Starship Articles
We get it. It’s hard for ads to stand out from the crowd. There’s a lot of noise out there and it can feel like the big, expensive, TV campaign you’re funding is just going to sink into the void, making only a tiny splash for your efforts. Stuff like ad jingles don’t just cost money, nowadays they might not even be an appropriate use of your budget spend, given the number of options out there. TV viewership is dropping, especially in the younger demographic, who probably watch more Netflix and YouTube than TV, and likely have adblockers to skip past any prerolls on YouTube. To get wide viewership on your ads, chances are you’re going to have to get people to share it around and choose to watch it. How do you get someone to watch your ad when people are increasingly time-poor and there’s so much free content about cute animals out there?
Do you touch on an issue that you know is going to get traction by being “controversial”, like Gillette?
(We watched the ad and don’t understand why it’s considered controversial.) Spend big money on a star who’s highly popular on social media?
Or like Skittles, make an ad that isn’t an ad?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nIJCtq9KOk
How about Ricky Gervais’ hilarious non-ads for Optus?
Or Geico’s unskippable and unusual pre-rolls?
That’s just the thing, isn’t it? Anti-ads are funny. They tend to get shared, because face it, if you ask any non-agency member of the general public out there whether they like being served ads, they’re likely to say that they don’t. But they’re likely also to have seen ads before that they liked, even if they don’t like ads in general. Chances are, that’s because the ad that they liked was not at all like ‘ads in general’. They were funnier, different, useful, or touching — in some way, the ad had risen above the usual crowd. They were, in some way, not a waste of time.
How To Make Ads That Aren’t a Waste of Time
The reason ads get such a bad rep is because a great deal of advertising is useless fluff created to get people to do something that they don’t want to. The harder the thing is to do (change their insurance provider, for example), the better the ad has to be. The ads have to be entertaining, one way or the other. Either by being educational, or touching, or funny, or something else. That’s one thing that some clients and agencies don’t quite get. An ad — whether offline or online — is at its most effective a piece of entertainment created with a message. Unbranded content is all well and good–the sponsored short film without direct product placement is popular nowadays, like this collaboration between Morton Salt and OKGo:
These films do go viral, but after watching that OKGo film, do you feel the intense need to buy that particular brand of salt? Or salt in general? Thought not. Maybe the stills can go into a tacked-on addon campaign or onto other touchpoints, and they definitely haven’t wasted the viewer’s time, but was it worth making? Maybe. Consumers might now be aware that this particular brand of salt exists. The next time they buy salt, they might — maybe — give it a go.
Good advertising, anti or not, is pretty about finding the sweet spot between creating a piece of entertainment that someone is going to like to engage with and a product that has a decent return on investment for a client. Think of it this way: there’s so much free unbranded content out there, like funny cat videos. If your ad is somehow even fractionally as worth watching as a cat trying and failing to make a jump, you’re nearly there.
The Elephant in the Room
The elephant in the room in advertising is cost. Anything in life that’s worth anything costs something. Same goes to a good ad — although nimble agencies like us can do a lot with less, we can’t do a lot with nothing. You do often get what you pay for, especially if your ad needs voice-overs, talent, CG, or styling. Advertising can feel like a risk, we understand that. And for certain organisations (NGOs, government etc), a splashy ad budget can look out of touch and lead to bad press. That’s where anti-advertising can come in. If you have a small buck and want to make a big bang for it, it might not be a bad thing to do something different. It’s best to talk to a few agencies to figure out what can or can not be done with the budget you have, if you aren’t sure. And you’d be able to get a decent feel for the industry. Want to have a chat about it, no strings attached? Get in touch.
If you’re mired in the particularly tiny, shiny bubble of the internet populated by designers, you might have noticed that Zara has rebranded. Rebrands aren’t unusual nowadays, particularly for fashion brands. Instead of taking the usual step of rebranding into a featureless sans-serif, Zara chose instead to move to a more beautiful, taller serif that would reflect an attempt to move towards a more luxury-esque market. The only problem was their apparently inexplicable decision to consider kerning optional. Unsurprisingly, the internet had a field day:
That is the worst piece of type I’ve seen in years. Was this done by one of those new robots that will replace humans?
— erik spiekermann (@espiekermann) January 26, 2019
Zara have updated their logo. pic.twitter.com/GhhQziNV1D
— Fabio ✌︎⁂ (@fffabs) January 26, 2019
If you’re one of those fashion-unconscious people who read this far without knowing with Zara is, I probably don’t know you. Zara is a Spanish fast-fashion brand, aka one of those cheap-ish brands proliferating everywhere in the world which try to get you to buy cheap-ish clothes that will break apart or discolour in a few years so you’d have to pop by and buy some more. There are lots of other brands in this space, like Uniqlo, Sportsgirl, FCUK, and Giordana, all of which occupy various spots on the sliding scale of cost. Zara is kind of on the higher-ish end of this scale, which is probably why they’ve tried pushing towards a more luxury look. Luxury-ish. Like its other fast-fashion brands, Zara is bad for the environment, bad for people in emerging economies, and they also tend to steal designs from independent artists. If just thinking about all this has started to make you mildly depressed, welcome to late-stage capitalism.
The rebrand was by Baron & Baron, in a “collaboration” between French art director Fabien Baron for the brand’s Spring/Summer campaign. Brand marks don’t live by themselves — they exist to be expressed across collateral and other aspects of brand communication. In this aspect, the branding doesn’t look too bad:
The serif is graceful and elegant and does look like something that a high fashion brand or magazine would use. It’s still readable. And now it’s memorable… for the wrong/right reasons. It breaks type rules and it’s visually ugly but it works. Is there a problem?
Life is already ugly, why make it uglier
In August, Burberry tapped renowned designer Peter Saville to redesign their logo, giving him a deadline of four weeks despite his protest that the deadline was “crazy” and a project as immense as a rebrand of one of the most iconic British brands in the world would require at least four months. The result was this:
Which looked pretty much like what I thought a four-week rebrand would look like. Not sure why they decided to do away with the classic tartan, but a recent Burberry visit indicated that the tartan and tan colours aren’t about to leave their fabric designs anytime soon. Which brings us to the point — why even bother to rebrand? Rebrands should be a considered process. Saville should’ve been given the four months he asked for. Not that all rebrands take that long — it’s entirely possible to create a brand in four weeks — but given the complexity of this particular project, time was necessary. Anything else would’ve looked a bit half-assed. And a half-assed design is one that’s unlikely to last.
People are always angry on the internet
That being said, even if you do come up with a good rebrand, more often than not people are going to hate it anyway. Google’s rebrand, for example, was necessary:
Their old branding was dated, and the new clean sans serif font worked well at small resolutions on screens. It looked sharp and clean and fun. People hated it. Michael Bierut wrote a recent article titled “Design as a Spectator Sport”:
The basic starting point of Graphic Design Criticism as a Spectator Sport is “I could have done better.” And of course you could! But simply having the idea is not enough. Crafting a beautiful solution is not enough. Doing a dramatic presentation is not enough. Convincing all your peers is not enough. Even if you’ve done all that, you still have to go through the hard work of selling it to the client. And like any business situation of any complexity whatsoever, that process may be smothered in politics, handicapped with exigencies, and beset with factors that have nothing to do with design excellence. You know, real life. Creating a beautiful design turns out to be just the first step in a long and perilous process with no guarantee of success. Or, as Christopher Simmons put it more succinctly, “Design is a process, not a product.”
Zara’s new logo isn’t the best solution to its new needs, but it’s a product that suits it well-enough — or at least, well-enough for the client to have bought it from Baron & Baron. We’re curious to see how it was sold through, even as we try not to get a headache from the painfully narrow shunt of space between the Z and the A.
At Starship, our design solutions are worked on in collaboration with the client and with other necessary stakeholders. The end-result isn’t often close to our original concept, but if it works for the client and for the purpose it was made, that’s what we want. We’re here to help, not to take over. Want to learn more? Get in touch.
Near the Christmas break, I participated in a black market exchange. It did not involve drugs.
I’d become a fan of a Chinese web novel with a multi-part animated series that had amassed a considerable following of fans. This meant fanwork being produced at fan conventions, where rows of booths sell fanart, pins, and other merch that they’ve created. There aren’t that many big conventions in Australia compared to Asia, so I was happy to be able to attend one in Singapore while I was there on break. More importantly, I wanted to buy merch from the novel. Except that I couldn’t, even though it was there. This particular novelist was known to have a zero-tolerance approach to fanwork. Though she didn’t go as far as suing people, she did have a large army of fans who effectively enforced her decision.
This had the general effect of driving the sale of merchandise underground. A fanwork black market was created where people have resorted to a barter system, trading stickers, and other merch — or Pocky — for art. Promotion was limited to discreet little signs on booths or kept on social media. This had, unsurprisingly, no dampening effect on demand. I went to the convention on the second day, first thing in the morning, and most of the booths had already “sold” out. Remix culture sells, even if you have to access it through some sort of black market. It sells because the customer approaches the product with a pre-existing emotional attachment to the product. That’s why a lot of ads try to tie in to popular movements and media, memes, pull in celebrities, and more. It’s possible to do this right. It’s also possible for it to go wrong — even when you don’t want it to.
Remix Culture and Modern Advertising
You might have seen a brief stoush that popped up during the Superbowl, aka the grand finals of some sport that only Americans really care about that sells the most expensive ad slots in the world. T-Mobile aired a Superbowl ad about its partnership with Lyft that used the popular “This is your Uber driver” meme/joke by @decentbirthday:
There was a furor on Twitter where various users assumed that T-Mobile had stolen the ad, and @decentbirthday eventually had to post a tweet assuring everyone that T-Mobile had licensed the joke from them:
It was licensed, don’t worry! Love y’all
— decent pigeon (@decentbirthday) February 4, 2019
Why did the general public instantly assume the joke had been stolen? Probably because the creative industry doesn’t generally have a great track record on this point. You might have seen the ongoing backlash against the extremely popular Instagram account @fuckjerry, which used to boast 14.3 million users, a following that was built on stealing jokes and content from other people despite being called out for it. The owner of @fuckjerry, Jerry Media, is a social media company that went on to do the social media advertising for the now-infamous Fyre Festival. After that collapsed spectacularly, they then proceeded to produce the popular Netflix documentary that was out this year. A reckoning has been arriving for Jerry Media as comedians and other celebrities banded together to drive an unfollowing campaign, but it stands to see whether the total effect on them would be more than the loss of a few hundred thousand followers.
Moral of the story: Want to use popular memes and jokes in your advertising? Best not to — unless you’re willing to license them and yet still cop possible abuse when people think you’re a thief. Yes, brands get away with copying all the time, especially when swimming through the gray area of copyright law. Not just Jerry Media, but fashion brands like Zara and Old Navy famously copy not just independent artists but big brands like Balenciaga. You might legally get away with it, but you’d damage your brand in the process. In an ad? Copying will just make you look desperately out of ideas.
Advertising Copying Advertising
In 2017, McCann was accused of copying a 2014 ad from South Africa in their work for the Phillippines Department of Tourism and promptly got fired from the $13million account when the similarities were pointed out online. Both ads involved a visually impaired man who visits a foreign country, has various experiences, and whose disability is only revealed at the end when he pulls out a cane at the end. Initially, McCann said:
We acknowledge the feedback that the way this story was told may have similarities with the South African tourism campaign. It is unfortunate that the Philippine Department of Tourism has been called out and accused of plagiarism, for work we have done to highlight the testimonial of a real retiree. We take full responsibility, as all ideas and storyboards presented were conceptualised by McCann Worldgroup Philippines. We also underscore that there has never been any intention to copy others’ creative work. McCann Worldgroup Philippines has always strived to adhere to our guiding principle, ‘Truth Well Told,’ in everything we do. We stand by the integrity with which this campaign was developed.
It’s entirely possible that McCann developed the ad without realizing the South African one existed, though you’d think that an agency that big would have done better due diligence on competitor ads before pitching the concept. In 2014, AirBnB launched a new logo that was promptly called out for looking exactly like the brand identity of Automation Anywhere as well as to a decades’ old design book:
What Chen does bring up, though, is the role of design and the thought-processes behind making a logo, where designers will agree: nothing is original.
“Logos can’t be too unique,” says Mike Hankin, product designer at London design company morrama. “Design is more of a science than an art. In the arts, you can constantly innovate and try out new things. Art, unlike design, doesn’t have a job to do.” Designers have clients who want to stand out and a logo’s role is to communicate a company’s values or a product’s intended purpose. Yet standing out too much in the saturated marketplace can result in something that’s disastrously uncomfortable or equally forgettable, like the design for the 2012 London Olympics, which was criticized for resembling a Nazi symbol.
Design, as in advertising, can’t be too original — or it’s unlikely to pass client muster in the first place. Unless you happen to have a client who loves risk. So we remix things that already exist to create something hopefully new enough to be something different, but not too different.
Advertising Eating Everything
Back to the Chinese web novel. In the animation, there are these hilarious Cornetto ads, where scenes from the animation are recut to sell Cornetto ice cream in a hilarious way, with the actual voice actors saying new lines. It’s funny and terrible at the same time but it worked — although I don’t like ice cream or Cornetto, I went to the convenience store near my apartment and bought a goddamned Cornetto. It tasted like sugar and my personal failings.
Remixes and advertising can work. Whether it’s branded films, ads, or something new. Want to learn more? Contact us.
Are you browsing a website on Chrome? Head to your website and check out the address bar. If you’re a business, ideally your IT people have already switched over your site from HTTP to HTTPS, given you the nice green lock icon and a ‘Secure’ statement. If they haven’t, or if you have no IT people, chances are your website either has a “!” mark or it’s already been marked “Not Secure”. Once Chrome version 68 comes online, all non-HTTPS sites will be marked “Not Secure”. The Register has already called it the “looming Google Chrome HTTPS certificate apocalypse”:
Tens of thousands of websites are going to find themselves labeled as unsafe unless they switch out their HTTPS certificate in the next two months.
Thanks to a decision by Google to stop trusting Symantec-issued SSL/TLS certs, Chrome browser users visiting websites using a certificate from the security biz issued before June 1, 2016 or after December 1, 2017 may be warned that their connection is not private and someone may be trying to steal their information. They will have to click past the warning to get to the website.
But wait, you might say. I don’t use Syman-whatsits. I don’t even use Chrome, I’m a diehard Mozilla/Internet Explorer/Safari user. If you’re using Firefox/Mozilla, good for you, it’s apparently faster and more secure than Chrome, but its low integration with Tweetdeck tanked it for us. Like Google, Mozilla has already been pushing people towards HTTPS for a while: all new Firefox features in 2018 will only work with HTTPS. If you’re using IE or Safari… eh… sure… but HTTPS websites are also visibly marked secure on those address bars. Inaction will still hurt your website even if you can’t see its immediate effect. It will affect your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) — you will rank lower on search engines and receive fewer visitors to your website.
Hang On, Slow Down, What Even Is All This?
HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, and the ‘S’ at the end of HTTPS just stands for Secure. It means all communications between the site and the browser are encrypted, protecting sensitive data such as online banking and forms. Initiating a HTTPS connection to the website gets the website to send you its SSL certificate, a public key that allows you to begin a secure session with the website. Think of it as heading into a bank to talk to a banker. Instead of talking to the banker out in the lobby of the bank, you get a key for a secure meeting room where you can talk about your financial matters/health issues/your dog in relative security.
Benefits of having HTTPS certification include:
- Customer info is encrypted and can’t be intercepted (between the browser and the website).
- Visitors can see that you’re a registered business and own the domain.
- Visitors are more likely to feel that you’re a trustworthy business.
- It’s good for the health of the internet in general.
Visiting only HTTPS websites does NOT mean that people can’t get scammed online:
- Yes, nefarious websites can also acquire a HTTPS certificate. In the words of the Mozilla blog, the job of HTTPS is to provide you with a secure line. It doesn’t ensure that you’re not talking to crooks with the line. As a business, this means having to be actively conscious of the possibility that people might be using phishing to mimic your site to trick your customers.
- HTTPS certification helps prevent people from seeing what info you submit to a website. There are other ways that attackers can use to gain private information: keyloggers, for example, are malicious software that log every key that you make on a keyboard, then email that information to a hacker. And of course, hackers routinely hack customer databases such as Sony’s and Adobe’s to acquire data like passwords and credit card details.
So What’s Happening?
Many sites have been migrating to HTTPS over time. Chrome’s deadline came about because they think that by July, a sufficient majority of websites would have moved over, enough that they can brand all remaining HTTP sites.
Google and Mozilla have already been trying to nudge people from unencrypted sites for years. Remember clicking through to a site and then running head-first into a “You’re About to Enter a Not Secure Website Error Error Are You Seriously Going to Do This” kind of page? Scary, right? I’ve left sites before instead of heading through. That happened because of the stoush between Google and Symantec (check out the Register’s article above if you’re curious) which resulted in Symantec selling off their SSL certificate business.
Let’s Encrypt and Other Solutions
Your hosting provider might already have an inbuilt solution on hand — contact them if you have any questions. If they don’t, you’d have to get a SSL certificate from an authority. You can get ones for free from Let’s Encrypt. There are instructions for installation in that link, as well as a list of hosting providers which are Let’s Encrypt compatible. For those that aren’t, you could either choose to live with HTTP or try to do it manually. Need to know more? We’re happy to chat.
It’s the New Year. We’ve woken up hung over from parties or jetlagged from travel. It’s the first week of work. There’s a whole new year to look forward to, at least once the hangover goes away and we’ve cleared off all this leftover champagne. Something’s always surreal about the first week.
Here are our tentative predictions for the industry this year:
- Conscious advertising: 2018, particularly the tail end of it, had a few self-owns that were completely avoidable. “Any press is good press” doesn’t work in 2019 — see what happened to Dolce & Gabbana when they pissed off the Chinese market with racist advertising. By diversifying the decision-making process and being more self-aware, the creative industry can avoid more pitfalls like this in the future. Hopefully.
- Ephemeral content: With the increasing popularity of brief content like Instagram Stories and Snapchat, it’s clear that in a noisy media environment short and punchy content spread out over a consistent period of time is more likely to resonate with a younger, more time-hungry crowd. Leverage influencers, whether in a traditional sense, or spread the budget over a series of ‘micro’ influencers — all this will help you reach a bigger audience at a faster rate.
- Authenticity: Native advertising has been on the rise for some time, and that’s unlikely to change. As an increasingly media savvy crowd loses interest with branded content, which has to contend with a ton of free content out there, for branded content to stand out it often has to be as unbranded as possible. Informative content that builds credibility is the way forward, especially as more and more people learn how to block ads. Advertising that seamlessly integrates into the audience’s media experience without being obnoxiously intrusive would work best.
- Environmental Stuff: Stay green, as much as you can. With the world supposedly burning down in 12 years, consumers increasingly appreciate any effort to stay green. Whether it’s a carbon offset, or better packaging, or using less water, there are a lot of options out there for any company.
- Stand for Something: Brands have to increasingly align with the lifestyle of their audiences, and audiences like to see their money apparently rewarding brands that support the things that they do.
- Digital over Traditional: While traditional advertising still has its uses, it’s often more effective nowadays to have a strategic digital campaign.
- Inclusive Content: Having an inclusive and respectful approach to advertising won’t just expand your target audience, it might strengthen the brand loyalty among your current customers.
Want to know more? Contact us.
Here in Starship, we listen to a lot of podcasts. The creative director likes a mix of American politics and true crime, our social media manager’s trying out Serial, and I’m more of a law/politics person. Unless it’s Game of Thrones season, then it’s Game of Thrones all the way. Pity we’ll have to wait till next year for the ice dragons. Dragons aside, podcasts are a fun way to get some background noise while cycling home, during a daily commute, or helping me get into the zone. Usually, the stuff I listen to doesn’t really have that much of a bearing on advertising and marketing. When it does, it feels random. Like last week, when one of my favourite podcasts touched on one of the important questions of many modern ad strategies: TV vs Digital Advertising.
This question was asked on the highly popular American political podcast, Pod Save America: “When was the last time you watched a television ad?” The hosts, Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor, were Obama staffers who were with him during his campaign and on into the White House. Dan Pfeiffer was the Communications Director, the Jons were speechwriters, and Tommy Vietor was the National Security Spokesman. The episode was discussing American political advertising in general, but the points made were:
- Current strategies that are direct mail, TV, or phone call based are based on outdated views of how people communicate.
- When was the last time anyone paid attention to something in their mailbox or answered an unknown phonecall?
- If a political consultant recommends a bigger budget on TV instead of digital, get another consultant.
- Offline touchpoints are an inefficient way to communicate.
Ooh. Fighting words.
Digital Generation
Pod Save America was discussing advertising in terms of US political advertising in particular. We’ve discussed political advertising before in greater depth here, so we’re not looking to reinvent the wheel. Thinking about whether or not digital advertising is more useful than TV for a particular campaign would depend on a variety of factors:
- Who you’re trying to reach: your target audience.
- The product or service or idea that you’re trying to sell.
- Your KPIs – key performance indicators, or the goals you want to meet.
- The targeted geographical area
- Your budget.
You can figure out a lot of what’s right for you by setting aside a bit of money for research. Should research be relevant to your particular goals, we recommend doing it — Starship routinely arranges tailored research solutions for clients looking for some certainty. That being said, with the internet being now a core part of everyone’s life, it’s highly likely that a digital campaign should be part of your strategy regardless. According to a 2018 Digital Report:
Australia has some of the highest penetration numbers in the world – 88% internet usage, 69% of the population are active social media users with mobile penetration at the 78% mark, which puts Australia in the top quintile globally across all measures. Additionally, AU’s social usage on mobile is the fastest growth area at 7% year-over-year.
What we did find surprising, however, is how much time Aussies spend on the internet – 5 hours and 34 minutes daily – up 15 minutes since last year. Granted, this is a far cry from Thailand’s 9+ hours a day on the top end, but it’s still a meaningful amount of time, which is broadly attributed to Australian’s further integration of digital technology into everyday life. Our key takeaway? The majority of that time – 1 hours and 39 minutes – is spent on social media.
Facebook still reigns supreme. It isn’t dying — its usage has grown 6% in the last year alone. With the amount of time that Australians spend online and on social media, targeted digital offers can be a highly cost-effective way of reaching your intended audience. We’re not talking just dinky little banner ads. We’re talking about a social media presence that produces great content that engages with your target audience over multiple touchpoints.
The Relevance of TV
Maybe things are different in America — in Australia, people do still watch TV. According to B&T:
According to the latest Australian Video Viewing Report by OzTAM, Regional TAM and Nielsen, 19.64 million Australians watched broadcast TV on in-home TV sets each week between October and December 2017.
While 18 to 24-year-olds are relatively lighter viewers compared to other age groups, 63.1 per cent of this group watched broadcast TV weekly. In total, Australians watched 74 hours and 58 minutes of broadcast TV each month in the latest quarter.
Even with the ease of playback and record in today’s technological society, 89 per cent of this was watched live-to-air, 8.8 per cent was played back within seven days, and 2.3 per cent was shifted between eight and 28 days of the original broadcast. […] Australians over 18 now spend on average 21 hours and 36 minutes per month watching online video on a desktop, smartphone or tablet.
Twenty-five to 34-year-olds are the heaviest viewers on smartphones (12 hours and 31 minutes per month), while 18 to 24-year-olds watch the most video on desktops or laptops (11 hours and 59 minutes). Across the adult population, Australians spend on average six hours and 11 minutes watching streamed video on tablets.
As such, where relevant to the product and the audience, TV can still be an important part of a campaign. It’s not mutually exclusive either: assets produced for TV can be used in a digital offering. As to the cost of media expenditure on TV, it’s possible to target a TV buy to save costs and better reach the people you need. TV advertising can also provide a veneer of trust and legitimacy that a purely digital campaign may lack among older audiences.
Where American politics are currently concerned, the so-called ‘insurgent’ campaigns of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Presley were very much built on getting out votes from voters who either didn’t tend to vote at midterm elections or had never voted before — especially younger voters. In this regard, it does make sense to have a heavy digital push combined with a lot of door-knocking and grassroots efforts. Ocasio-Cortez and Presley didn’t get elected solely because of good digital advertising — they worked hard to connect with would-be voters on various levels. Meaningful engagement with a target audience is key. While traditional TV and advertising are definitely no longer 100% relevant to all products and strategies, it might still be necessary depending on the product and the research. Digital, on the other hand, is an exciting new aspect of advertising that can be very powerful when harnessed according to a strategy. Want to know more? Get in touch.
It’s politics season for Australia. I think. I’m not really what you’d call plugged into the Australian political scene — US politics sucks up so much air sometimes that it’s hard to remember that we actually live on the other side of the world. Australian politics has been trying its best to compete with the All-American show, though. You’ve got to give Parliament credit. Nevermind the weird dual citizenship stoush. John Fraser resigning? A known raw onion-eater deciding to seize the reins of power again? Random backstabbing? Rampant prioritising of profit and fossil fuel interests over the environment? Gang fearmongering along racial lines? We’ve even got a homegrown migrant-kids-in-cages situation, just that they’re being “processed” offshore.
Know what’s a notable difference between our politics and American politics? No, not the thing about who has or has not maybe declared war over Twitter. It’s the quality and saturation of our ads. Wait! Before you roll your eyes and click away from this article, we’re serious. It’s important. Not as important as whether or not someone should be able to decide global foreign trade policy via Twitter, but the fact remains that despite (or perhaps because of) the proliferation of social media and the digital age, political ads still matter.
We’ve mentioned this earlier in our blog — not so long ago, 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won the Democratic primary for the 14th district in New York, unseating the 4th most powerful Democrat in the country. A year ago she was a waitress, and she’d never held political office before. She didn’t just win — she smoked her opponent in a landslide upset. And she did that through hard work, turning out voters who didn’t normally vote in a primary, and through a masterful ad that she wrote and which went viral:
She also had some great branding, which we note that a certain Canberra Australian Labor Party politician has copied:
Hey, Aussie political parties! We know political branding tends to get short shrift in your budgeting when it really shouldn’t. Great branding matters. Especially personal branding. We’re happy to talk if you need some help. No need to rip off American brands. Unless you’re a certain raw onion-eater. Branding can’t help you there.
The Good
No discussion about political advertising in Australia is complete without a nod to the Labor Party’s 1972 ad, “It’s Time”:
Featuring Barry Crocker, Bert Newton, Graham Kennedy and many more well-known Australians, it set a standard for Aussie political advertising, starting a trend where everyone wanted a jingle. Labor went on to win the election.
Political advertising has, naturally, evolved since the ’70s. In 2009 the Obama for America campaign became the first political campaign to win a Grand Prix at Cannes. The campaign won two, in fact — an Integrated, and one Titanium for the Great Schlep (feat. Sarah Silverman, by Droga5):
“[The campaign’s leaders] were curators as much as creators,” Mr. Droga said. “They created the framework and allowed others to contribute.”
That framework included a digital focus on tools such as Twitter, Facebook and text-messaging. U.S. juror Rich Silverstein, of Goodby Silverstein & Partners, said, “There will never be a political campaign that doesn’t use what they started.” –Adage
Nowadays it’s not just about a beautiful, tightly-shot ad with a great narrative. Campaigns have to be fully integrated, covering multiple points including social media, online, offline, voter events, door-to-door and other aspects. Further, things that go viral, that convey a message, and (preferably) bring you some positive attention also help. This great Aussie Greens MP video, for example, went viral on Facebook and on YouTube, when he set fire to a river to protest fracking:
As at this point in time, it’s racked up over 10 million views on Facebook alone, and started a sadly brief conversation about fracking. Stunts like Jeremy Buckingham’s, the MP in question, cut through the noise because they’re heartfelt and shocking.
The Bad
Wow, there’s so much that’s bad. We don’t know where to start. Maybe with this most recent effect by Nick Xenophon:
Um. So bad that it’s good? Or just bad? Of his performance, Mr. Xenophon reportedly said: “That was a traumatic experience for me but I’m glad someone’s enjoyed it.” Yeah, it wasn’t just traumatic for him, we think. It’s possible to do a low-cost ad well. This… probably wasn’t it. Was it as unsettling as the sight of Clive Palmer twerking in the name of political stunts? Not sure.
The Weird
Content warning ahead: explicit language. The Juice Media is a satirical site that creates “Honest Government Ads”, such as the following Visit the Northern Territory:
How does this have any bearing on political advertising in general? Humour often cuts through the noise. Barack Obama demonstrated an understanding of this through his 8 years of office, not just within his White House Correspondent Dinner jokes (Anger Translator, anyone?)–
–but also to push signature programs like signing up for Obamacare, by appearing on Between Two Ferns:
Humour also has a tendency to reach traditionally less-interested younger voters, particularly if it’s humour of the no-BS sort. Gaining a reputation for straight-shooting can be a good thing to have in politics. However, it’s a tricky thing to incorporate into a strategy, as it can backfire *cough* twerking *cough*. As with all campaigns, political or not, the incorporation of any feature into your campaign requires a strategy.
Quick tips:
- Keep things honest. In today’s world, it’s much, much easier to be caught out on BS, which can make your campaign backfire on you.
- Stick to your core message and keep it simple. Descending into policy wonkiness might work for newspapers, but it won’t work well in an ad.
- Keep things personal. The best modern political ads are deeply personal, introducing you for who you are and hopefully getting more people to know and support you.
- Have a strategy and a goal.
Want to chat about any of these points? Get in touch.
The World Cup Finals are coming, and you probably know the date — unless you live in one of the few countries in the world where football isn’t a religion. The World Cup (yes, the one involving ‘soccer’, which by the way really should be just called football) is unofficially the world’s most popular sporting event, not that you would know that living in Australia or USA. Billions of people tune in to the contest every four years. Not exactly for the quality of the football — if you’re looking for soccer played at the highest level, that’s club soccer, which has $$$ and isn’t constrained by passports — but for the drama. And the nationalism. And the weirdness. This year’s been no different. There have been big upsets, on pitch drama (Neymar and his infamous Oscar-worthy roll), off-pitch drama (a suicide in India, the father of Nigeria’s captain being kidnapped hours before the Nigeria-Argentina game), pre-game drama (Spain firing its coach 2 days before the tournament anyone?), rivalries (the endlessly litigated Messi-Ronaldo rivalry), technological drama (Video Assistance Refereeing is being used for the first time, with chaos) and just general drama (Don’t cry for Argentina…). Some people only tune in to football during the World Cup. If you love chaos and drama, it’s just so much more entertaining.
If you’ve been watching the games, you’re probably by now operating on low sleep, snacks, puzzlement (did Germany really crash out at the group stages? is Croatia seriously in the final?) and, possibly, a dawning realization that the logo mark, while well-intended, reminds you uncomfortably of things sold in certain kinds of dark-curtained shops. You might already have lost money on a bet. You might’ve been one of those lucky people who put a fun bet on South Korea against Germany and won scads of money, only to probably lose it again in the future. (Moral of the story: Don’t gamble.) You might have bought a jersey. You would most definitely have been bombarded by advertising in some countries, especially those with more lax advertising controls. You may or may not be surprised to find that there are actually strict rules with regards to advertising and marketing in the World Cup. So before you slap on some FIFA branding onto your last minute marketing tie-in… read this article.
Marketing During the World Cup
The Rights To Stuff™ is a hotly contested potato for FIFA. If you’re in Australia, you’ve probably noticed the SBS-Optus-World Cup stoush. Basically, different broadcasters often compete to acquire the rights to broadcast the World Cup games. FIFA negotiates the rights separately for each country. In Australia, SBS used to broadcast games on free to air TV. This year, Optus snagged the rights, with SBS gaining limited broadcast rights. However, Optus being what it is, the streaming was unstable during an Argentina game, and only got worse. When the Prime Minister feels obligated to give your CEO a personal call, you know that (1) you’ve probably messed up and (2) he’s about to do something unpopular (ICU Liberal Party budget) and needs a soft target. SBS is now broadcasting all the games for free again, and Optus refunded everyone who paid $15 for the rights to watch the World Cup. Frankly, we’re not entirely surprised by this development. A couple of us have Optus phone plans, and the reception cuts out all the time–on the way to East Richmond Station, the moment you go somewhat underground, in concert halls, in basement restaurants… so we’re not above feeling a bit of schadenfreude about this development.
FIFA also has sponsors in three tiers: FIFA Partners, World Cup sponsors, and National Supporters (which are all Brazilian companies):
“The six FIFA Partners have the highest level of association with FIFA and all FIFA events as well as playing a wider role in supporting the development of football all around the world, from grassroots right up to the top level at the FIFA World Cup. This allows FIFA and its Partners to form true partnerships, adding great value to the engagement for both sides. FIFA World Cup Sponsors have rights to the FIFA Confederations Cup and the FIFA World Cup on a global basis. The main rights for a sponsor in this tier are brand association, the use of selected marketing assets and media exposure, as well as ticketing and hospitality offers for the events.
FIFA World Cup Sponsors have rights to the FIFA Confederations Cup and the FIFA World Cup on a global basis. The main rights for a sponsor in this tier are brand association, the use of selected marketing assets and media exposure, as well as ticketing and hospitality offers for the events.
The National Supporter level is the final level of FIFA’s sponsorship structure, allowing companies with roots in the host country of each FIFA event to promote an association in the domestic market.”
Basically, FIFA wants its sponsors to get their money’s worth. Only sponsors can use any official imagery and descriptions of the World Cup. Everyone else can only use official branding if the content produced isn’t advertising, and if the content doesn’t imply an official partnership with FIFA or the World Cup.
There’s a whole new set of rules for social media, which we presume nobody has bothered to read, but basically:
- Don’t use the official logos, photos, marks.
- Don’t embed clips from your TV — FIFA has been busy issuing takedown notices.
- If you use the official hashtag (#WorldCup) you can be sure that your post will be found and scrutinised. For advertising content, we wouldn’t recommend using the official hashtag. There are lots of unofficial ones to run with instead — for example, the finals game will probably have #FRACRO, #CROFRA, and adjacent hashtags.
Sweden’s Football Association actually got sanctioned by FIFA for the unsanctioned use of unauthorised commercial branding on playing equipment items. So yes, it’s possible to get into trouble with FIFA even if you’re an official associated body. So have Uruguay and England. FIFA is not joking around.
Guerilla Marketing Is Still Alive
Even with the above restrictions, it’s possible to run a creative, impactful campaign without official sanction. JWT London created this incredible domestic violence PSA ahead of the England-Croatia semifinal that went viral online:
"If England gets beaten, so will she."
Domestic violence increases 26 % when they play. 38 % when they lose.
Extraordinary poster campaign in the UK, by NCDV. pic.twitter.com/SUMFxKLH6V— Dr Julia Baird (@bairdjulia) July 9, 2018
Similarly, while it’s illegal to display the rainbow flag in Russia (there’s a law that bans the spread of “gay propaganda” there) 6 activists found a way to fly the Pride flag in Russia — by wearing different jerseys in their “Hidden Flag” campaign:
The activists are Marta Márquez from Spain, Eric Houter from the Netherlands, Eloi Pierozan Junior from Brazil, Guillermo León from Mexico, Vanesa Paola Ferrario from Colombia and Mateo Fernández Gómez from Argentina.
They visited iconic places like the Red Square and the Russian Orthodox cathedral in Moscow, and also travelled on the underground and stood next to police officers.
Marta told Newsbeat: “Once we landed in Russia our first steps felt very scary, but little by little we realised that nobody knew what we were doing, so I started to relax, although I stayed alert.
“Over our five day visit there was no sense of real danger, nobody threatened us.
“Most people were very kind to us, especially the tourists who saw us as equals. However, if they had known what we were doing it probably would have been different.”
Is there an event coming up that you want a tie-in campaign for? Schedule in prep early. Want to learn more? We’re always happy to chat.
My cat is a purebred Birman, a fluffy fur-shedding machine created to have the temperament and self-preservation instincts of a soft toy. A year ago he ate an unknown substance that gave him acute pancreatitis. After several vet visits, a large bill, and an absolute refusal to switch to a fresh meat diet to save his own life, he was prescribed one of those depressing hypoallergenic soy-based vet diets. Yes, a sad fate for a creature that’s meant to be a hypercarnivore, whose distant ancestors were presumably gigantic and saber-toothed. These overpriced bags are only available online from a couple of venues. I order a couple of bags, cursing my cat all the while. Deciding to read something funny online to feel better about how the cat had effectively doubled his expenses for the near future, I notice that all the banner ads I see are from the petfood site. Which I just left. After already buying stuff.
This is Why People Have Ad-blockers
It hasn’t been a good year for Big Data. Programmatic may still be the biggest thing in digital, but the series of scandals this year isn’t a good look. Mark Zuckerberg had to face the admittedly ineffective US Congress over Facebook’s data practices, after it was alleged that Russia had purchased ads extensively on its platform to target varying American voters, spreading misinformation and possibly contributing to the election of Donald Trump. Zuckerberg’s response went from denial to acceptance of reality to a statement that Facebook is now in an ‘arms race’ with Russia. During the Senate hearing, Zuckerberg said:
- “It’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm”
- “In retrospect it was clearly a mistake” to believe Cambridge Analytica deleted data, without further examination
- He does not “feel like” Facebook has a monopoly
- That there would always be a free version of Facebook, leaving open the possibility of a paid, ad-free version of the social network
- Dealing with hate speech automatically has “a higher error rate than I am happy with”
- He was personally concerned about the possibility of political bias at the company
The privacy scandals have only continued. Tutorials about how to go incognito online, or erase your browsing footprint for advertisers, or quit Facebook altogether are now ubiquitous. We have to admit, we don’t blame people. Some of the articles that come up are downright 1984-esque. Like the apps that listen in through your smartphone’s mic to track TV viewing:
There may be a reason why that ol’ “Facebook is listening to you talk” conspiracy theory refuses to die – and not just because Facebook’s ad technology has gotten so good, it’s downright creepy. As it turns out, some apps are actually listening. Well, kind of! According to a recent report from The NYT, a number of apps using software from a company called Alphonso use the smartphone’s microphone to listen for audio signals in TV ads and programs, then sometimes even connect that data with places you visit or the movies you go see.
The NYT’s report found that over 250 games using Alphonso software were available in Google Play, and some were also found in Apple’s App Store. Some of the apps were games and others were aimed at children.
Oops. Maybe the memes were right. Not so much that there’s a dedicated FBI agent staring out at you through your webcam–we doubt the FBI has the budget for that–but the surveillance stage is surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) commercial. Thanks to big data, companies like Facebook and Google already know more about you than your mother ever did. And if that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will. After all, misuse of programmatic tools is one of the reasons why we’re currently in the darkest timeline.
ICU Facebook
If you’ve been taking public transport around Melbourne you’ve probably seen one of Facebook’s attempts at a public mea culpa: their global “Here Together” campaign:
An 8-week campaign, it’s part of Facebook’s attempt to patch a PR disaster. Considering 310,000 Aussies possibly had their data improperly shared by Facebook during the Cambridge Analytica stoush, we’re not sure how effective a snazzy multiple touchpoint campaign is going to be:
“This campaign has been in the works since the beginning of the year and builds on Mark Zuckerberg’s blog post acknowledging that Facebook users want to spend time interacting with their families and communities. We also want to take broader responsibility for the issues Facebook has had this year,” [Facebook A/NZ head of marketing, Alexandra] Sloane told CMO.
“We spoke to Australians, we used a research partner to obtain consumer insights, and undertook both qualitative and quantitative research focus groups. We wanted to hear what the Australian community expected from us, and we wanted to show them that we understand their concerns and demonstrate action around those topics.
“This is a global campaign, but the message has been adapted for Australian audiences. We’ve also launched an Australian resource/landing page with information.
“It’s an eight-week campaign with broad consumer reach and educates Australian users about the platform so they can understand what changes we have been making. We are taking action around fake accounts, data misuse and fake news.”
Facebook doesn’t actually apologise for the Cambridge Analytica incident, and even sort-of portrays itself as the victim in the campaign despite having made $40 billion in ad revenue last year off the personal data it has on people. While the defensiveness isn’t new–check Zuckerberg’s original knee-jerk response to the crisis where he disavowed any responsibility–the campaign’s tone-deaf by any measure. Yes, Facebook still probably knows what you like to eat for breakfast. Yeah, it’s promising to do better… on something or other. Some days it’s tempting to run away from it all and live in the forest, like the Wilderpeople. Not that that ended well for Sam Neill or Julian Dennison.
Want to see something scary? Check this out. Google and Facebook definitely know way more about you than you think.
So What Next?
Things you can do as a consumer if this article has freaked you out:
- Go incognito. Everywhere. VPNs. Burner email accounts. Multiple passwords. Use browsers like TOR. Imagine yourself as a spy living in a hostile city-state that’s out to get you. Tinfoil hat all the way. Use burner phones. Run away and live off the grid.
- Too over the top? There’s some basic things you can do: try and opt out of data collection on Google, on Chrome, and on your phone, among other things. A brief (lol) Google search will serve you well there.
- Stay aware. Find out which apps track you–whether through a mic or anything else–and decide whether you need the apps in your life.
- Routinely check your social media account settings and trim out the apps/sites you’ve given access to.
- Routinely check the cookies you’ve allowed and delete those you don’t recognise. Alternatively, use extensions that clear out your browsing history/cookies/data on closing your browser.
Things advertisers need to be conscious of:
- Build trust in consumers through the quality and content of digital offerings. No scams, nothing dishonest.
- Don’t get creepy when designing creative.
- Don’t get creepy in programmatic/retargeting strategy. If the customer’s getting too targeted, to the point that they start to feel that an ad is following them around wherever they go, they might develop a negative opinion of the brand.
- Don’t buy other people’s personal data…
- If collecting personal data via a survey/opt-in/account creation, be respectful of the data. Someone out there opted to trust you with their personal information. Treat that trust with respect instead of exploiting it.
- Yes, there should be a strategy. Don’t have one? Give us a call, we’re always happy to talk strategy.