Is Account Planning about Problem Solving?
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Look at the left of it: it is build around the notion of "THE PROBLEM". Lots of account planners stress that planners need to identify the problem first. And it works really well for lots of tasks at hand. My concern with this, nevertheless, is: I this always the case? What if it's not about a campaign that has to change attitudes - but e.g. about long lasting platforms for brands? Haven't you also encountered situations in which the work just doesn't seem to be problem based? When you might be able to formulate a problem but this would just be a verbal trick of stating something negatively? Or you would arrive at very generic "problems" like "the brand could be positioned more clearly" or "not enough competitive advantage" or "communication in this field is stereotyped, the challenge is to find new ways", etc. But these are obviously not those kind of smart problem discoveries planners are eager to find.
I personally like the problem based paradigm. It helps a lot. It helps to teach juniors for example: "Don't think solutions first. Think problems!", etc. It's a clear advise how to work and those advises are scarce in our business.
Bit sometimes I guess problem-based is wrong or rather not necessary. Do we always need a problem to get to the Insight? Do we need a Big Problem to arrive at a Big Idea? Can a lasting brand positioning always be built based on an actual problem the brand has right now? Or take another example: do we need a problem to outline a christmas promotion? Or when a brand is not there yet, its problem is so to say that it doesn't exist, yet. Is this really helpful to find the Big Insight into a Human Truth?
I would guess, problem based is right for maybe 60% of the cases given. (Don't ask me where I have this number from, It's pure guessing - and just a number. And what is "right" anyway? Probably nonsense as well..)
Read the follow-up on this post here.
Strategy Quotations (5) - External Factors Rule Market Success?
In fact, very few companies lose market share in head-on competition. In my experience, in the majority of instances a corporation loses market share because of structural changes, i.e. the faster growth of its weak segment compared with its strong segment.
- Kenichi Ohmae. The Mind of the Strategist -
- Kenichi Ohmae. The Mind of the Strategist -
Proposition and Positioning
Positioning (= mental response) is the effect of making a proposition (= brand stimulus). That's it.
Strategy Quotations (4) - Asking Questions in Research
In his book Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy relates an experience from his days as a researcher for the Gallup Organization, when Gone with the Wind was a bestseller. Ogilvy’s assignment was to find out how many people had actually read the book. After too many positive answers to the direct question, "Have you read Gone with the Wind?", Ogilvy made the subtle but brilliant change to, "Do you plan to read Gone With the Wind?". Having provided respondents a way to admit not having read the book and still save face, false positive answers dropped dramatically.
Ads are for retention (?)
In a Book called "Habit" which deals with habit as main behavior driver of consumers the author makes the following point:
Since 95% of behavior is gouverned by habit ads are and should be designed to reinforce habitual behaviors. In other words: you don't do ads to alter attitudes or improve "images" but to implement or more often rather to reinforce brand related habits. If a brand doesn't "own" such habitual behaviors - too bad. A brand should own them he says.
Now, we rather assume that ads are for news and CRM is for retention. This guy says ads are rather for retention (since habits as such are for retention)
It's an interesting point,don't you think?
Since 95% of behavior is gouverned by habit ads are and should be designed to reinforce habitual behaviors. In other words: you don't do ads to alter attitudes or improve "images" but to implement or more often rather to reinforce brand related habits. If a brand doesn't "own" such habitual behaviors - too bad. A brand should own them he says.
Now, we rather assume that ads are for news and CRM is for retention. This guy says ads are rather for retention (since habits as such are for retention)
It's an interesting point,don't you think?
Die Quellen von Insights sind in unserem Kopf!
lesen Sie den Artikel zum Thema "Insight-Generierung" hier (auf Deutsch):
http://www.apgd.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/APG-NB-22.11.2010.pdf
Strategy Quotations (3)
"Corporate strategy thus implies an attempt to alter a company's strength relative to that of its competitors in the most efficient way. Of course, the condition of the business itself can be improved by reference to absolute criteria. For example, a company may seek to reduce the costs of its products by using value engineering or seek to improve its cash flow by shortening the collection periods of receivables. (...)
These "operational" improvements can be regarded as a part of business strategy.
I believe, however, that it will make for clearer thinking if we reserve the term 'strategy' for actions aimed directly at altering the strength of the enterprise relative to that of the competitors."
- from The Mind of the Strategist - by Kenichi Ohmae
These "operational" improvements can be regarded as a part of business strategy.
I believe, however, that it will make for clearer thinking if we reserve the term 'strategy' for actions aimed directly at altering the strength of the enterprise relative to that of the competitors."
- from The Mind of the Strategist - by Kenichi Ohmae
Strategy Quotations (2) - B2B CRM
"When we look at loyalty programs and we’ve done them as well, it is our operating theory that the thing that drives loyalty as strong as or stronger than anything else is the ability for us to help our customers make money. Where there are many schemes for measuring loyalty, we rather think the most powerful way to engage our customers in this kind of conversation is better served by talking to them about their ability to make money."
— Bob Harlan, Director of Business Insights, Owens Corning
— Bob Harlan, Director of Business Insights, Owens Corning
Strategy Quotations (1)
"There is always a leading competitor in any area. The classic segmentation forces that specific competitor to choose between parts of the segment. If he chooses either alternative, he must abandon the rest or serve it at a loss."
- Segmentation and Strategy, Seymour Tilles, 1974
- Segmentation and Strategy, Seymour Tilles, 1974
Resonance vs Relevance
Resonance vs Relevance. Two Concepts for Planners.
It's mysterious how words used to describe what we aim for in planning can change planning itself. Normally we think that there's "reality" which we deal with but very often there are just terms and concepts. Like e.g. "relevance" and "resonance". Let's dig deeper into that.
Resonance is a concept widely accepted in the Anglo-Saxon advertising community. Less so e.g. in Germany. The word "relevance" here in Germany is used all the time. "Resonance" hardly ever. This is quite revealing, but the cross-cultural thing isn't the main point.
What's the difference between those two terms? They both point towards the impact power of a communication that "presses the right buttons". But what's the difference between them?
Let's take a look at the syntax that goes with them. We say "relevant to" or "relevant for" - but we say "it resonates with". So it's "for" vs "with". Basically, that's it. That's the difference. Let me explain why.
Relevance is instrumental. No, not the opposite of acapella:) Instrumental in the sense of usefulness for some sort of action or goal. There is no relevance per se. There's only relevance in relation to something a specific person in a specific intentional state aiming for. E.g. good tyre grip is relevant for safety and sportivity, less so for self expression of the driver. Which driver? Right, for car enthusiasts good grip - on the contrary - might be relevant for self-expression when meeting other enthusiasts for a chat about cars. (This is why all those questioannaires asking all sorts of people about "how relevant is this or that for you?" - IN GENERAL - don't make much sense.)
So, relevance is instrumentality related to something on a higher level. Something is important because it's connected to something bigger that is important. Basically, when something is relevant you could ask "what for"?
It's different with resonance. We say "resonate with something". There's no direct expression of beeing "good for...". Resonance is much broader than that. Relevance could be one sort of resonance - a utalitarian one - but there could be other ones. Resonance with cultural preferences, with matters of style, with shared beliefs, with shared dislikes, with memories etc. Resonance as a communication outcome could be even simply about liking. Resonance is more about brands as communicators and less about products as relevant offerings. A product can have relevant features but you would hardly say that the feature resonates with the audience.
Resonance is a musical term. It's also about physics, but specifically physics of waves, e.g. soundwaves. The phenomenon of wave resonance in music is about causing a wave movement in an object by eliciting the right wave frequency with an other object. It leaves you swinging in its wave. Relevance doesn't do that.
What's interesting in practical terms for planners is that you need to find the right frequency, the right chord. I think there are two sorts of such frequencies or wavelenghts. The ones most people resonate with when it comes to a certain field in life. Those are the values and meanings that are widely used and seen as a must have chord to be played. "It's all about you", "wholesome food", "naturalness", "self-expression" all that canonical things considered "right and good" in a given era. And then there are frequencies that cause new, more striking resonances. They do so because they don't re-resonate the "safe" wavelengths that are already swinging in the audience but hope to have found one that is not in their repertoire, yet. OK, that's nothing new - this seems to be about differentiation. But it's more helpful than just that: it shows us where to look for a differentiating frequency to resonate to. Watch out for slight dissonances and tensions between resonances, look into margnal (subcultural) resonances on their way to become dominant ones, resonances in other cultures, and also changes in wavelenghts over time, and most of all into your own brand and it's own "wavelength"!
Let me explain the dissonance thing. Dissonances appear when there are negative "vibes" when you strike a chord. They might come from negative connotations or from conflicts (interferences) between different "waves". An example is Saturn's "Geiz ist geil". Another example? If you look into what's resonating in the airline industry it's clearly the chords of "personal, caring service", "ease & comfort", "big, global network" and "simple and affordable". And it works actually. The problem is: it works for every brand. Let's look into a certain brand and the dissonances caused by it's origin and heritage. The brand i talk about is Lufthansa. It delivers all of the stuff above and it talks about it - just like everybody else. But the dissonance with Lufthansa is that they are German - i.e. cold, unemotional, pricise but like a machine. Here you go: you've found something. It strikes a dissonant chord. It resonates - dissonantly. Now the job is to arrange this wavelength in a way that people resonate more positively with it. Not by striking the common safe chords, but to find Lufthansa's own, resonating wavelength based in thier Germanness. Is Germanness relevant in the market? Doesn't matter here: it's more about resonance, not relevance for a brand.
It's mysterious how words used to describe what we aim for in planning can change planning itself. Normally we think that there's "reality" which we deal with but very often there are just terms and concepts. Like e.g. "relevance" and "resonance". Let's dig deeper into that.
Resonance is a concept widely accepted in the Anglo-Saxon advertising community. Less so e.g. in Germany. The word "relevance" here in Germany is used all the time. "Resonance" hardly ever. This is quite revealing, but the cross-cultural thing isn't the main point.
What's the difference between those two terms? They both point towards the impact power of a communication that "presses the right buttons". But what's the difference between them?
Let's take a look at the syntax that goes with them. We say "relevant to" or "relevant for" - but we say "it resonates with". So it's "for" vs "with". Basically, that's it. That's the difference. Let me explain why.
Relevance is instrumental. No, not the opposite of acapella:) Instrumental in the sense of usefulness for some sort of action or goal. There is no relevance per se. There's only relevance in relation to something a specific person in a specific intentional state aiming for. E.g. good tyre grip is relevant for safety and sportivity, less so for self expression of the driver. Which driver? Right, for car enthusiasts good grip - on the contrary - might be relevant for self-expression when meeting other enthusiasts for a chat about cars. (This is why all those questioannaires asking all sorts of people about "how relevant is this or that for you?" - IN GENERAL - don't make much sense.)
So, relevance is instrumentality related to something on a higher level. Something is important because it's connected to something bigger that is important. Basically, when something is relevant you could ask "what for"?
It's different with resonance. We say "resonate with something". There's no direct expression of beeing "good for...". Resonance is much broader than that. Relevance could be one sort of resonance - a utalitarian one - but there could be other ones. Resonance with cultural preferences, with matters of style, with shared beliefs, with shared dislikes, with memories etc. Resonance as a communication outcome could be even simply about liking. Resonance is more about brands as communicators and less about products as relevant offerings. A product can have relevant features but you would hardly say that the feature resonates with the audience.
Resonance is a musical term. It's also about physics, but specifically physics of waves, e.g. soundwaves. The phenomenon of wave resonance in music is about causing a wave movement in an object by eliciting the right wave frequency with an other object. It leaves you swinging in its wave. Relevance doesn't do that.
What's interesting in practical terms for planners is that you need to find the right frequency, the right chord. I think there are two sorts of such frequencies or wavelenghts. The ones most people resonate with when it comes to a certain field in life. Those are the values and meanings that are widely used and seen as a must have chord to be played. "It's all about you", "wholesome food", "naturalness", "self-expression" all that canonical things considered "right and good" in a given era. And then there are frequencies that cause new, more striking resonances. They do so because they don't re-resonate the "safe" wavelengths that are already swinging in the audience but hope to have found one that is not in their repertoire, yet. OK, that's nothing new - this seems to be about differentiation. But it's more helpful than just that: it shows us where to look for a differentiating frequency to resonate to. Watch out for slight dissonances and tensions between resonances, look into margnal (subcultural) resonances on their way to become dominant ones, resonances in other cultures, and also changes in wavelenghts over time, and most of all into your own brand and it's own "wavelength"!
Let me explain the dissonance thing. Dissonances appear when there are negative "vibes" when you strike a chord. They might come from negative connotations or from conflicts (interferences) between different "waves". An example is Saturn's "Geiz ist geil". Another example? If you look into what's resonating in the airline industry it's clearly the chords of "personal, caring service", "ease & comfort", "big, global network" and "simple and affordable". And it works actually. The problem is: it works for every brand. Let's look into a certain brand and the dissonances caused by it's origin and heritage. The brand i talk about is Lufthansa. It delivers all of the stuff above and it talks about it - just like everybody else. But the dissonance with Lufthansa is that they are German - i.e. cold, unemotional, pricise but like a machine. Here you go: you've found something. It strikes a dissonant chord. It resonates - dissonantly. Now the job is to arrange this wavelength in a way that people resonate more positively with it. Not by striking the common safe chords, but to find Lufthansa's own, resonating wavelength based in thier Germanness. Is Germanness relevant in the market? Doesn't matter here: it's more about resonance, not relevance for a brand.
The Mechanisms behind Emotional Propositions in Advertising
There's a strong tendency - esp. in the Anglo-Saxon world of advertising - to favour extrinsic, emotive propositions over intrinsic, product driven ones.
To clarify what I mean, here's one first example: BMW is all about "Joy (...in life)" as an extrinsic, emotive proposition, Mercedes claim "The best or nothing" which is far more intrinsic and product/usage driven. While such wide umbrella brands tend to overarch their diverse products with very broad - thus most of the times emotive - concepts, the difference between emotive vs product/usage driven is more striking on product level or for very lean brand portfolios. Gatorade could be about enhanced performance in sports or about the spirit of perseverance in sports. The latter would be an emotional proposition. Coke Zero in Europe dramatises "Life as it should be" rather than the product related "Real Taste, Zero Sugar - (as it should be)".
Now, we all learned for decades that since products don't differ on product level any longer they must become differentiated on an extrinsic, emotional level. This is the sensible widely accepted thinking and - honestly - there would be little to do for (classical) planning if there was no quest for the emotive lever. Yes, it's true that there's often no alternative to that - e.g. because there's no other differentiator or because you are looking for an overarching idea for a whole portfolio of products. But still, sometimes I just don't fully understand how this actually is supposed to WORK - I mean how this influences purchase behaviour.
People would hardly really believe that Coke Zero delivers on their promise of a perfect life as it should be. I would also assume that they don't really seek for "perfect life in a bottle". The usual answer to that is: "well, people are not that rational, things work beyond ratio". Absolutely - but how does this actually work? "Beyond ratio" is not an explanation, nor is it a sufficient description.
Here are some scenarios how emotive propositions, or say brand ideologies might work:
A) they deliver a noteworthy and legitimate "Reason-to-talk to consumers" - you could pick any plausible and entertaining "story" to be heard and seen
B) they imply certain purchase relevant attributes on product level
C) they just increase the likability of or the respect for the brand - it's cool that the brand tells such a "story"
D) they deliver an emotional post-justification for a purchase - a good feeling IN ADDITION and maybe AFTER having chosen something
F) they become real reasons-to-buy - people buy the product in order to gain the promised emotional benefits (= often unlikely)
Most clients - and agencies - seem to assume it's F) that is at work. And it is in lots of cases. E.g. Smokers do buy cigarettes in order to "inhale" a certain lifestyle. But the problem is that promising all sorts of life- and self- improvements is often an extreme overpromise - causing even reactances. This is often apologised by saying "that's advertising. It's about exaggeration". Well, it depends...
Let's take a look at Coke Zero again: it does not really have to differentiate itself emotionally from equal competitors. There's only one Coke Taste with zero sugar. So why sell it as an enabler of a perfect life? Were emotive propositions not just a way out of the factual parity on product level - as e.g. In the cigarettes market?
It seems to me that we tend to believe that emotional propositions are per se "stronger" than product-level ones. They are considered the standard procedure of "proper" brand leadership. But this simply can't be always true! Product related cognitions are stronger at the shelf than vague emotional tendencies for most of the advertised categories.
This is why I would think that for product advertising scenario B) is the most likely and practicable one. The emotive proposition here would be the nice, enhancing packaging for clear and purchase relevant product or usage attributes. On the other hand sometimes ads explain too much of the emotional benefits of features; people could feel patronised by the brands "instructions" how tu enjoy and value those features. E.g. Insurance companies constantly "explain", how financial safety contributes to life quality when you are old. But really, they don't have to explain that - it's banal.
So there's a thin line between strong, relevant emotional propositions on the one hand and blunt overpromising on the other. It's defintely not true that "emotionalising" a brand is the best way to improve clout. If done without a real insight it's a good way to diminish brand appeal. Sometimes the results of such "emotionalising" attempts are typical ad bullshit and consumers feel that.
And there's a not quite thin line to be crossed between emotive claims and consumer's actual purchase and usage behaviour. Maybe the effect of emotional propositions on purchase behavior is an indirect one. This would change the way we discuss them in client meetings.
To clarify what I mean, here's one first example: BMW is all about "Joy (...in life)" as an extrinsic, emotive proposition, Mercedes claim "The best or nothing" which is far more intrinsic and product/usage driven. While such wide umbrella brands tend to overarch their diverse products with very broad - thus most of the times emotive - concepts, the difference between emotive vs product/usage driven is more striking on product level or for very lean brand portfolios. Gatorade could be about enhanced performance in sports or about the spirit of perseverance in sports. The latter would be an emotional proposition. Coke Zero in Europe dramatises "Life as it should be" rather than the product related "Real Taste, Zero Sugar - (as it should be)".
Now, we all learned for decades that since products don't differ on product level any longer they must become differentiated on an extrinsic, emotional level. This is the sensible widely accepted thinking and - honestly - there would be little to do for (classical) planning if there was no quest for the emotive lever. Yes, it's true that there's often no alternative to that - e.g. because there's no other differentiator or because you are looking for an overarching idea for a whole portfolio of products. But still, sometimes I just don't fully understand how this actually is supposed to WORK - I mean how this influences purchase behaviour.
People would hardly really believe that Coke Zero delivers on their promise of a perfect life as it should be. I would also assume that they don't really seek for "perfect life in a bottle". The usual answer to that is: "well, people are not that rational, things work beyond ratio". Absolutely - but how does this actually work? "Beyond ratio" is not an explanation, nor is it a sufficient description.
Here are some scenarios how emotive propositions, or say brand ideologies might work:
A) they deliver a noteworthy and legitimate "Reason-to-talk to consumers" - you could pick any plausible and entertaining "story" to be heard and seen
B) they imply certain purchase relevant attributes on product level
C) they just increase the likability of or the respect for the brand - it's cool that the brand tells such a "story"
D) they deliver an emotional post-justification for a purchase - a good feeling IN ADDITION and maybe AFTER having chosen something
F) they become real reasons-to-buy - people buy the product in order to gain the promised emotional benefits (= often unlikely)
Most clients - and agencies - seem to assume it's F) that is at work. And it is in lots of cases. E.g. Smokers do buy cigarettes in order to "inhale" a certain lifestyle. But the problem is that promising all sorts of life- and self- improvements is often an extreme overpromise - causing even reactances. This is often apologised by saying "that's advertising. It's about exaggeration". Well, it depends...
Let's take a look at Coke Zero again: it does not really have to differentiate itself emotionally from equal competitors. There's only one Coke Taste with zero sugar. So why sell it as an enabler of a perfect life? Were emotive propositions not just a way out of the factual parity on product level - as e.g. In the cigarettes market?
It seems to me that we tend to believe that emotional propositions are per se "stronger" than product-level ones. They are considered the standard procedure of "proper" brand leadership. But this simply can't be always true! Product related cognitions are stronger at the shelf than vague emotional tendencies for most of the advertised categories.
This is why I would think that for product advertising scenario B) is the most likely and practicable one. The emotive proposition here would be the nice, enhancing packaging for clear and purchase relevant product or usage attributes. On the other hand sometimes ads explain too much of the emotional benefits of features; people could feel patronised by the brands "instructions" how tu enjoy and value those features. E.g. Insurance companies constantly "explain", how financial safety contributes to life quality when you are old. But really, they don't have to explain that - it's banal.
So there's a thin line between strong, relevant emotional propositions on the one hand and blunt overpromising on the other. It's defintely not true that "emotionalising" a brand is the best way to improve clout. If done without a real insight it's a good way to diminish brand appeal. Sometimes the results of such "emotionalising" attempts are typical ad bullshit and consumers feel that.
And there's a not quite thin line to be crossed between emotive claims and consumer's actual purchase and usage behaviour. Maybe the effect of emotional propositions on purchase behavior is an indirect one. This would change the way we discuss them in client meetings.
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