The Learning-Curve. Still early on the journey.

With all the changes going on in Brand Planning, Advertising and Digital Media 

it's easy to feel that the craft skills and methodologies we have worked so

hard to master are now irrelevant and feel we are sliding backwards down 

the learning curve again.

   

Perhaps we are just getting used to the idea of fluid learning, new skills and multiple learning curves.

A logical starting point for any learning curve might be developing new skill-sets and methodologies around the familiar 4 Ins of planning: 

• Bringing together relevant Information (about the Brand, the Consumer and the Culture).
• Producing an Interpretation of the data that clearly sets out the issues to be addressed (Infografics).
• Uncovering consumer Insights that deliver long-term value for the brand (Think Johnnie Walker - Keep Walking - life is a journey, not a destination).
• Developing a strategic brief that will deliver Inspired, contagious, ideas that people will  engage with and share with others.  

A central question is: 

How should the brief, or the briefing process, be adapted for the new world of digital communications and the new players that are becoming involved?

New Players:

This now involves a number of digital specialists that are reshaping the traditional creative and production team: technology web architects and developers; designers and  video content specialists; public relations content developers and social media moderation specialists to name a few.   

The Challenge:

A lot of agency planners I know are still rather tight-lipped on this issue. Perhaps still early on their learning curves?. So, kudos to Gareth Kay of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners - a Full Service Integrated Ad Agency, for this presentation on "The Brief in the post digital age" which brings into focus the challenges for planners and strategists.

Take Away:
The central challenge then, on any new learning curve, is to get away from the traditional thinking of messages and propositions and focus on how to involve people with contagious ideas they will want to get involved with and share.

As Richard Huntington - Adliterate points out in this post, the challenge of "involving people" requires a new mind-set:

You cannot hope to involve people in a campaign unless the brand is up to something interesting. And you cannot hope to involve people in the life of a brand unless the brand seems to care about something or things that real human beings care about, rather than endlessly repeating the brand’s obsessions to them. And that’s about as complex as it gets, they are if you like three sequential steps to participation heaven.

1. Start by making sure your brand cares about something that people care about, that it has a point of view on or a contribution to make to the lives that they lead. 

2. Then do something interesting with this.

3. How are we going to enable people to join in and play? 

What does your new learning curve look like?

Feel free to comment and share.

Brand Definitions at Your Fingertips

Here is a neat directory table for brand definitions from Kolbrener (brand consultants) by way of the good people at threebillion.com, who are one of my main sources for youth trends and other brand related news. They always seem to filter their sources well and nearly all their posts are worth reading.
The Kolbrener table is a good reference for structuring projects but beware of some of the definitions as it would appear that our friends at Kolbrener also specialize in MBA speak. Nothing wrong with that, just a bit irritating after a while. If you really like that stuff, try the MBA on a page from Value Based Management. They have managed to cram literally everything you might ever need to know about management theory on just one page with links to the detailed sources. Amazing! Just the thing if you need to brush up on the 3C´s, 7P´s, 7S´s or Activity Based Costing. I´ll bet you´ll be clicking over there right now!! I think that one came from Guy Kawasaki a few weeks back.

Why is a Good Insight Like a Refrigerator?

Because the moment you look into it, a light comes on. Jeremy Bullmore - WPP Advisory Board

If you use the word "insight", or intend to have one in the near future, please read this masterpiece by Jeremy Bullmore.
As he says, not all insights are equal. To be useful an insight must above all be: exhilarating, inspiring, memorable, actionable and evocative.

"The call for insights is natural. To return to Levitt's dictum, marketing companies don't want research; they want enlightenment. Conventional market research, professionally conducted, can paint an invaluable picture of the immediate past; but companies also need help in forging their futures. That's what lies behind the demand for insights - but not all insights are equal. They come in two very different styles and with very different values. There are low-potency insights and there are high-potency insights".

Triangles Week . . .

John Grant over at BrandTarot has some interesting notes for his "triangles week". Russell Davies has some good thoughts here and his "thinking in threes" YouTube piece here.
Triangles are great starting points for thinking, analysing information and finding relevant insights.

Web Trends 2007
A very nice piece of work from Information Architects. In their words . . .
"Before looking into who will make headlines next year let’s see what made websites successful in 2006. In short: Marketing, Content, Usability, Design and Behavior are the main factors that make a website work."
(These would also be good Frameworks to use when exploring and researching the health and strength of Internet brands, or any website for that matter: Presence; Content; Usability; Design and Behavior - shared vales - ethics)
Internet Marketing is a combination of Presence (how well is it pushed? How known is it?) and Self Dynamic (how well does it market itself as a product?).
Interactive Content is a combination of Constructively (is the content/service productively usable? Are the texts authentic? Do they incite to write? Are they leading to positive action?) and Uniqueness (are they genuine? Are they special?)
Usability is a combination of Structure/IA (Are the contents organized in an understandable way? Where am I? Where can I go?) and the organisation of the User Interface (Do I understand where is what and why? Do I understand how it works? Does it do what I expect it to do?)
Web Design is a combination of Typography (Is the text easy to read? Is the typography web adequate?) and Attention to detail (does the website care about the little things? Is it characteristic and delicate or just bold?)
Online Behavior is a combination of Interactive Ethics (do the authors/owners have a positive open-minded attitude? Do they follow the basic rules of good manners?) and Democracy (Are they working towards a democratic open web or do they work only for their own pocket?)

These guys are no light weight buzz word merchants, they really know their stuff. If you are interested in Internet and Interactive development, spend some time on their site. I learned a lot there. Thank you threebillion.com. BTW sign up for the threebillion daily e-mail, they always have great links to really good planning related info.

Visualization Methods. . . there are more than you might think.
Let´s be honest, most planning and research presentations never get far beyond bar charts, pie charts, never ending bullet points and maybe some stock pictures of "consumers" and bits of clip art. So here is a Periodic Table of Visualization Methods from Process Visualization, posted by Influx and threebillion.com. (To see the interactive version go straight here). They are grouped by:

• Data Visualization
• Information Visualization
• Concept Visualization
• Strategy Visualization
• Metaphor Visualization and something called
  
• Compound Visualization

I counted a total of 108 possibilities. Worth a look, especially those under Concept, Strategy and Metaphor.