Order pizza from me, and I make money!
Glyn Britton // Strategy Director with digitally-minded integrated advertising agency Albion. Check us out at www.albionlondon.com.
Glyn Britton // Strategy Director with digitally-minded integrated advertising agency Albion. Check us out at www.albionlondon.com.
A few weeks ago, the BBC News Magazine asked us at Albion London to hack together an illustration of what Newbank's branches might look like. (Newbank is the code name for a proposed new UK retail bank to be created by Lord Levene, buying several bits of banks nationalised by the government in the wake of the credit crunch.)
In order to gather our thoughts, I hurriedly wrote the following - now recorded here for hilarity and posterity.
The banking industry still doesn’t understand how terminal the destruction of trust in their institutions by the credit crunch was. Featuring actors-posing-as-staff in television adverts isn’t going to recreate it. And hoping people won’t switch to the new breed of retail banks “because of apathy” isn’t a strategy.
So how should Lord Levene design his new retail bank to start to rebuild that trust? Well, the answer isn’t just to be a bit simpler and a bit friendlier looking (the Metro Bank approach). More fundamental thinking than that is required – and possible.
While nobody ever really liked their bank, we were previously happy to trust them because a) they were big, and b) they were regulated – both historically signs of solidity. Both of which have recently proved to unreliable signs. So what to replace them with? What are the new signals of trustworthiness?
The relationships between people, communities and institutions are being re-written right now online. So what can the new banks learn from the transformative new brands like eBay, Zipcar and Mint.com who are pioneering new ways of getting stuff done, new ways of thinking about money, and new ways of trusting each other?
Nobody enjoys interacting with their bank because it’s a chore. But why not make it a bit more... playful? eBay’s feedback system makes reputation into a game – a game that people take very seriously, because it has real material benefits.
Zipcar are challenging our one dimensional assumption about ownership, by offering a pay-as-you-go car. With cars available for just 1 hour, and a real sense of community among members, it’s feels more like shared ownership than car rental.
US startup Mint.com (now owned by Intuit) is challenging notions that finance must be private and that an institution is the best authority to advise you on financial matters. By aggregating thousands of user’s financial data, they can make ‘people powered’ recommendations about how you should manage your finances and what products you should choose.
So how does this translate into a design brief for NewBank?
Firstly, New Bank needs to move all its account processing online. They need to force the issue (as easyJet did with online ticket booking 10 years ago.) But their online presence needs to go way beyond a simple account servicing website. They need to make our financial transaction data (and it is ours, not theirs) available to us in rich formats to share, remix, and put to work to help us make better financial decisions. Instead of encouraging secrecy between customers, they need to encourage sharing for the greater good, incentivising participation with a game-like mechanic, building a real sense of community, and breaking down the barriers between the institution and its customers.
Secondly, this frees up New Bank’s branches to do a different job. But if we’re all transacting and advising each other online, then what use is a physical space? Well, why do we go to a physical space for anything? Why do we go to the cinema when we can watch a DVD at home? Why do we go to a pub when we can drink more cheaply at home? For intangible, shared, social experiences, that’s why.
The current state of the art for bank design is the ‘physical website’ – stuffed with terminals, dedicated to dry account servicing, with staff relegated to glorified IT support roles. But this is 180° wrong.
The design of New Bank’s branches should be transformed. Without the need to provide account processing functions (that are much better done online), then they are freed to become places for their community of customers and real staff to meet each other in a social, convivial atmosphere to share experiences around finance. A softer, more clubby environment centred around seminars, book club style group discussions, and networking with likeminded people.
Sounds crazy? Well may be, but the current system (and the cultural norms that have developed around it) is broken, and small gestures aren’t going to mend it. Radical transformative thinking is required.
Put simply, New Bank should put the real relationships between real people at the heart of their new service. In this respect the bank of the future looks a little like the bank of the past – but now enabled with technology that empowers a community of customers by enabling them to share in a radically open and connected new way.
A few weeks ago, I saw an advert in my father-in-law’s Telegraph for a warranty for used cars, backed by ex-Top Gear presenter Quentin Wilson. I didn’t know such a scheme existed, but it piqued my interest.
Next time I was idling online, I remembered the ad, and visited the site. There was Wilson again, explaining more detail about the scheme. I was pretty suspicious, but as I dug around the site, it answered all my doubts.
I decided to try a quote on our aging X-Trail. The UX of the quote process was really well thought-out and designed. And the price quoted was surprisingly OK. I saved the quote and thought no more about it.
A week or so later they emailed me a reminder and a discount voucher.
Then I started noticing their AdWords all over the web, especially YouTube. Clearly some behavioural re-targeting going on there.
Then I got a message this morning from their call centre, asking if I was still interested, and repeating the discount offer.
And now I’ve gone and bought the policy.
As a marketer, I’m impressed that, while using some pretty ‘dirty’ online marketing tools, and targeting me quite overtly, I’ve never felt hounded. In fact, quite the opposite.
Because the pacing of the contacts wasn’t too rushed. And because they were co-ordinated so as not to duplicate. And because their tone throughout has been helpful, clear and intelligent. I feel like they’ve done me a favour.
Not a sexy brand. But some very well though-through and well executed marketing.
Vintage. Wonder why more bands haven't used the slap and pop bass / falsetto vocal combo since...
Bull shot (intensely beefy stock, vodka and chilli) with chorizo foam.
Venison scotch egg (with duck’s egg) and duck ham.
Ox tongue and bone marrow
Lamb’s heart stuffed with liver
Roast forerib of beef and triple cooked chips
Cheese (Stichelton, Montgomery, Waterloo)
Chocolate covered bacon
Bread and butter pudding (including black pudding, I think)
Our friends at Zenith/Meridian Outdoor did a magnificent deal with Forrest Media which means that we’ve got our Slapometer running on big digital screens in Manchester and Glasgow. And this afternoon I met the lovely Julie Lomax to take some shots. Fingers crossed a newspaper will pick them up...
When we worked with BlackBerry, there was always one observation we were dying to do something with.
We discovered a 'sub-culture' of kids using BlackBerrys. This was 2-3 years ago, before they became a more mainstream smartphone brand. These kids were using BlackBerrys a) because they had discovered that BlackBerry Messenger + QWERTY was an awesome way to keep in touch with their groups of friends in real time. And b) because BlackBerry wasn't marketing at them, so they were subverting The Man - using a business device for a purpose it wasn't intended for. RIM have finally done something with the Messenger insight in their advertising (and it's nice to see them do some advertising with substance). But will the fact they have advertised this feature now defuse its 'subversive' currency? And what will the kids move onto next?
The 2010 general election will very much be the first digital election the UK has seen. But not in the way the main parties think.
By digital election we really mean one where online communities, commentary and tools play a significant role in the democratic process. In the last US presidential election that happened because online tools were used (famously MyBarackObama.com) to help organise real world communities, and to solicit and manage small donations given against specific issues. The main political parties in the UK seem to be just trying to lazily copy the US formula – and it doesn’t seem to be working. Perhaps that’s because the UK isn’t the US. It’s a different society, a different culture, a different political process, even just a different year (there’s been a recession after all). Or perhaps it’s because the online tools didn’t win the election for Obama; Obama won the election for Obama. He was a new, fresh, positive, charismatic, substantial candidate with a clearly defined campaign platform that had unifying cultural relevance. UK 2010 isn’t going to be that kind of election. There isn’t anything new, or fresh, or positive going on – despite the public’s appetite for it, after expensesgate. No, it’s the same old political class, peddling the same old policies, with a veneer of PR difference between them. And it feels tired and negative. This election won’t be won, it will be lost. In the absence of any real policies or characters, cultural awareness and poise will be the measure by which capability is judged. The election will be won by the party or leader who makes the fewest gaffs, who looks least ridiculous. Digital media will provide a crucible for the analysis, and satirisation of every move the leading characters make. It’s started already, with the mumsnet community dismantling Gordon Brown for dodging a question about biscuits. Or with MyDavidCameron.com pillorying Cameron’s overtly airbrushed photo on a campaign poster, and providing tools for people to easily ‘remix’ their own parodies of it. Twitter, then Facebook, then email will be the tools by which these memes spread. This is guerrilla, viral politics. Is this an overly dark view? Maybe. There are more positive and interesting politics, and political uses of digital media, happening at the fringes. Green candidates have made good use of single issue social media campaigns. And I’m hopeful that, next time around, there’ll be candidates to believe in, and that digital tools can then play a more constructive and positive role. But for this election, candidates need to be learning their digital media lessons not from Obama’s election campaign, but from how Rage Against The Machine beat the X-Factor to Christmas No. 1.
Chatroulette is the latest internet phenomenon to be given extra juice by the mainstream press. And, as with any new media, it wasn’t long before brands started using it to promote their services. But is that sensible?
Chatroulette is like the original, pre-Internet Explorer web. It’s a place where the 'free spirits' of the world can be free to express themselves with limited restrictions. Use it, and you’re going to see a lot of odd people doing odd things.
These people aren’t a conventional target audience for brands, and the things they do aren’t things that brands conventionally want t be associated with. But maybe for some brands, who want to position themselves at the cutting edge, involvement with Chatroulette could be a good thing.
We recently used Chatroulette to promote new ‘people powered’ mobile network giffgaff. Now, our claim to be using it to convert people was clearly tongue-in-cheek - It’s a 1:1 medium, so that’s a pretty inefficient way to do business! What we’re really hoping for is that the film of ‘Pierre the Caricature Artist’ drawing people on the service goes viral, in the way that Ben Folds’ ‘Piano Improv Man’ clip did.
So Chatroulette can do a brand positioning job, for the few brands for whom being associated with an outrageously open internet platform is useful. But it holds great dangers for marketeers who dabble with it without really understanding what it is. Your brand could be associated with some pretty out-there behaviour. Worse, you could look like your brand is jumping on a bandwagon that it doesn't culturally suit or in fact understand (ref: Habitat and Twitter, the Tories and #cashgordon).
But Chatroulette clearly isn’t a ready-to-go advertising platform. It doesn’t carry any commercial messages around the content. It doesn’t have any packages to sell advertisers. Hell, it doesn’t even have any staff, beyond 17 year old founder Andrey Ternovskiy.
But this is just the most well known of a new wave of video chat services. Something huge is going to happen in this space. And Chatroulette is making moves to shape up for a more commercial future. It’s just introduced a feature that can potentially limit the kind of stuff you’ll see. And Ternovskiy is currently in Silicon Valley talking to investors. And advertising-supported (along with freemium) is one of the proven business models for internet media companies.
So, it’s a long odds bet, but Chatroulette could yet be the cool name to drop onto your media plan in 2011.
I can’t believe no-one’s written about the Halifax ‘High Five’ ad in AdWatch yet. What a soft target!
The commenters on broadsheet’s websites, the Twitterati, and people in the media bubble in general almost universally hate it. It’s “excruciating”, “cheesy”, “cringey”. It doesn’t fit the industry’s definition of what’s good: It’s not edgy. There’s no social media component. It doesn’t offer branded utility. The agency haven’t done a royalty deal based on shared IP.
But I quite like it, and suspect it’s got real mainstream appeal. It’s cheerful, it’s fun, it’s ker-azy. Creatively, it’s not cool, but I bet it bloody works as broadcast advertising.
More than that, I think it’s got some dastardly thinking behind it. People hate banks at the moment. More accurately, spurred on by the media, they hate massive corporate banks, and their investment bankers who played fast and loose with our deposits, lost their gambles, and so have plunged us into a near depression, and an unprecedented level of national debt that will take years of collective sacrifice to repay – all the while taking profligate bonuses. But they don’t hate their friends and family who happen to be customer service agents in high street retail banks.
Halifax have a history of featuring their staff in ads. But in the past they were always used symbolically – almost as puppets (sorry Howard), literally singing the policies of their paymasters upstairs. Now, faced with sheer hatred of the ‘corporate’ face of banking (still being peddled by Lloyds, HSBC etc), they’ve really amped up that strategy. In this spot, it seems like the regular staff have taken over – that they’re driving the desk, running the show. That Halifax is no more than a bunch of regular folk, having a laugh at work with hilarious foam hands, and doling out fivers to customers willy-nilly. What a magnificent distraction from the fact that these days Halifax is no more that a retail brand of the beleaguered Lloyds behemoth.
Of course what would have been really smart is to have spent the media money on some R&D instead: To actually try to innovate their way out of the crisis, rather than temporarily distract from it. The destruction of trust in the banking system is bigger and more permanent than anybody working in that industry thinks. They can’t advertise their way out of this pickle. Sooner or later, they’re going to actually have to fundamentally change their business model. If they were really smart they’d be looking at new-wave financial services businesses like Zopa, and exploring non-institutional ways to engender trust.
