Blogbook
The Commission for Children and Young People asked Starship to develop a new brand for them that reflected their newly conveyed powers. Part of the scope was to create a brand icon, internal stationery and give a looks-like feels-like home page for a re-skin.
About the Commission
Created in 2012 by the Minister for Community Services the Hon Mary Wooldridge MP, the Commission:
The Commission for Children and Young People Act 2012 provides for the role of the Commission.
The Commission commenced operation on 1 March 2013 as an agency independent of government able to table its annual report in Parliament along with the outcomes of any systemic reviews initiated by the Commission.
The Commission is led by the Principal Commissioner and the Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People.
While the Commission replaces the Office of the Child Safety Commissioner (OCSC) some features will be retained. These include:
a strong voice for promoting the safety and wellbeing of children
monitoring out of home care services
annual review of the Working with Children Act 2005
undertaking inquiries into the deaths of children known to child protection.The Commission brings together 30 experienced and committed full time and part time staff, who aim to be at the forefront of activity to improve the lives of Victoria’s children and young people. We are always keen to identify the views of children and young people, parents, carers, professionals and the broader community, through consultation at events, forums and workshops.
How do you make beautifully crafted bespoke dental work sexy? Starship was asked to do exactly that – with the launch of this B2B campaign on behalf of Keramik dental laboratory. Starship had to turn an intensely personal, technical art-like business into one that is more digital and long distance, without losing the quality of the commercial relationships or the kudos of the established brand. Dentists are notoriously fastidious science-oriented customers and it’s hard to get their attention. Located in Melbourne, Keramik Dental has been helping Australia’s best dentists produce stunning, comfortable, willing smiles for generations – their craftsmanship focuses on the minutae of detail in colours and the latest of materials, and work closely with leading professionals to produce superbly realistic, individual beauty.
Under the ‘Art Oral’ campaign, dental sculptures were created in a stylised way, to give Keramik’s work more of an artistic, contemporary look. This allowed the dental laboratory to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Keramik dental laboratory was founded by Gianluca Scarica in 1988, and since then has become one of the leading and progressive Dental Laboratories in the Dental Industry, using a 3 shape, 3D digital dental system that inspires artistry and creativity in its technicians.
Starship has developed a major household recycling program for Sustainability Victoria aimed at improving household recycling behaviour across Melbourne. Involving a partnership of all 30 metropolitan councils, this education initiative launched via metro television on Sunday the 20th of May.
Supported by online, radio, press, and print, this behaviour change strategy aims to encourage people to recycle better through simple, positive messaging and to establish trust in the system via education on the right way to recycle.
About Sustainability Victoria
Their objective is to “Facilitate and promote environmental sustainability in the use of resources”, supporting Victorians in becoming more sustainable at home and at work, looking to improve the way Victoria uses and manages its resources and takes action on climate change. It provides guidance on a range of topics, including waste disposal, recycling and energy. From their website:
Sustainability Victoria’s statutory objective is to facilitate and promote environmental sustainability in the use of resources. Established under the Sustainability Victoria Act 2005, SV is a statutory authority with a board appointed by the Minister for Environment and Climate Change.
SV has obligations under the Environment Protection Act 1970 for statewide waste management strategy and planning, as well as managing the Sustainability Fund.
This charming television ad shows how two people working on the same thing can do a much better job in partnership: The Institute of Public Accountants (recently re-named from National Accounts Association) were seeking a statement ad that summarised their positioning: Partnership beyond numbers.
About the Institute
Established in 1923, the IPA supports member needs, provides training and education, and lobbies on important legislative issues on its members’ behalf. From their site:
Today, over 93 years on, the IPA represents the interests of more than 35,000 members and students in over 80 countries and is ranked in the top professional accounting bodies in the world.
Throughout our history, our approach hasn’t changed. Passionate about supporting the SME/SMP sector, we continue to advocate for the best interests of our members and the small business sector across Australia. We continue to strive for innovation in everything we do and build on the recognition already gained as one of the top 20 in BRW’s Most innovative companies in Australia list for 2012.
A full member of the International Federation of Accountants, the IPA works to promote the exchange of knowledge and best practice to build relationships across borders and focus on overseas membership expansion, particularly in Malaysia and China, where we also are members of the Confederation of Asia Pacific Accountants (CAPA).
At both a national and international level, we sit on more than 120 forums and continue to carry a strong voice while representing the interests of members and the profession globally.
A division of CSR, Viridian is Australia’s largest manufacturer of window glass. The company recently developed ‘Smart Glass’, which significantly reduces heat absorption and so dramatically reduces heating bills.
Starship made a TVC that introduces the product to the Australian market and since then we have also been working closely with Viridian to design and develop their retail operations to help their brands grow. The SmartGlass ads are appearing nationally starting August 2011.
More about Viridian Smart Glass
Smart glass is an energy efficient glass that acts just like insulation, protecting a home from extremes of hot and cold. It also works to boost the energy star rating of your home:
The Viridian SmartGlass range, which officially launched in August 2011, has already taken top honours at the recent HIA GreenSmart Awards, winning product of the year.
The HIA-Boral GreenSmart Awards set the benchmark in progressive building and recognises builders and manufacturers who lead the way in environmentally responsible housing. GreenSmart is an accredited training program offered by HIA that educates its members on sustainable and environmentally-friendly building practices.
At a memorable celebration on Thursday 18th August in Melbourne, Viridian joined HIA builders and product manufacturers to showcase the latest environmentally-friendly innovations and designs leading the industry in residential construction. Viridian SmartGlass™ is this year’s GreenSmart product winner, praised by judges for its range of residential single-glazed energy efficient glass options, selected specifically for Australia’s demanding climate.
Fantasy Lingerie is Australia’s largest online sexy lingerie store yet the brand’s ATL (outdoor) advertising presence has been limited, until now. The current lingerie market is cluttered with women in barely-there accessories that just portray women in suggestive poses. However, through research Starship discovered how important it was to display partner interaction with elements of romance and fun, particularly in order to target a more mainstream audience. A hero photoshoot captured this angle and now the shots, all with intrinsic stories, are covering Melbourne’s billboards, creating instant impressions and encouraging website visitation by new and existing customers. Starship is positioning the brand to own the ‘fantasy’ category and elevating its fashion focus… stay tuned!
About this client
Founded in 1993, Fantasy Lingerie stocks a big range of 4,000 styles of lingerie in sixes 6-24, aimed at providing affordable luxury for all body sizes for any occasion. They have been the leading market in Australia for sexy lingerie for over two decades, Australian owned, and pride themselves on their customer service, discreet delivery and quality products. They have a million customers and counting, and were looking to expand their market beyond just its fashion-focused niche, for a greater share of the Australian market.
How to buy TV airtime
After some weeks of end-of-financial-year spirit, I turn my unfocused eyes to the tricky bit about TV. The bit you can’t fathom or explain. The price of TV ads. And how those selling it smother what is essentially horse trading with a lot of pseudo-scientific rubbish designed to fool 22-year-old marketing graduates.
Keep in mind we are dealing with eyeballs. Putting your message in front of people’s eyes with a moving, hopefully emotional story that gets them to do something, whether its buy a car or donate to a charity or stop beating their kids. TV is just one way to get that message to those people. It’s not a big deal anymore, like it used to be before we got Youtube and Netflix.
Also remember where are dealing with a short-life product. Like oysters out of the fridge, it goes off really fast. They can’t sell an ad on yesterday’s show. Which makes it a very negotiable commodity – no one actually knows what it’s really worth. Airtime has no value other than what someone like you is prepared to pay for it.
Buy on the R&F’s, not tarps.
Tarps, or Target Audience Rating Points is an easy way to confuse a 22-year-old media buyer. He/she thinks multiplying the reach (proportion of the ‘population’; your core target audience demographic, that’s watching the show) by the Frequency (the number of times they see the ad) works. It doesn’t. People seeing something only once or twice is useless. You want 60, 70 or 90% (or whatever proportion of your audience you can afford to hit) of your targets to see the ad at least 5 times. Yes I’m serious, five times – we are overloaded with information so only heavy repetition works.
Frequency is fundamental
Very few customers buy on seeing an ad once. They only buy when the promise is burned into their brains. When in doubt, go for more frequency with a lower reach than the reverse. You have to have absolutely sensational creative to trade reach for frequency. Better to have 50,000 people see an ad 5 times (250 tarps) than 100,000 see it three times, (300 tarps).
Buy Peak and Off Peak
Peak Time gives you heaps of viewers, which means wide reach. Lots of people seeing the ad. Off peak gives you a limited number of viewers whom you can afford to hit several times, which gives you frequency with them. Over a campaign, you’ll find you’ll also pick up quite a few of the peak customers, but slowly. Thus you build up reach & frequency most efficiently over a campaign with both.
Road Block – buy many stations at the same time
On the basis that they’re running the ads at the same time, which is most often the case, if you want to hit everyone you can, it’s a nice idea to book an ad on all the relevant stations to run in exactly the same ad break. Then you know you’ve got at least one solid ‘frequency’. (See Flick Factor)
Appropriate shows
Show selection is critical. You are associated with the content – so if you’re on a stupid show for your target market, they’ll think less of you. A traditionalist will tell you to buy on the shows that best suite your target market demographic and that add something from a psychological or ‘environment’ sense (ie. The Money Show, for an on-line broker’s ad etc.) Yes, if you can afford to, please do. But it’s not value for money if you can hit the same audience for a third the cost on other shows. Use your judgment and don’t be conned into paying full whack for a ‘key’ show just ’cause your boyfriend likes it. And you don’t need to tell the rep which in your eyes is a key show – better to have the really important shows as almost ‘add-ons’, so they don’t charge you more next time.
Regularly on the shows
If you buy regularly on a show, you become associated with the show. Sometimes nice for credibility. For some strange reason, a regular time-slot works really well.
Buy the Top and the Tail
This is the usual buy with the most seasoned TV advertisers, such as Telstra, the banks etc. Because people channel surf, the best spots are the top and tail of the break. That’s a 30 seconder at the start of the break for those who don’t use their remote to surf the other stations, and the 15 at the other end to remind them and get the message to those who did surf, but saw the first bit of the first ad and see the last bit of the 15. This also works better if they are watching the show on a time warp thing like Tivo, cause while they are running the ads faster, they still see a bit of both of the ads.
Buy the cheapest in the slot.
If you can’t afford to buy the top and the tail in the show you want, buy the cheapest ad in that time-slot, knowing full well that with the flick factor /channel surfing you’ve got a better than even chance of getting the audience anyway – if they surf, they may hit that station. If you’re paying less than the average cost, you’re getting the better deal.
Buy Unsold Time
As the time gets closer, the panic sets in amongst the sales force. If you’ve got ads already running on a station, occasionally you can get them to up the number of ads they run in a particular period, which suits you, for only a very small additional cost – if air-time is not pre-sold, it can be very, very cheap. I’m talking ‘I’ll shout you lunch’ cheap.
Buy Direct
The Stations are prepared to sell slices of time at whatever rate they can get (as long as the big buyer’s clients don’t get wind of it). And the stations will provide whatever research you need. They all get it from the same sources.
Buy Calendar Off -Peak
There are many weeks where you’re not paying to compete with an excess of other advertisers. If you’re in retail and it’s Xmas week, you have no choice, but if you’re building a brand, choose weeks/days which are less full. In all months there are softer weeks. In all weeks, softer times. But people are still at home with their eyeballs open.
Avoid ROS
Run Of Station means Spots We Can’t Sell. Unless you have a product that is wanted by people who can’t sleep or security guards, or stoners, don’t bother with late night, unless it’s ridiculously cheap and I mean only a hundred bucks.
Screw them on price
They will screw you to the wall when you want something, so do the reverse when you get the opportunity. Trade them off against each other and dutch auction rates. By that I mean say ‘they other guys only want x’. At the end of the day, a spot on a show is worth whatever you get it for. And that’s it. They will still deal with you as a buyer next month and they’ll only respect you more if you’re tough.
On length
TV stations often push buys for large numbers of short length ads (Wow, they’ve offered me 100 x 10 second spots!) on bunnies because the bunnies have heard of the concept of ‘Frequency’ and don’t understand that with no impact frequency means nothing. Unless they are very powerful and simple, short ads do not allow the punters to get the message, (brand, positioning or whatever). Our brains take more time to react than you think. Just cause you can see the logo in the ten second sponsorship, because you’ve seen it in the edit suite 100 times, don’t expect more than a small percentage of your customers to take it in. So don’t be talked into paying for short ads at a pro-rata rate. They are not worth it. They are nice as a value-add gift as part of your buy and to put the brand in front of the public, but have a history of being virtually useless to actually build the brand profile.
If you can, buy a 45 or even 60- second ad. I’ll bet your agency will be able to re-cut the footage you have and it will sell it’s tits off over a 15 or 30 seconder. You can also use this same longer version in Cinema….
Flighting
You must flight; re-run the ads regularly during the year. Start off with a heavier buy, to build awareness, then flight or run the ads every second week or month or so to keep awareness and sales levels up. All agencies have different theories on how to do this. It does vary dramatically in certain markets, the more competitive the market, the more frequently you need to flight. Run ads when your dashboard says sales may be waning. Don’t wait for confirmation from your stores or warehouse – that often costs companies like yours millions in lost sales.
What to do?
If I was you, I’d decide how I’d like to buy the TV, I’d then get an agency to negotiate it on an hourly rate, and ignore all the fluff the industry tries to use. In the end, you’re buying access to people’s minds. Pay for good advice, not prime time rates at full whack. TV time is not rocket science. It’s simply air time sold to the highest bidder.
You’re the marketing manager of a confectionary company. Don’t ask me how you got there, it’s a very long, messy story. The big product you’ve been proudly taking to glorious heights is FAP – coined by you. You are yet to think of a clever way to explain it, FAP just is. Very karma. FAP’s a combination of vitamins, fruit-based complex sugars, more roughage than a pack of sultana bran and it tastes awful. For the first three seconds. Then it tastes like lemon acid. Then fresh, raw chilli – the little ones that burn. You run out of breath just as the Haighs chocolate hits your mouth and soothes you. Lasts at least 10 minutes. Sells better than ice-cream on a hot day. The board love you, especially now that Bolockson’s, the countries biggest manufacturer, has slapped 100 very large ones on the table to take FAP off their hands. They can all go to Vanuatu or Paris for a few years and exchange their tired wives for fresh ones.
You seem impressed, even excited for the first few minutes while the Bolockson’s CEO tells them/you of his plans. Then he talks about their brand strategy ….Bolockson’s FAP.
Your wild packaging, your electronic pointy wointy of sale. Your in-your-face 15 seconds TV ads. All your good work for the last 3 years. All now pushing Bolockson’s along with FAP. You could see your baby being strangled in front of your eyes, if it wasn’t for the tears…
Bolockson’s will take your prize possession and wrap their tired old brand images as close as they can get to your brand, to give good old Bolockson’s a bit of street cred. A bit of cool. Picture a seventy-year old in a hoodie. Your work, which has made what might have been nothing but a long line of food additive numbers into a moving emotional experience for millions of Australians (and with that fibre, one that moves their very bodies) is now the promotion vehicle for an ageing brand that can’t think of any easier way to boost its flagging share price.
The brand architecture they are proposing will destroy the cred of FAP and thus the brand itself. What is Brand Architecture exactly? It’s the priority given to the brands on a label or in other communications – Holden Commodore versus Commodore, by General Motors Holden.
This is a visual thing, plus a sequencing thing and it’s very much the domain of the designers and psychologists out there.
Marketers, the natural bosses of both these groups, need to take control and look at it from our personal point of view and that of our careers. Do you want to be the marketing manager of one of a hundred versions of the same brand – say like the girl/guy who manages Virgin Blue? Or do you want to be made a tad more famous by being the person who grew XYZ brand from nothing into a household name? My career? I’d choose the latter.
Why do companies structure brands in certain ways? They do it for consistency – you can grow a brand much faster if everything is co-ordinated. They do it to keep costs down – there’s often less overall money spent on marketing one main brand rather than four or five different brands. And they do it for political, money-making reasons.
At the core, brand architecture is about egos. Board’s, designer’s, printer’s, marketing manager’s egos. The rest is often interesting academic debate about relationships and complex psychology, but the real story is raw ego.
Brands create and stir more ego than any other thing in corporate land. Yes, your pay matters and your corner office with a view over the harbour is nice, but if you’ve managed to change the order of priorities so the Frito-Lay is in front of the word Chip and you at Frito-Lay therefore own the Chip, rather than the Chip owning Frito-Lay, you can sleep easy at night knowing your world is secure.
Which brings up the issue of ownership – intensely connected with architecture. Brands and who owns them can change priority for many reasons. These reasons usually relate to board’s strategic desires – do we flog em off? Do we acquire? Do we make us, our board and our logo, more important? Or do we boost the Solvol? They may help each other as supporting money spinners, detract from the mother ship if weak. They all need careful attention and the exercise is life or death for those who’s careers fly on them. ie. You.
A few items to consider
People have favourites. Make no mistake, many people in board land like the multi-brand approach like Unilever or the all together drive, like Nestle etc. Flexibility suffers when certain egos win. If you have a blinkered view of any landscape you do far worse than those with an open mind. Keep your’s that way too.
These things are often global. Try as you may to educate the powers above you that the Aussie market is different and that this is an icon brand, essential to our cultural heritage, if a big multi-national has bought it they will want to bring in into line with their overall brand architecture and frankly, stuff you and your brand’s needs. Think Vegemite, Holden, Tuckerbox Dog Food, the list is endless.
Adjustments can be detrimental to sales/values.
The public love consistency. So does your bottom line. Variation outside of brand territory is often short-term cash-flow death. Get back-up in stats, case studies etc. Protect yourself.
Corporate board versus marketing department
Most of the time this is the truth. Try as you might to explain things. But the good marketers get over this little hurdle like the troopers they are. The best Marketers? The board thinks everything is happening exactly according to their plans.
Most important thing is to look at it from the buyers/customers perspective. Many changes are made without reflective assessment of the long term benefit to channel partners, consumers, public.
Psychologist & designer dream
Not enough psychologists work with designers and not enough designers see psychologists.
Nestle – good or bad reputation?
Always check the effect of one name on another. You can’t mix chocolate with raw meat anymore than you can mix some brands with others – by mathematical definition, if you add one unpopular company, which may only appeal to 20% of the market, with another that only appeals to 15%, you suddenly potentially have those overlayed, which in any market means less customers. It’s not 35%. It’s often like 12%. Sometimes it grows both segments, which can be rather tasty, but please check the effect before punching the budget button. You are moving the cards around under a house of cards. It can help to shore things up, but it can also tumble.
Parent Company – the shadow or the whole brand
Sometimes the big company brand name is good – pulling sales through where a brand is not yet known, but often it doesn’t work so well – people may not like the main brand.
A multiple brand structure allows you to market a wide range of products/ services without the public thinking something strange is going on – you don’t think a soap manufacturer would be a good toothpaste maker, but Unilever is. Why would a potato chip maker be any good at soft drinks – but wasn’t Coke? The flexibility of owning many brands gives other advantages as well. You can sell them in a blink. Who makes Panadol today? Who did?
You can own products in many categories with credibility. Even many products within a category and no-one really cares much.
Some companies (Unilever, Fonterra, Coke etc.) gain huge shelf space in supermarkets as they have so many different, individually branded products. Customers just either don’t know or don’t care; they certainly mostly don’t realise they are buying soap from the same company that they are buying soft drink from. This can be a great method to gain large share with different target markets. How many other drink brands does Coke own? Fanta? Deep Spring? The list is endless. Is the buyer of Coke the same who buys Deep Spring? Sometimes, but not often.
Given you’re being asked to make decisions on Brand Architecture, how to do it well?
Check the board’s real desires
If you can get them to tell the truth, find out what their real thoughts are – do they want to sell off the brand as a stand-alone in the long run? Do they want to grow the business in total and flick it as a whole?
Know your business
I know it sounds ridiculous, but many people have never really worked out what business they’re in. Railway people thought they were in the train game, and left transport and logistics to others – you know the story. If you’re in FMCG and want to grow, you should own multiple brands. If you’ve got a sexy brand that translates across a lot of sectors – you could do a Virgin. Decide if you could go one direction or another at this stage.
Do the research
Double check the board’s desires against the market’s perceptions of the brand and the company. What if they all hate the parent company? Or what if the parent company will look silly selling this product?
These issues will influence how the product/brand gets positioned against the owner brand. Which should be more prominent? Should it be Nestle’s Quick? NesQuick, Quick by Nestles. Slow going I know, but sweet when you get it right. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
Most of you will have suitable research already available or a supplier you can trust to undertake it. If neither, consider on-line for accurate feed-back on complex issues like brand priority trade offs and awareness/ attitudes to sub-brands (with the right product mix obviously). Web’s not so good for testing stuff sold to tradies who can’t read, let alone use the web. Could use SMS but, hey bro?
Please note few designers use research and usually insist that the public doesn’t understand the bigger picture, ie. the concepts will be wasted on them etc. This is total bullshit. They are just scared of having to change their dream and don’t know how to run a research exercise well.
Brief your designers
Designers flock to brand architectural jobs faster than flies to dog poo. I reckon you could whisper there was a big corporate architectural gig on while you were cleaning your teeth, ten metres down a deserted mine-shaft, and you’d have twenty teams of identical black-wearing serious types with cropped hair and thin square glasses texting you with deep questions about brand relationships in less time than it took to write this paragraph.
Therefore, give 3 or 4 teams a very tight brief and expect to get shocked by the costs. Know that they will try to change everything that isn’t nailed down and that may involve scratching the floorboards. It will definitely include the carpet. Know also they will want a cut of the total spend which could in itself turn into millions.
Choose the team you really, really want to spend many very long days with. I don’t mean the ones who take themselves seriously, ’cause life is way too short. I recommend choosing the ones who do very good work but who also have a similar sense of humour to you.
To keep costs and egos in place, pay them for their time only. Have a production team actually do the buying of all the new signage and packaging etc. This will save you some of those millions.
Budgets
Ahhh, the word no-one wants to mention around this subject. Enough said.
Co-ordinate
All the desperate designers, agency suits, promo people, media tarts (all well recognised industry reference terms) will all want to pull the new baby in different directions because it’s in their interests to get you to spend as much as possible in their area. Too many cooks spoiling the broth. This squabbling will go on for as long as you let it. Be tough. Dictate who gets what and how much gets spent and if they argue too much, go silent for a week or two. That usually scares the hell out of them.
Get it on a chip
Insist early on developing a brand book they all have to stick to, so whatever has been decided gets run out by the operators (finished artists we used to call them when the word Bromide meant press ad, not just a chemical). Understand that a brand book/style guide, or whatever you want to call it, takes time to develop and must to a certain degree be flexible – it is impossible for a small team (everything in the world is done by small teams of 4-12 people and anybody who tells you different is lying. No-one can get a ‘team’ of 200 people to do anything) to think through all the ramifications, all the situations necessary for all the uses you may have. It should be a guide first and foremost and must be stronger in philosophy than anything else.
Do we have to?
Always ask is it necessary to do this bit? The public doesn’t care if your street sign in Niddree is a different colour blue to the business card. The designers will think it’s a huge sin, but frankly, that’s just a wank. Fix it one day when the sign has fallen over, but I guarantee by then there will have been six other business card versions and no-one but the design team front person will have given a fig.
Don’t rush, much
There are two schools of thought about this. One says do everything over night. I mean you do it over six months then change everything overnight. This is great for the design teams who have to work to all hours to do everything and make a fortune at it, but the stress on management, particularly you, is terrible. In some cases you simply can’t avoid it – say you run a bank and you have 1000 branches that really have to happen within a few days or you look silly – in that case you might roll it out by state and or by division – the rural division might change over in May, the public division in June. Regardless of what you’d like, an over rider will often be the pressing need to get as many examples done as fast as possible to get the message out with consistency.
Subtle or brave
Well-researched adjustments, where possible, are often handled with great care, possibly over several stages. There are times however when brutal change is the only logical/effective option. Never anything in between. Do either well and it’s a new car, few trips, better clothes. Nicer smiles in the lift.
I’m at the mall. An American term. Actually it’s Chadstone. Mecca for merchandise. One of the leading shopping centers in the world and an Australian commercial icon. Promoted as ‘the fashion capital’, it’s not hard to see why.
Chadstone swells with a throng of people. Self-conscious about what they are wearing, how they look. A flowing sea of ages, shapes, sizes, outfits, carrying bags, sitting on stools, bumping into each other, meeting.
Two Paris Hiltons, perhaps 14, are stopped by three younger 50 cent types (Hip Hop clothes – baggy pants, trucker hats, hoodies) wanting directions then asking if the girls want a Juice? The girls are polite but cool, disinterested, non-committal. Looking around for a better option. A couple of 16-year-old surfer guys wander past. They see the scene. Turn. Sharks sensing an easy feed. The two surfer types (cords, t-shirts, paler colors, bleached hair) stop about 4 meters away. They whisper quickly then turn again and look straight at the girls, challenging them. The three younger guys tense up, knowing they are not winning. One taps his mates on the chests and walks off. The other two follow, regretting.
The girls hide their grins. Walk over towards the surfers and stare into the window of the shop next to them. Knowing the boys are interested, they enter the store. It’s House. Pans, napkins, plates. They point to stuff and I can see them mouthing, what’s this for? The boys follow, pick up similar things, make the same funny observations and thus, contact is made. The whole process might have taken 3 minutes, the time it took me to get a skinny latte.
This is the life of Australian kids, other than school or home, they live at shopping centers and fast food outlets, surrounded by tons of stuff. Tempted by everything. Swimming in a sea of brands, retailers and tribes of people.
Estimates vary from $5 to $10 billion of direct sales go to teenagers in Australia. (US figures are $100 per week, per kid) A conservative figure from the Australian Family Association put the average weekly disposable income of a 14-17-year-old at $37.79, which totals about $2.1 billion for that age group alone. Add to that their influence across everything from the family computer or TV to what kind of car Dad gets or the brand of bread he buys, you can see they are a critical market for many companies. Marketers find them a challenge – almost out of reach. Marketing pundits like me usually refer to them as media savvy. Switched on. I think it’s crap. They are technologically savvy – they’ve been brought up with PC’s, mobile phones, the Web, but they are not marketing savvy. They haven’t been around long enough to have seen the ads or heard the lines before.
But they are no doubt cynical, born out of years of being sold to. My seven-year-old knows the jingles for lots of ads word for word. By seventeen how many will she have seen? A lot, but a hell of a lot less than a 37-year-old.
How they think
Yes, teenagers are cynical, but still passionate. They are often passionate about being cynical, (which confuses many researchers, who take it at face value) but they are passionate about everything. They feel. They care. It’s about hormones. From 12 to 20 your body is raging with Testosterone, Estrogen, and the thousands of other hormones that ark up your libido and spark up your brain.
Embarrassment a way of life
One of the key side effects of raging hormones is an acute self-awareness. If you are trying your best (to get laid, noticed), you often mentally sit outside of yourself, critical of your own behavior, clothes, friends, family. This leads to embarrassment wherever reality falls behind your expectations. For a teenager, brought up on a diet of mega cool music videos and TV ads, faced with the blunt truth of growing up in Dandenong and being driven to parties in Mum’s Magna, embarrassment is a way of life. But it always has been. I’m pretty sure Jesus was embarrassed about Joseph being a carpenter, when He wanted to be the Son of God.
This constant observation, coupled with their rapid learning, due in part to the fact they are at school, being continually conditioned to learn, means they change and develop rapidly. They are quicker to take up a new concept than any other significant market segment. Making them the main group to launch new technology and fashions at. They are, by definition, the major early adopters of our society.
This speed of information up-take is neatly balanced by the desire to fit in. To find peers they can relate to, people with whom they have common interests. You can’t have a social life or a sex life if you don’t have any friends. Kids get together and form tribes, gangs. You’ve seen them. The Skaters, The Goths, The Barbies. There are heaps of tribes and most of them act according to what they see in movies, video clips, ads.
As teenagers have for decades, they copy the heroes of the day. In the 60’s it was Jagger or Lennon. Today it was Paris, last week it might have been Delta who those two girls modelled, as they put on their mall outfits. These gangs also stand for certain values and words. This tribal behavior makes psychological segmentation vital if you are to target them successfully.
A negative outlook
One of the key differences you can see between a teenager in 2005 and one of 20 or 30 years ago is in their perception of the future. Even with the cold war, things were not this bleak for my generation. Today’s teenagers feel they are living in dark times – the clouds are swirling over the land of Mordor.
We have a very effective education system. Those lefty teachers at most government schools have taught the kids about the poor state of the environment, about global warming, about over-population, about globalization, about genetically modified foods, about greedy board members paying themselves millions while the company goes backwards etc. The kids see corporate behavior not as a good or neutral thing, but often as a real evil. So they often view people who work for those groups, that means you, reader, in the same light. Not to be trusted.
Regardless of the fact that teenagers can’t stand us, and would rather have their finger nails peeled off than talk to advertising people (According to Speak Easy Magazine, BSB World-wide recently video taped the bedrooms of teenagers in 25 countries supposedly to gain insight into how they think, but I presume it was because they are closet voyeurs and also because the teenagers wouldn’t talk to them face to face.) My mates in adland absolutely love them. They’ll always include them in the media mix. They’ll always talk you into designing special ads for them in street press or on TV. They’ll always make a fuss about their particular angle with youth. Why?
Why is marketing to youth so important to the ad industry? Because we all want to be young. And our young creative teams are more familiar with youth trends than with older people’s trends. And because they remember, very, very fondly, being young. Young people have thick hair, tight muscle tone, rampant sex lives and no worries about mortgages, spouses or kids. Young people don’t have to clean up. Don’t have to make a dollar and can just live on a beach somewhere if they feel like it.
And ad guys love this market because it’s a fickle market. You can get it wrong and often no-one over the age of 20 will ever know. You look good just by trying. ‘This is our hip ad for the youth market’ says the 60-year-old board member to his wife proudly – they both agree it’s very slick and funky. They wouldn’t have a clue. But their 14-year-old grandson will barf with embarrassment.
The differences between someone 12 or 19 are extraordinary. Sadly, they are often targeted by the same campaign. As a person I think you change more during these years than at any other stage. You are more experimental, more political, both on a micro and macro level, more idealistic, more certain, more easily influenced. You are being educated at home, at school, on the bus, in the back of a car. You are being manipulated by friends, governments, corporations and someone you’d like to manipulate too if you could only get them to think of you as cool…
How to market to teenagers
You have to get into their minds.
One of those square daily philosophy diary things that some guy had in his office one day said ‘Life is a journey of going from cocksure ignorance to insecure awareness’. We are all sure we know everything at seven to seventeen. It’s when you’re 27 that you start to question your own assumptions, and ask better questions. You have to get past their biologically based belief that they know all.
You need to either make them fall in love with your brand, which isn’t hard, given they are so full of hormones each and every one of them could jump-start the sex industry. You can use sexiness itself as a tactic, (the fashion industry is really only about sex, when it comes down to it) no doubt they focus on it. Or you could shake them like a football coach, shouting at his team during the half time break when they’re 20 goals down. On the subject of sports, celebrity endorsements work well, but chose your hero wisely. Pepsi is still often associated with Michael Jackson.
Give them a forum
The research says if you give teenagers a way of expressing themselves, of debating issues, talking about say the environment, or corporate governance, they appreciate it. If you’re prepared to view things their way, and not dictate what’s correct, they will treat you with the same respect. I’ve yet to see a marketer pull it off effectively, but I like the theory. I assume the best ‘forum’ would be chat rooms on websites. Particularly as 38% of teens are on-line more than once a day, according to Price Waterhouse Coopers.
Focus on your core brand strengths – don’t patronize
Look at Foxtel, Macintosh (I-Pod), Rimmel (The London Look). If you work on the basis that they are not stupid, but rather, just less experienced, and you don’t assume they have already heard it all before, cause they can’t have, you’ll focus on core brand strengths. If you do, you won’t need to segment as much. And no one likes being talked down to, but it’s worse if you use their language.
Speak in your own language
The kids absolutely hate it when an older person or a company uses their words or phrases. Speak in plain English, only. No matter what your research says, if it sounds OK to a 30-year-old – like how a teenager would say it, it’s cringe-worthy.
Media to use
Multi-media
Teenagers will listen to their I-Pod while watching TV and reading a magazine and doing their homework on the web. Giving all of them equal attention. I don’t know how. What that behavior does say however is that your creative better be bloody good or it won’t get noticed – it’s often competing with three or four other bits of very professional creative at the same time.
But which media?
Teenagers use all the media except perhaps direct mail, as few of them are on lists – they haven’t bought a car in their own name or registered for the dole etc.
I favor TV and some radio stations for mass. (1 in 4 children have a TV in their bedroom). SMS (teens want instant gratification and results and SMS provides this. and outdoor, (particularly barely legal street posters) work too – you can’t exactly avoid an ad at a bus shelter if you take the bus from there everyday to school. I think the soon-to-be-here video phone ads will be a great opportunity to get a message to them at a relevant time. You will be able to send a message when someone is within a certain distance of your store – ie. “Feel like a drink? There’s a Juice bar on the corner of High & Long Streets”…
The internet has a 75% penetration rate amongst Australian youth, teens are also the Chief Technology officer in their household. Yet 89% of 13 to 17 year olds have never made an online purchase. Due to a lack of a credit card. Have you tried online accounts where parents deposit funds and the teens can redeem them for points at certain websites, creating opportunities for tieing in parents loyalty cards.Digital credit where teens win points on websites, they are then directed to an advertisers site to redeem points for purchases. Or shopping via web-enabled phone, with charges applied to their monthly bill (hopefully) overseen by parents. And remember that the internet is not a boys domain as 48% of teen internet users are girls.
Getting a brand recognized as ‘cool’ is important, so advertising in the right magazines is vital. Teenagers read a lot of magazines as mags give them a chance to feel like they belong in that crowd, yet are not expensive. Dolly, Girlfriend, Smash Hits and many of the skateboard, surf titles, like Chick etc are effective, as long as your creative matches the environment.
Point of Sale
‘Cool’ packaging is a big winner in this market, as it is with any market. Anything bright and funky looking is usually popular with the younger female members of this group. Save the chic, streamline stuff for those in their twenties.
How to behave
Respect them
No-one wants to deal with a company which doesn’t make them feel welcome, and a valued member of the human race. Especially when you as a teenager suspect a company’s motivations. You can’t just say ‘we respect you’ either. You must prove it. Watch the kids entering a bank. Are the staff friendly, welcoming? Or do they stare at them, wondering if they are on drugs?
Educate them – Demonstrate
At few other stages in your life are you as open to information than at this stage. This segment represents a great opportunity to attract people who may be customers for many years. But they need to know why they should buy your product or service.
And frankly, as a marketer with an ad budget, and hence some kind of influence on their lives for whatever period, a blink of an eye or a year of the same series of ads run on TV night after night, I feel you need to communicate with them in a way that helps us as a society. Please do your ads with respect for our way of life and their long-term good. ie. If you’re going to show a gorgeous girl eating, don’t have her eating crap. If you are going to show people enjoying themselves, don’t make it hip to be stupid. I’m very sure much of the youth suicide epidemic has to do with their lives being hopelessly outside of where the kid’s expectations are.
Where you have a weakness in language – and we know you and I hardly speak it, and various tribes and ages use different terms (12-20 is a long road), you’re way better off to use visuals to communicate.
Teenagers are acutely visually receptive. They are observers. Which is why fashions are so critical. And so dangerous. Instant segmentation. Instant loyalties, values, instant dating of the ad…
But showing intelligent actions works fantastically. (Think of the current ‘you can’t choose your family’ Ad for Toyota Ecco) not for any arty or smarty-pants sake, but to demonstrate the product, the service, the benefit, the reason to be of the brand. And hopefully also giving the teenager tools for life. (ie. In the Ecco situation, you write the number down when the person calls. Derr.)
Given you are exploring the minds of our youth, I reiterate I think you have a responsibility to our entire society to do it with good intentions.
Here I need to add the key rider –if you can’t say something with entertainment value, something either emotive, beautiful or clever, you have absolutely no hope of holding their fleeting attention. It is far more cost effective to avoid trying to drum a dumb message into their heads, the cost of the media is prohibitive due to the need for repetition. Due to poor advice and a lack of either decent research or creative resources, lazy or silly management often spend a great deal more than they need to on communicating with teenagers. Use the powerful, scary creative. It’s cheaper to run and way more effective.
Yanking
Our kids live on a diet of American fast foods, wear American fashions, listen to music, watch American movies and TV shows and use American slang. This is nothing unusual across the globe – kids all over the planet are wearing Nikes, eating Hershey bars, listening to Eminem. It’s laughably referred to as ‘Globalisation’ by Americans and their cohorts. I see it as an invasion of our culture by another, larger one. And it’s simply a reflection of laziness and weakness on the part of our marketing managers. It’s so much easier to go along with the yanks and use their product choices, their ads. You’d have to ask what a marketing manager’s role actually is, if everything comes from the States. Media booker? Sales person? Only? And look what the effect is, over time – our kids become American.
Is that a bad thing? The answer depends on whether you think ‘Australia’ matters.
I don’t hate America. I wear American clothes too. I am using a Mac right now. But I don’t love America. I love Australia. And I want to defend it’s culture. We must look after our people, our way of life. It doesn’t have to be jingoistic crap with Waltzing Matilda as your sound track, but show Australians in ads. Use Australian locations. Use our words. Use our personality. (Don’t just use our voice-overs and hope you’ll get away with it, either.) Or we won’t have an Australia. We’ll be just another banana republic distribution point for Proctor and Gamble or Ford. If you really want to see where the balance lies, where the values are, try suggesting to your American bosses that they use Australian ads, cause you’ve already done them and our teenagers are the same anyway….
I don’t just blame Marketing Managers. Our media barons are doing exactly the same thing. It’s cheaper to fill our airwaves with American shows than make Australian ones. I loved watching Sex in The City, but I loved even more, for very different reasons, The Secret Life of Us. You’d hope Kerry or Rupert would give a fig about where they grew up, wouldn’t you?
You’d think those who influence our kids the most – the media, (besides you, Miss Marketing Manager, with your 30 seconds a time golden opportunities) would get a kick out of creating shows that actually make Australian’s proud to be Australians, and may-be our teenagers feel a little less suicidal, a little more motivated, wouldn’t you?
image sourced from Angie Wang
http://okchickadee.com/portfolio/willamette-week-illustrations/
What is it about young men? They just can’t take their hands off it. They love the intense. The detailed. The more maybe plausible, the more wonderful. The web is the absolute pinnacle of wank; there’s lots to get excited about and very little comes of the experience.
Despite the web’s huge faults, like the rest of them, I absolutely love the damn thing. I wouldn’t give it up for the world. As a buyer, I’m impaled upon the horn of a dilemma; I have to buy the web, and it’s great to work in, but how do I stop myself getting annoyed at the wankers?
Why do they Wank?
Web has the WOW factor. On the surface, the web offers the best of all worlds. An interactive one-on-one with customers, with TV style creative, at a fraction the cost per hit, often. And it’s sure to get better. It’s now an integral part of almost every campaign run in the western world. I’ve not had a client brief us on anything in 3 or 4 years that didn’t involve some element of working in with their web-site or creating a new one.
From the little school girl selling hand-made designs for Xmas cards to the grandmother giving advice on how to cut roses, the web allows commerce to bloom at almost no cost and with no barriers. As a servant of the species, I can see few greater political and social developments. It’s a damn shame it is really only helping us in the West, but in time…
It’s big for marketers
You can reduce costs while increasing the information and improving the sales experience. You can segment, hit and adjust messages instantly according to effectiveness; all this for almost no increase in cost per sale. And it can hit anywhere in the world.
You can get close
Theoretically you can develop strong bonds with customers via the web, especially with chat rooms and the like. By definition it’s got to be with people who don’t have a lot to do with their lives, but hey, if they have the money, who cares? Does your business interact with customers? Or do you just post up electronic brochures? You can do both.
You can hit on the ones you want
You can find anyone with the right search engine listings. People who want to get it off with caterpillars. You could up-sell them to butterflies. Cross-sell them a net or flowers, value add with repellent (to make them more of a tease) and perhaps a can of insecticide to ensure they have to come back to you for more once the relationship has died.
You can change your appeal in minutes
The blue coloured background is getting 57% more sales than the purple one. Let’s do them blue. Or you can play with the search engine keywords – see what happens.
You can tell your mates
Ain’t it nice to send a (retailer, wholesaler, even support staff etc.) customer to your website while you’re on the phone to them. You can say, “See the red one there? That’s the model you need. It fits and doesn’t it look great? And $300 less than the oppositions. How many pallet loads should I put you down for?”.
How to do it with a smile
I must start this bit with a caution. There are a lot of intelligent sounding 20 something’s running around spitting jargon at their customers. They wear stylish glasses. They look you in the eye. They believe what they are saying. They are much more ‘aware’ of what works on the web than you and I, except for one thing. They are full of shit.
What works is:-
1. getting people to your site
2. convincing them to buy something
3. taking the money from them
There is no other reason to operate a site, unless you’re in the charity business. I reiterate the blinkingly obvious here because so many people miss the point. Bottom line is all that counts in cyberspace, like any other media.
What to look for
Design – Always be good looking
The media does not dictate the message. The punters see your normal ads. They will see your website and expect the same. The punters expect companies to talk with one voice. They don’t have time to make distinctions. The basics of design, which you, or at the least your creative team, should know from other direct disciplines, must be adhered to. Appropriate and effective colours, good typesetting, keeping the message simple, putting emphasis on the products that have the best margins etc. and especially respecting and helping the punter’s purchase process, stay the same, regardless of media.
Dumber the better
I’m fairly stupid, so I’m a big believer in simplicity. That goes for everything on the web. If you don’t get it instantly, remember; neither will anyone else. Navigation is critical. You must make it drop dead easy for even the dumbest to find their way around your site.
First impressions count
Like any sale, the first few seconds are critical. Give them a moving front end, for 10-30 seconds. It will keep them entertained for the first short while as your back end loads. Ideally it tells them what the site’s about, or what’s on special. It hugely reduces the surfing effect – keeping them on your site. (Be careful your e-commerce system works with the programs. I’ve been warned there’s been some problems.)
Seduce your customers
Movement and sound give this. Sound is often turned off on people’s computers, but this is changing. I heard somebody is developing smell for the web (that will be great for selling things to eat and really interesting on the porn sites).
Dress for them
Make your pickies in the style of your audience. You can’t use stock shots or clip art, unless you want to look like every other pissy little home business trying to masquerade as a big company. It’s about standing out from competitors in a market, but still fitting into the punter’s expectations and within your branding. It’s a tricky art. It is often best to leave at least the ‘template’ design to your agency or design team.
Be a sincere brand
Stick to a theme. Make sure it’s in keeping with your normal corporate communications. Your brand you’ve spent years and millions building should not take off on a tangent just because some kid straight out of design school is working on your website and he wants to show something exciting to his girlfriend.
Buy off the rack
If you’re smaller, there are great programs around now like Sausage’s Business in a Box etc. which allow you to set up your own web-site or at least have your own team update it cheaply. Get your own digital camera. Shoot and upload yourself. It will save you heaps of money.
Old lines and tricks work
If you’re a bigger player, talk to successful big players. You don’t have to invent your own total systems, regardless of what the IT department says. Groups like E-Store have proprietary systems they may sell/lease to you that seem to work for large inventories.
Be deep
If they seek more information on whatever the topic is, have more if you can. It’s good to have facts beneath the hype even if they are just references or links. It gives you credibility. No-one buys from the shonky. Earn their trust. And remember people will often pay you to have their link on your site.
Like equals like
Book marketers do this well. They link a purchase of a book with other sales to people who’ve bought that book. They tell you those other people bought X, Y & Z titles too. It instantly generates up-sells, cross-sells etc. You could do that in almost any market.
As them the question
You can ask a few questions when they fill out the registration form. You can even do it with pop-ups as they skim through. (They tend to be a bit unpopular – it’s important not to overdo it.) Gather data any way you can. It’s good to know what your customers want and it’s bloody near free.
Update your act
Nothing upsets a customer more than incorrect information. And if you’re not careful, Professor Fels and the Australian Competition and Consumer Cavalry will get you.
Watch Out for ‘Maintenance’.
I hate the word. People doing something that can’t be updated unless they do it and charge for it, data holding charges, data transfer charges, the list is more extensive and harder to fathom than bank charges. Then again, you don’t want the thing clogging up when your TV campaign starts, because it can’t handle the volume. But be very careful what on-going costs you get locked into.
Get others to pay
If you’re putting in links, or want to show details about the products you’re selling etc. ring the supplier and ask them if they want to pay for the privilege. Think like Yellow Pages. Try ‘how about a few bucks towards our costs, thanks’?
Assure them you’re safe
From having a physical store, which gives the punters confidence because they can take back the goods, to safe e-commerce by using a familiar branded system etc.
Do the deed
Get the bloody sale. Some of the most successful sites are still only achieving sales of one in 500 to 1000 people who visit them. The worst problem seems to be abandoned shopping carts. The best system (and I’ve never seen it operate) would be live (or apparently live) contact via the site during the sales process. “I’m John, can I help? I see you’re interested in a Titanium G4, do you want us to throw in a DVD drive?” Another good closing device is increasing the expectation that they won’t get the deal unless they buy right now – “only 10 left – hurry”. Try anything. Only a few seem to have got it right.
Give it to them
Like all the other aspects of a sale, if you make the delivery hard or expensive, poof- they are gone. Offer cost and timing options. Deliver when you say you will. Or at least tell them what’s happening, and give them alternatives by email, so they don’t get angry with you.
How to buy the web as a media
Bigger is better
The big players, like the banks, telcos, TV stations etc. get more hits. They can afford to advertise their sites. More critical, we often have to use them since they’ve closed down all their branches. You can just rent space on banners, pop-ups, sites within sites and the like, but you can also do link swap-deals, share inquiry leads, value-add to their information and any way you do it, you’ll benefit from their huge catch nets. Yes, they want their pound of flesh, but you know if it’s going to pay very quickly. If you try the search engine, banner ads or whatever they are trying to sell you for a few hours and it doesn’t work, drop it.
Hits don’t always click
‘Hits’ could be gliches on the telephone wires. They could be people opening the page, saying to themselves “Shit, I thought I was going to Big Hunky Pricks, but I’ve landed on BHP, and they look bog ugly!” and leaving again. Yes, BHP has had a hit, but so bloody what? On the other hand if they click through for a while, ie. look at mineral prices, delivery systems and try to open an account, you’d have to say BHP is communicating with its market. At a cost of 0.1 cent to 10 cents a ‘hit’ (I rang a few) they don’t seem expensive in comparison to the per-click rate of up to $2.00, but it’s what you’re getting for the money that counts.
Pay by sale?
If they really think they have something sexy, offer the promoter a deal where you pay per sale. If they take you up on it, they’re either confident or stupid, which is OK by me.
Ask what else they can do for you
You can set up a banner ad so it automatically sends sms messages or more complex emails to punters, plays videos or music, runs searches, games etc. Sounds nice. Try the ideas on a small scale and please make an effort to track them.
Search Engines Sell
Some 81% of surfers get to your site via a search engine. Businesses that optimise your position on the right search engines can get you business, but watch their costs.
Look excited too
People who sell space on the web are often easily scared off. I think it’s the whole ‘we’re cyber surfers, not capitalists’ bit, but the poor little things get all shaky if you don’t look interested, so please be encouraging. Oh, why bother? Try this instead. “That sounds very exciting, are many of your clients actually making money out of it? How can you prove that to me?”
Where are you going now?
As it speeds up and becomes more focused on working efficiently, on generating funds and opening up markets, the web will be one of our core marketing tools. It’s way beyond the fringe now. As it invades our homes (in fridges, on phones, replacing TV) the web will evolve into the thing you, as a marketer, will spend more time in than anything else.
It’s nice to know the web is destined to become much more user-friendly for everyone, especially very important customers like you and I. Let’s just hope it’s representatives become more realistic along the way. Remember the old saying: ‘Judge them on what they actually do for you, not what they say they’ll do’.