Are you not entertained?

The best advertising entertains you. 
It draws you in. 
It makes you think.
It might even make you smile.

Most importantly for clients, successful advertising communicates something useful about a product or service to potential customers, which will help lead to behaviour change, interest or even a sale. 

Most importantly for the unsuspecting audience, they’ll feel something. 
And when they feel something, they’ll remember it. 

Advertisers often seem to forget this last part.

(Some forget the bit about communicating something useful too.)


A Gorilla, Bouncing Balls, The Splits & Big Brother

I look at the four ads above as great examples that entertain you, whilst communicating something inherent about the product/service/brand that remains true, no matter how fantastical or deceptively abstract the visuals or story may be.  

In the past I even used them (and other examples from Levi's & Guinness) as examples to explore 'What's the difference between an ad and content?'. Even then I was convinced that the fact they entertained you, elevated them to something more than advertising. But perhaps that confused the job of advertising and that the 'minimum viable product' of advertising should be to entertain first?

It's quite likely some of the most memorable things you've been taught or learned from, were delivered or experienced in an entertaining way. Whether it was a particularly charismatic teacher at school, a documentary about an obscure subject or seeing something of yourself in a character in a favourite film. 

Films are certainly classed as entertainment (at least we hope so after paying £50 for a trip to the cinema), and coming from a film school background, as a director, editor and producer, I'm fascinated with bringing storytelling structures and the grammar of film to advertising to really increase the effectiveness. 
 

Don Draper's Basic Principle of Advertising

I love this clip from Mad Men, even though Don (and most of the agency) are all high from a 'vitamin shot', this speech from Don really resonates:

I keep thinking about the basic principle of advertising.
There's entertainment and you stick the ad in the middle of the entertainment like a little respite.
It's a bargain.
They're getting the entertainment for free.
All they have to do is listen to the message.
But what if they don't take the bargain at all? What if they're suddenly bored of the entertainment? What if they don't… what if they turn off the TV? 

Don Draper, Mad Men, ‘The Crash’ Season 6, Episode 8

"What if they don't take the bargain?" is a great question to pose to us all. It should be on all our briefs! Dave Trott often refers to making an impact is the first job of an ad. We have to always remember that the audience don't want to watch the ad, but if they glimpse it somewhere it will stand a better chance to make an impact if it's entertaining.

In an earlier season of Mad Men, we see a great example of this for Don's Clio award winning ad for Glo-Coat. 

Don's interview with AdAge summarises it well:

“I wanted it to be indistinguishable from the movies.
I wanted people to be watching it and say,

“What’s happening in the story right now? Oh…it’s something else. It’s not an ad.”

At least not for the first 30 seconds of it." 

Don Draper, Mad Men, ‘Public Relations’ Season 4, Episode 1

It's a great insight into what we should all be doing in advertising.
The best ads have always delivered this.

Joy = $$$

It's interesting to compare the approach of advertisers to the (relatively) recent stellar success of Netflix, in terms of creating original content of great value to audiences.

Netflix is a company dedicated to creating entertainment for people. Reed Hastings mentioned on Andreessen & Horowitz’s Podcast - Tech & Entertainment in the ‘Era of Mass Customization’ - 21m30s- Netflix’s approach to investing in joy:

“We’re about $8 billion in revenue this year, and [...] the customer is all of you. You are giving us your money, and our job is to turn that into joy. What we have to do is create amazing content, stream it perfectly all over the world to you. And if we do that, you will give us more of your money and then we have to turn that into joy. And so for every incremental billion dollars that you all give us, then it’s our responsibility to do the best shows that we can, that convert that into the most joy and we measure that with viewing, and a few other metrics as possible.”

House of Cards was released in February 2013 and since then Netflix has invested heavily in creating high quality content, as outlined by Hastings in the above quote. 

Looking at their market cap, it's clear the effect it's having on their business. 

January 2013 their market cap was around $25bn, by July 2017 their market cap is around $150bn.

Netflix are shy to share their audience numbers with the public, but what is clear is they are listening to audiences and backing it up with their analytics to keep making great original content that people love. 

So what should advertising learn from this?


Show don't tell

We have to move away from telling, and think about making an audience feel something. 
In addition to asking how our ad’s will make an impact, we should also ask ourselves 'What do we want the audience to feel?'
 

There was a great talk at Cannes where the CCO of BBDO and the CMO of Mars spoke about their work together and how they collaborated. They decided together to totally change how all their brands were marketed. It has led to some memorable campaigns from Snickers ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’ and Skittles ‘Taste the rainbow’. As a stark comparison of before and after, are these two ads for Extra gum.

The first example is an all too familiar ad style, a 3D animated product with a list of its ‘features’. Not particularly offensive or inoffensive. It’s not memorable either, it could be from any brand.
But it's just telling you about the product, it's not making you feel anything.

In the second example, they created a short film about a young couple whose key moments in their blossoming relationship are all captured by the boy drawing little illustrations on the wrappers of his chewing gum. 

Yes, it's corny and the end tag line 'Give Extra, Get Extra' lands with a thud, but it would take a battle hardened cynic to not get captured by the emotion of this ad, it’s a lovely idea and beautifully executed. It results in a highly effective piece of advertising for a chewing gum brand that had falling sales and was in dire need to differentiate itself from the competition. Following the release of that ad it received 1.3 billion impressions, 110 million video views, 1.4 million shares, was voted one of the most iconic ads of 2015 on YouTube and most importantly it reversed two years of declining sales for the brand.

Speeds and feeds

There's a great quote from Steve Jobs about branding, when speaking to a group of Apple employees in 1997, about how the Apple brand was in a state of neglect. He was expressing his vision for how to bring it back, from a marketing perspective.

“Marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It’s a very noisy world and we’re not gonna get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us. 

Now Apple, fortunately, is one of the half a dozen best brands in the whole world. Right up there with Nike, Disney, Coke, Sony. It is one of the greats of the greats. Not just in this country, but all around the globe. But even a great brand needs investment and caring, if it’s going to retain is relevance and vitality. The Apple brand has suffered from neglect in this area in the last few years and we need to bring it back.

The way to do that is not to talk about speeds and feeds. It’s not to talk about mips and megahertz. It’s not to talk about why we’re better than windows. The dairy industry tried to convince you for twenty years that milk was good for you. It’s a lie, bt they tried anyway. The sales were going like this [gestures down], then they tried ‘Got Milk?’ and the sales did this [gestures up]. ‘Got Milk?’ doesn’t even talk about the product, matter of fact it focuses on the absence of the product! 

But the best example of all, and one of the greatest jobs of marketing that the universe has ever seen is Nike. Remember, Nike sells a commodity! They sell shoes! And yes, when you think of Nike, you feel something different than a shoe company. In their ads, as you know, they don’t ever talk about the product. They never tell you about their Air soles, or why they’re better than Reebok’s air soles. What does Nike do in it’s advertising? They honour great athletes and they honour great athletics. That’s who they are, that’s what they’re about.”

I love this clip of Jobs, I watch it often as it’s littered with so many great insights. But what really stands out here is a couple of great examples about how to market effectively. Not to focus on ‘speeds & feeds’ but to try and make you feel something. It’s the same way Google wants to market too, ‘show don’t tell’. 

This classic clip - where Microsoft playfully satirised themselves, visualising how they would have marketed the iPod - perfectly expresses a counterpoint to Jobs’ vision for marketing, with Apple’s beautiful and minimalist packaging being replaced with Microsoft's stickers and charts. 
Speeds & feeds vs a feeling.

The Hero's Journey

In 2012, the Paralympic Games were broadcast on TV by Channel 4 and streamed online by Paralympic.org. They both created promo films to promote the games in order to attract audiences to the content.

These are two great examples which, for the purposes of comparison, have the benefit of promoting the same event, highlighting two different approaches very well.

Which one do you want to watch?
It’s hard to believe they're advertising the same event!

The first film is a great example of  'speeds and feeds', as Jobs would say:
What does 780 hours of sport mean to you? 
What does 1000 hours of video on demand mean to anyone? 
Is 4200 athletes, good?

I doubt many audiences can determine the value of the event based on these numbers, let alone get excited to watch it.

The Channel 4 promo is a masterclass in storytelling and getting you excited for something. 
It focuses on the real people and their stories. It turns them into characters you root for. 
There isn't one ‘speed’ or ‘feed’ in this promo. 
Just raw, emotional stories with kinetic and powerful filmmaking. 
You feel their pain, you share what they have gone through. 
Suddenly you have an emotional connection with them. 
They become heroes. 
They become superhumans. 

And you want to follow their journey.

Just like you would a character you love in a film.

So let's take a leaf out of Don's book and make our work indistinguishable from the movies.

Let's entertain audiences, and make them feel something…at least for the first 30 seconds of it.
 

CREATION: Westworld x Ghost in the Shell

Amongst many other aspects of the series, I’ve been fascinated with ‘Westworld’ and its approach to consciousness. 
What is it? 
What does it mean once it’s true, but happens to be inside a synthetic structure, that looks uncannily like a human?

Rewatching ‘Ghost in the Shell’ recently, I was struck by how similar the robot creation sequences are. Clearly Nolan/Joy were inspired by it, along with many other films, tv shows, music and video games.

I thought it would be fun to cut together some of the similar scenes of the technical aspects of making a ‘robot’ and also elude to the sentience within them that comes alive in the process.

I hope you enjoy ;-)

The uncanny valley of authenticity

The word authentic gets overused as much as content, data and digital in marketing and advertising. So much so it just becomes a base descriptor for selling in an idea to clients. It becomes background. What does it really mean though?

When I say authentic I often get tongue tied trying to describe it and end up saying ‘it’s real’ or ‘truth’ out loud, as if that should be enough for people to understand. It almost sounds like I’m talking about a gritty obs doc. I’m not, although it certainly could be. It could be found in the form of a £5k how-to beauty video on YouTube, a £100k TV ad or a £200m feature film set in a galaxy far far away. 

Look at these stills from a scene in Scorsese’s ‘Goodfellas’:

Look how damn real these photo’s look. They look more real than some actual family candids you see on Facebook. Maybe it requires the skill of a masterful director with some great actors to suspend your disbelief like this.  

There's no doubt it requires great skill and effort to capture something authentically. I think that’s our job at agencies, to find it, bottle it and connect audiences to it in a relevant way.

Casey Neistat is a great exponent of authenticity in his work. He spoke at an event in 2015 (alongside another proponent of authentic content - Gary Vaynerchuck)

I’m staring at a screen 80% of the time I’m awake. […] We’re always looking at screens. And the collateral effect of that is that our bullshit detectors have become so refined. Whether you’re hyper-cognisant of that, like Gary [Vaynerchuck] and me because it’s what we do for a living. Or it’s entirely passive like it is for my kid, your bullshit detector is so refined that the second it starts to go off a little bit, BOOM, you check out and you’re into something else. 
[…]
[My son’s] bullshit detector is so refined that in order to penetrate that detector, that force field around him it has to be true, it has to be real. And that’s why for the most part he doesn’t watch television, he watches YouTube. Because YouTube is like this endless cornucopia of content where he can weave his way through until he finds this stuff that really speaks to him. Stuff that penetrates that bullshit detector. So yeah, being yourself and being honest, it means to be vulnerable, it means to be real, is scary. You have to open yourself up. But if you want to succeed in that place, if you want to make a brand of yourself […] it is now a requirement that you be authentic. 

I 100% agree with this statement, and my bullshit detector feels like it is set to 11. I think most of the advertising we’re bombarded with (like banner ads) don’t even make it past the subconscious bullshit filter, let alone the conscious one. But where it gets trickier is what I’ve been referring to as the uncanny valley of authenticity. Where something masquerades as something it isn’t. In terms of robots/humans, here is a good recent example where a Hong Kong designer, Ricky Ma, made a robot that looks just like Scarlett Johansson, but calls 'it' Mark 1. What do you prefer?

Casey Neistat goes on to talk about this with a great example.

[…] Advertising I have such a hate hate relationship with. Because so much of it is look at what works and they say “Ok we wanna do that”. Which in itself is complete bullshit. If I give you an example I made a movie for Nike called ‘Do More’. It was this crazy video, where my friend and I got into all this trouble and in all these crazy situations. It was 100% real and we really put ourselves in those situations and because of that it was wildly successful, especially young people really related to that and were highly motivated by that. All that went really well to Nike’s message of Make It Count, Just Do It and Do More. Then a year later, Degree Deodorant, I shit you not, put out an entire campaign called ‘Do More’. I talked to my lawyer and we could definitely sue, we have a good case, but what a waste of time and energy. So I said no. But it was this bullshit, super fabricated scrubbed clean nonsense. “What did Casey Neistat do? Ok, let’s do a versions of that but we’re going to fabricate it this way”. Instead of just actually sending someone to go jet skiing in the Middle East. Let’s just pretend we do that, and shoot it in LA on the back of a truck, shot on a RED Epic with steadicam. None of you have ever heard of some bullshit campaign by some fucking deodorant company. 15 million people saw my video, because mine was real and penetrated the bullshit detector. And whatever Degree nonsense, just bounced right off people’s bullshit sensor.

It’s great and deceptively simple. But it feels real doesn’t it? As in, it feels like everything you’re watching is the first take - not the fourth. There is no production team or camera crew following him around 'creating' a reality. He is simply capturing and sharing his experience.

What is important to remember is this is the construct he is presenting and then delivering on authentically. Star Wars delivers authentically on a construct of a galaxy far, far away. So many adverts offer a construct, or aim for one, and deliver a wholly unauthentic experience. You only have to watch a few 'prank' style adverts to see they bottled it and didn't do it for 'real', they got the actors in and you're clearly watching the 'fourth take'. 

It is also interesting to looking at this film from 2012, you can see how this style has worked its way into so much other work, whether from YouTubers or advertisers. I have certainly worked on projects which probably borrow too much from this style, without unfortunately being as authentic or effective as it could've been. 

It’s hard. It is hard to say to a marketing manager at a brand “Hey! We’re going to risk the budget you’d normally and comfortably spend on tv/print/radio with the same standard/expected results, on something totally new and different that will hit the audience you actually want to get. It’s also something you will not be able to explain to your boss. We’re also just going to collaborate with XYZ, create an experience and share it with the audience. Cool?” Don’t be surprised if they politely decline. Be less surprised if they say “Ok great, but we need to ensure our logo's and messaging are present in over 50% of the film.” There’s a tightrope to walk here, but as an industry, if we can create better work, more authentic work, the results will be plain to see. I’m not saying let’s all make Casey Neistat style films, I’m saying the approach; work that is authentic to the audience, the brand and the platform can produce positive results for a brand. 

Here's another film from Casey Neistat where he and a friend try out a new style McDonald's restaurant in New York. 

He starts the video with a crystal clear disclaimer that it is not sponsored or endorsed by McDonald's, nor do they have permission. They simply go to the restaurant, order the new endlessly customisable burgers, eat them and give it a review. They have a great time and enjoyed their food, and you kind of want to be hanging out with them.

Imagine if this was a paid piece of content from McDonald's, but it was exactly the same as this film (apart form the disclaimer at the beginning). Same Casey, same friend, same New York. Everything. The. Same. 

But imagine it on the McDonald's YouTube channel & Facebook page and not Casey's. I'm pretty sure that would be incredibly positive for the brand. It just feels so unlikely for it to happen, but I think this is where brands need to go. Audiences just will not accept bullshit. Brands should be confident enough that their products are good and let content like this be created. Good and bad. The bad, can be incredibly useful and positive for a brand too. Taking on board that kind of feedback can actually improve the product/service! Use your marketing to iterate and improve your core products. Anything other than this level of commitment to authenticity really does leave you in that uncanny valley. 

Time to get real. 

I'm Deranged - David Bowie

Funny how secrets travel
I'd start to believe
if I were to bleed

Like many this morning, reaching for my iPhone to check everything, I noticed something in my RSS feed say David Bowie has died. Frown. That’s wrong, I say to myself. New album. Tonnes of stuff to still do. Check Twitter. It’s all lit up. His son has even confirmed it. Fuck. How can that be?
So sad, and seemingly sudden - I didn’t know he wasn’t well. It seemed many others didn’t know either. What a way to go though. On his terms. No fawning from the public whilst he was ill. No papped pics of him looking ill or thin. He went out with a new album, great accompanying videos and a play in New York. A man always in control of his art.

I have to admit to not being more than a surface fan of Bowie, I’ve not delved into his work as I have with others. I have a fond memory of discovering a stack of vinyls in my mother’s record collection when I was a teen. I couldn’t believe my mum was so cool to have all this Bowie. Damn. Why wasn’t she listening to it then?!

I can’t pretend to know his work inside out, nor do I want to jump on bandwagons and add to the endless sharing of the same tracks that will no doubt be played in the following weeks. One track I’ve played consistently through the years though is I’m Deranged, which opened the David Lynch film Lost Highway.

I remember sitting down to watch Lost Highway at a local film club at a cinema in my home town. The cinema is right next to the beach in Broadstairs. Every Tuesday they would screen art house films, or 'films that are usually shown in densely populated areas'. I loved it. I was right in the middle of my 'home schooled film education' and doing anything I could to see good cinema. Two films especially stick in my mind from that time, one was Nil By Mouth and the other was Lost Highway.

Lost Highway starts with a mysterious and dynamic POV shot of a road thrashing underneath an endlessly accelerating vehicle burning through the night.

The headlights shine on the road, providing the only light in the frame, turning the black road to light grey and revealing the wild yellow lines rapidly coming towards us. Like a bare electric cable whipping around. It’s a shot full of frantic, wild energy. The music is dark and bassy and amping up the energy even further. We then hear David Bowie’s voice, a haunting and almost calming juxtaposition to everything else.

So many questions hit you as a viewer.
Who are we?
Where are we going?
Why haven’t we crashed (yet)?

It’s a perfect way to start that film. Many leave that film with those questions unanswered.

This title sequence had such an impact on me though, and Bowie’s haunting voice is hard wired to it. It’s so evocative, saying seemingly much more than the lyrics that his voice wraps around.

Like all great art and artists, they become timeless, living forever. I’ll always listen to this track, and I’m already listening to Bowie more now (who isn’t?). There so much to explore.

Long may he keep haunting us.

Dave Trott loves content really

Dave Trott writing in Campaign, ’Content, content, content’,

Content is seen as just stuff.
        
The stuff that goes into the space that’s there to be filled.
        
Think of a lorry.
        
A lorry has wheels, an engine and a cab.
        
And a big space on the back to be filled up with something.
        
It doesn’t matter what you fill it with, the lorry is the delivery system.

I’m a huge fan and greatly respect Dave Trott, I’ve seen him speak at several events, read his books, retweet his tweets and had the pleasure to have a walk and talk with him one evening after an event. I’m always left educated, entertained and inspired. Reading his views about content I feel compelled to write a reply, as I feel content gets such a bad rap and his thoughts are based on a lot of bad work out there.

This is a view which is reflected on industry blogs, magazines, websites and Twitter feeds, and it’s a shame. 

It’s a shame because when brands and agencies realised they could make ‘stuff’ cheaply and on ‘owned media’ (without media spends on new platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter), it gave rise to lots of ineffective and poorly executed stuff in shiny lorries being put in front of people. 

Most of it made by people who didn’t really understand the opportunity put in front of them.

This has given rise to such derision to the mere idea of content, that content is openly sneered at, especially by the traditional ATL Creative & Media agencies. 

From their point of view they have good reasons to feel that way:

1) They see the thinking, strategy, creative and execution they pour onto their typical ATL campaigns not reflected in the vast majority of content created by either their own content arms or smaller bespoke agencies/production companies/one man bands/YouTube vloggers.

2) The idea that there is no ‘idea’ in content, that it’s not possible for content to help position a brand/product effectively and solve a business problem.
    
3) It threatens their business model around large campaigns with large media spends. 
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” (I can appreciate the dichotomy here when I have the word ‘Content’ in my job title!)
    
4) It requires a totally different approach (if done properly), moving from advertising to creating content which people want to watch. Not advertising designed to make a big impact in a short amount of time whilst usually interrupting the content people were trying to watch.

In Dave Trott’s analogy, if the content of the lorry was full of iPhone’s and I want to buy an iPhone, that lorry and content is very valuable to me. If the content is a Samsung Galaxy phone, I’m going to let that lorry drive past me. It doesn’t have value to me. 

It’s in the eye of the beholder.

Good content is about thinking what the audience finds valuable in terms of their attention. If you deliver on that contract you can make a much more substantial connection than an ad that is interrupting what they want to be doing.

You are creating a product they want, rather than something advertising a product. 

Without getting all Martin Luther King about it, I see a future where all these approaches exist in unison (maybe not banner ads), and anything classified as content truly delivers on that promise and isn’t just fodder for media spends or for robots to watch.

The delivery system facilitated getting the idea in front of the right people.

But the important thing was the idea.

To put it simply: it was idea first, delivery system second.

But by relegating the idea to content, it becomes far less important.

The delivery system must now come before the idea, before the "content".

I just don’t agree with this. Content is still about an idea. You then work out where the audience spends most of their time and design content in the most suitable way relating to the audience, brand and platform. 

Dave Trott has a brilliant diagram he draws live in his talks, and rather than focusing on platforms it starts with a human. The human is the medium, (not a shiny platform) - and quite right! If that human likes what they watch/read/hear, they will tell their mates, family, colleagues, followers etc. 

Content is no different here.

At an APG talk recently Dave Trott spoke about how he approached his personal Twitter account, and that an expert was brought in to ‘teach’ him how to use the platform. 

Dave said he ignored all of what the expert said and just started writing some jokes, posting quotes and some links to interesting articles relating to advertising. He would then intersperse this by promoting his blog posts and his books. 

Brilliant blog posts, jokes, quotes and links to interesting articles is valuable content, and frictionless to access apart from some blog posts being behind some paywalls.

Links to buy your books is advertising of your product, the thing you sell.

By treating content as seriously as his books (like a product), Dave now has over 21,000 followers. It would be interesting to know how this Twitter activity affects his book sales. It can’t hurt can it? 

Dave mentioned the expert had around 400 followers.

This is the point.

Think of your audience, create content which will be valuable to them on the chosen platform and where the brand/product is relevant/intrinsic/authentic (remember we are selling stuff), and you will create a strong connection, you might even build an audience around your content, and that growing audience will be quite incentivised to purchase products off you.

That’s what content is and what content can do.