Connection marketing is about looking beyond lines.

Let’s face it, EVERY single book on advertising refers to Bernbach and his work at DDB for the Beetle back in errr… 1959! Fact is the “Think Small” ad remains the best advertising campaign ever, certainly the one that marked the beginnings of the Golden Age of Advertising, 50 years ago…. Wait, 50!

I think it’s time to wonder who the new Bernbach is today?  Our industry is going through a revolution and I’m looking for this guy/gal because I’d love to be on board with him! In my search to trace this person down,  I’m looking at the ingredients that made “Think small” THE ad, and what would that mean if we were to reproduce such an impact in 2012.

Here are some of the major innovations this ad offered back then:

• Strategy: instead of the usual USP the angle here is to position the car as SMALL in days where everything was about being BIG. The game plan was to disrupt the category by promoting the new entrant as a completely new way of doing cars.
• Art direction: from painting, handwritten fonts to B&W picture and Futura as well as major innovations in the layout (the car isn’t centered for example).
• Message: the line “think small” combined with the visual assumes that the audience is smart and is part of the message resolution. There is a moment when you get it. The magic happens just here.

I think there is room today to recreate an ad that will change the face of advertising for the next 50 years. In the late 50s, the revolution was mostly contained in the message ; the 2012 revolutionary piece will come by challenging the concept of “media”, hence “ad”, itself.

The Anomaly, Naked, Sid Lee, Frog, WK… One of these might host the next Bernbach, here are some interesting similarities they share:

• The need to disrupt. By being independent. By embracing chaos in the way ideas are born and produced. By being media agnostic, not being attached to a media company as most networked agencies are. By being product agnostic, they don’t necessarily answer with a TV campaign, they are ready to answer without a campaign.
• The focus on GREAT story telling. Inspired from the world of video games and cinema, their ideas are stories. Not a one-line for a spot but stories that are easy to understand, to remember and to share (in any form of media from social to TV and retail).
• The need for change. They know advertising is changing and they want to lead the pack. They are very entrepreneurial and they want to master this change as soon as possible. So they don’t fear doing it, and experiencing new things with conviction. They select clients willing to embrace innovation as well as risk taking.

Who knows where the new Bernbach is… Names to share anyone?

What if brands could help us be more human? I just read an inspiring article  by Umair Haque @umairh.

I love the idea of reimagining prosperity and how to live a greater life. An idea that has caught my attention in different places these days.

Is there an opportunity here that brands should consider in their efforts to advertise differently (read getting more earned media)?

“ In an era where the prosperity we once took for granted appears to be crumbling around us, when the plight of the present seems to be somewhere between facepalm, headdesk, and epic fail, when the great challenges of today are nothing less than rebuilding economy, polity, and society — here’s what I believe you’re going to have to get lethally serious about: your own human potential, and how deeply, authentically, and powerfully, over the course of your life, you’re going to fulfill it.“ - Umair Haque

Let’s look at facebook.
As Mark Zuckerberg says it, the mission of his company is ‘to make the world more opened and connected.” He wants to help people discover more through their friends. He had a vision for fulfilling inherent human needs in order to make “our world richer”. Knowing that he reached out to almost a billion people now, he probably gave people something that made their lives better.

If we look at the new timeline feature on facebook, we can see that the individual is at the forefront. What she likes, as well as what she watches, reads, what she likes… At the end, it is a celebration of what makes her unique and interesting.

Smart is the new cool.
If we consider the “mass intelligent” audience (Slide 27) - those interested in ideas, receptive to new concepts and catalysts for change –  as key influencers for a brand, there is probably something to do with it to get more out of your communications dollars.

What if a brand could connect with them by helping them achieving more of their human potential? Well, if we are to change the advertising industry to make the world a better place, this one does it for me!

What if your brand started to (really) care for human beings?
Looking at the HBR article, the solution could be in one of those areas:

> Helping people cultivate their better self, share content that will educate on arts, wisdom, humility, grace… There is maybe a direction here for the media & news industries. Spotify is a great example as well as Nike.

> Helping people find and pursue their passion, help them be an active builder (PressPausePlay http://www.presspauseplay.com/ is a must-seen).

> Helping people experiment, understand and forgive their failures (indulge your brand for the same attitude, as facebook did also when Beacon was first launched).

Social is not a question of media, it’s the way your brand is acting with people. A facebook page cannot achieve it for you, your brand must embrace a social attitude in its overall plan.  An attitude that places people at the heart of what you do so you don’t make sense if it doesn’t make sense for them.

Finding this purposeful connection will help you create an authentic and valuable connection with real people.

The perfect mix

Well, obviously, there is no cookie-cutter template in our industry, so no one size fits all recipe I’m sorry…

However, owned and earned media are now understood and integrated by leading agencies as key pillars to launch and to sustain a brand when the mass media (read paid media) is shut down.

Objectives for owned and earned being:

• To extend the reach of the mass media,
• To engage with consumers in the digital sphere (data base/knowledge building),
• To raise loyalty among existing fans-clients (owned).

Inevitably, achieving those objectives mean that the mass media, aka “the campaign”, cannot live on its own in paid media anymore. It has to be part of a broader idea, a conversational idea.

The campaign should be treated a the spark in your annual marketing activities. The moment where you gather the reach you will work from the rest of the year. That’s a fact, we cannot pay massive mass media all year long and even if we could, we all know it wouldn’t deliver the expected results anyway.

So here are some (humble, feel free to comment) conclusions I’ve come up with in the last year by working on multiple POE communication mixes:

1. The communication idea is the start, not the media. It must be true to your audience’s behaviours as much as it needs to be true to your brand DNA. It is the element of connection between people and brands that will survive the paid media exposure. The #makeitcount campaign Nike released last week is a perfect example. Finding out this idea requires deep dive into existing conversations about your brands as much as your audiences. You don’t want to reinvent the wheel, if you can find something that already is a conversation, then go for it, this is your gold mine.
2. The raise of creative strategy. This idea cannot be purely creative anymore; an amazing story told in TV is not enough anymore. It has to embed a media potential in it. What is a media potential? This idea must be the start of an interaction whether it be sharing (The Force) or engaging consumers with the brand (Old Spice). This can be nurtured by inviting people to create something with the brand and its ambassadors (please read my last post on this topic where I mention pop-culture as the new insight).
3. From frequency to a call-to-action.  I’m under the impression that frequency is evolving to a new era where it is not only the role of the media buy to provide frequency. But instead the creative idea must embed a capacity for building frequency on its own. How? By embedding a clear call-to-action for example that will generate reach and frequency in social media (ie: Write the future).

Hence, the evolution of paid media which becomes a mean to capture attention, to touch the heart of the people you need to engage with to support your brand/your product. The messaging here being focused on sparking emotions more than building a traditional USP-USL messaging. It is not to say the full story any more, if you do a great job they will keep up with you in digital.

This is where the advertising industry as a lot to learn from the video game and Hollywood industries. Those two being at the leading edge of the culture of transmedia.

Who ever said a great creative idea should be contained and expressed in one distinct media support? Isn’t this fantastic that our industry has yet to reinvent itself?

Happy daring & innovative 2012 to all!