Mark Di Somma - Upheavals

Why most advertising doesn�t wash

Mark Di Somma — Friday, 12 June 2009

The outrageously scary washing machine for sale seems to have the whole country in its grip. It even featured on the national news tonight. Gorgeous writing. And if you have the time, the questions and answers are an absolute scream.

But there are also some serious messages for marketers in this viral success story.

Despite what everyone says about needing to keep messages short, people will read something if it�s interesting, no matter what length it is.

Story is a much more attractive attribute than features - in fact, in this case and in many others, consumers will forgive features because they love the storyline. Story literally makes this washing machine more than what it is - even in a recession. It�s the porthole and the dinosaurs that are pushing the price up on this thing. This is not about whiteware. It�s an invitation into a whole other world.

People love to share, and sharing is addictive and cumulative. The more people share something - a product, a joke, an idea - the more they want to share it with others. This thing has huge talkability.

Now turn on the TV, and check the next set of commercials for wonderful interest, fascinating story and the compulsion to share.

Advertising isn�t dying because it�s finished. It�s fading in large part because it�s boring. We forget that.

What�s really being bailed out at GM?

Mark Di Somma — Wednesday, 10 June 2009

Can�t help wondering whether the American Government�s decision to take over ownership of GM is not dissimilar to the last Commander-in-Chief�s famous cry of �mission accomplished�.

GM may well be a mainstay institution, at least to some, and the thought of losing such a bastion of Americana may be politically unpalatable, again to some, but Government ownership and streamlining of the brand portfolio still doesn�t address what I see as the key concern: the inability of this company to show that it can produce cars that are market-competitive. And my reason for that concern lies in losses of $88 billion posted since 2005. That�s a very large chunk of change.

However, I don�t see the failure of GM as a funding issue. I think it�s far more than that. It�s a relevance and competitiveness issue, which not surprisingly has manifested itself in systemic revenue hemorrhage. The problem that the new majority shareholder seems to be missing, or perhaps ignoring, is not the financial position, but rather the reasons behind that financial position. As Stuart Hirshfield points out in this article, �they are addressing the financial issues, but not the business issues�. And throwing money at that may save face, and jobs for now, but I can�t see how it will save GM as we know it.

Personally, I can�t see a business case to save GM. With losses this large, how can there be? And if this wasn�t a �great� American company, I think Americans would be the first to acknowledge that. Failure is a tenet of the capitalist system.

So perhaps all this money is not about saving GM. Perhaps it�s about saving face, the US dream, something of the status quo, the legacy of power. Which in effect means this is not an automotive decision at all. It�s a state of the nation decision.

Maybe the factor that the boys and girls on The Hill are struggling with isn�t GM�s lack of money, it�s the acknowledgement of vulnerability. It�s the terrifying thought that if the most powerful player in the American car industry historically is now being eclipsed, then America�s standing as a car maker is also passing. A nation built on cars can�t make cars the world wants anymore. But others can. And perhaps the only way for GM to survive is if the mantle leaves America�s shores. The way BMW saved the Mini.

I feel like I�m watching a re-run of The Wrestler. Everyone seems desperate to believe in the happy ending. But you can�t help feeling that when the credits finally do roll it�s going to be on a train-wreck.

And you know what? If the only GM that has a hope commercially is one that Americans don�t recognise or find palatable nationally, then perhaps General Motors itself may end up having little value in the American market anyway. Which would be ironical to say the least.

As the last President discovered in Iraq, sometimes the problem you see and look to fix is not the problem you really have. I wonder if that will be the case here too.

Cooking up a controversy?

Mark Di Somma — Wednesday, 10 June 2009

When Gordon Ramsay insults an Australian TV reporter, is he hurting or helping his brand? And when the Australian Prime Minister, no less, expresses outrage at his antics, does that help or hinder public perceptions of the celebrity chef? How far is too far when your whole brand is built on being notorious? And does it even matter if you�re serious or not?

Which reminds me (I�m not quite sure why). There�s something I�ve always wanted to ask the deliciously belligerent and combative writer John Pilger: What the hell would you do if everyone started agreeing with you?

The whole point of feathers is to ruffle them. No feathers - and you�re plucked.

Painting

Mark Di Somma — Wednesday, 27 May 2009

Isn�t it interesting how the simplest sounding things are so much more complex when you think about them a little more? Yesterday,when I asked him what we would do if something didn�t go to plan, Paul glibly suggested that we would have to �paint our way out of the corner we are in�.

Lovely wordplay, and I laughed heartily. On the plane home though, I got to thinking. To paint your way out of a corner, you would have to:

Firstly, recognise it is a corner � and therefore that you are cornered. That requires the ability to admit failure. A rare quality.

Secondly, retreat from the problem in almost exactly the opposite way to how you got there in the first place to avoid being painted in again. Most problematic organisations would find it difficult to systematically retrace their steps.

Finally, paint rather than panic. Invest the hard work to get back to a position of no gain, and be inspiring enough to be given the mandate to do so by increasingly sensitive boards and bolshy shareholders.

How many leaders do you know that could do that?

How many do you know that have?

The Emperor�s new hits

Mark Di Somma — Friday, 22 May 2009

More and more people reportedly are turning off the mainstream media because of the programming and the interruptive marketing messages.

And yet, when you look at the monetarisation model for even the most popular online businesses it is, and perhaps is becoming more, dependent on advertising to fund activities, as participants continue to show extraordinary reluctance to pay for most forms of content.

If advertising is indeed losing its appeal, then nothing, including online, can stay immune forever . Which means that, despite all the hype, disturbingly for me the Jerry Macquire question hasn�t gone away. It�s just been eclipsed by the emperor�s new clothes� criteria of popularity.

The problem with that of course is, just like in the dot.com days and with the credit crisis, when you take your eye off the real money, you�ve really got a hiding waiting to happen.

If advertisers were to start deserting online in droves because it was not effective enough to keep their shareholders happy, that spells trouble, surely?

Branding 3.0

Mark Di Somma — Friday, 22 May 2009

As social media makes more and more in-roads into popular culture, particularly amongst the young, advertisers are starting to recognise the power of building branded communities, both online and off (even though I reckon they haven�t worked out the money model yet). Brands are crowding onto social media sites to build presence and gather followings.

To me, this is potentially the third step in the evolution of branding � from individual identity (first phase) to individual experience (second phase) to collective identity, reinforced by strong individual experiences that people can share (third phase).

Integrated marketing is giving way to real time interactive marketing. Relationships with no ad breaks. Are you ready for that? How are you going to fund that?

Do social media negate the need for advertising standards?

Mark Di Somma — Tuesday, 19 May 2009

Now that consumers have the means to voice their support or condemnation globally for whatever happens in the public arena via social media, I wonder whether Twitter, Facebook, Bebo et al are eclipsing the need for advertising standards.

As it stands, viewers who see advertising messages that offend them file a complaint over said message with the regulators who then rule on its suitability. That keeps the rubber stampers busy but it can be very frustrating for advertisers who find themselves needing to conform with a whole range of rules that many believe simply do not reflect the programmes people watch and changes in how communities think. (Anyone whose ever worked in an ad agency will be nodding at this point.)

Social media networks bypass that whole process by allowing consumers to put pressure on, or endorse the actions of, marketers directly and en masse. A recent beverage ad for example invited viewers to see the �uncut� version on YouTube. It doesn�t take a genius to work out that this version would never have made it on-air as a marketing message.

Does that make regulation anachronistic? And should we even be worried if marketers do air material that doesn�t conform with the rules � because in the end such actions must work against them if consumers are offended and organise and boycott their products in large enough numbers?

Then again, is the social media watchdog enough? Would the potential for mass action keep advertisers from going too far, how far is that anyway and are the social media mature enough as a channel yet to act as the taste police? Do they give a tech-savvy global audience a level of control over what is and is not said that is potentially very disturbing? Or do they have that already?

Slippery slope. Welcome change. Or natural development � Yip, one of those. Bit like this puzzle really. Which came first? The cat, the bag or the exit sign?

The power of inconvenient questions

Mark Di Somma — Thursday, 7 May 2009

Watched Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room for the first time recently. A huge reminder of how easy it is to assume; that the massive confidence of some readily inspires the trust of many.

A reminder too of the power of the inconvenient question � just like the one that the reporter from Fortune posed when she asked the CEO how exactly did they make money? Because everyone else had assumed they did, they must.

Inconvenient questions are a bit like those sewer tests where they send smoke into the pipes � they�re how you spot where the gaps are and where they aren�t.

Who�s asking those questions at your place? And what do you do with those lines of enquiry and the people who ask them?

Do you treat the questioners like heroes and truth seekers, the people who really care about your organisation and its reputation? Or does everyone just carry on assuming, and have you noticed that those people are no longer there?

The cult of popularity

Mark Di Somma — Thursday, 30 April 2009

I wonder if it�s too easy in these days of Twitter and instant global chat to get drawn into believing that every storm in the social media is a public relations disaster or conversely a proven runaway success.

I wonder whether it�s too simple to look at the massive numbers that happen when the online community swirls around an issue to think that this is now embedded on the collective conscience of millions for years to come � instead of seeing some of it for what it is. Today�s headline, today�s event, today�s centre of attention.

Equally I wonder whether the reverse applies. In which case, it�s not that astonishing that Susan Boyle was a huge hit. She got 15 million hits or however many it was, but they were on YouTube, so no-one had any skin in the game. They could click, watch, rave and then move on, no money down. That doesn�t mean that Susan Boyle necessarily will make it in the music industry, any more than the Domino�s fiasco means that company is in trouble.

A crowd is not a community, even though at times it may believe like one. It�s a group of people drawn together for a specific event at a specific time. It can be very impressive and very sudden. It�s great for the ego, or as scary as hell.

And so many businesses these days it seems to me are chasing that. Popularity has become the new top line. They want a crowd. Or at least they think they do, because they think it must result in sales. This is the dot.com eyeballs argument revisited. The word of caution here is that it is what it is.

Which are you chasing?

The concept of �badwill�

Mark Di Somma — Thursday, 23 April 2009

If a strong brand adds value to the physical costs of a product, does a bad brand reduce the asking price? The instinctive answer of course is yes. But does it actually materially affect the asking price to the point where anything associated with that brand can only ever reach below what it needs to be worth?

In other words, should tainted brands have a �badwill� component built not just into their purchase price but also into their budgets that effectively places a ceiling on their future earning power and therefore their overall worth and viability?

I raise this as Satyam�s new owner Tech Mahindra ponders what to do about a name that right now spells nothing but trouble. While ad agencies, perhaps not surprisingly, are delighted at the thought of being able to rebuild the brand, arguing that one incident shouldn�t destroy a brand, my view is that it very much depends on the brand and on the incident. Dominos will survive its recent Twitterstorm despite the hoopla because everyone recognises that this was not an inherent pan-brand problem.

Satyam is different in my view. Its rot allegedly went all the way to the top and there is a direct correlation between the conduct and statements of leadership and the company�s demise. The assumption has to be that if the problems go that high, they are potentially endemic and therefore very little of the company�s reputation can be depended on.

It�s a little like saying �I still think Titanic is a great name for a boat�. Would you get on board?