Invisible ad, only seen with silly glasses

Once again, this Australian ad is getting attention. I just love the curiosity behind it, that it´s presenting a new way of wowing people. A brand like Lynx of course stays true to it´s core of sex, even when wearing silly glasses This is from Psfk:

To introduce its new range of deodorant, LYNX created the world’s first invisible ad in Sydney, Australia. The concept used an abandoned terrace house where the windows were replaced with special LED screens. For the usual passers-by, the screens would appear blank. However, for those who are wearing sunglasses, they were able to see the raunchy videos of couples making out.

LYNX gave out polarized sunglasses to people who walked by, who were mainly its target market of young party-goers. The digital campaign is a clever way to get consumers’ attention that deviates from traditional marketing channels like posters and billboards.

From The Drum: Strategy is dead. The big idea is dead.

This is so good I just post it in full: 

25 APRIL 2012 - 12:28PM| BY RICHARD DRAYCOTT | 88 COMMENTS

"Marketing is dead" says Saatchi & Saatchi CEO

Kevin Roberts

The chief executive of one of the world’s largest marketing groups has today declared that marketing and strategy are dead.

Addressing an audience of senior business leaders at The IoD’s Annual Convention taking place at London’s 02 earlier today, Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide, claimed that in today’s crazy world strategy is dead, the big idea is dead, management is dead and marketing, as we know, is also dead.

During his colourful presentation, which followed on from a speech from Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Roberts said: “I am a radical optimist, I don’t buy into all this recession talk. I do not think we are in a recessionary environment, but we do have too many recessionary leaders. To win today we all need to power things up and speed things up.

“We don’t just live in a VUCA world - a volatile, uncertain, ambiguous and complex world - we live in a super VUCA world. We live in a vibrant world where our kids are connecting to each other and to brands across the world with no money involved. To us this is a world that’s gone crazy.

“Strategy is dead. Who really knows that is going to happen anymore in this super VUCA world? The more time and money you spend devising strategies the more time you are giving you rivals to start eating your lunch.

“Management is dead. To win today you need a culture and an environment where the unreasonable power of creativity thrives. Ideas are today’s currency not strategy. Martin Luther King did not say ‘I have a vision statement’ did he? He had a dream. You have to make sure you have dreams and your brand also needs a dream.”

He went on to outline how successful business leaders need to harness creative thing in the future, saying: “Business leaders need to become creative leaders. We need to change the language of business. Who wants to be a Chief Executive Officer? It sounds like you work for the government and who would want that? Being a Chief Excitement Officer would be better, don’t you think? The role of a good CEO is to get people to buy into their dreams and their company’s dreams.”

Roberts also went on to say that the age of the ‘big idea’ has gone.

“The big idea is dead. There are no more big ideas. Creative leaders should go for getting lots and lots of small ideas out there. Stop beating yourself up searching for the one big idea. Get lots of ideas out there and then let the people you interact with feed those ideas and they will make it big.”

“Leaders need to become emotional thinkers. The difference between rational thinking and emotional thinking is that rational thinking leads to conclusions and meetings and more meetings. Emotional thinking leads to action.”

“There are three secrets to emotional thinking – mystery, sensitivity and intimacy. It is a lot about story telling. Brands need to tell stories on their websites, on their packaging and so on. Make sure your brand and company has a smell, it has a sound, it has a feel and an intimacy with people. Think about how you can build empathy. It is the small things that count and how consumers feel about our brands that count today.”

“Marketing is dead. The role of marketing has changed now. There is nothing new anymore. If marketers are just hearing about something going on then it is already old in today’s world. The further up in a company you go the stupider you become and the further away from new things. Speed and velocity is everything today. Marketing’s jobs is to create movement and inspire people to join you.

“Everyone wants a conversation. They want inspiration. Inspire people with your website. Don’t just interrupt, but interact. Asking about Return on Investment is the wrong question today. You should be asking about Return on Involvement.”

This was the second time in four years that Roberts had addressed the audience at the influential IoD Convention. It was at the IoD Convention during the Nineties that Gerald Ratner’s comments about the jewellery his stores sold being “crap” devastated the Ratners brand and wiped millions off its value.

Surface builds self esteem

These are data from Sweden on how girls expose themselves online. It´s very sad to see how 18 percent of young girls (15-24) have exposed themselves in a sexual way. 69 percent have done it to someone they know, perhaps a boyfriend, but 41 percent say they have done it to someone they don´t even know! 

The main reason is that it´s considered "fun and exciting" (55%). What´s most interesting is that 22 percent say it´s to get comments on how they look. Too many are building their self esteem on what others think of their surface. 

We trust nurses but NOT car salesmen!

A new study from Roy Morgan Australia shows that a large majority, 90% of Australians rate Nurses as the most ethical and honest profession — the 18th year in a row since Nurses were first included on the survey in 1994.

Other professions that also gained high ratings for ethics and honesty in 2012, including Pharmacists (88%, up 1%), Doctors (83%, down 4%), School Teachers (76%, unchanged), Dentists (75%, down 1%), Engineers (70%, down 1%), High Court Judges (70%, down 5%), State Supreme Court Judges (69%, down 6%) and Police (69%, unchanged). 

Ministers of Religion (43%, down 8%) recorded their lowest ever rating for ethics and honesty since being included on the survey in 1996.

The lowest ranked profession is once again Car Salesmen (2%, down 1%) — a position they have held for over 30 years. The next lowest were Advertising people (8%, up 3%) and Real Estate Agents (9%, up 2%).

Other Professions to record a fall included Public opinion pollsters (28%, down 6%), Bank Managers (37%, down 3%), Lawyers (30%, down 8%) and Directors of Public Companies (20%, down 4%).

So funny from Droga 5/Unilver (very brave client...)

From Bestadsontv.com 

Droga5 Sydney has created a film featuring Phill Pace, a contender for the Mr Australia bodybuilder title, to launch Domestos' new toilet cleaner.

The film follows a typical day in the life for Phill as he eats his way to the title

Credits

• 
  Director
  Fiona McGee
• 
  Art Director
  David Nobay
• 
  Copywriter
  David Nobay
• 
  Producer
  Claire Richards
• 
  Business Director
  Liz Ainslie
• 
  Sound
  Nylon
• 
  Agency Producer
  Paul Johnston
• 
  Editing Company
  THE EDITORS
• 
  Editor
  David Whittaker

Other credits

Statistics on how we use Facebook and other social networks

Brian Solis recently presented in his newsletter an analysis of how social media interacts with TV and movies. The people studied seem to be heavy users, but aren´t those always the ones leading the way for others...?

"The Hollywood Reporter recently published an exclusive poll (of 750 social network users aged 13-49) about social media led by market research firm Penn Schoen Berland. As the report opens, THR notes, “There’s a sea change afoot in how Americans discover and consume entertainment.”

According to the study, 88% of respondents view social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook as a new form of entertainment. Hours Spent Each Week Doing Online Activities Social networking and listening to music top the activities for Generation-C and each is greater than the time spent watching full-length movies or television shows on a weekly basis. - 8 Hours: Visiting social networking sites. - 8 Hours: Listening to music - 7 Hours: Watching full-length television shows. - 4 Hours: Watching full-length movies. - 4 Hours: Watching video clips (e.g. YouTube) - 4 Hours: Instant messaging Here are the infographic from the study. If you want all the text (repeating the infographics...), check Brian Solis blog.

Is your customer seeking pleasure or avoiding pain?

Sometimes I meet communication advisors or so called experts who claim they can interpret consumers from what they read in data bases filled with demographic facts and responses to quant studies. It always frightens me to hear them say they “know for sure” how people think and feel because they can back it up with a number or a handly little %. You can´t. There is a huge difference between facts and insights. There is a huge difference between what people say and what they do. There is a huge difference between the rational and the emotional. Databases are great to back up instincts, but they are useless on their own, and building a marketing campaign based on what your target has told you in a survey is dangerous – and lazy.

ScienceDaily presented the other day a study that is of interest for marketers who wish to reach people with different personalities, and at least understand that one person differs from another on a deeper and more complex level than age, neighbourhood or gender.

“Murray and co-authors Remi Trudel of Boston University and June Cotte from the University of Western Ontario found that when it comes to our basic consumer motivations, how we experience a good or bad service experience or how we react to a superior or inferior product depends on whether we're prone to seeking pleasure or avoiding pain. This translates into two groups who show very different levels of satisfaction for the same consumer experience.

The pleasure-versus-pain principle

The researchers studied people's reactions to two consumer experiences: tasting a cup of coffee and choosing a digital camera. In both studies, there was a quality product and one that had been altered to affect its quality. Test subjects were asked to rate their satisfaction with the product's quality. The researchers discovered that respondents fell into two categories: promotion-focused (pleasure-seeking) or prevention-focused (pain-avoiding). "These two types of people respond very differently to having the same kind of service encounter or having the same kind of problem with a product," said Murray.

"People who are promotion-focused tend to get a lot more hurt when something goes wrong, but they're also a lot happier when something goes right," he said. "The prevention-focused people are less upset when something goes wrong -- when they buy a product and it breaks or they have a bad service experience -- but they're also less happy when something goes right."

Can't get no satisfaction? It may be a conservative bias

Murray notes that although the prevention-focused response was far less extreme than the promotion-focused response, the pain-avoiding group appeared less able to enjoy a positive consumer experience. As a consequence, their controlled reactions left them feeling less joy when something went right -- a phenomenon the researchers labelled a conservative bias.

"That conservative bias changes the way they see the world," he said. "They're a little bit more constrained in all their responses, at least in the realm of satisfaction."

The study was published in the March 2012 issue of the International Journal of Research in Marketing.