BRILLIANT MARKETING IS ALL THEY NEED

In Britain we’re in the midst of a marketing battle. This is what the current Tory shoot-out is. If I were advising either candidate I’d be advising a no-holds-barred, go for the jugular approach. Winner takes all. The loser is probably finished as a politician so there’s nothing to lose.

Currently Brand Truss (the only potential PM to have the same name as a medical implement) has a significant lead in the polls offering a package of tax cuts and optimism that would even make her erstwhile boosterish boss blush (only he never does that). She wants us to be the “Aspiration Nation”. She belongs to that school of thinking like advertising agency, Saatchi’s, “nothing is impossible.” It’s obviously a seductive proposition  originating from the“I’m going to be King of the World” aspirations of a Boris Johnson. 

Brand Truss is a marketeer’s delight. Big budget confidence. A desire to break the mould. To grow. Here’s a quote she might like from Keller Williams, the American realty company coined:

“When you go from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset a new world of possibilities opens up.” 

But growth is not easy, not in the current world with war in Ukraine, global recession and a series of problems closer to home in Scotland, France and Italy. Since 1961 we’ve achieved ‘real’ growth, namely over 5% in only 5 years and we’ve had negative growth in 8 years. The Truss manifesto reminds me of Anthony Barber’s in 1972, when he was Chancellor of Exchequer in the Heath government. Barber initiated a 'dash for growth', a hugely ambitious budgetary policy aimed to deliver 10% growth over two years pushing  both the fiscal and monetary pedals to the floor in a confident and focused attempt to detonate growth. 

It failed.

Brand Sunak  is a teller of truth. The Doctor who says sympathetically but firmly “I’m afraid you haven’t got long”. 

He quietly ridicules the fairy story of growth in a world where expert voices would prefer to see us stabilise and reduce debt. But his is not a great marketing story. He sat at Boris’ right hand and his legacy from his boss has been contempt and a damning reference (“do not hire this man”.) Rishi is a marketeer’s nightmare. “Sales are down. The budget’s reduced. I don’t want anything too creative.” 

And he isn’t very visible yet. “Let my record speak itself” doesn’t play well when that record is to have been number two (however reluctantly) to a bloke called Boris who’s now stabbing him in the back of his very tight suit.

Still nearly all the smartest people think he’s clever, thoughtful, an excellent leader and a very hard worker. If I were advising him I’d say become a daily good-news story visiting farms, schools, businesses, petrol stations, hospitals, care homes creating stories about how caring and well prepared he is, never getting caught out on what the prices of a pint of milk or a loaf of Hovis are*.

And every day say “Liz is a nice person for sure but her economic plans are wrong and will make our economy worse.”

His comms advisors have to be pumping stories about Anthony Barber and Liz Truss. Non-stop simple messaging that makes the “Sunak right. Truss wrong” rubric unmissable.

At present he’s invisible. Staying like that he’ll lose badly.

Meanwhile Boris uncta porcus+ is lying in wait. He’d probably beat either contestant now if he could stand and MPs are already beginning to ask  “what have we done?”

 

*80p and £1.15

+ Boris the greased pig                                                                              

LET'S STICK TO BASICS

 Let’s stick to basics

After endlessly talking about geopolitics with stand-offs between soft liberals and the extreme right, I’ve concluded we need to focus on what we know most about, calmly and thoughtfully. For me, this is mainly advertising, marketing and fmcg (fast-moving-consumer-goods).

Let’s ignore the increasing trend towards marches and protests so often bad tempered although a Gay Pride march down Oxford Street last week was cheerful with a diverse bunch representing various facets of sexuality having a good time.

It made a change because cheerful is not how the media is describing our economy . We are going to be very cold, very hungry and very depressed this winter they predict. 

We’re regularly told by pollsters that the ‘cost of living crisis’ is the most important issue on people’s minds, ahead of Party-gate, Ukraine, Climate Change and corrupt, drunk or libidinous  politicians. Of course it is. Did you need to go to University to acquire the mental equipment to discover that? 

Fact: issues really close to home are the ones that always matter most to people. The amount of money they have and what they can buy with it.

 

Government is panicking  as they often do. There’s talk of  an upcoming campaign calling on businesses to divert marketing spend into cutting prices.  Silly story. Daft idea. And one which shows how little this government understands marketing or people.

Here’s a real marketing story. There’s a battle currently between Tesco and Heinz. It’s being staged as a classic Mohammad Ali v George Foreman, “rumble in the jungle”, or, in this case “knock-out at the check-out.” Two giants. One supporting the poor people, the other the poor food industry. How many customers will Tesco lose if they don’t stock Heinz Baked Beans and Heinz Tomato Ketchup? How many cases of the above will Heinz lose in sales by being destocked by their biggest UK customer? This is high drama and a great story.  And I bet sales go up for both of them.

The price increase of food in the UK since January has gone up 11% (source: IGD) and Reuters are predicting 15% increase running into 2023. Apparently the average household spend on food including take-homes and restaurants is around £4,000 – around 20% of total spend.  

I can empathise. I too was once in that hand-to-mouth, month-on-month world of balancing nice-to-have versus necessity. 

In that battle healthy eating was beaten by a full tummy. Chicken nuggets became luxury food and McGuigan tasted like Lafite (almost). What was different back then was the world was less intense in terms of competition, in terms of marketers pushing prices back down or finding clever alternatives. 

We now have Aldi and Lidl highly competitive and growing rapidly, taking £1 in every £6 grocery pounds spent, and about to take more. They’re no longer the mere “German discounters” as Tesco once disparagingly described them. Go there and be impressed by price and quality.

Since one of the biggest issues right now is food  and our alleged inability to recruit able pickers. This smells of a PR campaign. There are plenty of people who’d be happy to work outside in our glorious weather if only we pay them enough.

We used to be creative. Let’s get creative about issues like this. Let’s find new sources of “pickers”, let’s create more delicious low-cost recipes and let’s stop getting depressed because we can’t always afford to buy what we don’t really like, want or even need.

Let’s go shopping again, being choosy as opposed to just buying and hurrying on. Let’s, in short, get back to basics.

TERRIBLE ADVICE

Rubbish solutions are in fashion

I’m not sure why this appealed so much to me but recently I was driving through Brighton behind a van emblazoned with a sign “Brighton Rubbish Solutions” and it occurred to me this was great name for a second or even third rate marketing consultancy. Mostly I guess because most advice nowadays is so suspect. Ask any economist – or rather don’t bother. I reflected further on businesses taking bold and sometimes strange decisions.

Like Jaguar. I saw their brand new Jaguar F-Pace recently. "Gosh" I thought “smart Renault!”.  It bore no resemblance to Jaguar refinement. If it were a painting it would be called a forgery. An SUV solution but a bad one.

Or Tesco’s secret plans to launch a new retail concept to fight Aldi (the UK’s favourite supermarket say  consumers) and Lidl. The conversations in Cheshunt where the mighty Tesco is headquartered have historically revolved around the risks to the brand and of confusing consumers in introducing a really cheap Tesco as opposed to a quite cheap Tesco. Trouble is Aldi is remarkable for its quality not just its prices. In a recent survey of 10 great value/quality grocery items in the Sunday Times Aldi had two – their prosecco and their new coffee pods – and Lidl one, their aged beef. Revealingly Tesco had none.

 

If they aren’t careful Tesco will end up with a rubbish solution. As Coca Cola have done in reversing their one brand strategy and relaunching their sugar free brands in isolation.

And in the world of economics  Bitcoin is either a genius introduction to the future of money or it’s the  next South Sea Bubble. Confusingly  it could be both. Which is a rubbish situation.

In the world of politics some weird things are happening. Politicians used to yearn for “clear blue water”  separating parties. Today an ocean lies between the wrathful disciples of left-wing-Momentum and the pinstriped intolerant Tory right-wing.

Let me introduce you to Jacob Rees-Mogg. America astonished the world by electing a game-show host who’s reckless, rude and crude. In the UK the bookies have two favourites for the next Prime Minister – Jeremy Corbyn (described by an American friend as Bernie Saunders without the brains) and Jacob. Ladbrokes and Coral actually make Jacob the narrow favourite.

Who is he?  48 years old. Educated Eton and Oxford. Co-founder of a Hedge Fund. He and his wife have around £100 million allegedly. He is strongly anti-Europe and advocates abrupt and total separation from the EU. He has six children. Their names are revealing: Peter Theodore Alphege;  Mary Anne Charlotte Emma ;Thomas Wentworth Somerset Dunstan; Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam ; Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius; Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher. The names tell a story.

He has an icy charm. He’s clever, well mannered, calm and very dangerous. But chances are – if you believe the bookmakers – he could be the next Prime Minister. Or possibly another rubbish solution.

We live in strange times.

I USED TO BE A PROFESSIONAL LIAR

For many years I was in a world of strategic hyperbole called advertising. It was a colleague of mine who coined this concept of professional lying. At the time it seemed a bit naughty but not too harmful.

After all no one actually believed Heineken had unique powers in reaching the parts other beers couldn’t reach. We all pushed the letter of the law on behalf of our clients, creating what today could be called fake news. We created false alarms like an imminent salt shortage, very effective in immediately boosting salt sales, and one I was involved in with Energen, the low carbohydrate crispbread, sales of which were hampered because it didn’t taste that nice.

Here was the logic:
Too much starch makes you fat
Most crispbread has 70% starch
Energen only has 30% starch
If you want to lose weight reduce your starch intake
Ask a successful slimmer about Energen

The sales result was astounding.  Ryvita (I don’t blame them) were livid and our Joseph Rank was berated by the Associated British Foods’ Garfield Weston. When the Chairmen of competing companies scrapped that meant we knew we were winning “bigly” (as Donald Trump would say). We created false fears - thus an advertising campaign suggested chicken legs could easily puncture cooking foils not as strong as Bacofoil; that Hepworth’s was fashion that didn’t fall apart. Fashion tick; durable tick; other brands???

But that was then…when we were all in communication-jousts with each other. In advertising we were the human entertaining equivalent of corporate lawyers - we the professional strikers, they the professional referees.

When does satire or hyperbole become lying? When does a strongly presented emotional argument become fake news? At what shade of grey does black become a kind of white?

Pondering on this and other things I was driving last week with my wife over Ditchling Beacon near Brighton. We drove past a series of earth mounds several feet high. To understand what follows you should know my wife regards me as a terrible tease but who can’t stand being teased myself.

“What on earth caused those?” I mused
“Moles” she said
“Moles….they’re far too big for that that - they’d have to be enormous moles”
“No not enormous just quite big - about the size of polar bears”
“Crumbs! Why have I never heard about these “Polar Moles?”
“It hasn’t been widely publicised but it’s these moles that cause sink holes. Whenever you hear about a sink hole the chances are it’s a polar mole that’s caused it”
“These creatures sound dangerous. Are they carnivorous?”
“No but they sometimes drag someone underground because they want their company. Sadly in their affection they smother them.”

I had to stop because by now we were giggling too much to keep this going. The art of creating fake news is the art of storytelling. When we stop telling and enjoying stories and also asking questions we are in big trouble.

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN

(but who are these people?)

I had lunch with old University friends last week. All had held senior positions in government, law or business. They were urbane and charming and just the sort of “elite” many people on ‘Question Time’ in Wakefield last Thursday. detest.

But several of my friends disagreed with me. I was regarded as a naïve romantic for speaking in praise of what are described as the millennials. These are defined as the 16 million reaching young adulthood in the year 2000.

We used to think we knew what all sorts of “the people” thought and why they thought it. We used to think mass marketing worked. We trusted in our data.

And here’s what the ex-Chief Marketing Officer from Mars said:
“I’m not a great believer in targeting. Our target is about 7 billion people sitting on this planet. Out task is to reach as many people as we can; to get them to notice us and remember us; to nudge them; and get them to buy us once more this year.”

Not believing in targeting is as extraordinary as golfer Justin Rose saying “I’m not a great believer in putting.”
Because as recent events show people aren’t as the pundits suppose them. They are very diverse, opinionated and influenced increasingly by feelings rather than logic.

To judge from the alarmingly articulate vitriol in Wakefield this is a world where supposedly ignored and ignorant people are fighting back and sweeping the smart elite away. And the day after Wakefield, Zac Goldsmith’s 23,000 majority was astonishingly demolished in the Richmond by-election.   So do any of us think that we currently really understand or empathise with each other? Certainly not when 70 year olds talk about Facebook and Jay Z with such bewildered contempt and when the millennials believe most of the older cohort betrayed them in the UK and in the USA by voting the way they recently did.

We’re deaf to the way voters, consumers or ordinary people think especially if we underestimate them.
This is a world where single issue campaigns like “the economy stupid” - (Bill Clinton 1992) or “Project Fear” (Lynton Crosby 2016) won’t wash anymore. Arguments now need to be diverse, reactive and fast/ More spontaneous and less crafted.

It’s a world where “the people” as an amorphous mass has ceased to exist.

Wakefield was frighteningly angrily vocal. This wasn’t a debate so much as a revolution about past slights. They would have torn my University friends limb from limb had they been there.  Marketing anything, whether a candidate or a brand, is going to get harder. We’re flying blind.

Our best hope is our youth because the best young people seem smarter and nicer than ever we were. I can’t wait for them to be in charge because they see the world as it is and as it will be, not as it was.
Because they are the future and my friends and Wakefield are the past.

MY LATE NIGHT SKYPE INTERVIEW

It was 8.30pm after a long day.

And I was live…crackle, hiss and splat!

Wade Danielson is based in Texas and has launched the Entrepreneur’s Library - so far there are 106 Podcasts by authors whose books might be of interest to entrepreneurs - he’s doing these interviews at the rate of five a week.

And he asked me to do one on my “paradigm shifting” book (there’s a big opportunity for you in marketing and flattery Wade).

So dip into this.

Apart from sounding as though I’ve been imprisoned in a wonky tumble drier and the fact that I’m talking too fast and in a rather unstructured and impassioned way - system one in my brain at full tilt - it’ll do. It’ll have to.  If nothing else I’ve learnt how to do it next time.

Ironic isn’t it that with every presentation you (or I) do it’s only when you’ve done it you actually realise how you should have done it.

HAVE WE GOT INTERACTIVE MARKETING COMPLETELY WRONG?

I was sent this a while back and thought you might find it interesting.

www.coloufulthinkers.com

WHAT A YEAR TO THROW A PARTY

Imagine you’d won the local house of the year award, imagine that you’re planning a celebratory event for your best friends (and even some people you don’t even like but want to impress.) You’ve had the gardeners in to redesign the garden, tart up the house, repaint the front (the door a matt Farrow and Ball “Shocked Grey Face”), turned the garden room into a cinema room which at £10k including the 60 inch Sony screen and their sound system is a steal and that rose garden in blush pink is a wow. To round things off there’s a Boxster for you and Smart Car for her – “what do mean 'her'?” (sorry darling) - in the drive.

Made it. Got there.  Smugly, snugly winners.

And as you sit down the front door bell rings.

It’s the event organisers – Locog it says on their T shirts – who sweep in. “Relax“ they say “it’s great. Now leave it to us now.”

An army of identically clad young men and women stride in mouths smiling, eyes staring and repaint the door Cadbury purple, remove that screen in the cinema (what a crashing sound) and put in a Panasonic, The cars have been towed away and replaced by a BMW 7 series plus a Mini Cooper, the roses have been ripped out and replaced by Coca-Cola Reds, a Visa ATM has been set up beside the garage, your Longines watch has been snatched from your wrist and before your cry of outrage has subsided replaced by an Omega and as you retreat to your office you discover a team of smiling songsters smashing your Apple Mac and replacing it with an Acer.

Do you know, for the first time ever, I now know what living in a totalitarian state might feel like?

I’m a lifelong enthusiast for adventure but I’ve got uneasy.

I love the Olympics, their athletes and the buzz but the marketing stuff around it is beginning to feel a bit absurd.

Let’s just applaud the bravery of the brilliant competitors and ignore the rest.

Now, there’s a battle cry to make the moneymen think.

(Here are the Olympic Global sponsors:  Coca-Cola, Acer, Atos, Dow, GE, McDonalds, Omega, Panasonic, P&G, Visa, Samsung …well you knew that obviously. Here’s the London sponsorship list: BMW, BP, BA, BT, Lloyds, EDF).

And unless you got all those right someone’s wasted a lot of money.

BRAND CRAZY TIMES

I blame the accountants.

When they discovered that brands were worth lots of money we were all told to join the brand game. If it earns money it’s a brand now. And brands are valuable. Madonna is a brand but so is John Humphrys – the Today programme inquisitor. Be a brand.

Put it this way, as the CEO of Nestle did when asked what would the consequences of each of the following occurred. Imagine the following horrors:

• Your top team assassinated
• Your key manufacturing plants blown up
• Your top brands confiscated

He was remarkably sanguine about the first two – a bit of time, a lot of money but back to normal soon because no-one and nothing is indispensable apart from brands…. If the brands go we are in big trouble….it will take vast cost and risk in trying to recreate them.

Brands are hard to create, expensive to develop and hard to control…like works of art or orchids or Pit Bull Terriers.

Brands used to be staid and safe. Benton and Bowles (imagine what Messrs Benton and Bowles were like) were said to have been the architect of the three ‘b”s – “big, bland and boring” or if you add the eponymous founders the “five b’s”.

And this was especially so in the field of professional services where the names of the founders were used to define the business – thus J Walter Thompson or Doyle Dane Bernbach were all we needed to know. But now we live in different times.

Here are just a few names flying around in the marketing game right now. Marketing men have stopped behaving like bankers (and the mind still boggles as to what Saatchi & Saatchi would have done to Midland Bank if their attempt to buy it in the 1980s had come off – maybe the face of the high street bank would have changed forever.)

Some names, names just within the professional advisor sector: Mother, Strawberry Frog, Adam & Eve, Karmarama, Elvis, The Red Brick Road, Pretzel, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, 3 Monkeys ….

And why not…why not find a name that grabs the imagination and tells a story?

These are brands now not just firms of advisors.

And as such you could argue life is more colourful.

The days of egocentricity have been surplanted by a desire to make your company name sing and I think I prefer it.

ADVERTISING AND MARKETING R.I,P.

Advertising Age recently had this article by Paul Ashby whom it transpires is pitching interactive marketing as the saviour we all need.

Here are some of the juicy bits.

“Advertising Age has just claimed that we are living in the "Post-advertising age"…… Actually we're just stuffed. Marketing & Advertising hit a tree….. There is no replacement advertising model for us to drive off in. We must bash out the dents, clear the broken glass, remove the bumper from the front wheel, and limp on as best we can. We should accommodate ourselves to that prospect…..

But behind the curve, and banging the table as ever, the marketing gurus all have not yet latched on to the rhetoric of the "new economic model"…. They are still trying to kick life back into the old one. But it becomes apparent even to the Marketing & Advertising community that there is to be no return to that golden decade of no hard choices and uninterrupted growth….. This recession is not a failure of market economics. It is a reassertion of market economics after a decade in which we paid ourselves more than we were producing, and funded it precariously and temporarily, together with a total lack of accountability so that it took a while for the market to rumble…. Now a prosperity that always baffled ordinary citizens has collapsed.”

Fair enough but it’s a touch cynical. Clever and effective marketing is exactly what the world needs right now in whichever form it takes. Marketing creates the confidence and the relationship between brands and that consumers that helps make this world go round. I am proud of being a marketer and not ashamed to say to people I’ve advised “sometimes it’s smart to spend less – it’s always smart to zig when the others zag”. I agree with Maurice Saatchi who said:-

“Creativity is the last, legal way to secure an unfair advantage”

FOOD AND DRINK

Prawn cocktail, minestrone, casseroles, curries, roasts, trifles, bread and butter pudding. It’s kind of back to basic, hearty and family food.

I predict a pause in sophistication.

And it’s hurray for beer and quaffing claret. Sales of onions, herbs and wooden spoons are booming already in the UK.

Become a great, economical cook. Make 2009 the year of the noisy positive supper party with friends with reasonably priced wine and delicious frugal food. Sort out the world while you eat.

Tomorrow is about 'The New Nations'.

http://www.richardhall.biz/

THE RIGHT VALUES

Not really, if we take a hard look at our world and its values.

We shouldn’t put up with knife crime, functional illiteracy, epidemic marriage collapses, obesity, binge drinking, incompetent bureaucracy and all that stuff that is so irritating, any longer. Recession slows things down so it will give us time to deal with what we want our children’s world – this world – to be like and make it happen.

The values debate will be big news in 2009 – be part of it. Decide the few things that really matter.

No. 3 tomorrow - it's about innovation.

http://www.richardhall.biz/

WHAT PRICE SURVIVAL?

What price survival?

I am like Sir John Hegarty an incorrigible optimist – it’s all going to be all right.
But I do remember the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Marylebone High Street was a wasteland of charity shops. Businesses went bust left, right and centre. Britain was pretty well bankrupt.

We are in much better shape but one issue is preying on most minds. How will the price issue work out?

· Price is a huge issue right now in retail. The cheap supermarkets are doing really well. Expect further turmoil. Pity Tesco.
· There’s nothing wrong with the word cheap.
· Treasure Island as premium priced United Kingdom is called by the automotive industry is going to change.
· Everyone can ask for a discount and get it.
· Smart operators are buying long term relationships…buy my paper up front for a year and I’ll give you a third off.

Don’t be afraid of asking what you need but don’t assume you’ll get what you asked for.

Price is a dynamite new topic. But real talent and genius will prevail – it always does.





http://www.richardhall.biz/

BARAK OBAMA SWEEPS TO POWER

A few observations. To have lost, given the unpopularity of George W, would have been really pretty extraordinary but the Democrats have hisrorically been noted for screwing up so I suppose anything was possible.

They won because they ran a truly brilliant marketing campaign.

1. They got a little money from a lot of people creating a huge donor base.
2. They did this through a brilliant digital campaign.
3. They outspent their competitor very heavily
4. They mobilised a huge army of active supporters – swamping McCain’s efforts
5. And they got the vote out
6. They had strategic certainty that their strategy was “change” and they didn’t change that
7. They didn’t panic when the Palin effect happened – the waited for it to backfire
8. They kept their man orating in his inimitable way and were true to the brand
9. They converted some key opponents like Republican Colin Powell
10. They were a remorseless machine very well led.

Admire classic marketing – you seldom see it as good as this.

http://www.richardhall.biz

WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE WRITE A BOOK?

I’ve just finished a book called 'Brilliant Marketing' for Pearson.

42,000 words each scraped somewhat painfully from my brain.

I’ve had nightmares about Google, Nike, Apple and Bose who at various points appear in the book.

I’ve read more books and articles on marketing than most people read in a lifetime.

And all the time my enthusiasm for growing share and transforming markets has been performed to the tap-tap of the grim reaper nailing up the coffin of the global economy.

You try being upbeat when for incomprehensible reasons the world is going bust.

Marketing to some would seem a deckchair re-arranging occupation but is it?

Maybe, just maybe putting marketing rather than financial instruments at the centre of our lives might be a smart thing to do for the next generation.

It also happens to be something we are rather good at.

http://www.richardhall.biz