Recommended reading and viewing

Having recently finished the book by Dan Ariely Predictably Irrational I was keen to grab another installment of insight into the way advertisers and marketers manipulate consumers into believing in the message and indeed the product. When we make decisions we think we're in control, making rational choices. But are we?

Entertaining and surprising, Ariely’s book unmasks the subtle but powerful tricks that our minds play on us and how marketers, manufacturers and advertisers use this to their advantage.

So… the next installment, supplied by my creative director, who had discovered a Penguin 1957 copy of Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders. Not only does it have the type of cover that says “you must have me on your shelf” but the content covered and the tricks used by advertisers to influence consumer behaviours. Even in the 1950’s shoppers were constantly led astray by the advertisers, it shows a rather sinister side to an industry that stripping away at our right to privacy.

I then discovered the following:

ART & COPY is a powerful new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray (SURFWISE, SCRATCH, HYPE!), it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time — people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry. Exploding forth from advertising’s “creative revolution” of the 1960s, these artists and writers all brought a surprisingly rebellious spirit to their work in a business more often associated with mediocrity or manipulation.

Stormy times for Festivals

As yet another festival bites the dust, (Beachdown) it is clear that only the strongest public events will survive the credit crunch.

At first glance it would appear that brand activity at festivals has declined in the past festival year. However, I honestly believe that it is not purely the case that brands are withdrawing, but that they are actually being less frivolous about their choice of festival. It appears that the “build it, brand it and they will come” approach is a thing of the past and rightly so.

I’m an advocate of the collaboration of brands and music as long as it is an enhancement of the music experience as opposed to a distraction or interruption. The last season of festivals really started to show signs of brands trying to totally interrupt the experience. One such example was the inclusion of a skate half pipe provided by an energy drink during a wet Wireless festival in 2008, it was of no value to any of the punters and it was in fact closed for the majority of the event.

This years Wireless Festival was as good as brandless from an experience point of view and it was really noticeable. What was the reason? One brand left and the others followed? Brands had less spend? To be honest, I am not sure but the thought that it was recession based was alleviated when I visited Lovebox the following month.

This year’s Lovebox was saturated with brand activity and if I am really honest, it was not a negative. The fact that there were so many brands there actually worked: the experiences really enhanced the event and the punters sure as hell got into all of the brand spaces I visited.

Clever brands are embracing experiences that are relevant and more often than not involve a great music experience in their own right. It’s not rocket science and it certainly isn’t groundbreaking to make a music event within a music event: Bacardi and Strongbow have been doing it for years with great success and now brands such as Rizla are following suit and building a hell of a following in the process.

Innovation is not necessarily the key to a successful activity, the key is relevance and enhancement. There have been some wonderfully simple executions that will be embraced and advocated by festival visitors - campaigns such as the 10p on a cup by Carling, or the Rizla invisible players for Rizla by Exposure. These memorable branded experiences do a great job with engagement and are very simple to execute, but I am sure they will be around as long as the very successful Strongbow Rooms and The Bacardi B-Bar.

If your product, service and your target demographic are relevant to a certain festival then why would you not consider festivals as part of your strategy. They deliver captive audiences that will engage with you and your product   - as long as it fits and it enhances their experience.

The other important factor to consider (seriously consider) is the content that will you get from the involvement in a festival. What sort of amplification will you be afforded and how will you engage with the people you met at that event long after the event has finished?

In these times, ROI is king and if you as a marketer think that being there is enough to drive sales, then you are wrong. There is life beyond live and you must engage and amplify or the tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds that you spend will be worth nothing to the bottom line.

Give your fans something to talk about. Innocent’s village fete showed us that just because it was innocent’s festival, it didn’t mean that the audience forgot about the great experiences that were supplied by the likes of Yorkshire Tea and Pimms. Word of mouth is still one of the most powerful tools in terms of behaviour and opinion changing by consumers.

But if it don’t fit, then don’t try to shoehorn it in, because the consumer will hate you for it.

The targeting comes down to meeting your objectives and the relevance of your offering to the event and its audience. Some brands are lucky that they can strategically fit into many types of festival with little danger of disconnection or lack of relevance. Take for example the Pimms Bus: this experience can happily drop into most form of festivals from arts, historical racing, flying displays and village fetes to multi act music festivals.

Choosing the right festival is an imperative and should be right at the heart of the strategy or you will easily become another ‘me too’ festival player and just be considered ‘Live Spam’.

There is another serious consideration that brands should look at: is their experience and content worthy of a fee?

If your experience is strong enough there is every chance that you will get away with charging consumers for the privilege of being there and then you can further amplify the experience by giving them some price worthy content to take away.

As ever this years V Festival was a stonker and the eminent brand experiences of Strongbow and Bacardi drew in the masses as ever so it proves that there is still huge value to brands that feel festival activity will hit their target audience.

Shameless Plug for Sledge...

Experiential agency, Sledge has been short listed for four awards at the 2009 Event Awards – considered the event industry’s number one award ceremony.

Sledge has been short listed for the Brand Experience Agency of the Year Award. Exemplary examples of Sledge’s work included the innocent Village Fete– a two day event for 60,000 people held in Regents Park London in August 2008, the NIVEA Visage Road show  - a nationwide experiential road show that engaged with over 100,000 people (10% over target) and the Thinkbox Televisionaries Conference – a B2B event described as “as close to perfect as it could ever be!”  by Tess Alps, CEO Thinkbox.

Sledge has also been shortlisted for The Green Award – utilising examples from their work with both innocent and O2 – especially their sustainability policies for both the inncocent village fete and the O2 Wireless festival.

Two Sledge events have been short listed for the Best Public or Outdoor Event Award – the innocent Village Fete and the Scrum on the Beach series of events for O2 that were held in five different locations nationwide in July and August 2008 and culminated in Trafalgar Square, London.

The Scrum on the Beach series of events for O2 is also short listed for the Best Brand Experience Event Award.

A panel of judges, hand-picked for their expertise, impartiality and respect within the industry, will deliberate all other categories and the winners will be announced at a prestigious award ceremony at London Hilton, Park Lane on Friday 25^th September.

Print goes Live...

The current economy is bringing some awesome opportunities and allowing some clients to be braver than before and force change in their buying behaviours and experiment with new agencies and new channels of communication to support their Live initiatives.

I am thrilled and reinvigorated by the optimism that is sweeping through our industry at the moment. This past month Sledge has been involved in no less than seven pitches from an array of sectors including Beauty, Non Alcoholic drinks, FMCG, Automotive, Health Food and Indulgence… with two wins already confirmed things are in very positive flow.

One other opportunity has come from a Media client that wants to create it’s own event and utilise it’s content to reach out to its target audience from both consumer readers and B2B readers and engage them with a live experience. The unique approach they intend to take is a clever one, for they can see that there is opportunity to generate revenue from their live initiative. The team at the magazine knows that it already has an enormous amount of content that can transcend into a live experience, it has a huge audience and it is fast becoming a bible for its followers. We have been asked to look at replicating the magazine and it’s content and values into a reputable exhibition and awards.

This is not our first experience of this type of initiative, after many months of inept dithering by some ex colleagues, we are now pleased to say that a media client of ours intends to take full ownership of an exciting new event to take place in the UK, the event will see the client act as the curator of its own content in the live environment.

This will be an event that will embrace its audience and readers with a broad program of live content and will see it breakaway from the traditional route that newspapers have taken in the past with traditional sponsorship and the badging of existing events.

It’s yet another proud moment for the agency and one that show’s dedication and trust can get results no matter how difficult the economic climate. 

LeeFest 2009

A rising star on the festival circuit. We popped along to LeeFest at the weekend and were pleasantly surprised by this young lads initiative. 

Learn from this economy.

It is now very clear that most if not all marketers are being asked to do more with much less than budget than they have ever had.  Today’s corporate demand of “Make more in profits, generate more business, manage more projects, collect more leads, produce more AP’s…” has put many of us in the difficult position of not having the resources to accomplish these goals due to our own demands.

So how is it possible to continue delivering exceptional results without the same level of resources we once had?  Here are a couple lessons the current economy is teaching us:

Integration. 

During a number of recent client presentations, I have been asked to demonstrate how our agency is aligning our internal human resources and expertise to benefit the clients overall brand objectives.

Similarly, more than ever agencies need to ensure that more of the clients integrated business units were involved in our proposals to support a broader portfolio of their products and services.  There are multiple benefits to this focused approach, including exposure to other business opportunities in other sectors of the organisation and streamlining our own internal communications.  From a client perspective, it has become clear that combining offerings from our business has led us to deliver richer, more robust experiences, while our clients achieved better ROI.

Expanding Networks and Outsourcing. 

Many companies are reducing headcount and simply don’t have the capability, experience and internal resources that they once previously had. 

Sledge believes you should view outsourcing in terms of what you can add, not subtract from a collaborative relationship.  Outsourcing and strategic collaboration allows a company to create synergies, reduce liability and risk, improve communication and delivery, control costs and ultimately deliver a more significant return on yours and the clients investment.  Moreover, outsourcing enables companies to be more efficient with their time, allowing them to channel their efforts on the core business competencies and objectives.

These are just a couple ways the economy is broadening Sledge’s capabilities and strengthening our ability to drive your ROI.  Curious… What is the economy teaching you? How will you rise to the top in a down economy?