It's a Brand Jim But Not As We Know It

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One of the dilemmas of working around the world, particularly in developing economies is that while its fun and constructive to join in the online debate of brands and how they work (yawn?) there is little chance of reciprocity when sparking off any dialogue about how Asia often subverts the brand model. Here they do, and the rules frequently get broken because the hierarchy of needs are different.

All too often the pressure is on to get some interruptive wallpaper out swiftly. In low media literacy societies, the relationship between the customer and the product or service is only cemented by interruptive marketing communications within a media aperture that is recognizably not inexpensive (the trust dimensions of this, is a factor the FMCG boys know all to well in developed economies). It also touches on low involvement processing which is a fave topic of mine too.

I'll give you an example, earlier this year we won the Red Bull pitch and one of the nuggets of 'cor blimey' data is that they sold 1/2 billion cans last year in China, and will sell 3/4 Billion cans this year. The marketing people for that particular enterprise have far more pressing matters than brand dimensions, tautological backflips and transactional analysis or even displacement theory. 50% growth a year suggests the advertising fulfils a different role than say just defending market share.

No, clients like this need something 'pretty'; up and out very sharpish. Getting it done is more important than getting it done well for many of these people and even sophisticated and experienced brand stewards know the score on that one in Asia. You snooze, you lose.

Now the clients of booming businesses might enjoy the pseudo intellectual game of brand discussions and even pretend they get it. But the reality is they all too often don't and are seduced by the intoxicating sales uplift of trading-off short term efficacy against long term brand building. If growth is anticipated to be 50% or more the key issues are distribution and their commensurate B2B sales through CTN's, Supermarkets and Gas Stations.

If you're struggling with all this I'll make it plain. You're not making an ad for the guy or gal who is going to use your product. You're making an ad for the all to often creative Philistines who give the nod on distribution through a new channel. They don't want to see anything unusual. They want to see that expensive media aperture (TV & Print) used sensibly, as in 'the sensible shoes' they buy for their kids to go to school.

Put another way, they want to see an ad that looks like an ad. The bubblegum bullshit they have been raised to believe should flood the commercial break and by its very definition is a cauterized version of brand speak and the worst excesses of the Western marketing communications model. Hey, we sold them that shit don't get uppity now.

Trying to get some creative through is like interrupting a commercial break for a quick breakdown on the meaning of Christo and when he wrapped the Reichstag. (Thanks Eaon)

Now that doesn't mean it applies in all instances, but it is a general concession to the rough and tumble of commercial life when dealing with clients who don't really know how hard a brand has to fight for during tough times as it's the good times that delude us. Which is a universal condition.

This is especially so in Asia because many have never experienced protracted tough times. It's all been economic growth apart from a blip in '97, and it's the seasoned marketing people from countries that have weathered a few economic cycles that grasp it's bravery that takes marketing communications a step further, that makes it work harder.

The problem is only exacerbated in the instance of say Red Bull where there is no competition whatsoever domestically. It's so easy to make money it's almost criminal but that isn't my issue here.

While the above constitutes the 'real politick' of doing business in low media literacy societies (read your Mary Goodyear if you live inside the M25 or NY) coupled with explosive economies, I also think there are some interesting brand workouts for budding planners who will by definition need to be less myopic than the couture of working on the brand catwalks of the creative centers of the world. It's all going to get a bit more complicated and a good thing too. Those days are diminishing fast and a good example of trying to figure out what the future holds in store is best brought to life by the QQ car.

QQ is an internet company. They are LARGE as in "my God you're not going to put that inside of me are you"... but joking aside they do a lot of net stuff here in China including a messenger application we are all so familiar with. Oh wait. I forgot. Asians are far more likely to use their personal messenger for work than us white folk checking their emails to get stuff done. They like the bite sized nature and gossipy way of achieving things this way instead of the linear flow that the occidental and so called scientific model has given us and will seemingly one day break us with, given the volume of email that is required to get stuff done these days.

Going off topic briefly, email is broken. Don't do it. We deluded ourselves with thinking that immediacy is the same as efficacy. It isn't, and we probably just need to Twitter our way through projects. If you miss a tweet somebody will say something that contextualizes the momentary ignorance on your part, but that's another post for another day or maybe one for Johnnie to pick up on because he's a lot more clever than I am about stuff like that.

Anyway, QQ are massive and they do all the social media stuff that we know, love and are familiar with except for one crucial point. QQ make more money than Facebook or Myspace. They do it using the virtual currency model that is closer to Second Life, as well as ringtone download stuff, and for a popular internet brand they also do something that I love to see and have blogged about before with the YouTube-to-T Shirt phenomenon which is that the QQ brand has actualized itself in real life as the yellow car above.

Trying to get your head around a manufacturing model that is launched by a communication model is quite interesting and raises important questions about the nature of monolithic and explicitly endorsed and of course discretely endorsed brands. I quite like the way that Asia fucks around with this stuff and in principle sometimes they create a new brand question through sheer mashup ingenuity or circumstances.

Many of the branding 'rules' apply with these scenarios (or identifiable contexts) but reading some planners talk about brands so confidently, and as to what constitutes good advertising by experienced practitioners in the field, often reveals little more than pontificating and parochial dare I say it, pastoral brand observations from a global perspective.

One of the annoying ticks of U.S. internet culture as you will well know is that our Stateside cousins often think the internet starts and ends in the U.S. You will know this from the forms we need to complete asking us which state you come from or what zip code we have. Equally annoying is the notion that a few planners in London or in other creative hotspots are capable of talking about what a brand is when they've little experience of anything other than the familiar. Anybody got anything to say? Usual rules apply in the comments section below.

One last point raised by Kaiser Kuo on the phone just now, because I talked about the imitation, duplication and copy ramifications for newly industrializing Asian countries in my Chungking Express post over here, but just to muddy the waters a little more, Kaiser reminds me that the QQ brand is owned by Chevy who deny they ripped the name off the QQ Internet guys or indeed that the car model is a rip-off of the Chevy Spark of the Daewoo Matiz. 

It's gloves off marketing over here and there isn't much time for air kissing with brands.

Fink about the money!

I was over at Zeus Jones blog a few days ago, and Adrian’s post on monetization of social media got me thinking about digital again, and whereas I usually fire off a long comment when that happens, I reckon it’s time to write some thoughts down over here.

Firstly I can’t bear that word monetization. It’s the English part of me I guess, but it just feels crass that everything has to be monetized. I’m reminded of this each time I watch Fox News, because all the bullying of any (pinko Commie bastard) liberal guests they bring on to bait is won by their vulgar but implicit idea that if profit is not made then its not of worth. This is the point where I think the United States has gone slowly wrong in the last 50 years because the values it was built on are not about profit to the detriment of all else. OK I got that off my chest. Back to making money! We’ve also all got bills to pay. The environment of course being the biggest!

Yes of course there should be some sort of transactional value exchange model between social media platform providers and the people who frequent them. It does however feel like the old media model of huge profits and mass market broadcasting persuasive powers has disintegrated.

Micro-transactions work very well here in China for the most popular platform QQ using a virtual currency that is paid for in hard cash. (Kind of like a Second Life model) but this is where I like to think social media should embrace a number of revenue streams and think about revenue diversity because it’s obvious (to me) that good old fashioned bread and butter banner advertising works very effectively in Facebook. I generally love the ad to the left of their pages because they are eerily effective and are mainly China location based services making them highly relevant. In short they work. I like them even.

So we’ve got micro-transactions, and then traditional banner advertising. I like to call this distractive (contextual) advertising because if it’s good enough, then it distracts much like print advertising does today, interruptive advertising which is generally disliked but is based on the commercial break and includes pre-roll advertising as well as the hated pop up and even ideas such as “get this digital mobile phone for free as long as we can give you x number of ads a month”

I also think there are more innovative ideas that could be considered such as tiered or rewarded internet activity. Adrian has done a fine post about social media but as he correctly points out most people are hanging out on the net to get away from dull content and patronizing marketing communications. However the tiered subscription or rewarded activity is based on a model that really needs to embrace some ideas that Adam Crowe was, I think, the first to bring my attention to. The notion of data portability. The information accumulated by internet usage should belong to the customer not us.

If we (or Google or the ISPs) do the unthinkable and give our potential customers their own internet usage data to trade with us we then are truly opening up ideas loosely called the free market economy. It’s probably more American/United States than apple pie and fanny packs put together now that I think of it. This then opens up our potential customers to benefit from their data portability in the best way possible. The provider they choose to allow receipt of marketing communications from. It’s a bit like a bazaar. If you don’t like the voice of the trader or the goods they are selling, you can stay clear of them. Imagine a world where in return for premium content we permitted ourselves to exposure of specific marketing models. If the advertising sucks we make a decision about whether we can get by with lower value advertising-free content or not at all.

Either way I think we are moving into a new era of marketing communications because as an advocate of 'the medium is the message' it's clear to me that I never got ‘spammed’ while watching a commercial in a movie theatre, direct mail is lower down the food chain because its so much more cheaper to indiscriminately ‘target’ (using the language of old) with geography or basic demographics acting effectively to the point where a 3% response rate still makes it worthwhile.

But here’s the context. The internet is both a place where I can watch a Cannes winning Youtube clip and also open up my mail to be offered a larger penis or a fake Rolex watch. That never happens on TV or even direct mail and so the value of the internet is diminished by this activity. There are innovative ways around this if advertisers want to raise the perceived value for a short while. Like for example if I was P&G I would buy all the available online advertising space within a specific digital media aperture. Maybe the whole of the NYT or The Guardian for a few days. Just wipe out every ad in the online editions and put one sponsor message on there, advertising some spot removing clean or dandruff clearing shampoo. Something relevant seems appropriate!

There are ways to be creative on the internet, although finding the clients bold enough to do stuff like this is tough. Anyway in principle the point I want to end on is that it's not us who should be targeting the customers, it’s the customers who should be targeting us.

This is after all the 21st century and not the 20th. We had two world wars in that one.

Update: Adam links to this which is just the sort of example I'm talking about with P&G. i.e. buying space that would normally be filled with ads.

Internet Youth China

I've been taking a look around Beijing and as part of that exploration visiting random internet cafes and enjoying the luxury of being able to observe the customers. It's pure gold getting to know what they are using their computer terminal for, how they behave and what is their internet life through free observation.

As a nomadic planner, I've always done this in internet cafes around the world for the quality of information and even made a point of getting to know the owners of these places to pick up early on digital trends. This is the place where I first learnt that QQ is popular in Asia over 4 years ago from the owner of Bull internet in Hua Hin on Petchakasem road. Its also the place where I first picked up on that Camfrog trend which says so much about the way Asian youths leapfrog the cultural mores of the West in ways that most people are still trying to figure out. For me sitting in internet cafes is a bit like sitting in twenty peoples living rooms as an ethnographer and qualitative researcher all rolled into one. It's pure digital voyeurism and although I'm writing a report on this for a client, I can share with you that I've never seen anything remotely on the scale of the place below.

The usual modus operandi for cyber cafes in Asia (outside of say HK, SG, KR and JP) are that the computers are disparate second hand models still using CRT monitor technology and the places are often screamingly loud (particularly out of school hours) from all the game playing going on. I usually need to wear headphones and listen to music to keep my sanity, if I have work to do, but the place above was unnervingly silent - like walking into a library where the majority of people are studying and not browsing. You can practically feel the thinking going on as if it's an extended digital nervous system. Now this might not seem worth a mention if it wasn't for the sheer scale of the place. The photo doesn't quite do it justice but from where I'm standing on the stairs the length of the room is cavernous and between twenty to thirty rows deep. All of the customers were relaxed and even smoking cigarettes while facing completely uniform terminals and LCD screens with web cam as standard which is more than can be said of many advertising agencies or their clients who haven't cottoned on to the implications of web cam.

There wasn't a peep to be heard. This shot was taken at 1 minute past 9 in the evening. I'd say television's monologue is beginning to look quite stale if this amount of people choose to pay money rather than watch the free state controlled offering. I'd also say that the internet users are some of the most informed customers in China. Worth keeping tabs on, don't you think?