Curious Flip

SUBJECTIVE CONTENT TRUMPS OBJECTIVITY

On the 8th October 2008 Liberation's front page read "crisis I write to you...". This was the day when the Financial Crisis looked like it was entering a new uncharted depth and the British Prime Minister announced the UK government was suing the Icelandic one.

In the editorial Laurent Joffrin begins "All crises are also crises of ideas...", he continues "...with the radio station France Info we have decided to take a look at the troubled waters of the world's ideology. In this special issue we have therefore asked 17 artists, writers, intellectuals to give us their first thinking on this financial market crisis...".

On the same day The New York Times, Guardian, Repubblica and other major national daylies were full of  interviews and stories from different actors in in the financial world to chronicle the crisis, Liberation had the point of view of 17 artists and intellectuals. The previous day's fall in shares on the world's stock markets were the only facts reported.

I have just gone back to it a month later - after the crisis has discovered many more new depths.

As I look at it again it makes me think of many ads and other communication by  brands just stating objective facts about themselves - three thoughts spring to mind :

1. Fact based information has become so ubiquitours that alone it's a commodity.
2. It's easier to be interesting and stand out with subjective than objective content ideas
3. One way to make memorable content is to push an aspect of its cultural context to new levels.

In a world as global as today's, I can't help feeling that if I had not lived in France, I might not find the intellectual content interesting but uncomfortable.  i expect that just reading the titles of some the articles of this special "intellectual" edition is likely to make many non-french shudder.  

The professor of intellectual history, François Cusset, declares "that small word 'crisis' has lost the freshness of a new concept"; the writer Dominique Manotti states "It's neither moral or amoral, it is how it is"; the philosopher Jean-Claude Milner states "It's the crisis of a capitalism disconnected from natural resources"; the philosopher Yves Michaud says "The problem is that we lack a revolutionary theory"; the humourist Stephane Guillon writes "I'd love it if every frenchmam supported his bank with a smile"; Naomi Klein's article is titled "The ideology of the market-king will not die by itself"; and finally my favourite, the writer Frederic Beigbeder, sarcastically proclaims "we should canonize all traders".

I can's see any national newspaper in the UK or US would have thought of doing it, as in those culture this is sheer stupidity as it goes against the functional reason why newspapers exist - to report stories on what is happening in the world. Objectivity is the backbone of what they see as integrity.

I can't see this happening in a country like Italy. Forgetting for a second the impact of Berlusconi's media dictatiorship - culturally whilst the arts are close to Italians' hearts, populism is a key driver. Originality in Italy is driven by a desire to gain acceptance within the group. Intentional polarisation is not part of Italy's group culture.

In France this seemed almost normal. The replacement of hard 'objective' facts by subjective intellectuals' essays seems more memorable than another day of news. Originality in France is seen as driven by intellectual ideas; the risk of polarisation is as nothing more than a way of asserting a sense of individuality.

ANALOG RULES AT THE MUSIC FESTIVAL

In the digital age, analog is alive and well. I spent a day at Rock en Seine - one of France’s main music festivals, held in Parc of St Cloud, a few miles from the centre of Paris - and most of what was communicated was very rooted in analog.

Here’s my TOP 9 things of note, other than the music.

1. ROCK EN SEINE LOOKS GLOBAL
Many of the scenes I came across at Rock en Seine are the same I have seen in most other music festivals I have either seen or been anywhere in Europe and probably the globe. The bands lineup. The stages. The crowds. Art. The bars. Heineken. Plastic cups.

2. ROCK EN SEINE LOOKS VERY LOCAL
Two 20 year old students sipping champagne is a scene that felt very French and it did not seem out of place – as I feel it would have done at Pinkpop, Rock am Ring, Reading or even Glastonbury.

3. COMPETITIONS RULE
The most effective ways to capture attention of ‘youth’ seems to be very analog, interactive and to give the chance of walking away with a freebie.
Howard Luck Gossage lives. The way of doing marketing that was his trademark was being applied by many brands at Rock en Seine. The most popular way to attract 18-25s seemed to be COMPETITIONS. Levis did it, so did Samsung ; so did the drink+driving campaign ; so did SFR ; so did X-Box ; so did at least 3 other organizations that I cannot remember

4. RECORD COMPANIES LOVE LEAFLETS.  FESTIVAL GOERS HATE LEAFLETS.

Leaflet distributors looked to me like people playing catch, as they almost had to run to put the leaflets into festivals goers’ hands as these approached the entrance trying to avoid them. When they accepted them, they threw them almost immediately on the floor. Two clearly frustrated distributors handed me a bundle of the same leaflet to clearly get rid of it and move from brand employees to festival goers as quickly as they could.

5. FAST FOOD HAS DIVERSIFIED AND GONE GLOBAL
A pleasant surprise was the food. It was a fantastic feat for the eyes, the nose and, once I got to the front of the queue, the tastebuds. I was impressed by the variety. Chinese, Japanese, Creole, Grilled anything, pasta, pizza, crepes, tartiflette (fantastic) ; toulouse sausages (even better), baguettes, combinations of fruits smoothies, chips, kebabs, ethiopian, andouilette (for strong stomachs only), sweet fried stuff. Tastebuds heaven

 

6. GUITAR HERO ROCKS
My prize for best placement of any brand at the event goes to XBOX’ Guitar Hero. They had set up a stand with about 20 machines and after having given your details for a competition, you got the chance to unleash your inner rock star, as they say on the tin.

7. PROMO MATERIAL NEEDS POINTLESS CREATIVE USE TO GAIN VALUE
My favourte site of the day was the use of the Virgin Radio inflatable sticks. Someone turned them into a dog and used the free Samsung necklace as a leash to tie it to a tree and leave it there. Priceless.

8. THE MOBILE PHONE CREATES SOUVENIRS
Clearly everybody was texting, talking, and taking picture during the whole day, but when it got dark and Justice (a french electronic act) took to the stage the mobile phones came out in numbers to create souvenirs: personally recorded moments of the concert. If my clip is anything to go by, just like holiday videos, it feels very personal but likely to be near identical to most of everyone else's. Also the experience of taking the film as a souvenir to me was much more exciting than watching it days late

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9. AMIE WINEHOUSE DID NOT DISAPPOINT…SHE CANCELLED
As I walked to the big stage where she was supposed to perform at 22h15 all I saw were the screens that until then had been used to enrich the experience, used like the static boards announcing the competitions.

Like Amie Winehouse, in the digital age, digital had gone analog.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE USELESS

I was thinking of the paradox of working in communication of how to help generate positive surprise...consistently. So I was interested to read in ‘Daniel Gilber’s Stumbling on Happiness’ is that people are the only creatures capable of imagining what happens next.

In my purposeful procrastination I revisited the catalogue of ‘Le Grand Repertoire: Machines de Spectacle’. It was one of the best events I went to this summer. For most of August, the Grand Palais in Paris was filled with over 120 useless machines. Well, kind of useless, as they were machines made or recycled objects that are/have been used by french street theatre companies over the last 50 years. As each machine is unique, they are catalogued ‘unintellectually’ in four groups : small, medium, large and gigantic.

The machines’ names tend to be very functional : machine to make apples with the bite of Catherine Deneuve ; machine to produce smoke ; catapult to throw a piano ; moving bath; machine to break glasses ; chicken piano ; machine to create six romans for two actors ; machine to walk like an egyptian……and so on.

Unsurprisingly, my vote for the most impressive and prolific company went the ROYAL DU LUXE – they are behind the ‘Sultan’s elephant’ visit to London last year . I liked the philosophy (putting his media strategy at the beginning of the process) of its main machine builder – Jean-Luc Courcoult : use a town as the theatre to tell a story to the whole population – either directly or through word of mouth.

I found the machines of ROYAL DU LUXE the most spectacular. The most famous machine is ‘the Giant’, a machine that is 10 meters high, weighs 40 tons, needs at least 8 people to make him move and is preceded by a parade or similarly enormous creations.

I liked the fact that although they must have been planning this exhibition for a while, this most famous machine was missing from the exhibition and was replaced by a miniature replica. When I googled it, I found him parked on a chair with his feet in a river by the famous Pont du Gard. A fantastic sight. He clearly couldn’t be bothered to show up in Paris. How French !

My favourite machine was the ‘machine to spread nutella on bread slices’. The company that created it – Monique – had a very different philosophy : ‘our machines must be impractical. They exist to tell poetic stories.’ The machine took about 15 minutes to spread – not too efficiently – some nutella on a slice of bread for the delight of a child sitting at the end of the machine covered by two small theatrical curtains. His face at the end of the 15 minute was the best proof I could think of to evaluate the machine’s effectiveness.

I liked three things about these machines :
- their brand is built by what they do, not what they think or say
- they are the tool for telling the story, not the story itself
- they have the capacity to make you dream, but what you dream is up to you

Thinking about the two companies I ended up picking, they seem to fit with the 'stereotype' of the positively suprising ads; those which are either spectacular or very human and funny. Does this make my conclusions unsurprising? Damn.

I saw my target audience on a nightbus

Late last night, on my way home, I suddenly felt surrounded by my client's description of its target audience. Each of the 40 people that were sharing my nightbus, looked like people who had just finished to "maximize life", who believe that "life is about having fun" and "have a passion for life" - being on a nightbus seems a good proxy. I feel pretty confident they would have agreed that they "like to set their own standards", "like to experience something new and exciting", "have a sense of style", etc.

Ironically, when I recently challenged a client on how broad their definition of their target was, he pointed me to an academic research that says that competitive brands are bought by very similar people and that therefore brand level segmentation is a myth.http://members.byronsharp.com/7229.pdf#search=%22Kennedy%2C%20Ehrenberg%2C%20and%20Long%202000%22

The researches concluded that:

...the obsession with targeting distinct segments is often misplaced. Being competitive means selling to ‘the market’, not a special segment.

. So it seems that most brand audiences definitions are more of a reflection of how your client wants to see their audience.

Does this mean that bringing a broad brand target audience to life is a waste of time? I don't think so. Client and agency people need this definition to give them greater focus.

Thinking back at my nightbus fellow passengers, it didn't change my feeling that looking at real people remains a great stimulus for original ideas - however ubiquitous the marketing world defines their "segment".

3 ways to be part of CELEBRATIONS : #3 the brands

Sadly the brands were the least inspiring. I looked at the celebrations/commiseration ads in L'Equipe and in the Corriere dello Sport - unfortunately the Gazzetta dello Sport was like goldust on the day after the World Cup. It sold out by 9am and I missed out.

The ads in L'Equipe

The ads in the Corriere dello Sport

All of them say "I was there" without offending anybody.

None of them adds anything new to the celebrations.

None of them sounds like a true fan - none show any deep knowledge of the world cup, the team or the event.

Puma in Italy should have done something much more interesting. This was their first year of the sponsorship and they won. They could have made their investment work much harder, helping to build a much stronger relationship with the Italian fans. In France Playstation was a bit passive.Why, they are an insider into the virtual side of the game - with most of the players using the console in between games and with many relevant titles.

3 ways to be part of CELEBRATIONS : #2 the media

As an Italian living in Paris, coming back from Rome on the 9th of July (two days after the 2006 World Cup final) it was impossible to notice how the media actively became part of the world cup celebrations. I found interesting to look at their focus on the 'duel' MATERAZZI vs ZIDANE. Here's the two sides of the fence.

The Italian side

For the italian press Materazzi was one of the key heroes. The number of articles dedicated to his duel with Zidane initially was low, but began to increase as the media noticed that the issue was growing internationally. The main topic was on how he was the unlikely protagonist in all the key events in the final: the goal, the solid marking of Zidane, the Zidane incident, the well taken penalty. The Italian press initially treated Zidane as the hero who unexplicably slipped into madness.

Only after a couple of days, after they noticed the issue escalating internationally, they jumped on it posing (and trying to answer) what became one of the 'taglines' of the post-2006 world cup: what did Materazzi say to Zidane ?.

The French side

The French press were a lot more focused. For them the MATERAZZI vs ZIDANE was only about one issue. The question what did Materazzi say to Zidane ?, was central in their central theme: Zidane was forced into a crime; he is the victim. They helped embed that question into popular culture for weeks after the world cup - it became the equivalent of who shot JR?

They quickly understood and exploited the importance of 'brand' Zidane. In a country that is desperately looking to restore the lost national ‘fierté’ at a time of a deep cultural identity crisis, the media realised and leveraged Zidane as the most positive face of contemporary France.

Their way to leverage the World Cup celebration was to take a clear point of view - Zidane has been unfairly abused and provoked. Their communication was focused on becoming the champions of his defence - literally starting a movement by getting the country behind them. They even succeeded in helping shift the international focus away from Italy's victory, to the MATERAZZI VS ZIDANE duel.

The key characteristics of how MEDIA linked themselves to the World Cup celebrations include:

- they focused their creative work to amplifying an issue; the more focused the better (the french media were much stronger actors than the Italian one, as they had a clear issue)

- they used a star as a symbol for something much bigger than the sporting event (injustice, in this case) turning him into an underdog

- they were very tactical in their approach (although I guess that clearly comes with the role of the daily media) not just reporting on an issue, but actively creating and fuelling an issue.

Aided by circumstances, I give my 'effectiveness' vote to the French press over the Italian one (who was a just a relatively passive participant to the celebrations). The French had focus and a smart way of leveraging a star.

3 ways to be part of CELEBRATIONS : #1 the fans

I was lucky enough to be in Italy for the world cup final. It was fantastic. While enthusiastically engaging in sheep-like celebratory behaviour, I started to think about my most hated client brief of all times: do a celebratory ad to link a brand to the success of ‘its’ specific team/athlete, in the event of a victory.

So here I was, in the middle of one perfect group of creatives: the fans. So I started looking for how these fans celebrate ‘their’ favourite athletes.

My three favourites were:

1. THE HEADLINE :

The victory produced 100s of different spontaneous banners. My favourite

CANNAVARO MINISTRO DELLA DIFESA
(Cannavaro for "Minister For Defence")

A close second :
ZAMBROTTA SANTO SUBITO (Make Zambrotta a Saint. Immediately)

2. THE EVENT:

THE FAKE FUNERAL (of France)

In many places fake death announcements appeared on walls, cars and lorries carrying celebrating italian fans – it replicated the style of obituaries that you still find in any Italian village – especially in the South.

In Rome there was the appearance of a herse with a real coffin – empty, I hope - with the french flag draped on it and a notice:

On the 9th July France passed away, with the score of 6-4. Offer thanks to Zinedine Zidane

3. THE MUSIC

SEVEN NATION ARMY - WHITE STRIPES (po po popopoooo for Italians)
Anybody who found themselves in Italy after the world cup will have heard what is now know as the "Po Po PoPoPoooo" song. This contagious tune turns out to be the ‘Seven Nation Army’ by White Stripes. Even if no Italian knows the words, the track (and the album where it comes from, ‘Elephant’) has been sold out throught Italy since the world cup and everybody knows it as the 2006 Italian victory hymn.

The story goes, that Totti started it all when he sang it (well, hummed the tune, hence the po po popopoooo) at the San Remo Festival (an italian institution) where he went to surprise Ilary, his now wife, who was a presenter. The Roma fans adopted the tune and sang it at the Olympic stadium. The Italian fans then adopted it after this world cup – a first for Italy where national and club allegiances don’t mix.

I love the way fans' link themselves to the World Cup celebrations by using their deep knowledge of the culture and stories of the event’s sport (e.g. cannavaro’s role in the world cup or the song that Totti sang at the Festival for his girlfriend)

I love the way their "creativity" adds something to the event - a new way of viewing it, something other fans can appropriate and use.

Starting a Movement: two lessons from Berlusconi

The one thing I liked about Berlusconi was how he succeded in igniting two temporary movements; one intentionally and one unintentionally. Here's my thoughts on how he started each one whilst looking to builld authenticity for his political party.

INTENTIONAL MOVEMENT - 26th January 1994: FORZA ITALIA

1. BULLDOZE WHAT'S THERE - or be perceived as razing the past. Berlusconi started forza Italia like a media brand and not a political party - to start, Forza Italia challenged italian political convention by using more direct and modern language - largely borrowed from a key italians' obsession: football.

2. RAID CONTEMPORARY CULTURE - or steal to leverage a powerful symbol that already has meaning for the people you want to reach. Berlusoni hijacked one of the strongest symbols of passion and unity for italians': the slogan of the Italian football team, "Forza Italia!" He took the idea from the AC Milan's - a football club he owns - fan clubs and founded a series of 'clubs' rather than a political party.

3. PRETEND INDIFFERENCE - or make it seem that you are reluctant and will only launch if there's nobody else that can. In 1993 in an interview Silvio Berlusconi denied that he was founding a future political party and announced that he would intervene only if the moderate centre - anti-left - would fail to organize itslef.

4. INFECT, DON'T MARKET - or encourage 'infected' disciples to spread the message. By founding the national association of the Forza Italia clubs he created a hub that gave a greater sense of belonging and purpose to all the local 'clubs'. To unite them further he used football vocabulary and launched his version of the anthem of the "azzurri" - the name used for the Italian football team. Now they could call themselves "azzurri", just like the national football team.

5. REMAIN FOCUSED ON THE GUT - or launch the political party/brand by appealing to the gut. The 26th of January 1994 he announced on TV his decision to "enter the pitch" (football language) to repeat the "italian miracle" (leverage nostalgy for past good times) with a new "political movement, FORZA ITALIA, "lined up" side by side with the "Pole of liberty" (the undisputable good) against the cartel of the left (identified a clear enemy).

UNINTENTIONAL MOVEMENT - 4th April 2006: I COGLIONI

1. FORGET EVERYTHING - or ignore all the things you had done right in the past.

2. RAID CONTEMPORARY CULTURE - or at least pick every day language which has strong meaning for the people you are talking to.

3. IGNORE TARGET AUDIENCE - or forget that your target audience is not just your current customers, but also lots of customers who are still distant from your brand.

4. INSULT EVERYBODY WHO IS NOT YET A CUSTOMER

5. REPEAT THE INSULT - just in case people could not believe what they had heard the first time.

Is multicultural authenticity an oxymoron?

I came across a cafe in Paris' rue de la Mouffetard called New York, offering karaoke, serving pizza. Parisian space, American branding, italian food, japanese entertainment. Who needs focus when you are trying to engage the "average" tourist - can you be multiculturally authentic or is that an oxymoron?