360 Digital Influence - Network BlogsThis pipe is used on the ogilvy blog sidebar.http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=fbf9db7844d948198c58be457d3efea8
Sun, 02 Aug 2015 20:25:12 +0000http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/Who’s Got Beme Codes?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/socialatogilvy/~3/RlvT6ntJZxU/
Beme, the latest social networking app launched by filmaker/vlogger Casey Neistat and ex-Tumblr employee Matt Hackett, has been all the talk since it&#8217;s launch earlier this month, or at least the words &#8220;have you got an unlock code for Beme?&#8221; are. As Neistat puts it, Beme is designed to produce more authentic content and remove the self-consciousness of [&#8230;]http://social.ogilvy.com/?p=22729Fri, 31 Jul 2015 08:01:48 +0000Beme, the latest social networking app launched by filmaker/vlogger Casey Neistat and ex-Tumblr employee Matt Hackett, has been all the talk since it’s launch earlier this month, or at least the words “have you got an unlock code for Beme?” are. As Neistat puts it, Beme is designed to produce more authentic content and remove the self-consciousness of sharing.

What is it?

The app provides a unique way of filming by utilizing the sensor just above the earpiece, in which, when covered, the app records. This distinct feature is designed to stop users from having to look through the screen and allow them to continue living their lives. The app also doesn’t allow you to preview your content, so you don’t have time to second guess yourself. To “like” a person’s Beme, an additional feature has been developed, in which you take a selfie to allow people to see your reaction to their content.

I’ve personally been using Beme for two weeks now, and while it’s still in it’s earlier stages of development, it shows a lot of potential. Holding a resemblance to Snapchat in it’s ‘watch only once’ video format, the content is a lot more authentic and raw as people are trying to master the new way of filming. The user interface is still rather basic, as you can see in the screenshots below.

What does this mean for marketers?

While no branded function currently exists, Beme provides an interesting way to engage your customers. It will stop companies from over-crafting their content and force real, unedited engagement with their audiences. This may require a new way for working, but brands that could pull it off will really make a big impact. Will you be a first mover in this space?

At the moment, the app requires an unlock code that you need to get from an existing user, even though everyone has the ability to download the app and register their usernames now. So get to it!

If you’re already on Beme follow me @charliemlowe

]]>Size Doesn’t Matter: Small Screens of the Futurehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/socialatogilvy/~3/fJnz_BrxdSI/
We live in an exciting age of expansive connectivity and innovative technologies that provide immersive experiences. But on-the-go and mobile-centric lifestyles demand a shift in the way those experiences are being delivered. As software gets smaller and we move from applications to apps to widgets, mobile devices are getting smarter about how and when to [&#8230;]http://social.ogilvy.com/?p=22719Mon, 20 Jul 2015 20:05:14 +0000We live in an exciting age of expansive connectivity and innovative technologies that provide immersive experiences. But on-the-go and mobile-centric lifestyles demand a shift in the way those experiences are being delivered.

As software gets smaller and we move from applications to apps to widgets, mobile devices are getting smarter about how and when to interact with the user.

In this webinar, we will explore:

The intersection of brands and consumers’ mobile lifestyles

How contextual and “in the moment” interactions are happening via notifications, widgets and wearables

How you can take advantage of streamlined interactions designed for the phone, the watch and screen-less wearables

We are excited to welcome guest presenter Michael Griffith, VP of User Experience and Executive Creative Director at Bottle Rocket. A partner company of Ogilvy & Mather, Bottle Rocket is a leader in mobile technologies transforming the way brands engage with consumers in the mobile space.

]]>The Social Media Myth…http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/socialatogilvy/~3/UEccDVozX8w/
The best social media campaigns are not social media campaigns. This is the observation that is driving the transformation of my team in Beijing. It is also the insight that is driving the best work in China right now. The best social media campaigns are not social media campaigns; they are good PR campaigns, good company [&#8230;]http://social.ogilvy.com/?p=22701Thu, 16 Jul 2015 15:56:21 +0000

The best social media campaigns are not social media campaigns. This is the observation that is driving the transformation of my team in Beijing. It is also the insight that is driving the best work in China right now.

The best social media campaigns are not social media campaigns; they are good PR campaigns, good company spokespeople, good advertising campaigns, good events and, even, good products. The best ways to get people talking on social media are to go outside of social media. You need 360 executions that are designed with a social media insight and a social idea at their core. This we call “social by design”.

If you get this right, return on investment is much higher than it would have been: consumers exposed to a stunt, media article, ad, event or product that is “social by design” will talk about this on their own social media platforms. Media and influencers may also publish your message without being paid. Not only is the reach higher from this organic sharing, the fact that large amounts of your audience will have seen it via friends will increase the impact of that reach – a brand message shared by a friend or family member carries with it an implicit endorsement of the brand, and therefore its ability to change perceptions and drive action/ purchase is higher.

So, “doing social” isn’t necessarily the best way to unlock the value of social. At the same time, doing traditional executions that don’t have social media designed into them is a missed opportunity. And here’s what we’re trying to do. We’re moving our efforts to social-by-design executions that come to life in traditional channels.

Case Study: VisitBritain

VisitBritain, the people responsible for getting more Chinese to visit the UK, came to us with an advertising brief. They had a decent media budget and were expecting something that would come to life on banner ads, OOH, radio, and focus media. We set out to design a social-by-design campaign for non-social channels. We would go outside of social media to get people talking on social media.

Social listening uncovered the insight: an obsession in China, more than anywhere else on earth, for naming. Chinese people love giving names to and discussing the names of places, people, things, and events. It’s something they do like crazy on social media. At the time, “Britain”, for example, was not being referred to by its normal name – people online were saying “fuguo” (the country of bromance). This is a playful reference to non sexual male-male relationships such as that of Sherlock and Watson – TV characters captivating Chinese audiences at the time. Any foreigner that’s had their Chinese name discussed by Chinese friends will have experienced this interest in naming first hand.

At the same time, we realized that Britain had crap Chinese names. Many of the names were simply phonetic translations. The names provided no sense of place and told people nothing about Britain’s attractions. Britain was seriously let down by its Chinese names.

Our idea was for the government of Britain to extend a never-seen-before invite to the people of China: an opportunity to name its places, people, events and things. This would be an opportunity for Chinese people to make history in becoming the official namer of attractions that Chinese would come to know and love. There would also be prizes available for the best name. The government would recognize the names. Google would add names to their maps. Dictionaries, WIKIs and travel guides would be changed forever. British points of interest were listed on a campaign website where people could upload their names and vote for others. Other places could be named by visiting in person and uploading your name and the campaign hashtag to social media.

The campaign was kicked off with an official invitation from the British Ambassador to China, Sir Sebastian Wood. He recorded a video and hosted a media event at his residence in Beijing. Static ads went out on all forms of non-social media introducing points of interest that, surprisingly, had no decent Chinese name. A launch video appeared in cinemas, taxis and OOH that showed people struggling to give names on the spot to points of interest being shown on a projector screen. A die-hard Beatles fan was documented traveling to the UK to name famous destinations such as Penny Lane, Abbey Road and so on.

More than 13,000 names came in. Here are some highlights:

Highland Games: Strong men’s skirt party. ( 裙英会 )

Savile Row: Street of the tall, rich and handsome. ( 高富 帅之路 )

The Shard: Tower for plucking stars. ( 摘星塔 )

Haggis: Tripe that wafts aroma. ( 涵肚生香 )

Stilton: Porcelain cheese. ( 青花香酪 )

Millions had spoken about the campaign online. These posts had been seen more than 300 million times on Weibo alone. Visa applications are up.

In addition to the engagement, the campaign was recognized as one of the most creative campaigns of the year, winning three merits at the 2015 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity:

Gold in PR: Sectors Travel, Tourism & Leisure

Gold in PR: Digital & Social Use of Digital Platforms

Silver in PR: Digital & Social Use of Co-Creation & User Generated Content

And we hadn’t done much on social media at all. We had used traditional channels in a way that we knew would get people talking online.

We had delivered a social by design campaign.

]]>4 Brands Supporting Social Causes With Social Mediahttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/socialatogilvy/~3/ep_pexSSgHM/
Cause marketing has been a buzz word for a while now. But this year cause sponsorship is predicted to reach $1.92 billion. Why? Because, quite simply, it works. 89% of US consumers are likely to switch comparable brands if one is associated with a cause and just over 40% of Americans are are willing to [&#8230;]http://social.ogilvy.com/?p=22696Tue, 14 Jul 2015 15:11:22 +0000Cause marketing has been a buzz word for a while now. But this year cause sponsorship is predicted to reach $1.92 billion.

Here are 4 projects Ogilvy has created recently that use the power of social media to support valuable social causes:

Unilever Project Sunlight

Unilever Project Sunlight is an initiative to motivate millions of people to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. DAVID co-founder Gaston Bigio, explains: “Unilever asked us to find a new way to talk about sustainability that would make the benefits real for ordinary people. Project Sunlight is founded on the principle that even small actions can make a big difference and that together, we can create a brighter future.” Since 2013, the initiative has driven over 200 hundred million ‘acts of sunlight’.

Coca-Cola ‘Open Up, It’s Ramadan’

Coca-Cola is synonymous with happiness. Over time, their marketing has evolved from showing happy people in advertisements to genuinely creating happiness and driving positive social change. Last year, our team in Dubai launched a campaign that encouraged people in the Middle East to #OpenUp at Ramadan by using social media influencers to speak of their own personal struggle of sharing hopes and dreams with their traditional families. The initiative resulted in a 42% increase in Cocoa-Cola’s Brand Love Score. Last year Charlotte Tansill shared a detailed write-up on the ‘It’s Ramadan’ campaign.

Nestle United for Healthier Kids (U4HK)

U4HK is a global partnership rooted in science, powered by creativity and designed to help parents raise a healthier generation of children. Nestlé strongly believes that if we nourish our children, we nourish the future of our country. The initiative was launched in Mexico where a revolutionary line of 15 products that made healthier living fun for Mexican families was created, view the products on Tumblr. The next focus for U4HK was in the Philippines where there is a dual nutrition challenge of malnutrition and obesity. In this initiative, a digitally created image of a boy and a girl symbolizing the Filipino child was created, using 50,000 photos submitted by parents participating in U4HK. The image was then placed on commemorative coins that served as everyday reminders to families to eat more nutritious food.

Prudential, Life’s Little Secrets

Ogilvy Hong Kong created a regional brand campaign ‘I am Prudential’ and flagship social media platform ‘Life’s Little Secrets’ to lift the spirit of Prudential’s business philosophy of listening and understanding. Building upon the company’s ‘Always Listening Always Understanding’ credo, established since 1995, the campaign puts the spotlight on its team of agents and financial consultants. Using an Instagram-like social platform, we showcased their life stories or ’secrets’ of harnessing the power of thoughtful listening, understanding and empathy to help fulfill their customers’ needs and become part of their everyday lives. Sean Rach, Regional Director of Brand and Corporate Addairs at Prudential Corporation Asia said, “What we want to show is that our agents’ relationships with the customers have got so strong that they are invited into the family … It’s the kind of bond we’ve been striving for years through listening.”

What is your favorite cause marketing initiative? Let me know in the comments.

]]>The Marketing Technology Stack Dilemmahttp://johnbell.typepad.com/weblog/2015/07/the-marketing-technology-stack-dilemma.html
Marketing automation and intelligence aims to make marketing and, potentially, sales more efficient. They can become the high performance engine that marketing never had. Investments in marketing technology continue to rise in many large companies making the CMO a primary...http://johnbell.typepad.com/weblog/2015/07/the-marketing-technology-stack-dilemma.htmlMon, 13 Jul 2015 10:48:00 +0000

Marketing automation and intelligence aims to make marketing and, potentially, sales more efficient. They can become the high performance engine that marketing never had. Investments in marketing technology continue to rise in many large companies making the CMO a primary technology buyer. Foundation Capital pegs the level of spend, “We expect technology spend by CMOs to increase 10x in 10 Years from $12 billion to $120 billion.”

Just what you are trying to automate or instrument depends on the nature of your business. Are you a B2C or a B2B company? Do you own your sales channel? Do you sell direct to end customers and do you do so online (ecommerce)? And so forth.

Depending on your answers, you may need a marketing stack of technologies that help you find and qualify leads, retarget the right prospects with advertising, cultivate customers to repurchase and more.

Operations vs. Innovation

But for many of us, marketing technology is not just about operational efficiency, it is about innovating in how you market, or how you connect marketing with sales, or in some way how you sell your product. It is possible that new technologies will allow a business without a practice of lead generation and nurturing to actually start to do that for the first time. That’s innovation. Yet marketing technologies require significant green dollar costs (actual purchase and licensing costs) and often greater grey dollar costs (time and opportunity). It is much easier for companies to invest in operational infrastructure meant to make a known process more efficient with a calculable return on that investment. Investing in innovation requires a different mindset. This presents a dilemma to marketers creating a tech strategy and selling it in.

Just read Roger Martin’s The Design of Business. He makes the most cogent case for the tension between innovation and operations within business. Making the case for how a well-planned marketing technology strategy can change how you market and sell is very different than the one you might make to improve what you are already doing.

Strategy vs. Technology

The “marketing technology stack” is a catchy topic for the CMOrg (chief marketing organization – i.e. those that work at the marketing center of an enterprise). We all look at the insane landscapes from Chief Martec (Scott Brinker) and try to sort through the providers for various functions and services from email marketing systems to customer databases to retargeting partners and so much more. “I need one of these and one of these…”And so on.

But do you need a better email marketing platform or do you need a way to nurture sales channel relationships (or customer relationships)? If you are innovating (vs. simply operationalizing something that sort of already works), starting with confirming your strategy seems like the stronger suit. But we are talking tech investment here. Every choice is a commitment. I mean, even if the annual service fee for a SaS component isn’t that large, you will pay through the nose with the internal IT compliance and integration. The strategy ought to be a pretty solid one for the foreseeable future.

Strategy sounds more like:

I need a way to enmgage my sales channel relationships and drive sales action with increasing effectiveness and efficiency

I want to use data and content to generate ever more qualified prospects and refine those into actual leads with an ever-improving quality and conversion rate

I need a way to nurture my customer relationships. This should include an increasing level of personalization such that this greater relevance drives retention and accelerates the growth of customer value

Any one of these ambitions or the ones that any marketer might have for their organization is loaded with implications for the right technology stack. They speak more clearly about the problem to be solved vs. I need a better email marketing platform.

Investments in innovation beg to be piloted or otherwise proven-out before a complete investment is made. That is hard when you are talking about technology infrastructure. But it can be done.

Use a new CRM approach and technology for one business unit and prove out the efficacy before rolling out to the others.

Only automate what must be automated to prove out efficacy. Don’t yet worry about efficiency. So, in a lead gen program, you may need tech to capture leads from Web activity and then to match against third party data but you can always ‘hand-deliver’ these leads to the salesforce to input into a sale tracking system. Later on you can integrate these two systems.

Get a partner to manage the ad retargeting program before investing in the necessary ad stack to manage in-house (if that is ever the most efficient way to go)

Choosing the right marketing technology stack is hard but essential. Making the business case internally requires a different approach if this is truly an operations enhancement vs. an innovation to how you market and sell today.

As any forum of CMOs and business leaders will tell you today, the imperative to apply technology is there. The promise of automating processes, combining data (big data and medium-sized data), and measuring effectiveness is terrific in marketing. Now we all have to choose wisely.

]]>Three Tips for Creating Great Content, with Jamal Edwardshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/socialatogilvy/~3/LHWysyFQltE/
In June Vanity Fair and Intelligence Squared held their inaugural Digital Summit.OgilvyDo, Ogilvy’s online publishing arm was a media partner. I went along and had a chat with Jamal Edwards, CBE owner and founder of the hyper successful YouTube channel SBTV. He’s a lovely chap and we had some fun banter. Along the way I asked him his top 3 tips for [&#8230;]http://social.ogilvy.com/?p=22691Thu, 09 Jul 2015 18:10:55 +0000In June Vanity Fair and Intelligence Squared held their inaugural Digital Summit.OgilvyDo, Ogilvy’s online publishing arm was a media partner. I went along and had a chat with Jamal Edwards, CBE owner and founder of the hyper successful YouTube channel SBTV.

He’s a lovely chap and we had some fun banter. Along the way I asked him his top 3 tips for creating great content;

1. Take calculated risks; get the shot / interview / access you need for a great story and ask forgiveness later.

2. Tick at least two or three boxes that make your content something that your audience can relate to and they are far more likely to engage and share it;

Not covered by the mainstream media

Be funny

Shocking

Scary

Entertaining or

Nostalgic (this is a key one for SBTV audiences)

3. Use Barry Manilow lyrics at every opportunity

The full interview is on the YouTube, where else? And there’s more OgilvyDo coverage of the Summit over here.

]]>A New Chapter: Changing Roles at Social@Ogilvyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/socialatogilvy/~3/pMGWWXM6eME/
Recently I took up a new role at Global Head of Innovation and Partnerships, Social@Ogilvy. In this newly created role, I will be leading Ogilvy’s efforts to innovate in the social space, developing new products and services and partnering with 3rd parties from startups through to the established social platforms, to help give a commercial, strategic and creative edge to [&#8230;]http://social.ogilvy.com/?p=22685Wed, 08 Jul 2015 14:05:10 +0000Recently I took up a new role at Global Head of Innovation and Partnerships, Social@Ogilvy. In this newly created role, I will be leading Ogilvy’s efforts to innovate in the social space, developing new products and services and partnering with 3rd parties from startups through to the established social platforms, to help give a commercial, strategic and creative edge to our clients.

I first joined Ogilvy & Mather Group in February 2012 as the Group Head of Social. At this point the entire team consisted of four keen kids in PR facing a lot of opportunity but with limited bandwidth. Over the the past three years we have grown to a team of more than 50 specialist across the Ogilvy Group with deep expertise in listening, content creation, paid promotion and socialCRM, with a Head of Social in each of Ogilvy & Mather Group UK’s operating companies. I’m extremely proud of our team who have been drawn from some of the best competitors in the market, but also media organisations, banking and academia. Across the Group this team now produces award-winning work for clients including American Express, BP, Anglo American, Expedia, Nescafe, Philips, British Gas, Baker’s Pet Foods, Old El Passo, Pizza Hut, UPS and many of the Unilever brands.

We have, as they say, come a long way baby. Three years later, it’s a good opportunity to see where we have come with Social@Ogilvy in London and reflect on what the next three might hold.

Launching Social@Ogilvy

In March 2012 we launched Social@Ogilvy with a party on the London Eye. The objective then was to unite all of the disparate elements of social across the Ogilvy network into a coherent offering that provided uniformity and scale while supporting the discipline strengths of each of the Ogilvy agencies. Social@Ogilvy was built to be horizontally integrated, internally and externally collaborative and above all innovative.

The launch party was designed to be symbolic of what we wanted to acheive. We filled all of the pods with representatives from the different worlds that Social@Ogilvy hoped to embrace, fed them champagne and sushi and let it spin. From Ogilvy we had the representatives from the various social teams and their parent agencies and of course our key clients. We also included guests from all of the major platforms; Google, Twitter and Facebook along with founders from 25 London based social startups.

After an hour and a half what spilled out onto the South Bank was a crowd of enthused colleagues and conspirators. The air was filled with vows of future collaborations and bright eyed conversations of how Social@Ogilvy would be the model for how to be agile in a global network and how to bring scale and professionalism to what was then a fledgling industry.

For me one of the best demonstrations of how we have used the scale of the Ogilvy network has been in the development of the Facebook Zero, a research paper which was only made possible by being able to sample the reach and engagement figure of over 100 brand Facebook pages in 23 markets, comprising data from more than 48 million brand fans. That research and the subsequent advice to clients on how to leverage targeted media on social platforms is now a widely cited industry reference in an area that continues to grow in importance.

The flip side of the scale dimension for a network like Ogilvy is the specialist offers of the various agencies. Arguably if Social@Ogilvy has not been able to support these offers then we have demonstrably failed in our key mission of helping to transform the agency. There are no end of indistinguishable agencies playing in the generalised area of social and content and the attendant areas of monitoring and conversation management. While Social@Ogilvy needs to continue to provide these services as table stakes, what is key is how they ladder up to support the specialist offers and client needs of the market leading agencies of the Ogilvy network.

There are two specific social offers that have emerged from the past 3 years in London that serve as great examples of this ‘social in service of a discipline’ approach;

The first would be The Social Value Navigator (or SVeN as he is affectionately known) from OgilvyOne. SVeN is a diagnositc tool and process for looking across the customer journey of a brand and identifying gaps in their use of social to engage customers at different stages in the purchase cycle and to highlight opportunities to do something unique across the competitive set. It’s pure OgilvyOne digital and direct thinking, but applied to a social landscape.

The other is Ogilvy PRs Content NOW model. The Content NOW model provides operational frameworks for three key types of content requirements that brands commonly face;

“N” Newsroom: This is classic PR territory. Newsroom content is about responding to the news cycle and using the emergent online journalism skills to jump on trending themes and engage with audiences in real time

“O” Ongoing: More aligned with magazine publishing this is a process of developing planned content that draws on the editorial skills that PRs frequently bring over from their earlier publishing careers

“W” Wow: Making the most of brand events through social activation brings together both the skills of realtime newsroom style activation and the careful development of planned content that the publishing model requires.

The other accomplishment that I’d call out is the Holmes Reports naming of Social@Ogilvy as “Digital Consultancy of the Year” in 2015 with a citation reading “Social@Ogilvy’s existing strength in earned and owned media is now complemented by deep paid capabilities from its Social Lab acquisition in Belgium, and an increasingly compelling analytics offering.” And just to be really clear, these are not MY accomplishments, but those of the team we have assembled in London.

So with this team of integrated specialists in place, what does the future hold?

Despite the length of the title, the job I have ahead of me is relatively straight forward; as the name suggests there are two main strands to the role:

Innovation is about matching the pace of our work to that of the most dynamic in the market and is largely about what we do: our processes and products. In regards to processes I work with our internal teams to integrate social media into our current ways of doing things so that it impacts our work. Our products are how we bundle these up in a coherent way to make it easier for our clients to buy and implement.

Partnerships is about who we do this work with. Broadly it covers how we partner with

1. The main social platforms who form the fundamentals of the social eco-system (Facebook, Google and Twitter) to ensure our clients are making the best use of them and getting unfair privileges.

2. The myriad of players in the startup universe. This starts with the startups themselves to accelerators and VCs as well as the various players in the social tech stack who enable all of this to stay connected.

If my role has any real impact it will see Social@Ogilvy become increasingly intwined into the daily operations of the specialist agencies. And as we increasingly work more closely with our partners the objective must be to frame those partnerships in the light of how can they help the broader Ogilvy agency family to continue to revolutionise our clients’ marketing and ensure it is fit for purpose in a disrupted social world.

]]>Secrets to a Successful Video Strategyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/socialatogilvy/~3/c128frZ4XzE/
As a brand stepping forward with video for the first time, the choices can seem overwhelming. Everyone knows YouTube is the behemoth, and that three-quarters of the planet seems to be on Facebook. But what about Vine and Instagram? Should you try one before the other, or all at once? Before jumping all in, you [&#8230;]http://social.ogilvy.com/?p=22678Tue, 07 Jul 2015 17:41:54 +0000As a brand stepping forward with video for the first time, the choices can seem overwhelming. Everyone knows YouTube is the behemoth, and that three-quarters of the planet seems to be on Facebook. But what about Vine and Instagram? Should you try one before the other, or all at once?

Before jumping all in, you need a plan. The rise of the multi-platform video means that brands must have a multi-platform strategy. Without a plan and a clear sense of each platform’s snowflake qualities—each is different, and requires different storytelling techniques—you’re just shouting into an abyss.

We recently completed a study in partnership with Tubular Labs looking at the performance and nuances of online video platforms, diving into:

What is the current online video landscape?

What are the pros & cons of each platform?

How do you build a cross-platform video strategy?

See the full study and a recording of a webinar with a detailed review of the study below:

]]>Gender Inequality in the Women’s World Cup: A Call for Purpose-Driven Brand Campaignshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/socialatogilvy/~3/m8669shj4wA/
If we’ve learned anything from this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, it’s that women’s soccer has a serious image problem. Despite interest in women’s soccer being on the rise, we’ve seen a slew of unfortunate incidents throughout this year’s tournament that highlight the inequality in how women’s sports are treated by the industry and the [&#8230;]http://social.ogilvy.com/?p=22673Wed, 01 Jul 2015 21:08:28 +0000If we’ve learned anything from this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, it’s that women’s soccer has a serious image problem. Despite interest in women’s soccer being on the rise, we’ve seen a slew of unfortunate incidents throughout this year’s tournament that highlight the inequality in how women’s sports are treated by the industry and the masses. The differential treatment has occurred at the organizational level, ranging from FIFA’s decision to play this year’s World Cup on artificial turf, to the organization describing Alex Morgan as a soccer player with “good looks” to match her talent on the field. (Author’s Note: I challenge FIFA to depict Lionel Messi the same way). And it’s not just FIFA. FOX has aired the majority of the matches on FOX Sports 1, limiting the tournament’s accessibility to mainstream viewers compared to last year’s airing of the FIFA Men’s World Cup by ABC and ESPN on its primary networks. This type of behavior trickles down to the masses, evidenced by Sports Illustrated writer Andy Benoit’s sexist Twitter snafu, where he recently said in no uncertain terms that women’s sports aren’t worth watching. These actions, among many others, send a message to the public that women’s sports are less of a priority – and let’s not even get started on the societal impact of that message.

Source: Flickr IQRemix

To be fair, the Women’s World Cup doesn’t pull the television or social media numbers seen during the men’s tournament. But, women’s soccer represents one of the fastest growing sports in the United States, with 63% of U.S women planning to tune in – and 99% of them considering themselves heavy social media users. If that’s the case, then why is brand involvement so low this year? Sponsor Adidas had grandiose plans of owning this year’s tournament from a brand-perspective, but its #BeTheDifference campaign has lacked visibility since the tournament’s start. Other brands have attempted to make a content play during this year’s tournament (U.S Soccer Federation’s “One Nation. One Team. 23 Stories” video series, Nike’s #NoMaybes campaign, Football Association’s “We Can Play!” and Coca Cola’s Trophy Tour), but these efforts pale in comparison to last year’s content pieces by top advertisers during the men’s tournament.

It’s a discouraging situation, but one that is grounded in significant opportunity for nearly every party involved. FIFA has a chance to drive change by making things right. National teams around the world can better market not just its team and players, but the sport as a whole. Mass media and social networks can do their parts to elevate the sport’s exposure to the level of attention paid to men’s sports. And one of the ripest opportunities of all is the chance for brands to own this open space and affect change by diving headfirst into purpose-driven campaigns.

At Ogilvy, we believe that sometimes the most effective way to make the best of a bad situation is to lean into it. The best purpose-driven brand campaigns are born from moments just like these, when an audience’s interest (in this case, soccer), intersects with a cultural tension (gender discrimination). When a brand can identify the natural fit for its role in this tension, they are able to secure a place in the hearts and minds of consumers and bring about meaningful change. It’s a huge commitment with an even larger pay-off; purpose-driven efforts change how a brand thinks and behaves (not just markets), and delivers on a brand promise that can sometimes take on a culture of its own.

Think this sounds risky? It’s not. The success of Under Armour’s “I Will What I Want” and Nike’s #MakeItCount and #BetterForIt campaigns speak volumes about the appetite for and success of female-centric campaigns in this industry. Brands have made it work in other categories, too. Patagonia found success with its Worn Wear program, Toyota has made an impact with its 100 Cars for Good work and P&G reached teenaged girls with its Being Girl program. Each of these initiatives humanize the brand and build a meaningful bridge with consumers around a common goal.

The key is to get personal, innovate and tell a story worth hearing. With the right fit and story to tell, brands can have it all – helping solve a societal problem while turning even more consumers into brand loyalists.

What makes this even better? The playing field is currently wide open.

]]>Where Are You on the Social Growth Curve?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/socialatogilvy/~3/eb3qZE0ZwAw/
Before the advent of social media, reaching consumers was simple and broadcast. But with the rapid changes in communication, connecting with current and potential customers has never been so challenging. While consumers spend more time on social platforms than ever before, they are also becoming more easily distracted. It’s a tough environment for trying to [&#8230;]http://social.ogilvy.com/?p=22659Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:02:13 +0000Before the advent of social media, reaching consumers was simple and broadcast. But with the rapid changes in communication, connecting with current and potential customers has never been so challenging. While consumers spend more time on social platforms than ever before, they are also becoming more easily distracted. It’s a tough environment for trying to build a brand.

Nowadays the majority of brands understand the need for developing a social practice, but each must make the decision about what role social media will play within the company. There is no one-size-fits-all answer for this, and we often see businesses adopting one of two approaches.

The first is the thought that social media is just a channel, not a behavior. People are following a fad that will eventually end. Brands can use the channels to post information, but broadcast communication has and always will be the best solution.

On the other end of the spectrum sits the social die-hards who believe social media is the only strategy, that there’s no longer a role for traditional marketing practices. All efforts go to using technologies and emergent platforms regardless of the broader business ambitions.

The truth is neither is absolutely correct. There’s a middle ground. Yes, social media is a communications channel that deserves it’s own strategy, but beyond that it should be fully integrated in support of building the brand, reputation, and business in a socially-enabled world.

But developing this type of social practice is a process, an evolution we call the Social Growth Curve. Brands generally experience three distinct phases in their growth:

Disjointed - Emphasis is on channels, with small ideas that tend to be tactical, stunt-driven, or opportunistic. Activities are disjointed with enterprise customer service, sales, or CRM teams and platforms.

Attached - Social is often an afterthought, with ideas attached to social or social attached to ideas. While there is integration with the business it’s often in an ad hoc manner.

Assimilated - Impact of social media beyond social platforms is taken into consideration. Social has been considered throughout and assimilated with every step of the customer journey and brand planning.

While full assimilation is the aim, that does not mean that the early phases are wrong. Brands may not have a structure in place to support full integration. Or in some cases, even if a brand has developed to this phase, they may at times employ social media in a tactical manner or as an add-on depending on their needs at a point in time. The takeaway here is that social can, and should, be considered as having an integral role across all aspects of the business.

For years, people have debated the impact of social on business. This debate may continue, but it’s clear that brands are figuring it out and seeing real results. But it all starts with understanding how social media can support all aspects of the business. And it’s those companies that develop the understanding and apply it to their social practice whose brands, reputations, and businesses will thrive in our socially-enabled world.

]]>How To Win At Cannes Lions 2016http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/socialatogilvy/~3/_iuAFlxNPTk/
Cannes Lions is an exciting time of year. Beautiful destination aside, it’s always enjoyable to see the creativity and innovations, make connections, build partnerships, and feel the passion from practitioners around the world for the work that we do. But perhaps the most valuable takeaway from my time at Cannes each year is getting to [&#8230;]http://social.ogilvy.com/?p=22654Mon, 29 Jun 2015 15:21:03 +0000Cannes Lions is an exciting time of year. Beautiful destination aside, it’s always enjoyable to see the creativity and innovations, make connections, build partnerships, and feel the passion from practitioners around the world for the work that we do.

But perhaps the most valuable takeaway from my time at Cannes each year is getting to feel the pulse of the industry. Through the award shows, keynotes, meetings, and events I gain a better understanding of where we’re at and, more importantly, where we’re heading. An exercise I like for trying to bring that to life is to think about what types of campaigns we’ll see in the year ahead.

Here then are my top predictions for what will win at Cannes Lions 2016:

Twin Peaks - While Cannes Lions is the International Festival of Creativity, we are seeing more work that is a perfect marriage of creativity and effectiveness, what Ogilvy & Mather calls the Twin Peaks. And not just effectiveness in reaching people and generating views, but campaigns that effectively impact business objectives. A great example of this is the multi-award winning campaign from this year’s festival for VisitBritain. In the year ahead more brands will figure this out and next year’s award show will have more campaigns that are not only brilliantly creative but also highly effective.

Virtual Reality - I don’t think anyone will be surprised by this one. Virtual reality is set to take over in the coming year for a few reasons. First is accessibility. Google has launched Cardboard, Samsung released their VR headsets, Facebook is teaming up with Microsoft on solutions, and there is bound to be more products for mass accessibility. Secondly, there is an increased focus on brands as storytellers, and there’s no better way to provide an immersive experience to consumers than with VR. Take this IBM campaign from our Australia team for example. And lastly, the technology is just damn cool and capabilities will continue to evolve. Brands will adopt this technology at a rapid rate and we’ll see innovative implementations in the top campaigns of Cannes Lions 2016.

Social Responsibility - This year’s festival added a new category called the Glass Lion, a Lion for change, recognizing work that addresses issues of gender inequality or prejudice. This alone is an indication of brands gaining an understanding of their social responsibility. But beyond the new category, we know that consumers – especially Millennials – increasingly want to associate with brands who fill a positive role in society. As more brands become aware of this and better understand their social responsibility, Cannes Lions 2016 is sure to applaud their efforts.

Co-creation - Brands have engaged with influencers for years now. But we’re in a new era where these stars are not just seen as a channel for amplifying a message; rather they are co-creators in building the brand story. Programs like the newly launched Creatrs platform from Tumblr and Big Frame, that leads collaborations with YouTube stars, are changing the way brands deal with influencers on a platform-by-platform basis. By learning how to tap these creators, brands will find more opportunities to innovate and tell their story, building some of the most widely recognized campaigns in the year ahead.

What do you expect to see more of in the year ahead? Tell us in the comments below.

]]>Walking the Fine Line – Fear and Health Communicationshttp://socialchange.ogilvypr.com/2015/06/fear-and-health-communications/
I had the opportunity to recently attend the Health Conference at 1776’s Challenge Festival. The first part of my day was spent immersed in panel discussions that featured thought leaders whose end goal is to create a healthier world. The second part of my day was spent sitting on the edge of my seat while [&#8230;]http://socialchange.ogilvypr.com/?p=6139Fri, 05 Jun 2015 21:18:54 +0000

Ronald Klain speaking at the Health Conference. (Photo Credit: 1776)

I had the opportunity to recently attend the Health Conference at 1776’s Challenge Festival. The first part of my day was spent immersed in panel discussions that featured thought leaders whose end goal is to create a healthier world. The second part of my day was spent sitting on the edge of my seat while 20 health-focused start-ups from around the globe pitched their companies to the panel of judges.

Despite the excitement that pumped through me during the Shark Tank-esque portion of the event, my mind would continuously drift back to the “fireside chat” given by Ronald Klain, aka the “Ebola Czar,” whose role is was to keep the bureaucratic gears turning to efficiently and effectively foster solutions to the already raging epidemic.

Throughout his talk, he often underscored the importance of communications in helping control the outbreak. He emphasized how effective communication–both internal and external–helped provide a rapid response, build medical infrastructure, coordinate across government agencies, and manage public fear.

I was particularly interested in the discussion of how communications acts as both a mediator and a (often, unintentional) propagator of fear.

Deborah Kotz effectively summarized this phenomenon in the context of the Ebola crisis in an article she authored for the Boston Globe, “An estimated 36,000 Americans are expected to die of the flu this year, but, if history is any indication, the majority of us will skip the recommended yearly vaccine. We’d likely, however, be lining up around the block to get an Ebola immunization if one was available — even though only one person has died of the infection in this country so far.”

In health communication, we often have to walk the fine line between sharing critical information without sparking irrational concerns. This high-wire act is even more important in the age of social media where misinformation can spread like wildfire. Our challenge of health communicators is to 1) be proactive without inadvertently adding fuel to the fire and 2) As Mr. Klain explained, acknowledge to the public that their fear is normal to an extent, while providing information to mitigate the fears to a realistic level. Communications as a mediator of fear, however, often comes after the fire is already burning bright.

Mr. Klain’s talk affirmed the importance of thinking strategically before conveying health and risk messages to the public. Know your audience, know how to reach them, and perhaps most importantly know how to shift your tone to avoid creating a culture a fear.

New career goal? Become an expert tight rope walker – one that can walk the line between effective behavior change communications without instilling irrational fear in those I am trying to reach (à la homemade hazmat suit).

]]>Is the ‘Buyer Journey’ a Bunch of Hooey?http://johnbell.typepad.com/weblog/2015/06/is-the-buyer-journey-a-bunch-of-hooey.html
I just got back from my first BMA event, BMA15. This is the association of B2B marketing professionals. (TirelessMC Gary Slack pictured above) The hall held more than a thousand people from brands, agencies and technology providers. Informative, thought-provoking sessions...http://johnbell.typepad.com/weblog/2015/06/is-the-buyer-journey-a-bunch-of-hooey.htmlMon, 01 Jun 2015 11:15:00 +0000I just got back from my first BMA event, BMA15. This is the association of B2B marketing professionals. (TirelessMC Gary Slack pictured above) The hall held more than a thousand people from brands, agencies and technology providers. Informative, thought-provoking sessions from practitioners like myself (here’s a preview of what I spoke on) were mixed in with the inspirational (like Andrew Davis’ terrific presentation on today’s customer journey). Many speakers referred in some way or another to the need to think in terms of a ‘buyer journey’ – one that is complex, bobbing and weaving between social networks, Google, terrestrial moments, and more.

As usual, the best parts were the conversations outside the sessions. Like the dinner chat that started with “All this talk of the buyer journey is crap.”

What’s right with the buyer journey

The funnel no longer adequately describes the progression of a buyer from “unaware” to actually purchasing, but finding a neat, simple funnel-alternative that does describe how we come to purchase is just plain hard.

We are all influenced in new ways and new sources - No big mystery that what leads to a purchase decision for a business buyer(s) or consumer is more complex today than the golden age of advertising. Andrew Davis in his BMA12 keynote painted the most plausible and laughable “path to purchase(s)” for a consumer inspired to eat (or listen to) meatloaf. The path can be long, circuitous, include many influences. It really is a journey. Google’s view of the consumer journey to buy insurance reveals that it can start six months out.

The journey describes many touchpoints and contributions to a purchase decision - B2B buyers consider 8.9 sources of information today – twice as many as a few years ago. We are all doing more research before and after engaging a sales person. We talk to colleagues. We inspect products at trade shows. We read expert posts on LinkedIn. And so forth. Gone are the days when a handful or less of communications intercept a potential buyer and drive that purchase.

Everyone’s path to purchase can be different with different influences - IBM, Salesforce, Oracle – all of the marketing technology firms – are promoting this notion of the connected customer and that we ought to be addressing millions of individuals…individually versus as “target audiences” or segments or even personas. Conceptually this makes sense. What drives someone to purchase, repurchase, advocate, behave loyally is different

Attributing a sale to a single event is incorrect - Rarely is there a single driver for a purchase decision. A journey view acknowledges that and aims to reveal the important touchpoints that a marketer can affect along the way. Understanding what has more influence in a sales-related action (my euphemism for all the actions we hope people will do – buy, buy again, tell others about the product, behave loyally) is the marketer’s job today. Believing only in the last-click, is irresponsibly naïve.

The buyer journey is inherently more customer-centered - We all need to become increasingly customer-centered. And we need to be wary of just giving this aspiration lip service. Thinking and learning about your customer’s concerns and experiences as they try to solve problems via purchasing products and services, demands curiosity and compassion. It is the buyer’s journey after all and not the path we aim to force people down.

What’s wrong with the buyer journey

Like any broad concept, the “buyer journey” can be stretched too far. A conceptual framework can become the answer to too many problems.

Direct marketers may destroy the idea - It’s in a direct marketers dna to try and “stimulate” people with offers and other action-inducing communications. They focus on efficiency – engineering emails and ads to drive people to take the bait at the lowest cost. Now with the customer journey, the promise of mapping all these wonderful touchpoints and building a technology platform to coordinate them is too good to pass up. But mapping and instrumenting individual buyer journeys may not be worth the extraordinary effort. In the time it takes to do this, habits will change.

Focuses too much on touchpoints vs. the psychology of buying - A buyer follows an email to a Web page. Days later they read a post in their LinkedIn feed and follow a link to a blog post. Weeks later they Google a business problem and browse four sites with credible expertise. And so on. The temptation of a buyer journey-model is to just think of these as a collection of media touchpoints where your brand ought to be to intercept this buyer. It may be more productive to think about what the so-called “buyer” is trying to get done at various points in their journey. They actually don’t likely start out as a “buyer” but as a business person with a problem.

Without believable attribution, complex marketing against the journey will die under it’s own weight - If we cannot measure and understand the contribution to a sale for the dozen or so touchpoints along a journey, we will lose our will to spend our marketing dollars against them. This is just the way the world turns. Now matter how good the model seems, if it cannot be measured, eventually we will give up on it.

B2B buying decisions involve a lot of people and that’s a lot of journeys - How many people inside an organization influence a buying decision? Four? Six? Ten? We know that the bigger the price tag the more bodies there are around that conference table. How do you manage to understand all those journeys and affect them?

It's the right idea

The buyer journey is the right idea. We just have to decide how we are going to change our marketing practices to align ourselves. We could easily go full force in mapping out dozens of personas and complex journeys. Or we could aspire to an increasing understanding of the path people take from the glimmer of a business need to an actual purchase and then try our hardest to be genuinely useful to our prospects and customers.

Attending BMA15 was a good reminder to me that there are a lot of smart people out there trying to figure this all out. My best strategy is to spend more time with these marketers and hope some of their smarts rub off. In my estimation, this is a worthwhile organization and I plan to participate more in the future.

]]>Environment as a Behavior Shaping Toolhttp://socialchange.ogilvypr.com/2015/05/environment-as-a-behavior-shaping-tool/
Our office is moving this summer. We’re not moving far, just a few floors away in our current building. But we are moving big, in that we are transitioning to an “open” floor plan – no offices, no partitions between workstations and (gasp) precious little filing space. My thoughts on the matter fluctuate from excited [&#8230;]http://socialchange.ogilvypr.com/?p=6134Tue, 26 May 2015 18:12:43 +0000Our office is moving this summer. We’re not moving far, just a few floors away in our current building. But we are moving big, in that we are transitioning to an “open” floor plan – no offices, no partitions between workstations and (gasp) precious little filing space. My thoughts on the matter fluctuate from excited to terrified within every hour of every day.

To be sure, this change will require me to work very differently from the way I have grown accustomed to working. And, it has gotten me thinking a lot about the influence that our physical environment has on our behaviors.

Admittedly, this is not a new concept. Studies have shown that placing healthy food choices in more prominent, easier-to-access locations increases the consumption of those foods over less healthy alternatives. We have also seen that the explosion of bike shares and protected bike lanes in major cities has motivated more people to use their own power to get around (Washington, DC and New York have doubled biking rates in 4 years).

But, in these examples, personal choice is still there. If I really want a brownie instead of fresh fruit, I can get one with a little extra effort (and guilt). If I don’t want to ride my bike through the city streets, I can walk or take the Metro, or a taxi, or a bus, or my car.

In the case of our office move, however, I don’t have many choices. I can’t choose to keep an office when no offices exist. I can’t choose to keep my hard copy files when no storage space exists. I can’t chose to host meetings or conference calls at my table for convenience because it will disturb those around me. I can choose, however, to embrace this change as a fresh start, a new way to work, an exciting new adventure, and an opportunity to get to know my colleagues even better.

So, with limited choices, it seems that attitudes become even more important. As I consider how I will need to behave differently in our new office environment, my attitudes towards those new behaviors will likely influence them as much as our office set-up will. And, my attitudes will be influenced by social norms, outcome expectations and a whole host of other behavior-shaping influences.

For me, this reinforces the importance of taking a holistic look at every behavior change challenge – and the utility of considering how multiple influences play a role. Yes, our new office environment will cause me to behave differently. But for me to truly embrace those new behaviors and maintain them over time, I’ve also got to believe that those actions will have a tangible benefit (e.g., more collaboration, less paper clutter), that my colleagues will support me, and that I actually can work differently after all these years. Messages, communications initiatives and training workshops related to our move should take these factors into consideration, and, fortunately, most have done so thus far.

Somewhat ironically, planning ahead to working in a “one size desk fits all” office environment has renewed my belief that there is never a “one size fits all” approach to motivating behavior change.

Words of encouragement and open space work tips are most welcome!

]]>Authenticity: An Imperative of Successful CSRhttp://socialchange.ogilvypr.com/2015/05/authenticity-an-imperative-of-successful-csr/
Authenticity is such a buzz word in PR. We use it all the time: our channels must be authentic &#8212; i.e. use earned media and integrated content, vs. paid placements – so our audiences are less skeptical of the content being communicated; we must use authentic voice when talking with our audiences, so they trust [&#8230;]http://socialchange.ogilvypr.com/?p=6131Thu, 21 May 2015 22:18:27 +0000Authenticity is such a buzz word in PR. We use it all the time: our channels must be authentic — i.e. use earned media and integrated content, vs. paid placements – so our audiences are less skeptical of the content being communicated; we must use authentic voice when talking with our audiences, so they trust us and are more likely to pay attention; spokespeople must have an authentic connection to the issues/products/topics we are communicating about for them to be credible.

I would argue that in the case of authenticity, we use that word or principle frequently, because of how very important it is. And Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is one particular area of business where authenticity is especially critical to success.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development defines CSR as “the continuing commitment by business to contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the community and society at large”. Restated simply – or perhaps even oversimplified — CSR is about the ‘good’ a company does.

While CSR has evolved tremendously over the last 10 to 15 years – into a key discipline integrated into many companies’ business strategies and plans, it historically has often operated as a discrete marketing or HR function, in many cases instituted for the purposes of building — or in some cases ‘fixing’ — a company’s reputation. Corporate reputation issue? Enter a CSR campaign to help distract from that issue or compensate for that issue. Because of that reason, many are skeptical of companies’ CSR programs. Are they truly intended to improve the quality of life of employees, their families, and community and society at large? Or are they reputation-band-aids, that are purely to help enhance the company’s reputation with some potential ‘good’ impact as a bi-product?

The scrutiny and skepticism that often surround a company’s CSR efforts are the very reason why authenticity of such programs is demanded and necessary for their success. Recently, Jennifer Risi, Ogilvy’s Director of Media Influence spoke on a panel entitled “Earning Stories for Good – Big Rewards for Your CSR Program”, and published an op ed on a similar topic. She made the important point that earned media placements that tell a company’s CSR story are often more credible than paid, given the authenticity they bring, helping these stories resonate more with their intended audiences. I would build on Jen’s point and go even further to suggest that the actual content of the CSR story must focus on the actual good being done, and not lead with or place too much focus on the company doing it. If there is a benefit to the company from the CSR story being told, all the better – but the focus of the story should be on the positive impact being made, with the company making that impact as a supporting point.

CSR that is instituted with the intent to truly have a positive impact is authentic. And authentic CSR is powerful. It improves lives, strengthens communities, delivers good for society at large. And, ultimately, when CSR is authentic, and delivers the good it has promised, it brings the added benefit of driving company reputation, and even in many cases functioning as a business driver for the company. A win-win for all.