ABOUT PEOPLE’S INSIGHTS – THE VOICE OF SPRINT
Big ideas that are rooted in strong insights and foresights have never been as important, and conversations conversatio ns and communities have become the most important sources of insights.
The Future of Creativity is part of MSLGR MSLGROUP's OUP's People's Insights project. People’s Insights is a collection of inspiring initiatives, insights and foresights shared by MSLGROUP’s SPRINTers – our global team of 100 strategic planners, researchers and insights experts. We feature the best of these initiatives as People’s Insights monthly briefs, and original insights and foresights from our SPRINTers SPRINTers and other MSLGR MSLGROUP OUP experts in our People’s Insights reports. We share these reports on our social platforms and distribute them freely to inspire more engaging campaigns. The Future of Creativity is the latest in our “future of…” series, which also includes The Future of Employee (Re)Engagement, The Future of Reputation and, recently, The Future of Business Citizenship.
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INDEX
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Foreword by Olivier Fleurot, CEO, MSLGROUP
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What ''making our clients' voice matter'' actually means
Creativity in a technology enabled world
by Pascal Beucler, SVP & Chief Strategy Officer, MSLGROUP
by Rishad Tobaccowala, Chief Strategist, Publicis Groupe
15 drivers for engaging engaging creatively creatively in 2015 15
1. Capturing the Spark
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Sachin Karle
2. Train your Creativity Muscle
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Oana Bulexa
3. Creation Via Constraint
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Renee Wilson
4. Six Steps to Planning Success Benjamin Koe MSLGROUP Asia (Singapore)
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7. Relevance is of the Essence
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8. Have the Smarts for It Narendra Nag MSLGROUP India
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10. For Mobile, By Mobile
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11. Fuel for Ideas
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12. Riding the Flow of Fluidity Surya Kundu MSLGROUP India
14. Organising for Real-Time Jean-Philippe Martzel DigitasLBi France
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Ben Therrien MSLGROUP North America
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13. Is it Worth a Tweet? Patricia Albuquerque MSLGROUP Espalhe (Brazil)
Alice Hu MSLGROUP Asia (China)
Nidhi Makhija-Chimnani MSLGROUP
MSLGROUP
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6. Custodians of Collaboration
9. Purpose + People for Performance Penny Baxter Salterbaxter MSLGROUP (UK)
Kim Piquet MSLGROUP Italy
MSLGROUP The Practice (Romania)
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Dominic Payling MSLGROUP UK
MSLGROUP India
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5. Intimacy of Insights
15. Measurement is your Best Ally Allan Dib MSLGROUP North America
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Bonus! 15 Tips for PR Professionals to Unlock the Creativity in PR Nidhi Makhija-Chimnani, MSLGROUP
FOREWORD
Olivier Fleurot CEO, MSLGROUP @fleurot5
Creativity is a topic that comes up frequently at PR conferences – especially at Cannes. As a lot of PR awards still go to traditional advertising agencies and creative houses, we collectively wonder… wonder… what else should we be doing to win these awards? True, True, some of the work we do, during a crisis or when preparing an important transaction for a client, can’t be publicly discussed. Are we too shy when it comes to packaging and talking about our creativity? Or, is creativity something that has only recently become more important in strategic communications? New digital and social platforms have given brands new w ays to engage with communities. Any individual can be a “journalist” and reach hundreds of thousands of followers. To break through the noise that has accompanied this shift, it has become more important for us to engage creatively to help make o ur clients’ voice matter matter.. This applies to nearly all brands, corporations and organisations when they try to truly engage with their various stakeholders – consumers, employees, investors, journalists, regulators, governments and so on.
At MSLGROUP, we recently tweaked our own brand vision to reflect this new priority, to become creative storytellers. Creativity is also the main focus of our latest People’s Insights report. In The Future of Creativity, Creativity, fifteen experts from MSLGROUP and two from our larger Publicis Groupe family share their thoughts on making our clients' voice matter. matter. From re-defining what it means to be creative, to commenting on new developments and highlighting 15 key drivers of creativity, creativity, this report is designed to inspire more creativity in PR. As technology is becoming a strong ally of PR , we also need to use it creatively. creatively. We hope this report will trigger great debates about the new role and the new meaning of creativity. creativity. We invite you to start a conversation with us, and hope that together, together, we may make 2015 the year of creativity in strategic communications.
WHAT "MAKING OUR CLIENTS' VOICE MATTER" ACTUALLY MEANS
Pascal Beucler SVP & Chief Strategy Officer, MSLGROUP @pbeucler
Our PR industry is confronted by its most serious disruption ever, as digitalization and disintermediation profoundly profoundly change the rules of the game.
Relevance has a deadline: it's now, or never Big data, smart ideas: it's a datadriven world
Context-driven Conversations are the way to go Yes, time is of the essence, real-time PR is the new norm.
DIGITALIZATION & DISINTERMEDIATION CHANGE THE RULES OF THE PR GAME Big data, smart ideas: it's a data-driven world Our clients ask us for only ideas driven by data and backed with rich insights and foresights, foresights, because this is the only way to engage successfully with people and communities. We need to develop a culture of mining and applying insights, to be able to deliver on these criteria.
Yes, time is of the essence, real-time PR is the new norm. People are always-on. Brands are always-on. How can PR agencies not be always-on? The new name of what we do – or should do in PR – is Real-Time Engagement: the classical campaign format, nurtured by insights that three people came up with, is gone, not to mention the good old press release. PR today can be everything – like crowdsourced crowdsourced content, a smartphone app, a viral video, an experiential point of sale, a crowdfunding initiative or a social gaming component. If you can combine experiential and social, you're hitting the sweet spot: the power of a live experience + its social amplification.
Relevance has a deadline: it's now, or never In computing sciences, the concept of real-time relates to a system in which input data is processed within milliseconds, so that it is available virtually immediately as feedback (like an airline booking system, for instance). We're not up to milliseconds yet, in the world of PR, although it might come sooner than we think! But clearly, the more it goes, the more our time unit is minutes, not hours, and surely not days. And, just like for computing sciences, it all starts with data, big data.
Context-driven Conversations are the way to go The insights today come from the conversations conversations that thousands or millions of people have now, which we need to take advantage of within minutes. It could be called Contextual Conversation.
CREATIVITY IS WHAT HELPS EMERGE FROM THE NOISE AROUND These are major shifts, risks or opportunities, which we need to address if we wish to survive in a very tough, highly competitive environment. It should therefore be no surprise for us, that the demands to be creative have never been higher. Brands and organizations are under enormous pressure from audiences to be authentic, meaningful and quick in their engagement. Clients in turn demand the same from us. Gone are the days when 'creativity' meant a singular, linear campaign – a series of posters, a short film, a stand-alone press release. Audiences want to be more involved involved as co-creators of the message and want to engage with brands they are proud to be associated with. As the playing field becomes more crowded with more brands fighting for the limited space on people's timelines, creativity is crucial to cut through the clutter. Fundamentally, this is not too far from what our industry does best: engaging stakeholders in conversation on their preferred channels. But as an industry, we are not currently recognized recognized as being creative. It's not just the lack of awards at the Cannes creative festival which pushes us to reflect on our creative performance. It's what our clients are saying too, as the The Holmes Creativity in PR study 2014 reveals: only 18% of clients are consistently happy with their PR agency's creativity.
CREATIVITY RE-DEFINED FOR THE CONVERSATION ECONOMY Before we march to become more creative, let's re-define what it means to be creative in the Conversation Economy.
Empathy: the ability to understand people's feelings, beliefs and needs. Again, the traditional advocacy system is gone. In today’s peer-to-peer culture, people are far more important than brands. Like a young Millennial put it up recently: “If I speak of your brand to my friends, it’s not because I like your brand, it’s because I like my friends.”
From a creative standpoint, our task is much more complex than it used to be, as we must deal with several ‘levels’ : longer-term narrative, short-term centres of interest, real-world context, and deep knowledge of the key conversation drivers in real-time.
Relevance: its power is boundless.
Fluidity: it has to be a fully seamless process
If you’re not on people people’s ’s timeline, all through the key moments of their day, if you don’t know what’s in their life and mind, how can you help your clients be part of their convers conversation? ation?
The way you contact people, how you actually connect with them, and the nature of the content you share with them: that's what gives you a voice in the conversat conversation. ion.
But if you’re there, it’s magic. The power of relevance is boundless, and it’s opening very fruitful collaboration and co-creation with your client’s audience.
For this to happen, we need to have an intimate understanding of how people access information, how they make up their mind, how they ultimately make their decisions and how they go about their purchases.
We also need to realize that people are changing too. Economic, geopolitical, technological and social factors are no doubt influencing people’s values and behaviors. We must be well versed in these differences: what stereotypes and rituals have changed? What are the new norms and expectations of the different generations?
We must understand that the whole traditional, vertical, pyramidal, top-down system with its gate-keepers and little circle of key influencers is upside down. And that this is true on the Corporate side of the business as well as on the Consumer side. There is no difference.
In a nutshell, the next gen PR agency needs to cross all traditional boundaries, from strategy to activation, from marketing to communications, from developing apps to telling stories that matter.
CREATIVITY IN THE WORLD OF PEOPLE RELATIONS (PR) Publicis Groupe's mantra of IQ, EQ, TQ and BQ applies to PR as well. In addition to the necessary intelligence and emotional quotients, and the now crucial technology quotient, we must be bloody quick!
What does it mean for us? We need to accelerate our Digital re-invention, and do it from a 100% people-centric perspective: brands belong to people.
We must be more aware
We must be smarter
We must be quicker
We must be more responsive
of the impact of technology on everything from culture to society and business.
and back our ideas with strong insights and data points.
in delivering meaningful, relevant Ideas, stories, content, campaigns and experiences.
to all stakeholders, involving them in the brand’s initiatives and shaping the initiative in response to their feedback - whether they share it with us or not.
CREATIVITY IS A COMMITMENT, NOT A FANTASY We see this as a challenging, but exciting game to play. Let's win it, by Making Our Clients' Voice Matter. This is our Purpose at MSLGROUP: this is the way we define what we stand for as a global organization, organization, why we exist, what our raison d'être is and why it creates a tangible value for our clients and for all our stakeholders. And by the way, let's never forget that “Purpose” and “Propose” have the same etymology: a relevant Purpose needs to translate into a consistent value proposition for all, internally and externally.
VOICE: it means we help our clients have a voice in the always-on always-on conversation, conversation, raise it when needed, be heard and listened to. For this to happen, we help them generate the appropriate appropriate content and spread it to creatively engage with the people and communities that matter to them. And creatively is not “just” an adverb here: it's a commitment.
We, MSLGROUP, are creating value for our clients by linking the power to make oneself heard (through engagement) with the power to convince (through relevance). relevance).
MATTER: if it matters, it has to be of importance, it is influential. And it therefore needs to have significance, sense and meaning for the audience. This is so important today, in a world where the quest for meaning is a pressing reality, particularly for the numerous and crucial Millennials' Generation.
CREATIVITY IN A TECHNOLOGY TECHNOLOGY ENABLED WORLD
Creativity is the lifeblood of Brands. Yes Yes technology and data increasingly increasingly matter matter but people are carbon based life forms and not silicon avatars. We have emotions and moods and feelings. We move people with relevant stories. And the best stories are driven by creativity. creativity. While there are many definitions of creativity, creativity, I define creativity as connecting dots in new ways that resonate with consumers, culture and brands.
Rishad Tobaccowala Chief Strategist, Publicis Groupe @rishad
Blaise Pascal the French philosopher stated it best when he said:
people choose with their hearts and they then use numbers to justify what they did.
NEW TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY, NEW DOTS Traditionally the “dots” that Brands have used to deliver creative messages have combined audio, videos, images and words. These essential elements still matter a great deal, but due to advances in technology, we now have three new dots. These new dots are those of:
a) Mobility b) Part Partic icip ipat atio ion n c) API - the abili ability ty to create create and and build build messages utilizing application application protocol interface, such as linking to Instagram photos or Google trend data The key change that these new dots bring about in Creativity is that they leverage movement and motion on the part of the consumer.
Mobility Mobility allows for place-based relevance. Where we are is as important as whom we are for ensuring relevant messages and conversations. New companies that Publicis Groupe has invested in, like Place IQ, can reveal where people are before and after a sale.
Participation Similarly, due to the “People’s Network” that social platforms make possible, possible, we can now be part of a Brand’s story in that we can contribute to it, adapt it and pass it along. Today Facebook is the largest distributor of not just people’s stories but professional content driving more traffic to global content owners all around the world. Increasingly, our Brand Stories are both influenced by and distributed by people across social platforms. More and more brands integrate consumer responses such as tweets into our marketing materials.
API Finally, APIs (Application Protocol Interfaces) allow for continuous access to relevant data within our stories. Today we can tell a story about Jazz and link to historic videos on YouTube or poems about Jazz at Poetry.com and much more. There are layers within layers within layers in story telling made possible by links and APIs.
CONNECTING THE DOTS The challenge for Brands, Marketers, Agencies and Media companies is how to best leverage this new fast moving or “Kinetic” creativity in ways that can scale and be cost effective. How can a marketing team and its message become agile? How can they better leverage the data that comes from these social and mobile and API platforms? The solution is likely a combination of organizational and process re-design in a company, new talent and training, and finally utilization of new tools, technologies and platforms. The future of creativity, story telling and Brand building has been put into motion. All of us need to transform ourselves and the ways we think about ab out creativity, if we are to truly facilitate the next generation of story telling.
A data-driven approach to social content: All Things Hair by Razorfish
15 DRIVERS TO ENGAGE CREATIVELY IN 2015 A collection of views from our experts in the field.
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CAPTURING THE SPARK
Ideas can come to anyone, anytime and anywhere, says 19 year creativity veteran Sachin Karle. What's important is being prepared to receive it.
Sachin Karle is Executive Creative Director at MSLGROUP MSLGROUP India, where he h eads the creative teams at MSLGROUP Creative+ and SocialHive. With 19 years of experience in mainstream and digital advertising, Sachin has worked on some of the biggest Indian and MNC brands, across a broad range of categories. His interests lie in photography, illustration and film making.
“Necessity is the mother of invention” they say. say. And that’s so true. India’s legendary industrialist Ratan Tata was once travelling in his car on a rainy day. He saw a family of four riding on a scooter. Seeing this he was concerned and told his driver to drive carefully and give way to them as the roads would be slippery. This triggered an idea in Mr. Tata’s mind: I must make a car which these families can afford, so that they don’t have to ride on a scooter and risk their lives. And that’s how the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano was born.
In today's fast moving world where everything is timebound one can't really wait forever to get an idea. So certain methods or tools have been evolved over time that can help one create the right context, get into the right state of mind, and catch these sparks as often as possible in an organized way way..
Ideas can come to anyone, anytime and anywhere. All you need is to be completely prepared to receive it. This means: • immersion in th the ri right context • being in the right state of mind • bein being g ope open n to to any any trig trigge gerr tha thatt ma may spa spark rk the the ide idea a Here, Mr. Tata's natural concern for fellow-beings was the context, and as a prolific businessman, the constant seeking for newer ideas for his businesses was the state of mind that he always was in. The situation of a family of four riding a tiny scooter in heavy rains was the trigger that that sparked off the idea. No matter what your profession may be, this is a common phenomenon. These sparks are always around us. It can be a particular picture, a song, a place, a movie scene or anything that's part of our everyday life. Triggering Triggering the spark is up to an individual's state of mind at that particular moment and it is contextual. It's impossible to predict that you'll get an idea in certain time. Getting an idea is like a happy accident. Because you don't know what you are going to come up with till that spark actually hits you. And when you get the first germ of an idea, the joy is indescribable. No matter how big or small the idea you get, it is always special. When you are working on brands, whether on the client's side or the agency's side, clearly defining the problem or opportunity forms the right context; immersion, brainstorming and other mind hacks get you into a resourceful state of mind, while insights gleaned out of research, focus groups and Big Data help you spot the right creative trigger that sparks off the ideation process. At a brainstorming session, if you've got the correct insights and are in the right state of mind, then you can crack ideas much faster, much more effortlessly. The ideas borne out of this methodology tend to greatly appeal to the end consumer. So next time don't wait for an idea to strike you. It doesn't matter whether you are asked to come up with ideas for PR, Advertising, Digital or experiential. Define your context, get into the right state of mind and open yourself to all the idea-sparks that are floating around you.
Spark in action: RB Mavericks Case Challenge The RB Mavericks Case Challenge, a prospective employee engagement campaign created by us at MSLGROUP SocialHive SocialHive India is one such example.
THE CONTEXT: Reckitt Benckiser wanted bright young MBA students to join them. Everyone is is holding case study study competitions, competitions, so how do we stand out? Especially when the youth preferred other big FMCG companies.How do we get RB on par with the competition and get students to think of us as a preferred employer?
THE STATE OF MIND: The subject for the case study challenge was Durex. Talking openly about Sex is considered taboo in India. So how could we use condoms in an interesting manner without making it look vulgar?
THE INSIGHT: ‘Youth connects with the people who talk their language.’ Check out the integrated campaign that we created here here..
Making of RB Mavericks
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TRAIN YOUR CREATIVITY CREATIVITY MUSCLE Creativity must be something you work on each and every day. Oana Bulexa, managing director of the most awarded PR agency in Romania, shares some training rules.
MSLGROUP The Oana Bulexa is Managing Director at MSLGROUP Practice, in Romania. Over 13 years, she has coordinated multiple-awarded campaigns for over 50 clients, has been a juror for creativity competitions (Eurobest, Stevie Awards, ADC*Ro ADC*Ro Awards, Romanian Romanian PR Award), and and has been a speaker/trainer on creative thinking. Oana believes creativity should be the perpetual state of mind of every communications professional. Tweet her at @OanaBulexa
Creativity is a main ingredient, not a spice! Creativity is often considered an extra in communication. When we (agency, client) want something special, we say "this time we should do something creative." Which is both wrong and restrictive. Creativity is not an optional spice that you use only when you want some extra taste. It is a mandatory that you use all the time, if you want the recipe to turn into a tasty dish. It means a smart, special, new perspective on every piece of communication.
Of all communication disciplines, PR probably needs creativity the most. It’s our daily routine and high sense of spotting risk at every corner that makes us too down-to-earth, too afraid to take chances.
Creativity doesn't always always mean the big idea of the campaign, but also the small ideas in each and every step of the campaign. It’s in how you approach approach journalists differently differently than ever ever before, how how you engage engage opinion leaders leaders and consumers in an exceptional way, how you approach a media pitching differently differently than before. We mustn't be afraid of small creativity if we want to reach the big creativity. Of all communication disciplines, PR probably needs creativity the most. It’s our daily routine and high sense of spotting risk at every corner that makes us too down-to-earth, too afraid to take chances. But creativity is indeed about taking chances, not about taking risks! So don’t be afraid of creativity!
5 Rules to Train your Creative Muscle Here are the 5 rules we apply each day at MSLGROUP The Practice, because each and every day we must train our creativity muscle: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Don’t Don’t be pleas pleased ed with with the the first first idea idea.. Know other other cultur cultures, es, domains, domains, profe profession ssions. s. Researc Research, h, research, research, research. research. Don’t Don’t rush rush into into critici criticizing zing ideas. ideas. Don’t forget forget to connect creativity with the brand and the audience. audience.
Creativity should lead to results For many, many, creativity still means crazy ideas with no other purpose than to shock. No matter how suited an idea is, if it brings buzz and reactions from the public, then we should adopt it! Wrong again. We mustn’t confuse creative with sensational. There are so many unfortunate ways to mistake one for another: Misleading mass media. Lack of connection between a wow-teaser and a completely completely disconnected revelation. Using risky pranks as creative gimmicks. PR stunts/ events with no connection to the brand or the brief objectives. Wrong endorsement, just to piggy-back piggy-back on the hot star of the moment. Everyone knows at least a few examples from above and everyone knows it doesn’t always end well for the brand. At MSLGROUP The Practice, we believe in “ Results through Creativity, ” which is both our motto and our mantra ever since the agency was founded. This is what made us the most awarded PR agency in Romania. It is also what makes us work on creativity each and every single day.
Being creative No matter what your role in your organisation, keep in mind a few things that will make everything much easier and more rewarding:
MSLGROUP The Practice's work for Ikea, Gold Corporation and snack brand Gusto Pufuleti. (see full size images here)
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Creati Creativit vityy can be be learne learned d and nurtu nurtured red,, it is not not necessarily a gift you are born with.
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In order order to be be creat creative ive you you must must want want to be be creative in the first place.
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Creati Creativit vityy doesn doesn’t ’t come come out out of the the blue, blue, it it is based on keen observations, clever research and thorough documentation.
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A good, good, creat creative ive idea idea can can come come from from anyone anyone,, so trust people.
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But a good, good, creat creative ive idea idea cann cannot ot be be spotte spotted d by anybody. For this you need practice and good communication knowledge. knowledge.
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Never Never give give up up on bein being g creat creative ive.. It’s It’s the most most rewarding role you have, it’s the one that will always keep you alert and enthusiastic.
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Don’t Don’t thro throw w away away idea ideas, s, even even if if they they are are not not suited for the brief. They can always be worthy for a future one.
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CREATION VIA CONSTRAINT
Creative breakthroughs are often a byproduct of limitation. Embrace your Constraints says Renee Wilson
Renee Wilson is Chief Client Officer at MSLGROUP and was
also the PR jury president at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2014. Tweet her at @reneew
Today, common sense might say that having larger budgets, bigger resources, and increased time, will enable us to improve our creative excellence. However, I suggest that creative breakthroughs are more often a byproduct of constraining these factors. There is this romantic notion that an amazingly powerful idea can simply happen, without boundaries or rules… Paul McCartney tells the story that one morning he woke up with the melody to the world’s most recorded song, “Yesterday,” in his head – he didn’t have the lyrics figured out, so he hummed the tune to the words “scrambled egg.” To which John Lennon added at a later point, “yesterday.”
The 1930s brought in the Great Depression during which women desired affordable fashion as fine clothing but the means to make clothes such as this were not as possible. Chanel said, “Thanks to me they (non-wealthy) can walk around like millionaires.”
When recalling a big creative moment, the story will often be oversimplified when actually there were many constraints that were overcome. In this case, Lennon & McCartney were working on a Beatles album, they were under pressure from the record company to deliver more three-minute hits and they were on a tight deadline. Too much freedom can be creatively paralyzing, constraint actually can be liberating, as it was in this case. This theory that constraints enable creativity, probably will be challenged by many. many. The majority may feel the climate of creativity can be crushed by setting restrictions and limitations. No one wants to be told by a manager or a client company/brand team doesn’t that they “can’t focus on a particular area as the company/brand like XYZ,” XYZ,” or “don’t focus on this as we’re not supporting that area of development,” or “don’t consider putting resource here as our budgets won’t allow that” etc. Isn’t it tougher, they may argue, to work within all of these pronounced constraints? constraints? After all, that might be the reason why we are not coming up with the proverbial ‘big idea,’ right? Actually, that’s probably not right. Studies and history show that the best ideas are, more often than not, born out of constraints. Limitations can provide opportunity and inspiration for courage. Take for example, the great fashion designer Coco Chanel and her creation the Little Black Dress (LBD). The popularity of the LBD can be attributed to the limitations of the era at which it was introduced. The 1930s brought in the Great Depression during which women desired affordable fashion as fine clothing but the means to make clothes such as this were not as possible. Chanel said, “Thanks to me they (non-wealthy) can walk around like millionaires.” The The dress was fashionable, yet comfortable comfortable and practical because it was stripped of all excess. This classic fashion icon was created through fiscal constraint. Constraints give us a starting point to work with—a problem to solve, a challenge to overcome, or a client to please. The world is filled with amazing possibilities derived from limited resources. Consider the fact that every color in nature comes from just red, yellow and blue. Every pop song, symphony and jingle starts with just twelve notes. In classic French cooking, Chef Larousse taught us that the mirepoix is is the basis for hundreds of sauces, soups, stews and stocks and it’s made up of three simple vegetables: celery, celery, carrots, and onions. Constraints? Sure, but they’re a starting point for seemingly endless creativity and possibility.
Embrace Your Constraints Here are some simple tips to help you. 1
1. Two Two Piz Pizza za Teams eams Take a cue from Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, who coined the “two pizza teams ” rule: if the number of people in a brainstorming team can’t be fed with two pizzas, the team is too big. Adding more people is one of the most common productivity traps that you can fall into. 2. Simplicity Simplicity.. Simplicity Simplicity.. Simplicity Simplicity Get your client brief, that is, what you need to do, down to a headline. The more simplistic you can make your ‘ask,’ the more laser-like your focus will be and your creative ideation should flourish. 3. Set time time const constrai raints nts Pressurize the thinking within a time goal. Short bursts of time constrained activity with fresh stimulus can often yield better results than hours mulling over the problem in a windowless meeting room. 4. Find your your own person personal al way to unlock unlock your your individual creativity Find your creative muse, who gets your creative sparks flying? For big ideas, personalize the constraints of the creative process. Give yourself the clarity and freedom of the tight brief and disciplined process.
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SIX STEPS TO PLANNING SUCCESS Planning is crucial to developing strategy. Ben Koe shares an overview of MLSGROUP Asia’s six-step planning methodology.
Director, Benjamin Koe is Regional Director, Strategic Insight and Impact, Asia, based in Singapore. Tweet him at @benkoe
MSLGROUP Asia’s iQube methodology is based on our three guiding principles – Insights, Integration, and Impact. This planning methodology is developed to help our offices create real impact in a hyperaccelerated accelerated world where change is the only constant.
MSLGROUP Asia's iQube Planning Framework
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INTIMACY OF INSIGHTS
Intimacy helps build and convey trust. Get to the intimate insight to change behavior, recommends Dominic Payling.
Dominic Payling heads the strategic planning, insight
and measurement team at MSLGROUP UK. He has 20 years of experience in in-house marketing, market research and agency-side planning, across global corporate and consumer brands.
I once had a boss who used to lean forwards, over his third pint and, glancing left and right, and then over my shoulder say “ have you heard..?” pause and then say “ you mustn’t tell anyone….well only one person at a time…” And then he’d let rip with some scurrilous and treasured nugget of scuttlebutt. I loved those moments. They connected with me. One-on-one. All-encompassing. A secret shared. Often humorous, always intimate. And down the pub too – what’s not to like! It was also a great lesson in communications skills. Absolute focus, heightened emotion, content that was worth spreading and with a clear and motivating call to action – ‘tell only one person at a time.’ But it was the intimacy of the moment that mattered, that framed and defined the event.
If I’d been sat in the audience of a conference and the same information had been broadcast to me and my fellow delegates the speaker would have been lucky if I’d even noticed their presentation. It’s why PR as a discipline has always been such a powerful tool of communications – building and conveying conveying trust – delivered through the medium of relationships, usually painted in words, not in pictures.
A reduction in uncertainty helps us to predict the other's behaviour and likely likel y actions. This Th is is crucial to the development of any relationship, and to the success of the communication. We trust the person first then we buy their message. We don’ don’ t buy the message first then trust the person.
Intimacy matters in communications for a very good reason. According to the Uncertainty Reduction Theory (Charles Berger and Richard Calabrese, 1975), if communications are to be successful then we must understand the other party, party, before the communication takes place. Doing this reduces uncertainty. A reduction in uncertainty helps us to predict the other's behaviour and likely actions. This is crucial to the development of any relationship, and to the success of the communication. We trust the person first then we buy their message. We don’t buy the message first then trust the person. This makes sense. Trust helps land communications. Relationships develop trust. And understanding helps relationships to flourish. Trust/relationships/ Trust/relationships/ understanding – all synonymous with intimacy. Berger and Calabrese phased these interactions. Each phase acted as a bridge into greater intimacy. intimacy. As personal disclosure increases with an exploration of one another's attitudes and beliefs then so does emotional involvement involvement – and a degree of intimacy can flourish. It is why online daters have to follow such powerful uncertainty reduction strategies if they are to be successful. In the case of more short-term encounter based services – think Grindr and Tinder – you need an even more extreme uncertainty reduction strategy. strategy. Often super intimate, to help elicit the desired response. Intimacy begets intimacy if you like. The big question for communications agencies such as ourselves is how do we best get to the intimate insights that will change behaviour? With the recent advances in behavioural science that have begun to see off the 1 rational decision-making of Homo Economicus there is a way forward. As an industry we must be less reliant on self-reported, self-reported, increasingly commoditised omnibus sources of statistical ambiguity and more reliant on close-hand, ethnographic approaches that reveal true natural behaviours and influences. As I said before, intimacy begets intimacy. intimacy. And then behaviour change.
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CUSTODIANS OF COLLABORATION Collaboration with audiences can lead to stronger messages, proud influencers and better creativity creativity,, shares Kim Piquet.
Kim Piquet is Executive Strategic Planner at MSLGROUP
Italy. Italy. A terrible soccer player, his dad once advised h im to "Get a ball and practice free kicks at a wall every day." Creativity is his ball. Tweet him at @kimpk
Collaboration is everywhere… Jeremy Rifkin, one of the most respected economists of today, has just predicted the end of capitalism as we know it within the next 50 years. It will evolve evolve into a new “sharing economy”. We share rides with strangers we just met online, co-fund projects we are excited about, sleep on foreign couches for free to have a more local experience and share open work spaces with fellow freelancers. On our business side, there is a boom of online crowdsourcing platforms that we at MSLGROUP Italy use to supply content to some of our clients’ events, with great success.
It’s a new way to do things. And it impacts every aspect of our society. Including the way we work.
Let’s do a quick exercise: think of the last time you executed an idea for a client that was 100% yours. Chances are, you can’t remember.. Ideas, at least the remember really good and strong ones, are the fruits of brainstorms and collective insights.
Let’s do a quick exercise: think of the last time you executed an idea for a client that was 100% yours. Chances are, you can’t remember. Ideas, at least the really good and strong ones, are the fruits of brainstorms and collective insights. But internal brainstorms are not enough anymore, because more and more often, these ideas are subject to external interpretation. In reality people have always interpreted ideas and formulated their own opinion about it, but with the exponential growth of social media, these opinions are now posted and discussed online and influence varying degrees of positive and negative outcomes.
Co-creating the brand’s messaging So how can we make sure our ideas are correctly communicated? Before, the answer was to work with influencers to ensure our message would hit the right target and generate the least amount of negative scenarios possible. Within this new collaborative scenario, it’s all about bringing to the fold people that share a common ground with the brand and can participate and share their input on the elaboration and communication of the brand’s ideas. Think of them as partners of the brand’s ideas, influencers that collaborate to create and produce the messages that they will then help spread. Here at MSLGROUP Italy, we’ve already started implementing this philosophy.
Take as an example our work for Chicco, an Italian baby care brand that promotes happiness and strong bonds with their target: Mums. To better amplify their messages of happiness and early child development we identified an active mummy blogger network and partnered with them to better understand their behaviour; crowdsourcing, in a way, ideas that would later be used by our client and proudly amplified by the same mums we collaborated with. The results were great. Influencers were happy to be listened to, and proud to communicate the brand’s messages, because they felt they were an active part of Chicco’s Chicco’s planning and communication communication process. For the brand, this approach ensured less communicationnoise, longer-living messages and stronger bonds with the target. In the near future, our plan is to start collaborating more with our key influencers. After all, we are all creative beings and we can all help create a better future for creativity.
Workshop at a Chicco store with celebrity guest Francesca Valla and a group of mum bloggers.
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RELEVANCE IS OF THE ESSENCE
Break through the clutter with stories that matter. is Director of Research and Nidhi Makhija-Chimnani is Insights at MSLGROUP, MSLGROUP, based in Dubai. She tracks digital consumer trends for People’s Insights and is community manager of MSLGROUP’s MSLGROUP’s insights community SPRINT. SPRINT. Tweet her at @nidhimakhija
In today’s digital world, people often find that they’re awfully busy. Busy making overwhelming to-do lists on their latest productivity app. Busy trying to get their inbox down to zero. Busy checking all those notifications on WhatsApp, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter Twitter,, Instagram, reading the news at NY Times and The Guardian… phew! What’s a brand got to do to stand out amongst the constant flood of chats, news, pop gossip and advertising in today’s cluttered content-driven world? Spamming timelines is obviously not the answer. Neither is holding back cold turkey from social media. How about building relevance by telling stories that are meaningful. Stories that matter.
1. Stick Stick to to your your Values alues – both both those those of of your your brand’s and of your audience’s
It’s far more meaningful to link communications back to an aspect of the brand – the promise, programs, stories about its people – or values that the brand shares with its audience. Less frequent and more thoughtful communications can help your brand stand out.
Brand values can be easy to forget in the age of social media, where a constant churn of content used to be the main objective. Take for example posts from brands simply wishing people happy holidays (from Diwali, Eid, Christmas to Independence Day, Children’s Day etc etc). These posts get likes – sometimes more than average – which makes them oh so tempting. But what’s the impact? How does it tie back to the brand and contribute to a stronger affinity, affinity, association or recall? It’s far more meaningful to link communications back to an aspect of the brand – the promise, programs, stories about its people – or values that the brand shares with its audience. Less frequent and more thoughtful communications can help your brand stand out. At the least, it can help prevent social media gaffes that are increasingly common as some brands race blindly to use the latest trending hashtags.
2. Prepar Prepare e for Real Real--Time Time engagem engagement ent When done right, real-time real-time engagement impresses people because of the amount of thought that has gone into it and the sheer speed of turning around a branded message. Indeed, it does take a lot of time, effort, planning and process to produce such content: scanning calendars of cultural events, identifying ones relevant to your brand, preparing content strategies for multiple outcomes, outcomes, and building a process to get quick approvals. Essentially, it’s about building modern newsrooms for your brand, and reaping the benefits (buzz, reach, engagement) if your content hits the right spot.
3. Join Join the the Socia Sociall Con Conve versa rsatio tion n At the other end of the planned real-time spectrum is spontaneity: being tuned in to social conversations conversations about your brand, and responding when required. It’s not just about managing crisis, it’s also about spotting cultural trends which your brand should be a part of. A good example would be napkin brand Bounty’s quick move to partner with daddyblogger ‘Napkin Notes Dad’ to help raise funds for his cause (#Napkins4Emma). Napkins and family-values are core to the brand, and the audience of parent-bloggers couldn’t be more spot on.
4. Tie in Location As location-based services improve and proliferate, proliferate, location-based engagement is a growing area where brands can engage creatively. People are constantly connected on multiple devices – laptops, mobile phones, wearable tech, smart home appliances and so on. Brands that can identify the right moment and place to target people with the right message, create opportunities to win. Asics’ recent “We are Marathoners ” campaign is a brilliant example. A sponsor of the NYC Marathon, Asics used 3D printing to create
personalized personalized mini-statues for 500 participants, on a first come first serve basis. Asics also provided them with locationtracking RFID chips and asked for permission to post photos to their Facebook profiles. Behindthe-scenes, Asics photographed each of the statues at three points along the course. Then on race day, Asics posted these photos on their Facebook profiles in real-time, when the marathoners passed the actual locations. Now that’s relevance on all four counts: connecting the brand with audience values, at the right time and location, and kickstarting social conversations! conversations! Relevance doesn’t have to be that complicated of course. But it does demand that we be a lot more thoughtful.
minimarathoner.com
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HAVE THE SMARTS FOR IT Smartness is dynamic. Smart ideas come from minds that recognize change and accept it, writes digital expert Narendra Nag.
Narendra Nag leads Digital and Social for
MSLGROUP MSLGROUP Asia and is based in India. Tweet him at @narendranag
What Makes An Idea Smart? Eureka! As Archimedes ran naked through the streets of Syracuse in Ancient Greece, he was driven by a moment of illumination. Getting into a bathtub, he had figured out how to measure the volume of funnily shaped objects. He celebrated because he had connected the dots to arrive at a deeper, more meaningful, understanding of the universe. A smart idea isn’t just witty, or funny, or emotionally emotionally touching, or surprising —a smart idea is special. And behind every smart idea is a tale of a messy journey with an epic hero who’s willing to challenge convention and upend notions of how things are and how they will be.
The right question often challenges things that we took for granted when we turned in for the night. The smart idea emerges when we find an insight. A non-obvious truth that helps us make sense of this new world that we find ourselves in. At it’s very best, it feels like suddenly finding a glowing path when lost in a haze of uncertainty and broken assumptions.
In a recent essay, Paul Graham — the storied investor and founder of Y Combinator, perhaps the world’s best startup incubator (think Dropbox, Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, Reddit) — talks about how to spot a good startup. He says, “ Most really good startup ideas look like bad ideas at first, and m any of those look bad specifically because some change in the world just switched them from bad to good.” As professional communicators, communicators, we live at the crossroads of culture, technology and commerce. All three seem to be changing faster than any of us can keep up with. Predicting this change is best left to academics who can afford to get it wrong and pass it off as a learning experience.
A smart idea doesn’t need an expert. It isn’t the province of either youth or experience. But it does need a special kind of person — a smart person. A smart idea is born in a mind that consciously believes the world changes overnight, every night. This can be an emotionally taxing state for the sort of people who look for stability and certainty in their lives. In our business, a smart person embraces uncertainty and rides chaos, without getting too excited about the whole thing.
A smart idea does need a starting point. It can be a brief, brief, but more often than not it begins when a brief is deconstructed and we find the right question. Asking that question gifts us fresh eyes.
Walking that path is exciting. Smart idea starts to take form, and the creative juices start to flow. Art, code and copy come together and the hard, unforgiving lines between the three start to blur. The dots connect themselves, and then the audience joins this journey, helping us complete it as you respond. And we are left slightly different from when we started — our brains rewired, our worldview shifted, our lives richer and more meaningful. And when night falls, and we go to sleep, we know we will wake to a changed world.
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PURPOSE+PEOPLE FOR PERFORMANCE Purpose and Creativity share a mutually beneficial relationship, our sustainability expert Penny Baxter reveals.
Penny Baxter is Managing Director at Salterbaxter
MSLGROUP MSLGROUP and is based in London. She’s an expert on sustainability and a former creative director. Tweet her at @pennybaxter
We think purpose matters full stop - to creativity, to ideas, to being authentic and delivering the right kind of progress. What does it really mean? It means having a reason for being here beyond making and selling more stuff – having a positive role in the world while contributing to sustainable economic and social development. development. In the context of a brand, it’s the most valuable strand of DNA to decode, for with it comes relevance, trust and longevity. So when it comes to purpose and creativity, we have the perfect storm – a force for good supported by a force for change. For that’s what creative thinking can deliver – new ideas and solutions to questions that weren’t even asked. Place that powerful force around businesses and brands that are willing to step up and
change the way we live, think and work, and we may just make it to the year 3000.
Creativity with purpose also opens up new ways of working – the democratization of ideas and IP through co-creation and open source thinking is a revolution. When these methods are adopted by brands, their role and impact is transformed.
Focusing creative minds on solving problems problems of real substance brings a risk-taking dimension to the solution. Stepping into the creative realm of the improbable and impossible, we can define new business models, find progressive ways of creating and consuming, and connect businesses, brands and consumers to change. Creativity with purpose also opens up new ways of working – the democratization of ideas and IP through co-creation and open source thinking is a revolution. revolution. When these methods are ado pted by brands, their role and impact is transformed. Brands like Nike and SONY have embraced this approach and discovered new ideas for themselves as well as unlocked progress for others. And it’s wellknown that BMW’s breakthrough technology technology came from their incubator unit that was given a creative vacuum outside of the constraints of the core business, with the purpose of redesigning the future of mobility. Efficient Dynamics was born and has already delivered 30% emission reduction in five years.
A Force for Good An interesting thing to consider is how to harness the collective collective force of designers and creatives who are amongst the most untamed and unmanaged group of professionals in the world. We don’t collectively answer to an ethical code or submit to rules of creative engagement. How much more impact could we make if we organized around a common goal of challenging all businesses and brands to act with integrity and find advantage in a positive purpose? Would it tame the very spirit of the creative beast, or would it make us even more powerful? Can creativity save the world? At Salterbaxter MSLGROUP we certainly think so.
Authenticity is Key
Launching Lego’s new values, focused on social purpose
PVH:Having a positive impact across the entire value chain
But with purpose and creativity comes the need for authenticity. Brands cannot hide from the always-on connected world, and cannot afford to misjudge where they have permission to tread or overstate their motives. We expect responsibility and credibility credibility from brands and will punish those who don't deliver on their promises. Our Creative Director, Nina Pickup, sums up the role of purpose in creativity with the following: “Our role as purpose-led creatives is to magnify the good and turn a starting intent into an organising philosophy – always daring to think big and make business better. I’d sum this up by approaching every creative challenge with the following:
• Make it sustainable and desirable • Be auth authen entic tic
Coca-Cola Enterprise’s leading sustainability programme – inspiring employees, partners and consumers to create a sustainable future
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FOR MOBILE, BY MOBILE
The intersection of form factor and mobile user experience opens new avenues for creativity creativity,, notes mobile expert Alice Hu.
MSLGROUP Asia, Alice Hu is Deputy Asia Digital Lead at MSLGROUP based in Shanghai. She has authored several notable pieces on mobile trends, including The Rise of Asia’s Mobile Messengers. Tweet her at @alicehu
What it means to be creative in a mobile-first world Working in Asia, the world’s most mobile-savvy region, one can’t ignore the importance of mobile. At a global level, mobile usage is also rising. Mobile phones have nearly as many users as televisions. It’s only natural then that mobile should have a large influence on creativity. Mobile, like social media and digital, is a term that is broad and often interpreted and used in different ways. For brands, what matters is that mobile is the primary medium on which most of your audiences will be viewing the content you’ve spent countless hours creating and revising… on a computer. And therein lies the problem.
From the start, our creative ideas, strategy, strategy, stories and content are being formulated through the PC medium for a mobile viewership.
Instead of resizing PC content for mobile, we must start to explore creativity within the mobile space to truly create better content. We must think about the user experience on a smartphone or another mobile device.
Instead of resizing PC content for mobile, we must start to explore creativity within the mobile space to truly create better content.
We must think about the user experience on a smartphone or another mobile device. Consider the mobile versions of webpages, and social networking apps – all are different with their own user experience (UX). For instance, Ikea can highlight its new spring 2015 catalog products on Facebook, Weibo, Weibo, WeChat and Instagram in the same way: posting a photo with relevant text. But each specific platform has its own unique features and UX; that’s where things can get interesting and creativity can take off. So, on Weibo you can separate one visual into nine to fit the platform’s 3x3 photo upload rule, to create an interesting photo-collage-style Weibo post. You can even go one step further, further, and add a GIF element to each of the nine photos. Creative opportunities expand when content strategies move beyond adjusting to the mobile form-factor form-factor and are tailored for specific mobile webpages or apps.
A real-world example: Earlier this year, Ikea in Russia used Instagram to create a digital catalog for its PS 2014 collection. The PS 2014 account on Instagram published a nine-part advertisement, with each image featuring a product, each with its own individual Instagram account. Users were also able to tag products, using Instagram’s tagging feature, to showcase how they placed the products in their own homes.
Ikea’s PS 2014 catalog on Instagram, and a glimpse of one of the nine tiles.
To explore new creative possibilities, you must first understand the medium. For mobile, this means understanding the mobile touch point (whether it’s a mobile webpage, Snapchat or something else) and then figuring out how that information is presented in that ecosystem. The result is a novel, exciting mobile experience instead of a frustrating or dull one.
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FUEL FOR IDEAS Curiosity and courage are key to great thinking, says our creative expert Ben Therrien. Ben Therrien is Vice President of Creative
Programming at MSLGROUP North America.
Idea Fuel - Curiosity + Courage The big idea is dead. Feel free to take a moment and rejoice, as you’ll never have to sit down in front of a blank screen, fresh piece of paper or poorly attended brainstorm hunting for the elusive “big idea” again. Hyperbole aside, the days of being limited to creating programs centered on big splashy events or stunts, which lived solely to drive earned media are long gone. Today our avenues for sharing our client’s message have expanded dramatically (social platforms, content marketing, influencers etc.) creating a world where earned media is extremely important, but not our only measure of success.
Instead of big ideas, I’d like to propose that we should be in search of greatness. The good news for you and everyone else in our industry is that greatness comes in many many forms.
As a creative, I often hear that good ideas come from creative people, but that’s just not true. I believe that great thinking comes from two places… curiosity and courage.
But where does it start? Where does greatness come from? As a creative, I often hear that good ideas come from creative people, but that’s just not true. I believe that great thinking comes from two places… curiosity and courage. •
Curiosity Albert Einstein said, “ I have no special talents. I’m only passionately curious.” While he may have been downplaying his abilities ever so slightly, he’s completely correct in that those abilities would have generated nothing without an insatiable curiosity. Curiosity causes us to question the brief, brief, question the consumer segment, and question everything we know about a project or problem until we believe it, because it’s only when we have fully bought in that greatness can begin.
• Courage Courage is a simple trait, but it takes work. Courage is the difficult path. Courage is late hours and uncomfortable conversations. conversations. Without courage, great thinking is just that…a thought. It is courage that puts the approach on paper, courage that brings it before the client with passion and confidence, and courage that brings it to life in all of its fantastic glory. We could all stand to be a bit more courageous.
Greatness As I said, great thinking can be brought to life in an infinite number of forms. With technology and consumer consumption habits changing, so are our abilities and options to bring great thinking to life. From content to influencers to emerging social platforms, where we plant the seed of our great idea is just as important as the idea itself. As the lines between marketing disciplines blur, we’re amazingly well positioned to take our inherent understanding of earned message delivery, specifically the ability to craft a story that people will want to hear versus be forced to hear, and use that to develop vibrant work that’s as interesting as it is entertaining. Greatness is waiting for us. It’s out there in the ether ready to be harnessed and brought to life. All we need is a little curiosity and a dash of courage…
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RIDING THE FLOW OF FLUIDITY
Agencies must must evolve, evolve, become more fluid, to deliver on whole ideas, writes Surya. Suryasen Kundu is Digital Planning Director at
MSLGROUP India. He’s also the 2014 winner of MSLGROUP MSLGROUP’s MSLGR OUP’s Michael Sullivan Creative Leadership Award and shares learnings from his experience at Cannes and the Berlin School of Creativity. Tweet him at @suryasenk
Never bring a Knife to a Gun Fight Gone are the days of when one great idea and a compelling script with a celebrity in a 30 second T V spot was enough to get attention to your brand. Today, brands need to think of the idea ecosystem or the whole idea: how does it live across channels, devices, location and geographies? How does it involve people and react to them? To deliver on the whole idea, agencies have to wear multiple hats. Rather than reinvent, let’s look at what’s working best across the field.
• Identify Identify value value streams streams in in a shifti shifting ng consumer journey. The concept of value streams is not new in the world of consulting. Take Take the consumer journey and map out all the catchment areas through
which the consumer could feel a sense of fulfillment. How do you give the consumer an excuse to keep coming back to you, wanting more?
As the consumer journey has changed, and especiall especially y since we program for a world that is mobile-first, there are two additional competencies that have a role to play: technology: driving interaction, and data: unearthing insights.
As the consumer journey has changed, and especially since we program for a world that is mobile-first, there are two additional competencies that have a role to play: technology: driving interaction, and data: unearthing insights.
• Act like like a start-up: start-up: Innovate. Innovate. Iterate Iterate Consulting and technology companies contribute different skill sets to the next gen agency’s genome. Think about the innovation in measurement and data. Proxy metrics like TRP rating of T V programming is OUT – length of most watched videos on YouTube ouTube channel is IN. Primetime is OUT. OUT. Videos on-demand, on tablets and mobile, are IN. Brands are increasingly demanding new kinds of insights about their connected prospects and customers. And they’re looking to us to identify new areas in which they can help provide value to consumers. Learn from tech startups, who are leading the change. Be lean and fast moving. Fail fast. Be agile. Iterate. Responsiveness is key. key.
• Plot the premise, premise, but don’t stop there. there. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___. That’s the plot for almost every Pixar blockbuster. blockbuster. That’s the plot that every brand wants to crack. Dana And erson, SVP MarComms, Kraft Foods NA, contends that the core challenge is that brands are very clear about their plot but they fail to provide premise to an engaging story.
That’s where agencies come in. Contextualize Contextualize the story and then go further. The big idea is no longer the lynchpin of a successful marketing program. Instead, it’s the big integration . The telling of the story must involve the audiences. By being provocative and evocative, the brand must ensure that the idea thrives and takes a life of its own among people.
From Big idea to Whole idea Make the idea Whole – give consumers and prospects the opportunity to become part of your brand story. For example, 7/11 is selling coffee in democrats and republican coffee cups? Put up a massive interactive signboard on Times Square with a live count of coffee cups sold on Election Day for each party! Throw in drones and augmented reality into the mix in a meaningful, experiential way to boot. This possibility for for interaction transforms the big idea to the whole idea. Stories that are rooted in insights, contextualized and delivered through an interactive experience allows for a strong, positive customer experience. The trick lies in breaking the silos in our thinking and in our doing.
Sony Alpha Community A community for photographers developed by MSLGROUP MSLGROUP SocialHive India Alpha Community was conceived with a very specific
insight. Sony was innovating its Alpha line of cameras at an incredible pace, but most people were unaware of the cameras and the kind of photos that could be taken with them. Sure, there were glossy brochures with professionally taken photographs in a foreign land, but… was that truly how it would seem if I started using one? Taking Taking the workshops and tutorials online was a no brainer. brainer. Beyond that, we wanted every photograph to become a shareable asset –a place where people could see photos from real photographers using Sony’s range of cameras. The incentive for photographers to upload photos? A place to share their work and get feedback from experts.
Explore the Sony Alpha Community at alphacommunity.sony alphacommunity .sony.co.in/stories .co.in/stories
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IS IT WORTH A TWEET?
It’s all about creating stories that people want to share, says content expert Patricia Albuquerque. Patrícia Albuquerque is a partner and content director at
MSLGROUP Espalhe in Sao Paulo, where she oversees MSLGROUP content production and digital/social presences for brands like Trident, Halls, Cargill's Pomarola, Mexico's Tourism Council and Ambev - part of ABInbev. A journalist for over 20 years, she has worked in some of the most important newsrooms in Brazil. Tweet her at @patialbuc
Sharing – the currency of the internet Since the changes in Facebook’s algorithm algorithm started to challenge branded content’s organic reach, we can see that the platform has become a media outlet on which results are very dependent on the amount of money available to promote posts. In fact, more than ever, strategy needs to combine earned, owned and paid media efforts… though, in the context of share-ability, share-ability, it’s worth remembering that paid media will deliver your content to more people, while not necessarily make them click, comment or share. So, what can guarantee that? In one word? Nothing.
In a conversation between two people, what guarantees that one will understand exactly what the other said – and more importantly, respond in the way in which the other wants them to? There’s no 100% certainty.
Forget digital and think about our offline lives for a moment: in a conversation conversation between two people, what guarantees that one will understand exactly what the other said – and more importantly, importantly, respond in the way in which the other wants them to? There’s no 100% certainty. If it doesn’t occur in a personal interaction, face-to-face, how can we expect it to be true through a computer or smartphone screen? To increase the chances of success, we can work on a combination of passion and process. There are different ways to achieve this. Through monitoring and learning, we understand that it’s not about creating an idea and then working on a strategy to spread it. It’s about developing concepts concepts that have in and of themselves the potential to be shared. Let’s “read the classics”: the MacBook air launch, for example. If the story was about technological technological features and beautiful design, it wouldn’t have had half the appeal. In fact, the gadget was deprived of its hard drive – what may seem obvious today, but probably wasn’t during its development – in order to make it the ‘world’s thinnest notebook.’ It was not a product, it was a headline. PR intelligence was evident from the beginning. Apple relied on uniqueness, boldness and creativity as the subjects of conversation – instead of relying on forgettable press releases, tactic activations and paid media waves.
Creating stories that are share-worthy We won’t always have big projects in our hands, but the question is equally relevant, relevant, to both million-dollar campaigns and social media posts: Would I tweet about it? Would I pass it forward? If we think specifically specifically about timelines, some items stand out. Yes, identifying is easier than applying them. Execution will ask for commitment, attention and rituals.
Once the story is defined, it’s time to understand where and in which formats it’s going to be developed. How each social network is related (or not) to the brand’s goals? Is it really necessarily and feasible to establish a relevant presence in this platform at the moment? The landscape is fragmented and complex, but this is an opportunity opportunity,, not a problem. It’s an opportunity to customize messages and, by doing that, increase relevance. Humor, a business model that helps to achieve consistency, agility and timing are also part of the equation, as we know know..
Honoring the end of social network Orkut: Fim do Orkut by Halls XS/MSLGROUP Espalhe
Even when designing content to be shared, the goal remains the same: win people’s preference. Interruptions are not the way to get there anymore. The brand message will always be present, but, to leverage conversation, conversatio n, it’s important to understand that we need to focus less on what we want to say and more on what people want to hear. How can we identify this? Well, a good option is to start listening. In the end, the question goes beyond just being shareworthy – there are more than enough cats and babies out there. Rather, it’s about transforming brands into subjects of conversation. So, make the conversation part of a story you would like to hear – or would be proud to tell.
Building buzz around the World Cup 2014 ball: brazuca babies by adidas/MSLGR adidas/MSLGROUP OUP Espalhe
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ORGANISING FOR REAL-TIME
People have come to expect instant creativity from brands. But there’s nothing instant about real-time, DigitasLBi’s Jean-Philippe Martzel reveals.
Jean-Philippe Martzel is Deputy General
Manager and Head of Strategic Planning, DigitasLBi France. Tweet him at @jpmartzel
Welcome to the age of RealTime Brands. Tide and Oreo are well-known as real-time communication precursors. This “live” brand behavior was far from being a trial run. Both brands had already taken steps with the intention of interacting with current events.
Tide had been publicly recognized several months earlier following a minor accident during the NASCAR motor race, when television television images revealed that after the accident, the petrol spilt over the track was cleaned up with Tide washing powder. A case of involuntary product placement which triggered a flurry of activity on social networks to Tide’s benefit; then quickly utilized by the brand in the form of a promotional film with the simple tagline: “You keep inventing stains, we’ll keep inventing ways to get them out.”
Oreo's famous real-time tweet
Tide - Nascar
Everybody knows Oreo’s “Daily Twist”: Twist”: a 100 day campaign celebrating its 100th birthday. Each day, the brand produced a message echoing current events and broadcast it on social networks. A fine display of real-time communication which resulted in a 110% increase in conversations between the brand and its fans over social networks.
These actions correspond to the main reasons that people follow brands on social networks. Not for promotions, discounts and other freebies, but for “fun and entertainment” (reason cited by 87% of Twitter users in a study conducted by Twitter) and for access to exclusive content (79%). This close link between content and social networks proves that content is what keeps the relationship between a brand and its audience on social networks going. “Brand content” and “social networks” should therefore no longer be seen as two distinct fields; but as being complementary complementary to one another.
Oreo's Daily Twist
Organising for Real-Time But this approach integrating content and social networks entails a prerequisite: organizing organizing the conditions for having a permanent ear on the social network activity of a brand’s audience in order to identify the topics and content which people are already talking about. In fact, listening processes which were until now reserved for “crisis communication” are on the way to becoming essential communication techniques for brands on social networks. No longer to respond to a crisis, but in order to pounce on a topic which could enhance conversation with its audience.
Here’s an example of BrandLive, DigitasLBi’s real-time marketing service, for Nissan.
Social networks have greatly advanced the notion of immediacy and have thereby equally reduced the timeframe within which we have to react to events. Brand communication is subject to the same acceleration, as success is determined by the “freshness” and relevance of the response provided. Tide is among the brands which have implemented listening and reaction processes on social networks through news rooms. The aim is to identify the topic which could be snapped up by the brand with an eye to reacting in the form of content. For the first time, listening, design, content production and the validation process by a brand are united in time and place.
Domino’s Pizza may not have a newsroom, but it does have the full human commitment of its social network director, Ramon De Leon, who treats social networks as one could say Bourdieu treated sociology: like a combat sport. Ramon De Leon spends his time “ in the field”, at universities, neighborhood events, etc., in contact with Domino’s Pizza customers. Decked out with smartphones, spare batteries and external hard drives, he produces content and broadcasts it live on the brand’s social networks. Describing himself as “the face behind the logo,” logo,” De Leon reacts immediately to any conversation. Recently, during the New York marathon, Domino’s Pizza stationed itself on the edge of the course in order to supply one runner, who had tweeted one hour earlier to say that their earphones were broken, with a pair of earphones… Sometime before, Ramon De Leon accompanied Domino’s Domino’s Pizza delivery people on the streets of Chicago during a snowstorm which immobilized the entire city.
Ramon de Leon shares his experience at LeWeb Paris
This shift to real-time real-time communication changes a number of things. The way in which brands communicate, of course, but also the way in which brands work with their PR agency. Finally, and above all, the organization of the validation process within the brand is examined in order to allow educated, real-time decision making. This requires both close proximity and a high degree of maturity all round. This kind of approach will be the result of a thorough and well-thought-out well-thought-out work process. In short, improvisation improvisation will be real-time real-time brands’ worst enemy.
(image credit: Ramon credit: Ramon de Leon )
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MEASUREMENT IS YOUR BEST ALLY ALLY Don’t be afraid of measuring the impact of your creative work. Use the right metrics and win, says Allan Dib.
MSLGROUP Allan Dib is SVP Planning and Analytics at MSLGROUP North America, where he works with clients to understand objectives and develop measurement plans. He has spent 20 years working in marketing effectives roles within market research companies and media buying agencies. Tweet him at @diballan
I have always been fascinated by the look on people’s faces when I mention a measurement plan in a communications agency. Is that fear I see? It makes me reflect on times in my life when I have feared measurement – getting on the scale to weigh myself after Christmas… my history exam results in my 2nd year of high school when I didn’t study for the test. I did not so much fear the measuring part itself but more the results part of measurement.
Why do we fear measurement at communications communications agencies? Lack of clear measurable objectives. I don’t believe agency folks fear measurement because they think their work isn’t good, but there is this fear they are going to “fail.”
I think this fear of failure is either due to the lack of clarity in what they are being measured against, or that the objectives change between the briefing and the time they are measured.
We need to work closer with our clients to clearly understand the objectives and make sure that we understand what we are being measured against, before we start working on a client project.
How many times have we heard the client ask for something (e.g. a fun video that will generate some buzz about our brand) only to measure us against something completely different (e.g. increase in sales)? We need to work closer with our clients to clearly understand the objectives and make sure that we understand what we are being measured against, before we start working on a client project.
How do we take fear out of the measurement process? insight.. The definition we • Make sure the creative idea is b orn out of an insight use for “insight” is “a fundamental truth about our target that we can leverage to drive growth.” More often than not, practically speaking, the idea isn’t born out of the insight. Instead, the insight is used to validate the creative idea.
• Use research early and use it for the right reason. Research has often been used by clients to evaluate creativity (think go/no go) but I have always said this is a waste of time and money. Research should be used in the process early enough as a diagnostic tool, i.e. to improve an idea.
Why should we embrace measurement and not fear it? • We should change our perspective on measurement from fear to excitement. If we do not measure our work, how will we know if we have done a good job? I recently completed completed a marketing effectiveness project for a client and they were more than happy when they saw the results. • Proving our effectiveness can drive greater budget. If we can prove the effectiveness of our work, this will lead to increased confidence from clients who will invest more than they have in the past. This is imperative when trying to grow traditional PR budgets from other departments in marketing (that have been proving effectiveness for years!). I first saw this happen when we were able to provide a dollar value to a client for a Facebook “like.”
Did the target see/ hear the tactics?
Did it change how they feel/ think about us?
Efficiency
Effectiveness
Exposure
Engagement
What metrics should we use to measure our work?
Outcome
Measurement should not be something we run away from. It should be something we run towards because the right idea and the right measurement plan can help us achieve our clients’ business objectives, win us awards and win us more clients. Win! Win! Win!
Attitudinal Changes
Behavior Sales
Impressions
Traffic sources
Eyeballs
Click through
• Aware warene ness ss • Consideration • Purchase Intent
Coverage
Opens
Perception Changes
Downloads
• Reputation
Call center calls
New business proposals
Sales calls
Did it achieve the desired objective?
Share price Reputation
• The metrics that address the objectives. Every measurement plan is tailored to the objectives that we have agreed to with the client. Every measurement plan should address three parts.
BONUS! 15 TIPS FOR PR PROFESSIONALS TO UNLOCK THE CREATIVITY CREATIVITY IN PR
Nidhi Makhija-Chimnani
Director – Research & Insights, MSLGROUP @nidhimakhija
Creativity in the world of PR is not, by any means, beyond our reach. In The Future of Creativity, our experts point to a future where creativity is a natural evolution of our role as storytellers. stor ytellers. We are already embracing the other challenges that disintermediation and the digital revolution are throwing at us. Why not this one? So how do we unlock this creativity that is inherent to what we are already doing? Here are 15 tips, based on the essays featured in this report and Maurice Lévy's recent lecture at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.
Maurice Lévy, Chairman and CEO, Publicis Groupe at the Berlin School
Be Da Darrin ingg. 1
15 TIPS
Have the courage to take risks and dream big.
FOR PR PROFESSIONALS TO UNLOCK THE CREATIVITY IN PR
BE CURIOUS.
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Keep learning, from your own industry and other industries; your inspiration can come from anywhere. And keep asking questions about the project at hand until you’ve uncovered enough to fuel your idea.
Be Be Different. inve ven nti tive ve.. Human. be in 3
Great stories need to relate to people. Preserve the emotional connect throughout the story. This is what advertising does best, and where PR was found lacking at Cannes.
Push yourself beyond dull, beyond ordinary. Strive for extraordinary.
4
5
If you can't find solutions, make them. But remember, you will need to sell them too.
BE PROUD.
6
Talk about your creative work. Publicize it.
7 Be
Present.
12
You You can’t win if you you don’t even even try. Don’t Don’t checkmate yourself yourself..
8
Be Open. Things are changing. Embrace change and new approaches.
9
10
13
Be Presumptuous. You You don’t always always have have to wait for for the brief. brief. Share your ideas ideas and solutions, even when none were asked for.
Be Confident. Raise your hand, share your thoughts, stand by your idea. If you believe in yourself, others will too.
14
Be Persistent. Navigate through the feedback. Learn when to stick to your original idea and when to shape it along the way.
Be Pioneering. The ideas and approaches you need to come up with probably haven’t been done before. Present them anyway.
11
Change requires new ways of doing things. Work around the way things are to get to the way things should be.
Be Alert. Sparks of ideas and trends are all around us. Become bloody quick at making connections and acting on them.
Be Agile.
15
Be Respectfu Respectful. l. We are experimenting with new technology, data and communications communications in a diverse connected world. Respect the people you are engaging with. Make sure it shows.
The one thing this industry needs more than anything else is good PR about its creative success. Have we missed out on something? Tell us on Twitter, Twitter, with the hashtag #mslcreativity2015 or by mentioning @PeoplesLab
Write to us to start a conversation on how we can help you distill actionable insights and foresights from conversations and communities: Pascal Beucler,
SVP & Chief Strategy Officer (
[email protected]) Nidhi Makhija-Chimnani
Director - Research & Insights (
[email protected])
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