer engagements solely by plugging “data” into statistical schemata?

It’s time we re-root our thinking about human nature into its native soil. Start by looking in the mirror and realizing you’re an integral part of the behaviors you analyze. Instead of mistrusting your innate understanding of human behavior in favor of pseudo-science, remember:

Market research is only a lens. It can only apprise us of trends or alert us to possible tipping points. Following its tenets without regard to your own on-the-ground experience is like making a scale model of the Chrysler building out of Legos^®—and calling it “New York.”